Rating: B
Dir: Rodrigo Aragão, Petter Baiestorf, Joel Caetano, José Mojica Marins
Star: Mayra Alarcón, Ana Carolina Braga, Walderrama Dos Santos, Markus Konká
a.k.a. As Fábulas Negras
I very much enjoyed this Brazilian horror anthology. While it’s quite low-fi, and occasionally, the dime store nature of it does poke through, there’s energy and affection for the genre to spare. The wraparound has four kids roaming the forest, and trying to one-up each other with spooky stories. It’s an approach which plays well with the simple nature of the episodes that follow. A monster in the sewers. A werewolf is prowling a country estate. A young woman is suspected of demonic possession. A school is haunted by the ghost of a population killed in a prank gone wrong. A wife takes revenge on her cheating husband.
While there are a number of different directors here – including Marins, better known as Brazilian horror legend, Coffin Joe – they do feel cut from the same cloth. Aragão organized the anthology, and if you’ve seen any of his other films, such as The Black Forest, you’ll be familiar with the approach. It’s rural horror, almost defiantly gloopy, mixing sex and violence with local folklore, in a world where people are open to things beyond our understanding. However, there’s still room for the individual directors to bring something of themselves to each entry. As a result, each part has one or more elements to recommend it. This may be something little, such as a cool bit of camerawork, or it might be something more significant.
I think my favourite was the second, Petter Baiestorf’s Fierce Pampas, the werewolf one mentioned above. It’s not hard to work out who the monster is – the locals have considerably more trouble than the audience will – and the creature itself is plasticky. But the transformation back to human? Holy shit. It climbs out of the werewolf mouth, tearing the host apart in a tidal-wave of goop and gore (top). I also liked Joel Caetano’s Bloody Blonde, which felt like a South American take on a beloved Japanese trope: the long-haired ghost girl, wreaking havoc on those who wronged her. As with all the stories, there’s a strong divide between the good and evil characters, and the latter inevitably end up receiving their just deserts.
To be honest, Marins’s contribution, The Saci, is a bit meh. The exorcism element seems bolted on to the Saci legend, which is weird enough not to need much enhancement e.g. the creature has one leg and hops around. Interestingly, the priest here also showed up in Fierce Pampas, which helps cement the stories as taking place in the same setting. I was also underwhelmed by Aragão’s two sections, though to be fair, these are easily the shortest, with little time for development. But do be sure to stay tuned for the end credits, where Marins and others talk about the movie, the icon describing making horror movies in Brazil as “terrible, terrible, terrible.” Hard to tell if he’s joking. At least the same can’t be said about this engaging collection.