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Celebrated filmmaker Amat Escalante follows up his critically lauded features Heli and Los Bastardos with the award-winning The Untamed, which critics have called “ferociously intelligent” (Jonathan Romney, Screen) and “brilliant, frightening” (Rory O’Connor, The Film Stage).

Alejandra is a housewife, raising two boys with husband Angel in a small city. Her brother Fabian works as a nurse in a local hospital. Their provincial lives are upset with the arrival of the mysterious Veronica. Sex and love can be fragile in certain regions where strong family values, hypocrisy, homophobia, and male chauvinism exist. Veronica convinces them that in the nearby woods, inside an isolated cabin, dwells something not of this world that could be the answer to all of their problems. Something whose force they cannot resist and with whom they must make peace or suffer its wrath.

Escalante’s film mixes Lovecraftian science fiction with social commentary as he tackles themes including corruption and social injustice, with a dose of inspiration from Zulawski’s Possession, producing a mix that has won acclaim including the Silver Lion at the prestigious Venice Film Festival and Best Director at Austin’s Fantastic Fest.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
High Definition digital transfer
5.1 DTS-HD Master audio
Optional English subtitles
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original international art and newly commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil
PLUS MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

First pressing only: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, writing by critic Jonathan Romney, the director’s statement and extracts from the press book, illustrated with original stills

Anyone seen this? A bit surprised they do not have it for the US as well. Always happy to see more Mexican movies get a decent shake on home video.

Saw it a few months ago. Bizarre, tonally intriguing little film. I'll be picking up this blu-ray.

There doesn't seem to be an online trailer one can point you too, but the description above - "mixes Lovecraftian science fiction with a dose of Zulawski’s Possession" - seems about right. Plus lower-middle class Mexico, of course. And unpolished, understated, but engaging performances -- in that sense not so Zulawski. An interesting mix of elements.

Here's the updated artwork:

I thought Escalante's previous film Heli looked fantastic but was rather facile in the points it made about the drug situation (both gangs and the attitude of the police to the problem), social structures (exploited poor as fodder for both giant robotised factories and US-advised militias) and (perhaps pertinent for this film based on the above description) coercive sexual relationships based on sublimated masculine frustration. But there were some interesting, (arguably over) stylised metaphorical images in Heli, so maybe something a little less rooted in 'gritty realism' might be a good thing in this case.

There doesn't seem to be an English subtitled trailer available at the moment, so all I could find was this, which suggests Escalante's great eye for landscape is still in evidence! (Though I'm getting a bit of an Antichrist vibe as much as a Zulawski one from it!)

Pushed back to September according to Amazon.

colinr0380 wrote:I thought Escalante's previous film Heli looked fantastic but was rather facile in the points it made about the drug situation (both gangs and the attitude of the police to the problem), social structures (exploited poor as fodder for both giant robotised factories and US-advised militias) and (perhaps pertinent for this film based on the above description) coercive sexual relationships based on sublimated masculine frustration. But there were some interesting, (arguably over) stylised metaphorical images in Heli, so maybe something a little less rooted in 'gritty realism' might be a good thing in this case.

I suspect I was even less of a fan of Heli than you were, and while this film still displays some of the same immaturity as that film, it's a much more interesting, and much more crazy movie, and I ended up admiring it, with reservations. The fragmentary narrative seems designed to obscure narrative cliches and cover up plotting and characterisation deficits, in the sense that we suddenly get deposited in a new phase of the story without Escalante having to worry about plausibly getting there (while collecting bonus arthouse obscurantist points on the way), but he does double down on the insanity of the film's premise without blinking or flinching, up to and including the indelible image of

Spoiler

a pan-animal-kingdom orgy inspired by an impact crater.

Nice landscapes, effective generation of an atmosphere of dread, and fitfully engaging naturalism in the non-bonkers-sci-fi parts of the film. It's worth a look.

No longer comes with the booklet from the Arrow shop