Borderland

In Mexico City, while chasing the leader of a cult, Detective Ulises (Damián Alcázar) is forced to watch his partner being tortured and murdered by the criminals. One year later, the teenage Americans Ed (Brian Presley), Phil (Rider Strong) and Henry (Jake Muxworthy) are in a summer camp in Galveston and they decide to travel to the borderland in Mexico to get laid with Mexican hookers. Ed has a crush on the bartender Valeria (Martha Higareda) and the virgin Phil feels attracted by a young prostitute with a baby and decides to give a teddy bear to the child. However, he is abducted by the followers of Palo Myombe that are preparing a human sacrifice to get the Power of Nganga to become invisible while smuggling drugs.

"Borderland" is another flawed and brutal movie of torture. The story is very violent and graphic, and fans of this genre might like it. However, there are many holes and unreasonable situations in the screenplay like, for example, why Detective Ulises is in disgrace that is never well explained. Why Valeria joins Ulises and Ed when they break into the farm crowded of dangerous and fanatic drug-dealers is totally useless and unreasonable. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Limite do Medo" ("The Limit of the Fear")

Imagine being in a foreign land n persuaded by satanic cultists n the cops are of no use. A very scary thot. I travel a lot to the interiors n stay in those cheap hotels. The hotel scene is this movie is downright scary.

I always look forward for the horror films festival known as 8 Films to Die For.

I first saw this in 2008 on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently. This film has one of the most nerve shattering, horrific opening. This film gets under your skin. This is not torture porn or Hostel wannabe. The script is solidly scary n really frightening when u come to kno that it is based on a true story of a drug lord/leader of a religious cult that practiced human sacrifices. The tension in this film is very high and the atmosphere is genuinely scary. Direction by Zev Berman is really good. I don't know y he ain't doin any more movies. He shud get more movies.

Was surprised to see Sean Astin. Lastly, the film has some really hot chicks n a very sadistic n creepy bald villain. I felt like thrashing him.

This American/Mexican movie from the border between USA and Mexico is loosely based on a true story, which is hard to accept. But evil exists, and it's awful to get to know about it. And this is a story difficult to see and comprehend.

Three young guys go down to Mexico one summer, where they experience that one of them disappears. One of them is kidnapped by humans believing in human sacrificing to the spirit Nganga. The cult leader is based upon The story of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo! The so-called Godfather of Matamoros. They found more than fifty corpses where brains and spinal cords had been removed. Well, that's the true story, of a case which still isn't closed, as several members of the cult still is on the run.

The film is technically good, and well done in all aspects. The colors are gritty, made with color filters, like many Latin American film has been lately. In this film it's very suitable. Sometimes maybe a bit too much, as it is sometimes difficult to see clearly, outdoors in the sun. Indoors it's better.

The film is made terrifying, as it should be. many actors are doings terrific job. Maybe not so much Brian Presley and Jake MuxWorthy as Rudef Strong. But the Mexicans are doing great, and I always admire Damian Alcazar (amazing in 2004-film Chronicas/Chronicles). The crook Marco Bacuzzi is amazingly terrifying as a violent evil man. One of the scariest I've seen on film ever. The bad guys here are really disgusting all of them. Well played.

I find this a very good film, Though I don't like this kind of violence. I hate watching it, and definitely more do when it is a true story. This is of course it's not everyone's porridge. If you trouble with graphic films, this is no film for you. It's no constellation "this is just film", 'cause it isn't just. It is based on a true happening, found in the insanity of some human's religion. Embrace yourself.

I have a problem with the new genre of "torture porn" that has muscled its way into the horror movie limelight with such movies as Hostel and Touristas. It's sick, repugnant, and of virtually no redeeming value, and yet, like a moth to a flame, I can't bring myself to not watch it, even though I end up cursing myself for subjugating my mind to its imagery afterward.

Such was the case when the 2007 edition of Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival scheduled a screening of Borderland. I found myself driving downtown muttering to myself how I was going to regret this. And truth be told, I almost did, except that the movie came packaged in a fully fleshed out story (pun intended) that had the added impact of having been based on a true story.

In 1989, Mexican police unearthed 12 bodies in the town of Matamoros. Their brains and spinal cords had been removed. It was later determined that a gang of drug smugglers had been practicing their own form of Santeria, a religious hybrid of Catholicism and African religions, similar to Voodoo. The leader of the gang, Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, was worshiped as a living god by his followers and practiced the ritual sacrifice of wayward individuals in the belief that the gods would make them invisible to the police as they went about their drug smuggling operation.

This is the backdrop that Borderland sets itself against as it tells the tale of a trio of Americans from Texas who head for a short stay in Mexico to indulge in some fast women and cheap booze. Along the way they hook up with a stunning and resourcefully independent Mexican barmaid played by Martha Higareda (soon to be seen alongside Keanu Reeves and Hugh Laurie in The Night Watchmen) and, as fate would have it, cross paths with members of the gang. The movie also delivers some truly twisted casting as Sean Austin of Lord of the Rings renown takes a villainous turn as the lone American member of the Santeria drug gang.

Director Zev Berman, for whom this movie marks only his third stint holding the directorial reigns, does a remarkably good job keeping the pacing tight and focused, blending a nice mix of story, action and (I hate to say it) gore, even though it's this latter part that I dearly wish could be toned down. The version I saw had not yet been rated by the MPAA so if there's any hope, the more unnecessarily gory parts of it will be excised before it gets given its cinematic release. While I'm no advocate of censorship, some of the gorier shots were just plain gratuitous. Berman would do well to re-cut the movie taking a cue from the original Saw (as opposed to the sequels), which illustrated just how gory you could make a movie while showing so little.

Still, Borderland plays out to a satisfying pay off, and never let my interest flag along the way, even if it did have me watching large chunks (pun intended, again) through my fingers, which, I suppose, is a good thing for some folks.

Released in 2007, "Borderland" is a horror film about three college guys (Brian Presley, Jake Muxworthy & Rider Strong) on Spring Break in Galveston, Texas, who decide to skip over the border to party with the prostitutes. Their vacation goes awry when they run afoul of a brutal drug cult, led by a charismatic-but-diabolic occultist (Beto Cuevas). Damián Alcázar plays a Mexican detective while Martha Higareda appears as the potential girlfriend of one of the Americans. Marco Bacuzzi plays the top cult henchmen with Sean Astin an American enlistee.

The opening epilogue involves a gory torture sequence, which is unpleasant to say the least, but the story soon switches to the three Americans and their trip to Mexican strip joints where a couple curvy señoritas are highlighted. I could tell this was shot on the West Coast of Mexico rather than the East Coast. The city scenes, for instance, were shot in Tijuana, substituting for Matamoros.

The story is loosely based on the 1989 abduction of American pre-med student, Mark Kilroy, from outside a Mexican bar where he was taken to Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo's ranch in the desert, about an hour drive from Matamoros & the border. Fifteen mutilated corpses were discovered buried at the ranch, one of them Kilroy's, who was hacked to death by a machete. Constanzo's cult practiced sorcery in the form of Palo Mayombe, engaging in torture and human sacrifice for supernatural power, e.g. for their drug-runners to appear invisible to border guards.

Constanzo was a known homosexual, but the movie surrounds the Constanzo-based character, Santillan, with Mexican babes. I doubt this was done to be politically correct; I'm sure the filmmakers simply wanted to give him cinematic appeal for the target audience, most of whom would run away screaming if Santillan was depicted with hunky dudes attending to his amorous needs.

While the movie's sometimes unpleasant for obvious reasons, it's gritty, engaging and well-acted, particularly the first half. I'm sure the director, Zev Berman, is a fan of films like "Apocalypse Now" because you definitely see glimmerings of that kind of greatness. Unfortunately, this was the last movie by Berman as of this writing. He could've gone on to be a contenda, like Coppola.

The picture runs 100 minutes and was shot entirely in Baja California, Mexico. It was written by Eric Poppen & director Zev Berman.

GRADE: B+