Main cast: Ruth Ramos (Alejandra), Simone Bucio (Verónica), Jesús Meza (Ángel), and Eden Villavicencio (Fabián)
Director: Amat Escalante
La región salvaje – or The Untamed, as it is called for the English markets, although note that it remains a Spanish-language movie regardless of the title on the movie art – is most well known for one thing: that image from the movie of a woman getting happily violated by tentacles. What, you think only the Japanese are into this kind of thing? Award-winning Amat Escalante, who also co-wrote the script, begs to differ. Unfortunately, just like those arty-farty directors that think it is easy for them to direct genre films as a means of slumming it, Mr Escalante creates a movie that tries to be a horror flick, but he can’t really convincingly carry it off.
If this had been a straight-out drama flick, it would have been so much better, because at its core, it is about a marriage slowly crumbling apart.
Alejandra is married to Ángel, and they have two adorable children. At the surface, they seem like a happy household. However, Ale feels increasingly trapped in a marriage devoid of passion: her husband shags her from behind when she is barely awake, and is done before she can feel anything, and she can’t even have a party for herself in the shower stall because the kids are soon awake and screaming for their mother. She also resents the constant judgment and interference from her husband’s more wealthy parents.
Meanwhile, Ángel behaves like a typical callous macho man – because that’s what his father expects him to be. Deep inside, he is far more content shagging Ale’s brother Fabían, and mind you, he’s not some asshole trade in bed, as he is, shall we say, quite flexible when it comes to sex with his brother-in-law. He treats Fabían like dirt outside of the bedroom, however, because, again, that’s what how believes he is expected to behave. Mind you, he is crushed when Fabían eventually breaks it off with him. Amusingly, Fabían breaks up with him not because they are cheating on his sister; rather, he has found someone better in the sack.
That’s where the bizarre horror element is forcibly shoved in. Fabían, a doctor, encounters Verónica who comes to his clinic with deep wounds. She claims that she was attacked by a dog, but in truth, the wounds are the result of her happy hours with a tentacled alien that is living in a house in a woods and cared for by an elderly couple. Don’t ask me how the alien got here or why the elderly couple is sheltering it, because this movie isn’t very generous with answers. At any rate, the elderly couple advises Verónica to find someone else to become the sexy body pillow of the alien before she dies from the strain and the injuries caused by the alien. Guess which guy she decides to introduce to Mr Sex-topus here.
And then Fabían dies from his encounter with that thing. Ángel is arrested for what appears to be a crime of passion, which raunchy text messages between him and Fabían being used as the main evidence to implicate him. In the confusing haze that ensues, Verónica then introduces Ale to you-know-what. You know, the thing.
Most of the glowing reviews of this movie praise it for its “down to earth nature” and “realistic” elements, with such praise often paired with phrases such as “despite the sci-fi and horror elements” – which should be a clear warning that it will likely please fans of drama rather than horror. Indeed, the biggest problem of La región salvaje as a horror film is that the horror elements are easily excised without affecting the story. For example, Fabían could have been killed by more earthly means, perhaps in an accident or something, and the rest of the character drama would have still played out like it is.
Perhaps the alien thing could have functioned as some kind of allegory, as heaven knows this movie isn’t very subtle when it comes to preaching against the more destructive aspects of the overly-masculine expectations of behavior imposed onto men by society. However, the movie also makes it clear that the alien is real, so I don’t know. The alien angle is shoe-horned so awkwardly into the movie, it’s like this film is clumsily made by gluing together two very disparate films. The sad thing here is that I would have enjoyed the movie far more had it ditched the dumb alien angle and stuck to more human drama. Ale and Ángel could have been complex characters but no, the movie sacrifices further development of these characters to make way for poorly-developed tentacle porn moments.
I am giving La región salvaje three oogies mostly because of what it could have been. Watch this one either for the scant tentacle porn moments (seriously, if you watch it for that alone, you may as well go watch something else more focused on tentacle fun) or to gawk at the confused result of a director who thinks he can do tentacle horror, but is actually out of his depths.
