They Robbed a Grave Last Night!
Main Cast: Brian Presley, Rider Strong
Director: Zev Berman
Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.
In 1989, a Texas college student went missing on his way back from Mexico with some friends over spring break. Authorities tracked him to a shack where they uncovered a drug cartel involved in black magic who had used the boy in a ritual sacrifice. This true story was the basis for the 2007 film BORDERLAND, written and directed by Zev Berman (BRIAR PATCH) who had also been in Mexico around this time and, realizing there but for the grace of God it could have been him or one of his friends who had been the victim of what seemed such a random kidnapping and murder, used this as the jumping off point for a horribly frightening tale of his own. With some Hollywood elements thrown in.
In Berman’s version, Ed (Brian Presley, Port Charles), Phil (Rider Strong, Boy Meets World), and Henry (Jake Muxworthy, I HEART HUCKABEES) are taking a break in a Mexican border town, a place that’s not quite Mexico, not quite America. The border towns, as the movie teaches us, are their own country, places where the rules are fluid and almost anything can happen. They meet up with a couple of locals, get high on mushrooms, and, having decided he’s had enough for one night and wants to go see the sex worker he’d met the night before, Phil (who is a minister’s son and has decided he may be in love with the sex worker) wants to take her a stuffed animal he’d won for her daughter. But Phil never makes it. And he never shows up back at their hotel.
Ed and Henry report his disappearance to the police, but are stonewalled. Their search leads them to Ulises (Damian Alcazar, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: LORD CASPIAN), an ex cop who has been trying to bring down a drug cartel involved in black magic who murdered his partner and left Ulises with a bum leg and no life. He’s no longer a cop and can’t get the officials still on the force to listen to his mad ravings of devil worship.
Okay, so it sounds like BORDERLAND starts off strong and then devolves into a same old same old situation by the end, but that’s not entirely accurate. Yeah, there are the standard Hollywood trappings with the bigger than life villains, the despicable henchmen, and the cop on the outs just trying to close this last big case, but for all that, the movie succeeds in changing just enough of the rules to keep you watching. Zev Berman took this sensational and tragic story and told a Hollywood version of it with gunfights and love interests, but he still managed to keep the surprises coming. So for that, I have to thank him.
BORDERLAND was a very gritty, sweaty movie. The film is processed in a way that wipes out all the white, makes it shine like the sun, and causes all the other colors to pop even more. But the added effect is that, all that bleached out white is too much like going outside on a bright summer day after spending all day inside and finding yourself blinded and that gives the day shots a very sticky, uncomfortable feeling, almost like you’re there with the characters, suffering the incredible heat of this Mexican border town where anything can happen. I’m breaking out in a sweat just thinking about it.
Filmed in Mexico, Berman and crew did an excellent job showing what a beautiful place it can be, but with that sun glare, and the danger of being sacrificed by a religious cult because I was on the wrong sidewalk at the wrong time of day, I just don’t think I’d ever ever want to go there.
While Berman specifies in his commentary he wasn’t making a “horror” movie, but a “drama”, I have to say the plausibility of this story–love interest and gunfights notwithstanding–definitely makes BORDERLAND one of the most horrifying stories I’ve seen in a long time. And watching the “Rituales de Sangre” feature on the DVD, a Brownsville homicide detective’s recounting of the original Matamoros case and seeing just how easily this original boy was taken, sends a certain chill up the spine.
I do think Berman could have told the same story with fewer Hollywood trappings and the same emotional impact, but for what it’s worth, BORDERLAND delivers amazing chills, some excellent gore, and just enough surprises to make it all worthwhile in the end. Certainly not the BEST horror movie I’ve ever seen–not even the best of the After Dark Horrorfest movies–but still very much worth watching, and, if you can overlook the clichés, it is a very good movie.
Head to Horror Corner for reviews of all 10 films in the first 8 Films to Die For series.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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