Five films to build a horror marathon for Holy Week.

Holy Week is here, and as every year, some people devote themselves to following the season's religious traditions, like going on vacation, but those of us who stay behind to enjoy the city's tranquility and dodge the season's prayers by watching movies look for a selection that isn't the same old thing: The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and the like. That's why at Macabro we set out to put together a selection for this terrifying (if unacknowledged) season, with five films to get through the holy days:

1. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter by Lee Demarbre (2001). Vampires arrived on Earth to wipe out all of humanity, and Jesus realizes this, so he decides to return to Earth to save it once again from the clutches of evil. However, when he sees his mission in jeopardy, he decides to seek the help of his great friend "Santos," a legendary wrestler, and together they put an end to the plague. A great tribute to B movies and lucha libre, where good old Jesus Christ is once again the savior hero. As an added fact, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter was the first film ever screened at Macabro, back in 2002.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LRIypcaIX4 (abre en nueva pestaña)

2. Belzebuth by Emilio Portes (2019). A series of mass, unexplained killings begins happening across Mexico, so a pair of Mexican federal agents and an American paranormal investigator team up to trace the origin of these crimes and find the leader of a cult seeking to save a child from the clutches of Belzebuth, who sometimes manifests in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, amid narco-tunnels and exorcisms. Tip: Belzebuth, which premiered in January of this year, is still showing this week at La casa del cine, located in the historic center of Mexico City.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEbOHj-k0s8 (abre en nueva pestaña)

3. The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson (2004). This might be the film on the list most faithful to the season's tradition. Mel Gibson set out to make a scripture-faithful depiction of the last three days of Jesus's life, original languages included, and the result is one of the goriest films ever made on the subject, with nods to splatter cinema and the presence of a mortal figure that's a direct heir to Bergman's The Seventh Seal. The result is a delight equally for gore fans, for devotees of bloody sacred art, and for the more religious among us too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aif1qEB_JU (abre en nueva pestaña)

4. The Devils by Ken Russell (1971). An extraordinary cult film depicting one of the most notable recorded cases of collective demonic possession, set in the 17th century, with the nuns of a convent and the local priest as its central figures. Temptation arrives when the nuns begin to see their priest as a sexual, vampiric being who stirs carnal desires in them. It reaches its fever pitch when the mother superior, in her delirium, imagines the priest as the crucified Jesus and begins to lick his wounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC_Z4I62e5Y (abre en nueva pestaña)

5. Stigmata by Rupert Waingright (1999). This is a thriller with classic possession-movie elements that tells the story of the disturbances that begin to afflict a woman after she receives a rosary from Brazil as a gift; the phenomena range from noises to blood-soaked hallucinations, chases, prayers, and Jesus Christ himself, who seems to manifest through the woman's body, marking her with his own stigmata. The mainstream pick of the list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwsTYQ26QDQ (abre en nueva pestaña)

Bonus: Fist of Jesus by David Muñoz and Adrián Cardona. A great Spanish short film, also screened at Macabro, gives us an epic fist-to-fist battle between Jesus and a zombie plague unleashed after he resurrects Lazarus. A delight you can watch in full right below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYLugke-GiQ (abre en nueva pestaña)