For as long as there has been horror, there has been reproductive horror.
You know what I’m talking about – those stories which, in some way or another, revolve around reproduction. From Rosemary’s Baby to Alien to Devil’s Due, horror that focuses on the grotesque nature of creating new life has long been a staple part of the genre, especially when it comes to movies about women.
Which brings me to the topic of today’s article, Huesera: The Bone Woman. This 2022 Mexican feature from Michelle Garza Cervera is both the director’s debut and a prominent release in the modern reproductive horror genre. The movie follows Valeria (Natalia Solián), a young woman expecting her first child with her loving husband, as she begins to experience bizarre and increasingly disturbing supernatural intrusions into her life in the face of becoming a mother for the first time.
If you’re looking for scares and atmosphere, Huesera has them in spades. Cervera takes her time building the feel of this movie, the taut cheerfulness of a new family starting to crack over Valeria’s increasing distress at the reality of the situation. There’s a story of queer romance and rebellion tucked into the story, too, dripping with yearning and unspoken desire – Solián plays it close to her chest, the emotion rising to the surface as the movie progresses, the walls closing in around the audience as well as Valeria.
But it’s the movie’s approach to the elements of reproductive horror that I find really interesting – particularly the way it subverts it in the film’s ending. In most stories of reproductive horror that focuses on pregnancy and women specifically, the climax of the movie, the happy ending, comes in the form of the woman embracing her place as a mother and accepting her child completely. It’s not that it can’t be done well (see also: The Babadook), but that Huesera dodges it completely, by having Valeria suffer through a painful trial only to come out the other side with the realization that she doesn’t want to be a mother.
And this isn’t some tragic ending, where she becomes the very monster she tried to resist, but rather a matter-of-fact truth about who she is and who she wants to be. She doesn’t harm the baby, doesn’t resent or despise it – in fact, she returns it to its doting father. But Valeria’s happy ending doesn’t happen to have a child in it, and Huesera makes the bold choice of refusing to condemn her for that. It’s a fascinating wrinkle to the usual reproductive horror narratives, but an immensely effective one.
Huesera: The Bone Woman is an odd and quite extraordinary take on the reproductive horror movie – one that’s bold enough to find a happy ending in something other than blissful motherhood, and that’s all the better and more interesting for it. What other interesting movies have you seen in this horror niche, and how does Huesera compare? Let me know in the comments!
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By Lou MacGregor
No But Listen 