Dir. Isaac Ezban (2024)
Three brothers living in a cabin in the woods are hiding something in their basement.
Mexican horror feels like it's having a mainstream resurgence. Last year's Huesera: The Bone Woman was a big hit for an indie horror, and there are a ton of movies coming from Mexico in recent years, like Netflix's excellent Disappear Completely (whose director did an interview with us earlier this year). Today, we (and Fantastic Fest) are bringing you another from south of the border with director Isaac Ezban's apocalyptic familial horror Párvulos. A deeply personal film, and one we can all relate to after the last several years, Párvulos is emotionally impactful and genuinely scary, a fascinating take on the pandemic and its potential consequences.
Brothers Salvador (Farid Escalante Correa), Oliver (Leonardo Cervantes), and Benjamin (Mateo Ortega Casillas) are holed up in an abandoned cabin, trying their best to survive in a deserted world left behind after a global pandemic. As they forage for food and whatever supplies they can find, their largest threat comes from within, as the brothers have a monster chained up in their basement that requires constant vigilance (and feeding). As Salvador and Oliver make every attempt to protect the younger Benjamin, they are faced with every possible danger in their post-apocalyptic world, with their only protection coming from each other and the bonds they have created in their corner of the universe.
The cinematography in Párvulos is stunning, a drab and dreary, colorless world that highlights the depressing world that these young boys live within. Ezban has created a fascinating world here, one with a simple and yet completely believable explanation. The fears that we all had during the pandemic reach their boiling points here, and even though we're thrust into a world with zombies, death cults, and the like, it's the loneliness and the survival aspects of it that seem the most daunting. Ezban does a phenomenal job of explaining those fears through the use of a tiny family, embodying each piece of what it would be like to live in this world through these children.
Correa is the oldest of the three actors at the center of the film, and he's naturally better, but Cervantes and Casillas are also outstanding in their roles. This is a film that required a strong central cast, and the three actors who played the brothers blew me away. Párvulos is a movie with a lot to say, and its actors passionately poignant deliveries make this a film that's going to be incredibly memorable for its audience. There are scenes that will make you laugh and a few that might well make you cry, and that's a hell of a lot to accomplish with such a small-scale film. The trio of actors that the film focuses upon do an incredible job of carrying that emotional weight in a way that easily resonates with an audience who have just lived through a smaller, simpler, and of course much less dangerous version of the events in the film.
I've been seriously impressed with the film selections for Fantastic Fest. I receive at least a hundred films a year in my inbox from both indie and studio production companies, and they're often hit or miss. I always try to find the best in films when I review them because I don't want to denigrate someone's art, and I know the work from dozens and dozens of people that go into making any film. I have yet to be disappointed with a film from Fantastic Fest, though, and whoever is putting together their film program is just absolutely insanely talented at their job. Párvulos is the first festival film I've seen so far this year, and it blew me away. If you get the chance to check this out, and, more importantly, if you get the chance to attend Fantastic Fest in the future, I cannot recommend either enough. Párvulos is a phenomenal film.
Who this movie is for: Indie horror fans, Zombie movie lovers, Triplets
Bottom line: Párvulos is an excellent film, and it's a great way to start my viewing at Fantastic Fest this year. It's a heartfelt family drama as much as it is an apocalyptic zombie flick, and it knocks both genres out of the park. The talented trio of Correa, Cervantes, and Casillas will tug at your heartstrings while director Isaac Ezban crafts a film that is gritty when it needs to be and far more emotional than you expected. You definitely need to check this one out.
