2012: Curse of the Xtabai (2012)

directed by Matthiew Klinck
Belize
80 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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I watched this because it's the first feature-length film made entirely in Belize, and it's kind of a horror movie, which obviously made it appeal to me even more. It's in creole, but you can probably understand it if you speak a bare minimum of English. "Xtabai" (also Xtabay) is a figure from Yucatec Maya folklore who is basically a woman with hair down to her feet who wears a long white dress, lives in a cave, and kills people. This film at least got the "lives in a cave" part down, but it takes some artistic liberty with all other aspects of Xtabay's appearance. No matter, though, as the rest of this was so good it got me hyped up.

I want to go to Belize now. This movie is just so radically different from typical action/horror movies in all the ways that matter. When the main character and her group go out into the jungle to search for the Xtabai and bring an end to the apocalyptic plague sweeping through their town, they do it in as smart and cautious a way as possible: A. They bring somebody along who is experienced in bushcraft, B. They go in a large enough group that they have safety in numbers, and C. For a while there's no unnecessary antagonism in their party. Just with those three simple things they've proved themselves smarter than 99.999% of slasher movie victims who bumble into forests and jungles alone, never having camped more than a single night by themselves.

It's also incredibly refreshing that the main character in this is a young woman who doesn't compact herself into an ideal of submissive femininity but instead charges forward with what she knows to be true, and is supported and respected by all those around her, men and women alike. I don't remember the last time a film has featured a woman having prophetic dreams where everybody around her acknowledges that she must be seeing these things for a reason, and that she isn't crazy. I love that women don't take a backseat in this. I mean, the main character's mother is shot while walking unarmed towards military officers demanding to be let outside the cordon to find a doctor for her son. Girls don't do anything halfway in this.

As for the actual quality of the film, I personally felt that it was pretty top-notch, but I know that to most people it would look cheap and unfinished. The acting is great, but if you're used to watching movies produced in big Hollywood studios this will definitely look amateurish. But you have to look past that- what matters is the idea; it doesn't matter that the CGI on the monster is worse than awful and she wears a goofy Halloween mask, it matters that this is a well-written, well-acted movie made by people who clearly knew what they were doing. I really loved this. Sorry.