A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war.
After her mother’s disappearance, Estrella (Paola Lara) finds friendship with a group of runaway kids whose parents were taken by a dangerous gang called the Los Huascas. Estrella and the others use fairytale stories to combat their fears and give them the courage to survive the dangers of living on the streets. The leader, Shine (Juan Ramón López) tells stories of tigers who are said to be brave and fearless, while Estrella holds onto the belief in wishes and uses them to find out what happened to her mother.
Shine steals the guns and phone of gang member Caco (Ianis Guerrero) one night when he finds him in an alley intoxicated. He tries to shoot him but can’t find the courage, which haunts him. Shine keeps the phone which has videos of every tortured person the gang has kidnapped, including his mother. When Caco finds out that he has the phone, the kids must move around to prevent from being their next victim. Upon finding out where Caco lives, Shine orders Estrella to take the gun and go kill him. Scared to death, she goes into the home, finds him already dead but fires the gun pretending she has killed him. From then on, she allows the other kids to believe she is braver than she really is.
When the big boss, El Chino (Tenoch Huerta), gets word that the kids have the phone, he and his gang come after them with no mercy and Estrella and the others rely on their stories and wishes to get them through but unfortunately, some do not make it.
If you like a mixture of horror, crime, and magical realism, you are going to love this film. It has a fairy tale undertone with a mix of horror and crime. I enjoyed the storyline of the parents being taken by these dangerous gang members and the use of tigers being the inspiration of finding the courage within. I didn’t however, care for the horror aspect of it, I thought the film could have been just as strong without trying to be scary. I can say that I haven’t seen any films that played off the use of fairy tales in the way that this one did and I thought overall, it did a good job. I also loved the cast of kids and the way their characters evolved in the film. They turned out to be little adults who were pretty fearless all along without knowing it.
Now playing in select theaters
