[yasr_overall_rating size="large"]
Pregnancy has long been fertile ground for horror cinema, from Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby to recent entries like The Babadook and Prevenge. Michelle Garza Cervera’s assured feature debut, Huesera, is a strikingly confident addition to this subgenre, but shifts the focus inward. Rather than a mother defending her child from an external evil, the true threat here lies in the suffocating expectations of motherhood itself.
When Valeria (Natalia Solián) falls pregnant, she finds herself increasingly hemmed in by the expectations of motherhood and undermined by her family. Almost immediately, she is confronted by a grotesque apparition, first glimpsed jumping from a balcony and shattering her legs, who subsequently reappears in a series of bone-crunching visions. This is La Huesera, the Bone Woman—a figure drawn loosely from Mexican folklore, but here she functions less as a literal mythological entity than as a manifestation of post-partum depression, or at least the feeling of uncertainty and fear that can accompany pregnancy.
Solián gives a startlingly raw, authentic performance, joining the likes of Essie Davis, Toni Collette, and Mia Farrow—actors who have delivered career-defining work within genre cinema. She makes Valeria’s increasingly fraying psyche painfully realistic, capturing not just fear of the visions but a deeper dread rooted in alienation and loss of identity. Much of Valeria’s terror stems from isolation: she is often alone, belittled by her family, or smothered by her in-laws. Her husband Raúl (Alfonso Dosal), meanwhile, is oddly apathetic and seems more irritated that she is not conforming to the idealised image of motherhood he has projected onto her. Cervera takes pains to show what Valeria is expected to give up for the baby—her carpentry studio, her bodily autonomy, her freedom—while Raúl’s life continues unchanged. Say what you will about the monstrous husband in Rosemary’s Baby, at least he was capable of shame.
In turn, Valeria backslides into her previous anarchic lifestyle and rekindles an affair with a former girlfriend, which only serves to distance her further from those who should be supporting her. Her disconnect from the baby once it arrives is particularly striking. While Raúl bonds effortlessly, Valeria struggles to feel anything at all—a taboo emotional reality the film confronts head-on. And her increasingly erratic behaviour is accompanied by the increasingly disturbing visions, blurring the line between supernatural threat and psychological breakdown.
The ghostly entity of the title is glimpsed only fleetingly: contorted limbs, a featureless face, a scarred body scuttling across the floor in unnatural jerks. The effect is deeply unsettling, recalling the uncanny ghosts of J-horror staples like The Grudge and Pulse. There are a few deeply unsettling jump scares, but overall, Cervera shows admirable restraint, creating a creeping sense of dread that runs throughout the film, punctuated by moments of visceral violence. The sense of apprehension builds inexorably to a climactic sequence that veers into Grand Guignol territory, evoking the ritualistic body horror of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria. Cinematographer Nur Rubio Sherwell constantly positions Valeria as if trapped in the middle of a web, and spiders pop up throughout the film, usually at moments of acute stress, recalling Denis Villeneuve’s symbolism in Enemy.
The scene where Valeria is overwhelmed by her crying baby is especially traumatising for anyone who has experienced a non-stop crying baby. Having reached breaking point, her body contorts so it appears that she may present a threat to the child. The all-too-brief visual of four hands reaching for the baby on the monitor is genuinely chilling. Valeria’s compulsive knuckle-cracking, meanwhile, builds toward moments of wince-inducing body horror that feel both inevitable and earned, and provides a nice recurring bit of sound design that pays off in one of the film’s nastier moments. The ambiguous, downbeat final scene might prove polarising, but in terms of the characterisation, it’s really the only way the film could end. It’s an understated, discomfiting conclusion that eschews narrative closure for something that is at once unsatisfying and fitting for the character.
As far as directorial debuts go, Huesera is an incredibly assured statement of intent for Cervera, marking her as one to watch. It’s a vital, evocative addition to the allegorical horror subgenre, and one that wears its symbolism lightly. It’s a commentary on post-partum depression, a critique of enforced heteronormativity, and a terrifying horror film, without ever feeling didactic or preachy.
Blu-ray Limited Edition Special Features
- Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
- Optional English subtitles
- Brand new audio commentary by film critic Kat Ellinger
- Internal Anguish and Images of Womanhood, a brand new video essay by film critic Anton Bitel
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch
- Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by film critic Kat Hughes
Huesera: The Bone Woman is released on Blu-ray on 26 January.
