Natalia Solian in Huesera: The Bone Woman psychological horror movie review

Huesera: The Bone Woman Review: The Horror Of Motherhood

Pregnancy: miracle or curse?

Sometimes motherhood isn’t what one expected it to be. Adding to established psychological thrillers and horror films like The Babadook, Rosemary’s Baby and even the more-recent Baby Ruby, is Huesera: The Bone Woman. The debut feature film from Mexican filmmaker Michelle Garza Cevera begs the question: what if it turns out that motherhood not only sucks but threatens to literally destroy you?

The film follows Valeria (Natalia Solián), a carpenter who dreams of becoming a mother with her loving partner, Raúl (Alfonso Dosal). When her prayers to the Blessed Virgin are eventually answered, the pregnancy soon begins to feel more like a curse than a miracle.

“When you become a mother, you feel like you are split in two,” Valeria is told. But for her, motherhood becomes something other, something truly horrific, when she begins to feel physically and temporarily split in two. Haunted by sounds and visions of breaking bones, Valeria begins to lose all sense of her being in a myriad of ways. From faceless and disorienting visions to disturbing events, she begins to suspect something much darker is at play through the folkloric figure of La Huesera.

Huesera: The Bone Woman
Huesera: The Bone Woman

Blending Mexican folklore with elements of horror, Garza Cervera weaves a spectacular story anchored by Solián in a stellar debut performance. Told through visually-arresting flashbacks and scenes of magical realism, Valeria longs to be the punk, anti-establishment young woman she once was—a woman who shunned domesticity. Struggling with her own sense of identity in the lead up to becoming a mother—and the idea that she might be a bad one—Valeria is desperate to find an anchor to tether herself to, but it may already be too late. Here Huesera artfully morphs from a psychological thriller to an outright bone-chilling body horror.

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The horror elements blossom slowly—Garza Cervera avoids cheap jump scare tactics—with beautiful imagery that only gets more and more disturbing as the narrative advances. The cinematography by Nur Rubio Sherwll is superb, heightening Valeria’s inner turmoil and the undeniable sense that something with her pregnancy is very, very wrong. In combination with an incredible tapestry of sound design, Huesera builds its terror from within.

Opening theatrically on February 10 in select markets and on VOD on February 16, Huesera: The Bone Woman made the festival rounds in 2022 where Garza Cervera won the Best New Narrative Director and Nora Ephron awards at the Tribeca Film Festival – a rare feat for a genre film in the festival’s Midnight programme.

Watch the trailer below:

Huesera: The Bone Woman poster
Huesera: The Bone Woman poster


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