Those who enjoy fantasy films in general, and Mexican fantasy films in particular, must have been pleased to note that this genre fared particularly well at the box-office in 2007. As noted in MFB Vol. 14 #1, four of the top seven most popular Mexican movies were fantasy-oriented: Kilómetro 31, La leyenda de la Nahuala (an animated feature), Hasta el viento tiene miedo, and Cañitas: Presencia. I was able to see all three of the live-action films on this list, and my reviews of them follow.

Kilómetro 31 [Kilometer 31]

Notes: this Mexican-Spanish co-production was by far the top-grossing Mexican film of 2007 (over 3 million tickets sold, 118 million pesos earned–#2 was Niñas mal, which earned 78 million pesos) and it won 5 Ariel Awards (Best Sound, Costumes, Special Effects, Visual Effects, and Makeup), so why don’t I like Kilómetro 31 more than I do? Basically, this is an example of style over substance, and the “style” in this case is too reminiscent of countless recent Hollywood fantasy films (The Grudge, etc.) which in turn were heavily influenced by (or outright remakes of) Japanese fantasy cinema like Ju-on and Ringu. Despite some intriguing hints and clues sprinkled throughout, the plot of Kilómetro 31 is obscure, sketchy, vague, and illogical. The characters are ciphers and the conclusion is confusing at best. I’m always worried that I won’t “get” things in Mexican films due to a language and/or culture gap, but other critics confirm my impressions. However, Km. 31 was undeniably a runaway hit, so these “faults” didn’t matter to 3 million Mexican filmgoers!

One night, near the Kilometer 31 highway marker in the Desierto de Leones area (outside Mexico City), Agata Hameran’s auto strikes a child who suddenly appears on the highway. [The audience can see the "child" looks like a zombie or animated corpse.] When she gets out to render aid, Agata herself is hit by a speeding truck and badly injured.

Agata’s twin sister Catalina, who lives nearby, senses something and races to the accident scene with her boyfriend Nuño. Agata is taken to a hospital, where her legs are amputated; she remains in a coma. The doctor tells Catalina no injured child was found at the Km. 31 scene. Later, Agata’s boyfriend Omar visits Km. 31 to look around. He hears the sound of a child crying and–on the edge of his peripheral vision–a child dashes through the woods. A car stops and the driver–detective Ugalde–says he is investigating the accident and Omar should mind his own business.

Catalina begins to experience odd visions and hear things; she follows a trail of blood from her house to a manhole cover, and hears sobbing and screams from underground. Visiting Agata in the hospital, she hears child-like giggles and feels something touch her back. Agata opens her eyes, but the doctor tells Catalina her sister is still in a deep coma. Catalina informs Nuño she and Agata were orphaned while young: their father was killed in a construction accident and their mother died of an accidental overdose of medicine. (However, a repeated motif of drowning suggests this latter statement might not be true.)

On their way to look for clues at Km. 31, Nuño and Omar argue and their car strikes a pedestrian. Catalina thinks she sees a child in the woods at the spot; Nuño is taken into custody but later released. Detective Ugalde tells him he’s been trying to find the mysterious child at Km. 31 for three years. Catalina and Nuño return to Km. 31 and wander into the woods: an old woman greets them at a run-down house, and tells them a story similar to the Llorona legend. She says Catalina may be able to help resolve the supernatural problem through Agata, who has a link to the “other side.” Nuño and Catalina spend the night in the old house.

Meanwhile, Omar visits Ugalde and reads files of more than two dozen other accidents at Km. 31. Not finding Catalina and Nuño in their house, he goes looking for them in the forest. Passing through a dense fog, Omar spots a ghostly figure standing on the surface of a pool of water. Walking towards the figure, Omar plunges into the pond.

The next day, Catalina and Nuño go home and find the files Omar left, as well as a map of the various incidents. A newspaper article from the 1940s describes the suicide of a woman near Km. 31–the photograph is the woman they met the day before! Driving back to Km. 31, Catalina sees Omar beside the road; he doesn’t speak, but gestures for her to drive to the Km. 31 marker. There, in a ditch beside the road, is Omar’s corpse. Catalina calls the police, then departs. Ugalde and Nuño visit the old woman’s house, but it is now deserted.

In an attempt to psychically solve the mystery, Catalina enters the drainage tunnels beneath the streets via a construction site. Ugalde and Nuño follow. Catalina sees the old woman, the ghost of her mother, and a variety of other supernatural creatures. Nuño arrives: before his eyes, Catalina changes into a monster that he clubs to death. Ugalde appears but only sees Nuño attacking Catalina. Nuño puts the barrel of his gun into his mouth to commit suicide but Ugalde wounds him instead. Later, in the hospital Ugalde says Nuño murdered Catalina. Meanwhile, Agata snaps out of her coma and demands to see her child. As the film concludes, she screams “where is my child!!!!”

Combining snippets of various stories–from the “Phantom Hitchhiker” to the legend of La Llorona–Kilómetro 31 never develops a cohesive plot. The concept of a haunted stretch of highway where numerous fatal accidents occur is good, but this never clearly meshes with the Catalina-Agata backstory, and the final section in the drainage tunnels also seems at odds with the basic premise (after all, the film is called Kilómetro 31 yet the climax occurs nowhere near this spot!).

None of the characters is very well developed. Hints of a conflict between Omar and Nuño are brought up, then dropped (well, Omar gets killed, so that puts an end to it!). Catalina’s relationship with Agata is alluded to–”we’re the same but you’re better at everything” Catalina tells her comatose sister–but the exact circumstances of their mother’s death and what this has to do with the main ghost story are unclear. I’m sorry, I just like a little more structure and logic than Castañeda provides.

The overall visual design of Kilómetro 31 is quite nightmarish, dark and depressing. This is practically a black-and-white film, given the unrelievedly dank, shadowy mise-en-scene. Standard spook-film tricks abound: jump cuts, odd bursts of sound, almost-subliminal images. etc. Not to second-guess the Academia, but while the technical Arieles won by Kilómetro 31 may have been deserved, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done recently by other medium-budget fantasy films around the world.

The performances are satisfactory, within the limitations of the script. Iliana Fox bears an unfortunate resemblance to Julia-Louis Dreyfuss–unfortunate in the sense that her character’s physical similarity to “Elaine Benes” made it hard to accept her in a dramatic role. Collado and Méndez are fine but not really distinctive, but Carlos Aragón does a fairly good job as the detective in the case.

Perhaps the popularity of Kilómetro 31 caused me to have high expectations and–when these weren’t fulfilled

–my disappointment may have caused me to judge this somewhat harshly. It certainly isn’t a bad movie at all, and in fact is quite slick and stylish overall. But, while it provides reasonable entertainment, it’s also forgettable and derivative and just a little empty.

Trivia notes: despite some objections by the director, Kilómetro 31 was dubbed into “Castilian” Spanish for its release in Spain. There are also rumors that nearly 20 minutes of footage was cut–again, over the objections of the director–which, if true, might have contributed to the incoherent plot.