Film: KM31
Release date: 31st March 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Rigoberto Castañeda
Starring: Adria Collado, Raul Mendez, Iliana Fox, Carlos Aragon, Luisa Huertas
Genre: Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Yume
Format: DVD
Country: Mexico/Spain
KM31 excited Mexican horror enthusiasts with its release in 2006, following a lengthy baron period. Castaneda’s ambitious project looked to combine style with a Mexican folk legend. With the Latino horror crown firmly on del Toro’s head, this is the first horror eye-opener to come from Mexico since his chiller Cronos.
Agata, a young woman, is driving through KM31 on a Mexican highway when she hits a small boy. Shaken by the crash, she calls her boyfriend, Omar, before approaching the child, who she presumes is dead. As she reaches out to the unconscious boy, he turns towards her revealing wide undead eyes. Agata steps back and is hit by a passing truck.
At the hospital, Agata’s twin sister, Catalina, waits anxiously to hear her sister’s condition. Agata is in a deep coma, and has had both of her legs amputated. In the wake of the accident, Catalina begins to experience hallucinations connected to the highway where her sister’s accident took place. She is haunted by images of the young boy, her dead mother and her drowning sister - it is as if she is experiencing a terror felt by Agata from within her comatose state.
The visions persist, and as it becomes clear that Agata is calling for her sister’s help, Catalina sets out to uncover the secrets behind KM31, discovering a dark history of death and disappearances. To save her sister, she must delve deep into a long forgotten Mexican folk tale that haunts the highway and has captured Agata in a world half way between life and death...
Hype surrounding this film led to anticipation of a very new Mexican style of horror, however, the presentation of this film borrows heavily from Asia. Casteneda’s emphasis on the film’s stylistics serve to give an array of visual pleasures and terrors, and thus it is glossy and extremely well crafted, but it’s difficult to see past the highly derivative production.
From the outset, we see a young, ghostly child, pale skinned with black hair and eyes. This creation is one that is frustratingly familiar when you consider the likes of The Ring and The Grudge. Modern horror has a penchant for producing its scares with the warped faces of young children, and whereas those J-horror classics did it with terrific effect, it is becoming a less and less appealing facet of contemporary horror.
Casteneda does attempt to install a little Mexican flavour into his first feature with the incorporation of an old Mexican wives tale. The story of ‘La Llorona’, or “the crying woman,” as accounted by a mysterious inhabitant of KM31, is a tale of a woman who killed her children to win a man’s heart. One would have hoped this would have been the sole focus of the story, but Castenda mixes in sub-plots of romance between Catalina and her closest friend, a fumbling Nuno, and the death of the sisters’ mother through tragic circumstances. There are too many threads in this tale, and as a viewing experience, it is needlessly complicated.
There are some scares, and the film succeeds with its technical mastery. One particularly disturbing image is that of Agata as she lies in her hospital bed, bandaged and bruised, with two stumps where her legs used to be. Although the film fails to be truly engrossing, those who stay with it will in no way have a comfortable experience. There is an array of unsettling backdrops visited that create a very daunting spectacle - in the final scenes, the two worlds of a Mexican sewer and a very haunting riverside slide between each other in Catalina’s conscious.
There are also some very good performances on display. Iliana Fox plays the two sisters with enough wide eyed terror for both herself and a less enthusiastic audience, and Adria Collado is likeable as her doting and slightly goofy love interest. Unfortunately, there are some very predictable character types included - the familiar figures of an insightful middle-aged mystic and a suspicious police officer only serve to make this film feel even more processed.
KM31 went on to become one of Mexico’s biggest box office successes, but it’s difficult to understand why. Casteneda has sacrificed good storytelling for poor imitation of an already tired style of filmmaking. This is not a terrible horror film, just a terrible disappointment. LW
