Lex Ortega's newest film a home invasion flick called Animales humanos (Human Animals) had its world premiere at the home town Morbido Film Festival in December.
A married couple and their young daughter are terrified of the neighbors' dog, which ends up biting the girl. The dog is sacrificed to the desolation of its owners who saw it as their son. They enter the married couple's house at night to take revenge. What they want is justice: sacrifice the girl.
The producers in Mexico are wasting no time and are pushing to get Animales humanos into Mexican cinemas as soon as possible. The official trailer was released the other day; alas, there were no subtítulos en inglés. So I began bugging Lex to get us a trailer with English subtitles and my friend went above and beyond delivering not only a trailer but also a short introduction where he shares his favorite home invasion films.
It might also serve as an excuse to show off his impressive home video and action figure collection as well. It might.
A couple of us saw this trailer a while ago, en espanol, before it's main release and we were immediately impressed by the level of sofistication and polish Ortega has achieved here. Even without English subtitles we liked what we saw. This is not meant as a slight against my friend (would I insult a guy who won't show his face on video?) but we know he's delved into the dirt, grime and extreme gore side of the horror genre so much in his earlier works that this was almost too great a change of pace for us to process. Yet, it proves his dexterity as a director. You still see that he's not going to shy away from the horror though.
We're not encouraging him to stay within this space (jejeje) it's just good to be reminded that he's got the chops to do something great within it.