KM 31: Kilómetro 31

After the death of their mother when they were children,twins Agata and Catalina develop a psychic skill allowing them to communicate over great distances.But Agata falls into a coma after an accident on kilometer 31 and Catalina experiences all her pain.Tormented by Agata's psychic screams for help,Catalina sets out to find what really happened to Agata and finds that her twin has fallen victim of the ancient and terrifying curse of La Llorona,the screaming woman.The main problem of "Km 31" is that the film is heavily americanized.Sure,it utilizes some old-school Mexican folklore tales as the back-story,but the filmmakers just don't do enough with it.The acting is solid,the film is beautifully made and some moments are mildly creepy,but horror fans expecting something gruesome should really give this one a pass.

Through the history of Mexican cinema, the horror genre has undergone a somewhat irregular development, as even when some excellent masterpieces of horror have been done at times, most of the times the horror movies done show more heart than talent, and even if the intentions are good the final product tends to lack quality in more than one aspect. To make things worse, the total production of horror movies has always been far below than the desired one, and even in the better days of Mexican cinema, horror was often relegated. Due to this reasons, it's always interesting whenever a new Mexican horror movie gets a release, as it's a new chance to make things right and redeem the genre once and for all. That's the reason why the brand new horror film, "Kilómetro 31", gathered so much hype on the days before its release, and while it certainly wasn't the horror film to save the genre, it has some good things going for it.

While driving one night through the forests near Mexico City, Agata Hameran (Iliana Fox) has a terrible accident on kilometer 31 in which she loses her legs and falls into a coma. After that horrible night, her twin sister Catalina (also Iliana Fox) begins to feel a strong psychic connection with her sister, as Agata seems to be screaming desperately for help. Haunted by horrible nightmares and ghastly visions, Catalina decides to investigate what exactly happened that night on kilometer 31, hoping to end the pain her sister is suffering. So, with the help of her best friend Nuño (Adrià Collado) and Agata's boyfriend, Omar (Raúl Méndez), Catalina begins an investigation that will lead her to the mystery behind the strange series of accidents that have happened on kilometer 31 since the construction of the highway.

Written by director Rigoberto Castañeda himself, the story of "Kilómetro 31" is an interesting reworking of many of the most iconic Mexican folk legends and ghost stories all mixed up into one single plot that while certainly modernized, retains that Mexican flavor that makes those legends so enjoyable. He also borrows many elements from the popular New Wave of Asian horror cinema that started in the late 90s, and attempts to adapt them into his own ghost story with some success, resulting into an interesting tale of mystery and horror. While the concept and back-story of the movie are quite interesting and really very well constructed, Castañeda's screenplay has a lot of problems in the development of its main story and its characters, mainly in the poor way most of the dialogs are written and the way the story gets unnecessarily complicated as a result of Castañeda's attempt to mix so many classic stories into one.

As a director, Castañeda has a great eye for visual composition, and is able to create a very atmospheric movie pretty much in the style of "Ringu"'s director Hideo Nakata. However, unlike the Japanese movies that inspired him, Castañeda is more adept to use his many special effects, and he doesn't waste a chance to show off the excellent work of his visual effects team; in fact, through the film he seems to be more comfortable directing the special effects scenes than his human actors, and as a result, he doesn't manage to get a good quality in the cast's performances. Honestly, the work done by both the makeup department and the digital effects department is simply remarkable, probably the best work ever done in the history of Mexican cinema; however, Castañeda seems unable to find a balance and often overuses them in excess.

As written above, the performances of the cast are nothing amazing, and truly hurt a film that certainly deserved better. As the Hameran sisters, Iliana Fox makes a very weak and unsympathetic lead character, almost like one of her characters in Mexican soap operas. Oddly enough, her character is one of the better written in the film, but she seems unable to pull off something good out from it. Spaniard actor Adrià Collado plays Nuño, making a very good performance and delivers the best acting in the film. As Agata's boyfriend, Omar, Raúl Méndez is simply good, nothing special, but considering the bad writing of his character, one could say he did a great job. Carlos Aragon and Luisa Huertas appear in minor roles, Aragon having a nice turn as Officer Ugalde and Huertas delivering a terribly bad performance (like Fox, in a very soap opera style) as the Old lady that guides Catalina.

Due to its very noticeable similarities, "Kilómetro 31" could be considered a direct heir of that popular brand of Asian horror, as often through the film Castañeda shows the enormous influence those movies had in him. This is of course, a double edged sword, as due to his overuse of the conventions and clichés of Asian horror, Castañeda could easily be seen as a director without a style of his own and limited only to copy what has proved to be successful in Asia and the United States. The extreme reliance on special effects and jump scares to make his film "scary" is one major problem the movie has, as often those devises break the good atmosphere that Castañeda manages to create thanks to Alejandro Martínez' excellent cinematography (who clearly has improved his work).

In the end, there is no doubt that "Kilómetro 31" is a work of excellent quality in its production, and with the intentions of being the horror movie to resurrect the Mexican horror genre, however, it's obvious that the intentions of making it "hip", "cool" and therefore commercially successful got in the middle of the making, resulting in an often derivative movie. It's a flawed film, but it's a nice effort that hopefully, will inspire more Mexican filmmakers to give a chance to horror. A final word of advice: if you hated Asian ghost stories, stay away from this film. 6/10

This is a surprisingly competent horror movie with chilling events , thrills and nail-biting scenes . And it's certainly better than most other films of the same genre concerning a diabolic and mysterious terror appearing at a road . Enjoyable horror movie with thrills , chills and strange events , while the roles scream and panic her way through most of their scenes and including limited CGI . One of the film's strongest points is the fact that there's quite a lot of fun to be had with the supernatural aspects of the storyline , being heavily influenced by the Asian terror . Following a terrible car accident on a wooded road near Mexico City, Agata goes into a coma, subsequently taking place a series of strange and eerie incidents . Her twin sister Catalina must unlock the horror behind her traumatized and seriously injured sister next to the Km. 31 marker and discovers a terrifying local legend. As Catalina takes off grisly experiences that once tested her sanity , bringing her face to face with a supernatural spirit attached to an elderly woman . And her fiancé is shocked when to be aware about the weird person who inhabits in a forest near the astonishing road . A place between life and death. !Where the end is only the beginning...! There are worse things than death...!. Everything then changes in eerie way and things go wrong . You were right to be afraid of the dark. Darkness will consume you. Every Child Need To Feel Loved.

A creepy and thrilling film about a haunting house where shows up a weird being , it packs inexplicable disturbing occurrences , shocks, thrills , suspense , chills, hair-rising events and surprising final twist . This starts off at the very beginning occuring mysterious happenings , as the camera lurks suspensenful behind its actors and beside them and above them and everywhere else . A scary and unsettling flick in which a girl and her boyfriend must try to solve the mystery of her sister's accident , and it garnered very positive reception in International Festivals . In spite of its limited budget , as the picture goes on growing more and more and developing little by little until the unexpected conclusion . The main and support cast are pretty well , giving acceptable performances such as liana Fox in a double role as Ágata/Catalina , Adrià Collado and Raúl Méndez .

The pic contains a dark and colorful cinematography by Alejandro Martínez . Equally, a mysterious and suspenseful musical score by Carles Cases , composing a sinister atmosphere . Well produced by Julio Fernandez from Filmax , Fantastic Factory and Castelao Films . Julio has financed a lot of successes of all kinds of genres , such as Terror : Rec saga , Mientras duermes , Retornados , La posesion Emma Evans , Paintball , El monstruo del pozo , Quarantine , Los sin nombre ; Cartoon and kiddies films : Copito de Nieve , El Cid , Donkey Xote , Manolito Gafotas , Mola ser Jefe , Perez ratoncito de sueños , Los Dalton contra Lucky Luke and Dramas/Thrillers as Cobardes , Transsiberian , Machinist , Transssiberian , Bullying , 13 Campanadas , Muertos comunes , Morir en San Hilario, Tierra de Fuego , Sexo por compasion, Fotos , Heroes sin patria , among others . The motion picture was competently directed by horror expert Rigoberto Castañeda, though it has some flaws , gaps and a failed finale . After the resounding success of "KM31" he writes and directs the sequel, "Km31-2", also based on the crying lady legend and released in 2016, with Carlos Aragón ("Señor Ávila", "Cantinflas"), film nominated for several technical achievements in the Mexican Academy Awards. In 2010, Rigoberto debuted as a producer, carrying the bestselling book of Mexican writer Juan Jose Rodríguez entitled "Murder in a Chinese Laundry". Rigoberto also has directed many different TV series, winning experience in a wide variety of genres. He led "Terminales" for Televisa, a successful drama series about a group of -out of the ordinary- terminal illness patients .Another series he directed was the action/drama for Channel 11 "Paramedics"; an intensity charged story of real-life cases from paramedics working at the Mexican Red Cross. Rigoberto directs Netflix original "Diablero", a fantastic new horror-comedy, demon-hunters concept . Then he has directed and adapted for the screen "Sin Origen" (Unsourced), a vampire story set in Mexico, and produced "Karem's Diary" a possession/exorcism film . He also directed all 8 episodes of an Amazon Zombies themed series ("Narcos Vs. Zombies" working title). Rating 6/10. Acceptable and decent terror movie. Well worth watching.

Quite an interesting film; quite dark with some nice special effects; although nothing ground-breaking. It's pretty gory in places so it's definitely not one for the squeamish. All the performances were very good, although I'll put my usual caveat that it's sometimes quite hard to judge a performance in a foreign language. I thought Iliana Fox stood out as the most praiseworthy though. The film does, however, fall a little into cliché here an there; it must be hard to find new ways to scare people these days. It just about have enough 'creep-factor' though to keep me interested, so it's not all bad. Over all, worth a look if you're a horror fan; otherwise, I'd probably give it a miss. Personally, I pretty much enjoyed it.

SteelMonster's verdict: RECOMMENDED

My score: 6.2/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

the effort is there, it falls a little bit short. but all in all is a really good movie. I don't think is an amazing or excellent one, but it deserves the recognition. for starters the production is really good and the acting is not bad at all.

the myth involved in the story is well developed and of course there are elements that are taken from other films, but come on, not all films have to be an ultimate original. don't be so harsh and lame in your way of thinking. This movie is worth watching. the effects are really state of the art. the direction comes fluently as the acting too. Go see this movie and enjoy it.