Verdict
Summary
A chilling horror film that almost didn’t even need supernatural elements to make it a genre picture, Tigers Are Not Afraid is virtually a post-apocalyptic soul smasher of a movie, with shocking scenes involving little children who must endure through the most awful situations, as if it were the holocaust.
Plot:
A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war.
Review:
The evil work of drug lords and sex traffickers has decimated entire towns and regions of Mexico, leaving orphaned, feral children to team up and form gangs, some of their members just out of diapers. One child, a girl named Estrella (Paola Lara) was recently left alone and to fend for herself when her mother disappeared one day and never came home. Her school quits operations after a string of violent shootings just outside the windows leaves the teachers too afraid to return to duty, and so the children remain in town, drifting and without anyone to protect them from the predators who roam the empty streets, looking to snatch them and take them for the sex trafficking rings. Estrella joins a gang of kids who’ve all seen far too much and she becomes their sort-of mother figure, and when the kids look to her to kill the drug lord who is after them all because they have his cell phone, she uses three little pieces of chalk as three wishes to wish upon to save them all from the horrors that encroach them. When the drug lord is killed (Estrella takes credit because she believes one of her wishes did the job for her), a local politico whose evil deeds may have made them all orphans comes hunting for them because what they have on the drug lord’s cell phone can incriminate him for murder. But even worse than the human slime hunting them is a malevolent presence that is stalking them all – child and kingpins alike – seeking souls to devour …
A chilling horror film that almost didn’t even need supernatural elements to make it a genre picture, Tigers Are Not Afraid is virtually a post-apocalyptic soul smasher of a movie, with shocking scenes involving little children who must endure through the most awful situations, as if it were the holocaust. Writer / director Issa Lopez must have had an extremely challenging task in directing her young cast in a film with such terrible themes, but it works. Despite its successful delivery, this movie is not for everyone and should be viewed with caution. It’ll break your heart.
RLJE just released Tigers Are Not Afraid onto home video, and it also comes in a blu ray / DVD steelbook edition. Special features include a making-of feature, interviews, a commentary, deleted scenes, casting sessions, and a photo gallery.
