ROSARIO is a body horror film, with a dead body and a possible curse from an Afro-Cuban religion, Palo Mayombe, at the heart of it. While director Felipe Vargas’ ROSARIO has an interesting basic idea, the cast is good and it does have some great practical effects, the script by Alan Trezza does not live up to the idea’s potential. Too often the main character does those same dumb things everyone seemed to do in 1970s horror films, time and again, letting curiosity overcome fear and dumb ideas bulldoze common sense. And much of what happens seems to be there just to set up the next horror effect. Admittedly, those practical effects are very good but you have to have a story that makes sense too.
That main character is named Rosario, and we first meet her as a little girl, at a party for her First Communion. ROSARIO opens with text describing the Afro-Cuban religion Palo, which has overlaps with other Afro-Caribbean religious practices. At the party, little Rosario is surrounded by family, friends,and her proud Catholic immigrant parents. When her father Oscar Fuentes (Zosé Zúñiga) gathers the family for a prayer, Rosario goes to get her grandmother Griselda (Constanza Gutierrez), who is in her room, to join in for the prayer. But grandma refuses, saying Rosario’s parents’ religion is not her religion. In grandma’s room, Rosario notices something strange things, like a trail of dirt leading to the closet and some blood on grandma’s hand, but questions get the little girl quickly shoo-ed out of the room.
Years later, we find the grown Rosario (Emeraude Toubia), now calling herself Rose, at work with a New York investment company. She gets a call from her grandma on the phone, but instead of answering, she ignores it. Later, the phone rings again but now it is the superintendent of grandma’s apartment building, who tells her that grandma has died and asks Rosario to come. Feeling guilt, she does, even though a monster snowstorm is now starting to envelop the city. She makes it to grandma’s rundown apartment building, where the super lets her in. Now the storm is so bad, it’s unclear if an ambulance can get there to pick up the body. Rose’s dad calls her, and says he’s on the way from Atlantic City, and warns her not to go into the apartment and be alone with the body, but she decides to enter the apartment anyway.
A number of strange things that happen while Rose/Rosario is alone with the dead body, much of it creepy, and some voodoo-like stuff comes into the story. There is a hidden room, secret books and cauldrons, plenty of candles, and something about a curse. Often what Rosario does while in grandma’s apartment doesn’t make a lot of sense, actions that mostly seem take place to create excuses for some cool practical effects.
Actually, ROSARIO is more creepy or gross-out body horror than scary. Most of the story takes place in grandma’s apartment. There are plenty of twists and what are supposed to be surprises, but most make little sense, although usually coming with more cool special effects.
Those practical effects are well-done and if practical effects are what you want in horror, there is plenty to satisfy here. Director Vargas does a lot to set a creepy mood, with the rundown building and the on-going snowstorm, and some creepy characters, including the building’s supervisor. Another is a man who claims to be a neighbor (David Dastmalchian), who knocks on the door and says he wants to come in to retrieve an air-fryer he lent to grandma. Rosario is understandably wary but later when he returns, Rosario mistreats him mostly just for daring to ask for his appliance back.
In addition to its Latino-infused supernatural horror theme, ROSARIO touches on issues of the second-generation immigrant experience, with Rose/Rosario torn between wanting to appear “American” and yet still recognizing her own heritage and her parents’ immigrant experience, an old theme in American movies dating back to the silent era. Colombian-born director Felipe Vargas clearly wanted to integrate immigrant themes in this horror film, and except for some New York exteriors, most of the film was shot in Colombia.
The attempt to combine the two elements, horror and the immigrant experience, is an admirable idea but the result isn’t entirely successful, as the theme is too underdeveloped. The film’s production notes say Rosario’s parents are from Colombia but I didn’t hear that detail in the film, and Rosario even says, at one point, that her grandmother is from Mexico. There is a supernatural fantasy sequence about her parents’ harrowing journey crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. but the film never explains the connection to Palo, the Afro-Cuban religion grandma practices. It doesn’t match up. Why would her Mexican grandmother be a follower of Palo, an Afro-Cuban practice? Wouldn’t her immigrant grandmother be from Cuban? The film never clarifies this, although other source reveal its practices are popular with some Mexican drug lords.
The use of Palo seems problematic in itself. We don’t really learn much about it, and it is mostly used as an excuse for voodoo-like spells and rituals, which Rose, surprisingly, learns quickly. Other Afro-Caribbean religions are not too fond of being used for “voodoo” scenes, and presumably practitioners of Palo would feel similarly.
Bottom line, if you are just interested in cool horror practical effects, ROSARIO has them. But if you want to be scared, rather than just grossed out, and if you want the story to make sense, well, this one isn’t for you. Which is a shame, since the idea had some potential. And, also, some might find using this Afro-Cuban religion in this way to be unsettling, even without the weird choice of connecting it to immigration from Mexico.
ROSARIO opens in theaters on Friday, May 2, 2025.
RATING: 1 out of 4 stars
