{"id":1196,"date":"2026-07-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2026-07-05T18:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T18:50:19","slug":"central-american-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/31\/central-american-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"Central American Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING:<\/mark> <\/strong>This Article May Contain Spoilers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit, this was one of the hardest articles to write as films from Central America really are not easy to get hold of! As you will come to see, some of these films find themselves rooted in folklore, even if that is not of their own countries but instead one of their neighbouring ones. There may even be a story you are already aware of because it has made its way into mainstream cinema as well\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almas De Le Media Noche (Honduras)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I must admit, even though the instrumental music at the beginning of this film was reminiscent of The Thing, <\/em>I didn\u2019t feel as much of an impact from it \u2013 considering we were simply watching a man taking photos of people who looked like they died in a crash. This almost had the feel of a college film with the awkward acting, random plot points and way too much focus on this group of boys trying to hook up with the girls in their class! I also feel that this may have impacted the effect Alex\u2019s visions and dreams are supposed to have on the viewer as they don\u2019t feel as dramatic as maybe they are supposed to come across. Considering the crux of the film follows four students investigating the death of the man from the opening of the film, which was not clear he was a journalist I may add, I feel this would have worked much better as some sort of supernatural found-footage film, following them and their investigation. I did wonder if there was a genuine legend regarding midnight souls in Honduran folklore but I was unable to find anything other than references to this film. For a film that is supposed to be about a death potentially caused by spirits, there\u2019s very little of that taking place, even with 30 minutes left to the film when they finally make their way to Cruz Blanca to properly investigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Llorona (Guatemala)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The opening to this film is so simple yet, unbelievably mesmerizing and weirdly spooky. How can a group of women, in what looks like a prayer circle feel so strangely unnerving? The film mixes the folklore from Guatemala of La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) with political unrest, centred around our main character General Enrique Monteverde. What makes this a little disturbing is that his character is based on Efra\u00edn R\u00edos Montt, an actual general who was accused and found guilty of a genocide of the Maya people in Guatemala, almost making this film feel like someone is trying to depict the revenge wished upon him by their people and that is what strangely makes this so heartbreaking in places. The one thing I was unsure about was who cursed Enrique with La Llorona? Was it his wife in the very beginning or the Maya people that worked for them and chose to leave when he first heard a woman weeping in the middle of the night? Because of the mixed in courtroom scenes, I\u2019ll be honest, it makes the film feel less like a horror and more a political biopic. Especially considering we don\u2019t truly get into the La Llorona part of the story until 40 minutes in with the introduction of Alma but nothing truly sinister happens, which means we lose the effect of the opening scene. Yeah, the kids outside near the end are a little creepy but that\u2019s about it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2012: Curse of the Xtabai (Belize)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              So, technically this film is a product of Belizean and French cinema however, like I said at the beginning, it hasn\u2019t exactly been easy getting hold of these films! This film, once again, brings us back to the folklore of the country it hails from, given that the Xtabai is a Belizean femme fatale demon, almost like a succubus in my opinion. What was weird for me, was that instead of feeling Central American, that was something more Caribbean about it, but I guess that\u2019s because Belize is on the Caribbean coast (I had to google that \u2013 my geography is terrible!). I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the way this film is made, but I felt genuinely upset when they shoot Nehanda\u2019s mum! What\u2019s weird though is that it didn\u2019t make sense how the virus affecting the town is connected to the myth of Xtabai. Because of this, it almost feels like two separate stories are taking place from around half an hour in when a female voice starts whispering to the men in the group, luring them away one by one and drawing them to their deaths. I guess the virus in the town was meant to be used as the push for the students to leave and end up in Xtabai\u2019s domain of the forest. They slightly leant into the part of the myth that Xtabai doesn\u2019t just lure and kill men but came at it in an interesting way. Legend has it that she would appear as either a man or a woman depending on who she is luring however the film shows her just coldly attacking one of the girls while they are swimming. The mask worn by the actress playing Xtabai weirdly reminds of the antagonists in Wrong Turn <\/em>but it\u2019s definitely creepier than the CGI face they put on her \u2013 but I let it slide given that this is the first feature length film to come out of Belize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Sanatorio (Costa Rica)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I did a whole article on this style of film because I think it can be one of the most genius sub-genres of horror because it provides so much more realism to the fear and that, my friends, is the found-footage film! The Spanish absolutely smashed it with Rec <\/em>but this little 83 minute gem comes straight from Costa Rica. Interestingly, it is even filmed inside the Duran Sanatorium that it is based around, the centre of an urban legend surrounding a ghost nun. As is typical of many found footage films I have seen, this is a ghost hunting mission, that meets a rather unpleasant end \u2013 or so the opening leads you to believe. It\u2019s clear in the beginning that our lead characters, Luis and Arturo, are sceptics especially considering the way they laugh at Juancito\u2019s recollection of events. For a film that\u2019s so short, it feels like very little is really set in the Sanatorium itself, as it focused more on interviews than anything else, probably because it starts so many days before they actually go to Duran. For me, the fear was created in the silent moments, like just before we see the shadow on Papillo\u2019s camera, I felt my heart race a little in anticipation. I recommend preparing yourself for an intense last 10 minutes with some rather realistic death scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diablo Rojo PTY (Panama)<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              Much like 2012: The Curse of the Xtabai, <\/em>this is hailed as being the first feature length film to come out of Panama. It seems to be based around the belief that the Chiriqui forests in Panama are inhabited by witches, dark magic and demons. Poor Miguel seems to be cursed by one of these witches mere moment into the film. It is my understanding, that the main antagonist in this film is La Tulevieja (referred to as Old Tuli), a similar spirit to that of Xtabai in 2012: Curse of the Xtabai <\/em>considering their mythologies seem to have cross-overs. It would explain why our main cast of heroes are all male and the villains, female. Considering that she is believed to take revenge on lustful men, I felt pretty sorry for Miguel in the beginning as Junito is the one who asks him to take the photo that just so happens to have a woman\u2019s bottom in the background. However, as the film goes on, it seems that one of the witches specifically wants revenge on Miguel for what happened to her mother. Considering the way the film opens, I have to add it starts to take on a much slower pace once the group are actually in Chiriqui and they meet Padre Andres. I think this may be because a lot of the focus ends up being on the underlying story rather than the danger the five men are in. I have to admit though, I do like the way the ending lulls the audience into a false sense of security, that Junito has been saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers I have to admit, this was one of the hardest articles to write as films from Central America really are not easy to get hold of! As you will come to see, some of these films find themselves rooted in folklore, even if that is not of their own … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-the-worlds-a-stage","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}