The Top 10 Best Horror Movies by Hispanic Directors
Hispanic Directors Have Been Revolutionizing the Horror Genre for Decades.
Hispanic heritage month and Halloween both happen in October, so I wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to honor the 10 best horror films by Hispanic directors! Despite being un gringo pelirrojo, I’m at least woke enough to know that there is a difference between Hispanic and Latinx. However, for the sake of this list, I’m considering Hispanic directors to be anyone born in a Latin American country or Spain, or someone who’s heritage is tied to one of those countries. That doesn’t mean that the films on this list have to have been filmed in Spanish, a Spanish speaking country, or be centered on Hispanic/Latin culture. In fact, the point of this list is to shine a spotlight on some great horror movies by Hispanic directors and I don’t want a lot of “BuT I dOn’T LiKE reADinG sUbTitleS” excuses. So, just to shoot that one down, I even went the extra mile and focused on movies in English. Oh, the only other thing I should mention is that I’m only including one film per director on this list. Now, let’s get our fright on with some of the best horror movies by Hispanic directors of all time!
10. The Platform
When The Platform hit Netflix in 2020 the most disturbing aspect might have been how timely the social commentary turned out to be. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s film is a chilling and gut-wrenching examination of equality vs equity and the growing disparity between social classes. In other words, it’s pretty high brow horror told in a brutally effective manner. The Platform takes place in a huge vertical tower with two prisoners on each floor. Every day, a platform covered with lavish and opulent meals is lowered down. It pauses temporarily before proceeding to the floor below. Those at the top get to eat as much as they want, while those at the bottom don’t even have scraps to pick through by the time it reaches them. These prisoners switch levels every 30 days, meaning that their situation could radically alter each month. Horror movies by Hispanic directors often examine the inherent savagery ingrained in mankind and The Platform shows the worst of what we’re capable of.
9. Don’t Breathe
Fede Alvarez makes movies that are not easy to watch. That isn’t to say that they’re bad. After all, he wouldn’t have a film featured among these other great Hispanic directors if that were the case. It’s just that he is incredible when it comes to making audiences uncomfortable. His first feature-length horror film was the recent remake of Evil Dead, which was incredible, but kind of traumatic. His second movie, Get Out has just as much of a punch thanks to some of the horrendous elements that are revealed in the third act. Up to that point, it’s a thrilling game of cat and mouse as the tables are turned on a group of thieves that find out the hard way they broke into the wrong house. The home belongs to a blind veteran (Stephan Lang) who firmly believes in stand your ground laws. In fact, he’s going to do everything in his power to stop them from ever leaving his house. It’s a very twisted film filled with a suffocating aura of suspense.
8. The Shallows
As a huge fan of shark movies, I understand how few good ones are out there. So, including The Shallows on this list of horror movies by Hispanic directors might be because I’m a bit biased since it also happens to be one of the best killer shark movies ever made. Jaume Collet-Serra has directed other horror flicks (Orphan and House of Wax), but none of them are half as good as The Shallows. Blake Lively plays a surfer backpacking through a foreign country who finds a beautiful and seemingly deserted beach. With the sun shining and the waves looking especially inviting, she hits the water only to find her way back to shore blocked by a very big and very hungry shark. Trapped on the reef, Lively is forced into a life or death struggle as she tries to make it back to dry land without becoming chum. Not only is The Shallows a surprisingly intense movie, but it’s a lot of fun too. I definitely recommend checking it out.
7. Witching & Bitching
We head back to Spain for the next of the Hispanic directors on this list, Álex de la Iglesia. He’s made a few horror movies over the years, but I’m especially interested in his great horror-comedy, Witching & Bitching (AKA Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi). The film revolves around three inept robbers who botch yet another job and decide to flee to France. Just to make things extra complicated, one of the robbers even brought his kid along on the job, like some sort of take your son to work day situation. Their getaway goes just as poorly as the robbery and they find themselves taking refuge in a dilapidated castle that just so happens to also be playing host to a coven of witches. Needless to say, things quickly go from bad to worse for them. It’s such a fun horror movie, I actually included Carolina Bang’s character on my list of the best movie witches of all time.
6. The Orphanage
It is my belief that children are inherently creepy. It’s just how they are until they get older and most of them learn to hide it. Still, they’re a great horror trope and plenty of Hispanic directors have managed to give us some of the most nightmarish children to ever grace the silver screen. First up on this list is J.A. Bayona’s The Orphanage, which, of course, revolves around a haunted orphanage that a woman (Belén Rueda) plans to reopen to help disabled children. Her noble calling is probably what stopped her from just “noping” out of there when the masked ghost of little orphan Tomás shows up the first time. Then again, I’ll admit that I spent a lot of The Orphanage dreadfully whispering “oh no…” to myself during the more spine-tingling moments. That didn’t stop The Orphanage from eventually opening every ominous door it came too and somehow always finding something more frightening than what was behind the last.