You Feel Like Your Bones Are Breaking

Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) Dir. Michelle Garza Cervera

Valeria’s pregnancy turns from joy to fear as she becomes convinced that a malignant entity is intent on causing her and her loved ones harm.

“Punk gave me the tools to start questioning everything” - Michelle Garza Cervera

Writer/director Michelle Garza Cervera discovered the folktale of La Huesera when she was grieving the loss of her mother. The folktale relates the story of the Bone Woman, who would collect the bones of the dead to give life to a skeleton. You can see elements of the original folktale - particularly the telling that sees the Bone Woman creating a wild woman who cannot be tamed - in the film, but Cervera makes it something altogether new, fresh and contemporary.

“It really speaks about finding those pieces of yourself through a painful and exhausting process and then through a ritual to set those pieces free. It speaks about having the will to see those aspects of yourself that you don't want to accept or that are very hard to reach.” - Michelle Garza Cervera

For a genre that often portrays protagonists who are outsiders and don’t conform to societal norms, there can often be a feeling that these outsiders are punished for it. Or that the goal is to find a way to fit in. The closing moments of this film feel bracing, innovative, and hopeful in a way that I wasn’t expecting. To say more would be to spoil it, but I was surprised at how surprising that choice was. It shouldn’t be.

“If you analyse most of these films, 99% of them basically say that no matter how emancipated and empowered you are as a woman, you will always have a maternal instinct. We were very deliberately trying to say, “No, that’s a social construction.”” - Michelle Garza Cervera

The film’s relationship with Latin American folklore and elder women who practise witchcraft reminded me of Mariana Enriquez’ The Well - a short story in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Often in these stories, we meet unattached, older women who know far more than any man in the story. Their knowledge and expertise is sought after, though they remain something of outcasts to society itself. Huesera is interested in asking: what if a woman doesn’t want to be a mother? Does that choice make her a monster? Does making alternative choices in your life lead, inevitably, to this outcast status?

“I feel like it’s liberating and cathartic and necessary for families to discuss those classic concepts like the black sheep of the family. There’s nothing wrong with talking about them. We shouldn’t hide them.” - Michelle Garza Cervera

There’s a consistent use of mirrors as a visual motif throughout the film, with Valeria’s image doubling or tripling within the frame, highlighting the fracturing of her identity as she struggles to unite the various factions within. As the film progresses, this motif is a perfect way to set the viewer on edge, with it usually preceding an appearance from the malignant presence. It trains your eye to try and spot subtle variations of Valeria in a stray reflection. As we know, the scariest horror is that which we can imagine ourselves. Sometimes the best horror directors know when to let us do the majority of the work.

The visuals are helped by some excellent sound design. If you’re not a fan of the sound of bones cracking, be warned: this may not be the film for you. It’s visceral and crunchy and ends up doing the heavy-lifting in the body horror scenes.

Because this is a film about pregnancy, and horror understands what that is. It’s a site of body horror isn’t it? 

The film delivers pregnant body horror in a variety of obvious and subtle ways throughout the film. One of the subtle moments has Valeria’s partner Raoul refuse Valeria’s sexual advances on the grounds that it would hurt the baby. That it would be creepy. Raoul no longer sees Valeria as a person. He sees her as an incubator. 

Huesera spends a lot of time interrogating the way in which Valeria’s family, friends, and Raoul refuse to see Valeria for who she is or dismiss her interests and desires. It’s important that the fracturing of her identity and the appearances of the cursed entity coincide with these interactions. 

It is only when we’re introduced to Octavia, Valeria’s former partner, that we’re introduced to someone who actually understands Valeria and treats her like a complete person. It is with Octavia and in small, stolen acts of defiance (continuing to make a cot when she’s urged not to, building a chair, rescuing her old guitar, attending a gig) where we get to understand what Valeria’s hopes and dreams might really be. Not the ones that she has been boxed into.

“Octavia represents that there are other ways to live this life. I find that charged with freedom because queerness, I feel like it really comes with — it's just a question mark. You don't know the path, but there is another path. And it's scary too, because it's like, 'what does that mean, in my life? And how do I want to build a family? How do I want to build a home?' You don't have a marked path if you take it, but you can see these other people already there that are okay… you're gonna be fine, I'm here on the other side and you're gonna be fine.” - Michelle Garza Cervera

Where can I watch it in the UK?

You can stream it for free on Shudder.

Pairs well with

Some might argue that Happening (2021, dir. Audrey Diwan, available to rent for £2.49 on YouTube/Google) isn’t a horror film, but they would be wrong. 

It’s a pregnancy body horror and it’s shot as such. With the camera held just over the shoulder of the protagonist - Anne - for the majority of the film you, as the audience, are there with her the entire running time. We follow as she, in 1960s France, desperately tries to get an abortion when it is illegal to do so.

Based on the book by Annie Ernaux, this film hits like a truck. I’ve seen countless horror films in my life but few kept me as rigidly tense as this. It felt like my shoulders and back took days to unclench and relax. Anamaria Vartolomei, who remains central - and in close-up - in every scene, carries the film effortlessly. Brilliant film. A must watch.

Further Reading

• A great piece on Gayly Dreadful about the film.
• An in-depth interview with Cervera on Filmmaker.

Other Recommendations

• Let’s talk games. Specifically, Kitty Horrorshow. A trans indie games developer who makes some of the creepiest, experimental, liminal, horror games out there. Go download some now. The majority of them are free/pay-what-you-want. They’re punchy and short and will get under your skin immediately. 
• There’s a good interview with Horrorshow at Paste Magazine here.
• Relatedly, have you heard about the My House mod of Doom? This video will fill you in.