Amazon and Blumhouse have once more combined their powers to ensure that we all have plenty to keep us occupied this Halloween season. Following the success of last year’s Welcome to the Blumhouse series, a specially made and curated collection of horror films, comes a second batch of titles. Beginning on 1st October, Amazon will unveil two new spooky stories, with a further two landing on 8th October, showcasing four new feature films in total. The series will begin with the action-packed horror comedy Bingo Hell from Gigi Saul Guerrero, with Ryan Zaragoza’s Madres releasing the following week.
Madres is the first feature to be made by Zaragoza and it tells a truly terrifying tale, one who’s real-world inspirations are the real source of horror. Set in 1970’s California, the story joins Diana (Ariana Guerra) and Beto (Tenoch Huerta), a young Mexican-American couple expecting their first child. The pair move to a small town in Northern California where Beto has been offered a job managing a farm. Isolated from the community and plagued by ominous nightmares, Diana explores the rundown company ranch where she and Beto live, and finds a grisly talisman and a box containing the belongings of the previous residents. Her discoveries will lead her to a truth much stranger and more terrifying than she could have possibly imagined.
A film that walks the thin line between fear, fact, and fiction, Madres presents the viewer with plenty of information to digest. Although written a while ago, Zaragoza’s script taps directly into some very topical issues, the main being how women are forever being denied control over their own bodies. Zaragoza’s film has a lot to say on the matter and it makes for compelling, if slightly sickening, viewing. The director’s work is compounded further by a stunning central performance by Ariana Guerra, with whom we were lucky to speak with about the project.
Madres arrives on Amazon Prime on 8th October 2021.
