Mild Spoilers for Huesera: The Bone Woman
Huesera: The Bone Woman is the director’s first feature-length film. It has all the hallmarks of being one: an uneven focus, meandering pacing, and interesting ideas that ultimately don’t live up to its potential. It’s all crammed into a film that barely stretches beyond 90 minutes. Despite this, what’s good here is genuinely done well, and overwhelmingly positive critical reception elsewhere all but guarantees that the talent behind Huesera will get a second shot on the big screen. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Huesera: The Bone Woman was directed by Michelle Garza Cervera, a prominent Mexican filmmaker who gained some attention for her numerous short films released as early as 2013. Co-written with Abia Castillo, Huesera premiered to critical acclaim at Tribeca in 2022, racking numerous award wins and nominations throughout the year as a film festival darling. It would finally be released to the public in 2023, eventually coming exclusively to Shudder and its parent streaming service, AMC+.
But what is Huesera about? It’s a story we’ve heard before, albeit with some interesting alterations. Natalia Solián plays Valeria, a woman living a modest life with her husband, Raúl (Alfonso Dosal). After the surprising revelation that Valeria is pregnant, the two begin to prepare for their new life as parents. However, as the months go by, Valeria finds herself tormented by a monstrous presence, accompanied by the sensation of snapping and crunching bones. Why is this happening to Valeria? Will she be able to keep her family safe? Will she have to turn to a group of witches to end her suffering?
If you were to watch Huesera based on this synopsis and the various descriptions and log lines found elsewhere, you might walk away feeling as if you were misled. Everything between the film’s ominous opening and its explosive climax is more in line with a supernatural drama, albeit with somewhat effective, if not underwhelming, body horror scenes stapled onto it.
That’s easily the biggest issue with Huesera: The Bone Woman. Many things are happening, but none of them get enough screen time or feel connected. The story is tugged in three different directions: we have Valeria dealing with her pregnancy in the company of her family and Raúl; we have the haunting of Valeria by whatever is causing her grief; and a third plot-line wherein Valeria’s past relationship with a woman is rekindled as her stress levels rise. The latter-most of these is introduced no less than halfway through the film, with an incredibly brisk flashback scene that spits out as much exposition as possible in just a few minutes. A sex scene between the two in the present day occurs not even five minutes later.
We’re essentially juggling between each major plot line every ten minutes or so, with few natural transitions between them. The opening is strong, and the climax is satisfactory. It’s just that everything in the middle seems to happen without building to anything greater.
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That’s not to suggest that these elements are inadequate by themselves. The main themes tackled in Huesera primarily focus on one’s individual goals versus what is expected of them by their surroundings. In Valeria’s case, she is pressured by external factors, be it cultural expectations or tragedies completely out of her control, to be a mother. It’s indirectly addressed throughout the film that motherhood, and consequently following what is perceived to be the correct path, is the end goal for Valeria, whether she truly wants it to be or not. Despite being critical of the flashback sequence, it also introduces an implementation of punk culture into the mix, furthering this idea of individual wants versus societal wants. Valeria purposefully forged her own path in her youth, and her attire, attitude, and romantic relationship reflected this. This is also emphasized through Natalia Solián’s wonderful performance during the stages of Valeria’s pregnancy. At first, everything is all smiles and excitement. But, the growing realization of what motherhood ultimately entails, that she is becoming less of an individual and more of a mother, starts to gnaw at Valeria.
Compromise is a reoccurring idea throughout. Valeria freely smokes and partakes in carpentry throughout the first act before she eventually has to abandon both for the sake of her child. She starts to lose her appetite, with bouts of morning sickness and depression coming and going as the months go by. She finds herself not immediately drawn to the appeal of motherhood as the world around her expects her to, all while Valeria’s expressions show equal amounts of reluctant acceptance and simmering dread with each new compromise made. Her choice to marry Raúl, to begin with, was brought on by something similar, likely influenced by the unfortunate death of her brother and the subsequent familial pressure laid upon her.
During all of this, Valeria finds herself witnessing increasingly disturbing phenomena. These moments are typical horror movie fare. The most common of these is the sudden appearances of spiders and nightmarish moments of witnessing harm done to others or herself. While it’s easy to brush them off initially, as there’s a physical distance between her and what she’s witnessing, these happenings gradually pierce into her personal bubble, directly harassing her and indirectly affecting others through her reactions. It becomes clear very quickly that whatever is going on is felt by her and only her. When we finally get a closer look at what’s causing all of Valeria’s suffering, it becomes all too apparent what it’s meant to represent.
While the creature isn’t given a name in the film, we’ll refer to it as the “Bone Woman.” The Bone Woman is our dedicated spooky entity, taking on a faceless, featureless body that writhes and twists in an inhuman fashion. Unfortunately, the Bone Woman in Huesera: The Bone Woman is a bit too understated. To Huesera‘s credit, the few times the Bone Woman is allowed to do its thing, it makes for some genuinely unsettling moments. The cinematography was handled by Nur Rubio Sherwell, who effectively rips out a pile of scares from a story without many opportunities for them.
The Bone Woman’s presence throughout the film feels almost unnecessary compared to other scenes featuring Valeria’s internal fears. An example of this is the scene that stuck out the most: not long after the baby is born, and after the hand-made crib assembled throughout the film is set ablaze, Valeria finds herself tossing and turning in bed to the sound of her newborn crying. In a horrible moment, Valeria’s shoulders crunch inward, protruding back and pushing against the skin and muscles before she stomps into the baby’s room. It’s an incredible moment and the kind of understated horror that works in Huesera‘s favor. The surrounding body horror, the snapping bones, the thing Huesera: The Bone Woman sells itself with felt oddly subdued in comparison. It felt as if it was forced in there to quickly show the audience something spooky before cutting back to the real meat of the story.
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It almost begs the question of whether or not Huesera would’ve been even more effective had it foregone the idea of an external entity entirely, along with its criminally underutilized witchcraft, and placed the body horror within Valeria. We’ve already seen an example of how the baby’s influence on Valeria caused her body to crack, bend, and shift things around. It’s not even really out-of-this-world as a concept. It’s an actual phenomenon: organs get shifted around and compressed, the surrounding bone structures adjust accordingly, and so on. Exclusively fixating on bones seems unusually pointed. Valeria has a habit of cracking her knuckles. Is that all the justification we need to have an entire creature writhing and snapping around?
The film’s ending will draw some mixed feelings. However, it feels appropriate for Valeria as a character. You could argue that the hesitancy of Valeria’s feelings is established as early as the first scene, with the rest of the film only furthering this until she ultimately decides what’s best for herself and her child.
I went into Huesera: The Bone Woman expecting a horror movie. What I got wasn’t quite a horror movie. What’s ultimately there is interesting, but I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by the end result. It’s worth seeing, but not so much for the reasons you’d necessarily expect. Given the multiple awards it won, Huesera clearly did something right for some audiences.
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