credit: No One Gets Out Alive
Plenty of movies give people a look into the world from a different perspective, and this one manages to do that in a way that’s fairly common depending on the movie but is still enough to make one think that Ambar, the main character, has it kind of rough. As an undocumented immigrant, Ambar has to live in a boarding house run by Red and his mentally unstable brother, Becker. Working at a job that pays very little and where there’s no security is bad enough, but being terrified of the home that she’s staying in as she starts to see ghosts around the place is another. After a while, Ambar attempts to leave with the help of a coworker that she pays for a fake ID that will allow her to identify as a US citizen. Unfortunately, the coworker takes off with the money, and not too long after this, her boss lets her go. As if to make things worse, Becker and Red conspire to keep her in the house after stating that they would give Ambar her deposit back. When the two brothers attempt to sacrifice Ambar to an Aztec goddess, things take a turn for the bizarre.
credit: No One Gets Out Alive
Unless one is really paying attention, this movie comes off as a standard ghost story.
The archaeology clips that are seen at the beginning of this movie are a big key to the movie that a lot of people might forget when the ghosts start showing up, but it’s also fair to think that people will be looking for other ways to stay hooked to the screen since, despite the desperate nature of this movie, it does start to drag quite a bit. Ambar’s status is a hopeless one that requires a person to at least try to understand what she’s going through, but the uncertainty that this movie creates is tough to get around, and it creates a great deal of confusion that needs to be sorted through in order to really know what’s going on. The appearance of the ghosts is intriguing, but it doesn’t tell the whole tale.
The issue of undocumented immigrants isn’t a huge issue in this movie.
It’s a big issue in real life, that’s for certain, but it becomes more of a plot device and less of an issue in this movie since it’s little more than another way to describe Ambar and explain her situation. The fact that she is an undocumented immigrant comes into play when introducing who she is and what she does for a living. But apart from that, there isn’t much mention of her status in the USA. Some might state that this is a bit of a problem since it pushes that particular issue aside for no good reason, but the truth is that her status shows who she is and what she’s about, nothing less and nothing more. If anyone reads more into it, then they might need to approach the movie with another mindset.
credit: No One Gets Out Alive
The goddess is dark and terrifying but somehow impressive as well.
Supernatural creatures in horror movies are typically expected to be terrifying, unknown, and creepy as hell. The goddess in this movie is something both dark and terrible, but she’s also something that is a serious problem since she’s using the brothers every bit as much as they’re using her. But the problem with using supernatural creatures is that there’s always something else to be paid for in the end. That might sound a little cryptic, and it’s meant to since the truth is that with any creature that’s not of this world, the idea of making deals and trying to gain an advantage of any sort is a terrifying proposal that isn’t meant to favor human beings that often unless they’re able to pay an insane and sometimes morbid price that many would balk at. The fact that the brothers were willing to sacrifice so many makes it clear that they were going to lose sight of what they were doing and tend to run afoul of the same creatures they were seeking to deal with.
The ghosts are scarier than anything else in the movie.
Had the ghosts been the only real threat in this movie, that might have been fine since their appearance and their ability to interact with the physical world are qualities that could have allowed this feature to stand out on its own. The rest of it was effective enough to create a decent movie that might have been a little better having things been put together in a different manner, but all in all, this wasn’t the worst horror movie ever made. It wasn’t the best, either.
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