Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022)

Valeria lives in a different world than her family does, except for her “spinster” Aunt (as Valeria’s parents refer to her). Their queer kinship is a way of seeing that runs deep into a generational knowing willfully forgotten by the rest of Valeria’s family. The film works accretively both in structure and story. What starts out as a conventional linear narrative about heteronormative pregnancy and homemaking cracks open with a series of escalating visions that return Valeria to an unresolved identity crisis. A flashback to her queer, punk youth is set up by a run-in with an old lover and a few moments with a keepsake box that give a sense of the person Valeria left behind to seek upper-middle class respectability and family acceptance, both of which prove elusive. From there, the film stretches into its full form, as that previously suppressed (by her family, doctors, community at large) and repressed (by herself) cultural knowing, in the forms of music and witchcraft, give Valeria the context and resources to re-evaluate her life choices and think about what she wants and needs, beyond the expectations of conventional motherhood. It’s crucial to what the film has to say that these re-investigations are also cued by her family’s various rejections and denials of Valeria’s experiences and desires. She is told to keep her fears and anxieties to herself. Meanwhile, her husband loses sexual interest in the most eye-rolling and no doubt depressingly common way. “Don’t you think it’s creepy? We might hurt the baby,” her increasingly boring and unimaginative husband says. “There is no baby yet,” Valeria responds, giving us a flash of how rad she is, scenes before we delve into her past (and alternative future). Valeria goes to her Aunt for help with her disturbing visions, and turns as well to her former lover Octavia for support her husband and immediate family cannot and will not provide. We see Valeria return to the music culture that nourished her younger self but no longer provides a sense of belonging. We also see her turn to a local bruja, who reluctantly refers her to a powerful coven for more extensive ritual intervention. These scenes are effectively juxtaposed, with a harrowing mosh pit reminiscent of the house party dance floor freakout in Jacob’s Ladder, and the true centerpiece of the film when Valeria goes to the coven to face her fears under the guidance of the brujas. The film doesn’t rely on exoticized scares (which nuances the Jacob’s Ladder reference), and presents a respectful, non-sensational (but no less spectacular) glimpse of the ritual, after which we see the women repose and gently celebrate in a remarkable tonal shift. We are granted both re-enchantment and clarity along with Valeria, so we feel the impact of the final scene, an ambiguous moment where she begins to process what she has learned. It’s not a tidy ending, but it’s well earned and satisfying, and it leaves us in that moment of possibility. Add this to the small but powerful group of horror films (like The Brood and Lyle) that dare to suggest women might feel ambivalent about motherhood. Yet again horror helps us explore queer perspectives and ways of being that are otherwise forbidden to consider in public. 5 out of 5 sacs of blood.

—J †Johnson