Borderland

In Mexico City, while chasing the leader of a cult, Detective Ulises (Damián Alcázar) is forced to watch his partner being tortured and murdered by the criminals. One year later, the teenage Americans Ed (Brian Presley), Phil (Rider Strong) and Henry (Jake Muxworthy) are in a summer camp in Galveston and they decide to travel to the borderland in Mexico to get laid with Mexican hookers. Ed has a crush on the bartender Valeria (Martha Higareda) and the virgin Phil feels attracted by a young prostitute with a baby and decides to give a teddy bear to the child. However, he is abducted by the followers of Palo Myombe that are preparing a human sacrifice to get the Power of Nganga to become invisible while smuggling drugs.

"Borderland" is another flawed and brutal movie of torture. The story is very violent and graphic, and fans of this genre might like it. However, there are many holes and unreasonable situations in the screenplay like, for example, why Detective Ulises is in disgrace that is never well explained. Why Valeria joins Ulises and Ed when they break into the farm crowded of dangerous and fanatic drug-dealers is totally useless and unreasonable. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Limite do Medo" ("The Limit of the Fear")

Horror movie or docudrama? Both and neither.

The opening scene of this movie deceives, situating it firmly in Hostel territory, with grotesque violence and intense claustrophobic action. In the main action of the film, however, it seems as if the horror movie element of this is compromised by the fact that two of those involved are still alive. If safely dead foreigners can be depicted as the victims of graphic bloodletting, living and dead Americans cannot be. To be blunt, this film cops out. It is selective in what the audience are permitted to see entire and what is merely implied or suggested, presumably with relatives' and survivors' sensibilities in mind. There is nothing wrong with this, if this were packaged as a real life story, but as a horror movie it is a cheat. Instead of becoming more involving or thrilling as the action unwinds, it becomes increasingly distant, chilly and mechanical.

I can't help thinking it would have been far more successful to have taken the basic premise of the story and to have gone down the road of complete fiction, to sustain the energy and darkness of the opening scene, instead of the patchy and undigested amalgam it becomes. That way, it would have been a terrific horror. Instead, it's neither fish nor fowl, and unsatisfactory stuff.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have watched Borderland first out of the other 2007 horror fest titles I rented, because this film has set the bar pretty high. The plot concerns a trio of college friends who decide, before they each move on to different schools, to take a last minute trip over the border for some uninhibited debauchery. Things soon turn into a hellish nightmare when they become targets of a violent drug ring/cult. What keeps this from being another Hostel knock off is Borderlands realistic approach to the material (what makes the proceedings even more terrifying is that they are based on actual events). Also, I was impressed by the quality of the film making and especially the acting, which helps add to the realism (look for an actor you might remember from the Lord of the Rings in very convincing, un-hobbit like role). From the nerve shattering, horrific opening to the finale, Borderland is great horror film that gets under your skin. I highly recommend it to those with strong stomachs.

I attended the World Premiere of Borderland at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival. The fact that this was in the midnight screenings section should say a lot right off the bat. But what made this horror film so horrifying is that it all really happened.

Borderland is based on the true story of ritual sacrifice killings conducted by a group of drug dealers in Mexico a few years back. The story centers around Phil, chillingly played by Rider Strong (Boy Meets World, Cabin Fever). Phil and two of his college buddies are spending some quality time just across the Mexican border before shipping off to grad school. Strong is one of those actors who, having started very young, has such a naturalistic acting style that his performance here was frightening on many levels.

The Q&A with director Zev Berman and cast members Rider Strong and Brian Presley ended close to 3 AM, about as long as any I can remember, and could have gone on all night. It was amazing how much of a stickler Berman was for being faithful to the story. It's hard to believe that some of the torture scenes really took place. But that's what makes it so gripping. It's one of the most gruesome films I've seen, and would be right up there with some of the most shocking horror/slasher/thrillers to come out lately, if not for the fact that it all really happened. There have been many films at recent festivals which have been very hard to watch, and this was no exception. It was an intense experience. But it absolutely has to be known going in that it is a true story, because otherwise some of the scenes would strain credulity.

I hope it can find an audience, because it might be too tough for the highbrow crowd yet not as darkly comedic as most slasher flicks are to satisfy the horror crowd. I did see one film similarly horrific this year, An American Crime at Sundance. It also plays out a shocking true story without pulling any punches. But Borderland is more "entertaining," if that makes sense, because there is at least a genre that it falls into neatly. Anyone who loves a good gory thriller will enjoy it. But once they are aware it all really happened, they will be chilled to the bone.

Released in 2007, "Borderland" is a horror film about three college guys (Brian Presley, Jake Muxworthy & Rider Strong) on Spring Break in Galveston, Texas, who decide to skip over the border to party with the prostitutes. Their vacation goes awry when they run afoul of a brutal drug cult, led by a charismatic-but-diabolic occultist (Beto Cuevas). Damián Alcázar plays a Mexican detective while Martha Higareda appears as the potential girlfriend of one of the Americans. Marco Bacuzzi plays the top cult henchmen with Sean Astin an American enlistee.

The opening epilogue involves a gory torture sequence, which is unpleasant to say the least, but the story soon switches to the three Americans and their trip to Mexican strip joints where a couple curvy señoritas are highlighted. I could tell this was shot on the West Coast of Mexico rather than the East Coast. The city scenes, for instance, were shot in Tijuana, substituting for Matamoros.

The story is loosely based on the 1989 abduction of American pre-med student, Mark Kilroy, from outside a Mexican bar where he was taken to Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo's ranch in the desert, about an hour drive from Matamoros & the border. Fifteen mutilated corpses were discovered buried at the ranch, one of them Kilroy's, who was hacked to death by a machete. Constanzo's cult practiced sorcery in the form of Palo Mayombe, engaging in torture and human sacrifice for supernatural power, e.g. for their drug-runners to appear invisible to border guards.

Constanzo was a known homosexual, but the movie surrounds the Constanzo-based character, Santillan, with Mexican babes. I doubt this was done to be politically correct; I'm sure the filmmakers simply wanted to give him cinematic appeal for the target audience, most of whom would run away screaming if Santillan was depicted with hunky dudes attending to his amorous needs.

While the movie's sometimes unpleasant for obvious reasons, it's gritty, engaging and well-acted, particularly the first half. I'm sure the director, Zev Berman, is a fan of films like "Apocalypse Now" because you definitely see glimmerings of that kind of greatness. Unfortunately, this was the last movie by Berman as of this writing. He could've gone on to be a contenda, like Coppola.

The picture runs 100 minutes and was shot entirely in Baja California, Mexico. It was written by Eric Poppen & director Zev Berman.

GRADE: B+