#15 - Santa Sangre (1989)
(dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
For the first 30 minutes or so, I was wondering how this could possibly be considered a horror film, but it most definitely gets there later on. It starts with a brief scene of Fenix, a naked and seemingly feral man who is being treated in a mental institution, and then goes to an extended flashback to his childhood working in his family's circus. There are lots of clowns and parades and general circus-y stuff, and Fenix's mother runs a nearby temple dedicated to a saint who had her arms cut off. It's all very strange and surreal. Fenix's father is a creep and cheats on his mother with a heavily tattooed woman, and she gets revenge by attacking and mutilating him with acid. He retaliates by cutting her arms off, and then kills himself. Fenix witnesses all of this and is heavily traumatized, and grows up to have... issues.
Jodorowsky is a director that I've been meaning to get into for years, but just haven't gotten around to it. I did see El Topo a long time ago, but I remember very little about it other than that it's surreal and weird as hell. This film definitely fits that description as well. His style is so unique that it's hard to compare this to other films in a meaningful way, but think Psycho if it were directed by Fellini and you might be on the right track.
I thought this was amazing. I'm still digesting the themes and symbolism so I'm not going to attempt to analyze it, but I think there's a lot to unpack here. People much smarter than I am have undoubtedly done this many times anyway. This is considered a classic by many (and is on two of the top 100 horror lists I'm aiming to finish) and if you like surreal and visually inventive films I highly recommend it.
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