Borderland (2007) User Reviews (77)

Brutal & gory flick based on the sacrificial murders of Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo

[Wuchakk · 7/10 · 25 March 2017]

Released in 2007, "Borderland" is a horror film about three college guys (Brian Presley, Jake Muxworthy & Rider Strong) on Spring Break in Galveston, Texas, who decide to skip over the border to party with the prostitutes. Their vacation goes awry when they run afoul of a brutal drug cult, led by a charismatic-but-diabolic occultist (Beto Cuevas). Damián Alcázar plays a Mexican detective while Martha Higareda appears as the potential girlfriend of one of the Americans. Marco Bacuzzi plays the top cult henchmen with Sean Astin an American enlistee.

The opening epilogue involves a gory torture sequence, which is unpleasant to say the least, but the story soon switches to the three Americans and their trip to Mexican strip joints where a couple curvy señoritas are highlighted. I could tell this was shot on the West Coast of Mexico rather than the East Coast. The city scenes, for instance, were shot in Tijuana, substituting for Matamoros.

The story is loosely based on the 1989 abduction of American pre-med student, Mark Kilroy, from outside a Mexican bar where he was taken to Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo's ranch in the desert, about an hour drive from Matamoros & the border. Fifteen mutilated corpses were discovered buried at the ranch, one of them Kilroy's, who was hacked to death by a machete. Constanzo's cult practiced sorcery in the form of Palo Mayombe, engaging in torture and human sacrifice for supernatural power, e.g. for their drug-runners to appear invisible to border guards.

Constanzo was a known homosexual, but the movie surrounds the Constanzo-based character, Santillan, with Mexican babes. I doubt this was done to be politically correct; I'm sure the filmmakers simply wanted to give him cinematic appeal for the target audience, most of whom would run away screaming if Santillan was depicted with hunky dudes attending to his amorous needs.

While the movie's sometimes unpleasant for obvious reasons, it's gritty, engaging and well-acted, particularly the first half. I'm sure the director, Zev Berman, is a fan of films like "Apocalypse Now" because you definitely see glimmerings of that kind of greatness. Unfortunately, this was the last movie by Berman as of this writing. He could've gone on to be a contenda, like Coppola.

The picture runs 100 minutes and was shot entirely in Baja California, Mexico. It was written by Eric Poppen & director Zev Berman.

GRADE: B+

Good little horror/thriller

[bowmanblue · 7/10 · 7 February 2015]

'Compact' is the word I'd use to describe Borderland. It doesn't offer anything revolutionary which will blow your mind, but, if you're a fan of the genre, you should find it satisfying.

It follows the (familiar) story of X good-looking young Americans, travelling to X and running into trouble in the form of X. Sometimes these packs of good-looking young Americans are girls, sometimes boys, other time a mixed group. Sometimes they travel to a remote town in America, sometimes a remote town in Europe. Once they get to where they're going, they run into trouble in the form of zombie/vampires/ghosts/rednecks/cannibals - choose your 'nasty.' In this instance, three lads travel to Mexico and get mixed up with... well, you'll have to watch it to find out.

Like I say, the story is pretty generic. I've seen plenty of these sorts of movies (you can probably tell by my cynical tone), but this one is pretty reasonable. The protagonists aren't (completely) unlikeable, don't do (too many) stupid things and you can basically root for their plight.

If you like this sort of film, give it a go. Trust me, there are many worse than this (and I've sat through almost every last one of them).

far exceeded my expectations;thrilling and surprisingly well made

[staticboy88 · 7/10 · 19 March 2008]

In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have watched Borderland first out of the other 2007 horror fest titles I rented, because this film has set the bar pretty high. The plot concerns a trio of college friends who decide, before they each move on to different schools, to take a last minute trip over the border for some uninhibited debauchery. Things soon turn into a hellish nightmare when they become targets of a violent drug ring/cult. What keeps this from being another Hostel knock off is Borderlands realistic approach to the material (what makes the proceedings even more terrifying is that they are based on actual events). Also, I was impressed by the quality of the film making and especially the acting, which helps add to the realism (look for an actor you might remember from the Lord of the Rings in very convincing, un-hobbit like role). From the nerve shattering, horrific opening to the finale, Borderland is great horror film that gets under your skin. I highly recommend it to those with strong stomachs.

Props to After Dark for giving this a release

[Cujo108 · 19 May 2010]

In 1989, Mexican officials discovered the bodies of 12 people, including a 21 year-old University of Texas student, buried on a desolate ranch just outside of Matamoros, Mexico. The ranch, dubbed Rancho Santa Elena, served as the killing grounds for a cult led by Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo (nicknamed El Padrino de Matamoros, or The Godfather of Matamoros). Constanzo was a practitioner of the African magic, palo mayombe. The people buried on the ranch had been victims of human sacrifice, which Constanzo and his followers believed would secure occult protection for drug deals, shielding them from the police. Various body parts and even the brains of their victims would be mixed with dead animals in an iron cauldron called a nganga.

Borderland is based on these gruesome events, and while there are the typical liberties taken, the film sticks remarkably close to what really happened. Three college students from Texas head into a Mexican border town to celebrate spring break. Amidst drinking and picking up women, it isn't long before one of them is abducted for the cult's sinister practices, leaving the others to search for him. It's an understatement to say that they won't like what they find.

This is an outstanding film. I was looking forward to it well before After Dark added it to their lineup, so I was quite pleased when I saw that they had acquired the rights. The film has some beautiful visuals (loved the dreamy editing in the carnival scene) and cinematography, but in spite of this, it manages to pull off a very gritty, hopeless feel throughout. The characters aren't the usual annoying teens either. For instance, I liked how the tough guy wound up being anything but in the face of what he was up against. It felt real. I wound up feeling really sorry for these people. The sadistic torture of Phil (Rider Strong) made for an especially tough scene to watch, as I had grown to care about what happened to him and his friends. It affected me far more than any scene from a Saw movie could ever hope to. This cult meant business, and each demise had a brutality to it that really struck a chord.

As such, this is the rare film where I truly despised the villains and wanted to see them get severe comeuppance. I felt that the lone remaining cult member at the end, the one who lured Phil in, got off far too easily. Ed had him at his mercy, and I was hoping for some major pain to be dished out. Speaking of the cult, it was great seeing Sean Astin as a sadistic follower of Santillan. He nailed it, making me forget all about his countless goody-two-shoes characters from films past. I also have to mention Marco Bacuzzi, the man who does most of the group's dirty work. He is a vicious bastard with an intimidating look that has been compared to that of Michael Berryman. The comparison is apt, though I'd say he is even creepier since Berryman usually played bumbling types.

Bravo, After Dark. Continue saving these independents from obscurity for as long as you can. Some will be losers, but this one's a winner through and through.

Trite fictionalization of some particularly ugly and crazy crimes

[deadbull-95171 · 4/10 · 4 August 2023]

For a while the wildly narcissistic Adolfo Constanzo, with his partner Sarah Aldrete, a woman he was unable to have sex with because of his preference for boys, held sway over minor drug cartel leaders down in Mexico, by selling his services, billable hours, as a Black Santeria priest, able to magically make their enemies dissappear. Regarding these Voodoo based dissappearances, his magic consisted of tracking and murdering victims, usually dismembering them alive, and feeding their body parts into his ever-voracious Nganga, the evil smelling pot that is the tool of choice for self-appointed wizard/priests of his chosen religion. His money and reputation attracted a large group of delusional followers, who believed that under the protection of their "Padrino" and "Madrino", they had literally become invisible, and were able to conduct their bizarre depradations completely unseen. Of course this is how many were caught, driving their invisible van and invisible bodies through very visible police dragnets. As for the Padrino himself, barricaded in an apartment, his invisible lifeless carcass, a suicide, and not by machete, his magical favorite tool to magically seperate souls from bodies, was taken away by the police for interment. This was certainly a colorful case history, even for Matamoros, a town that has seen more then its share of special caperings. I describe the case at some length because this awful movie, "loosey" based on these crimes, doesn't even scratch the surface of anything about Constanzo, Aldrete, their motives, history, or the final escapades that made them notorious for a while. The talented Damián Alcázar does show up as a sort of tour guide for some Americans trying to find their kidnapped friend, loosely based on the abduction-murder of Mark Kilroy, an adventuring American pre-med student, who got out of his depth fast. His dissappearance was actually missed by monied Americans,as this time it wasn't a dispensable local peasant that got snatched, so it triggered the investigation that ended the group's activities. Sometimes people get motivated and mysteries get solved, when the magical elixer of cash enters the magic pot. But Damián, the only actor I'm familiar with, is wasted here. If you want to see what he can do, watch Cronicas, based on the humid crimes of Pedro Lopez "The monster of the Andes", and possibly the most prolific serial killer that ever lived, a man released from prioson at the height of his crimes, though "the authorities' were completely aware of his guilt. Some of these towns are great places for people who have no boundaries. Anyway, Borderland is a trite and stupid production, not only wildly innacurate, at least according to the most thorough books on the topic, Buried Secreets, and Cauldron of Blood. I remember the case well from the eighties', because of its Mansonesque similarities. Read the books about the case, it's a lot more interesting then this pale shadow.

Well Told Tale of Horror

[cdelacroix1 · 7/10 · 15 November 2007]

I saw this on the last night of our local Horrorfest 2007 and was both duly horrified and impressed. To me this is an outstanding horror film that could stand alongside Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Friday the 13th.

The tale provides a really delightfully horrifying mix of quasi-religious/satanist cultishness, sadistic gore, fun-loving college students plunged into terror, and nightmarish cross-cultural confusion.

The script was solidly scary; it delivers and delivers well. I really like the basic strategy: starting with a really nasty, brutal, scary torture scene, introducing the horrifyingly sadistic and creepy Gustavo; then for a fairly lengthy time we have this wonderful story full of indirection and feints and suggestiveness, including all kinds of cultural misdirection and confusion, during which I kept looking for a new horror along the lines of the initial scene of horror; and finally after this long fear-inducing build-up, we get an even more horrifying torture scene and a bloodbath to go along with it. To me this all works very, very well, and the script gets top props for this arrangement and for really solid scenes throughout. The script is even sprinkled with some really great lines: "The border has no memory." "I'll be back when I know what I'm doing."

The script was executed very convincingly. The acting was consistently solid. Brian Presley's Ed was excellent and convincing, and Jake Muxworthy gave us an excellent rendition of party-loving Henry. Valeria is attractively portrayed by Martha Higareda.

As for the cult and cult members, the script as executed gives the cult as such a strong "flavor" while giving us convincing portrayals of several very distinctively wicked members of the cult. The leader of the cult, Beto Cuevas' Santillan, was not for me nearly as salient as Marco Bacuzzi's Gustavo. Bacuzzi gives us a Gustavo who is to me so sadistic, so creepy, and so scene-dominating that I would really put him in the same pantheon of nasty horror characters as Jason and Michael Myers and Hannibal Lector.

The cinematography is consistently outstanding, and there are some really great visuals. I especially liked the scenes in the amusement park, and some of the indoor scenes: such as the early scene of a policeman looking down a blue corridor with a statue of the Virgin Mary in a niche in the wall behind him; and then another in which one of the female characters is climbing an indoor circular staircase. But really almost all of the scenes were really composed very effectively; and the gory scenes were as gory and creepy and scary as one could wish.

The only really big objection I had was to the sound, which was just horribly washed out, obscure, and sometimes almost non-existent, as in the case of several gunshots that sounded like pencils tapping on a table. I couldn't really believe that the movie's sound could be this bad, except that another audience member in my theater said he talked with theater staff, which did try to make adjustments of some kind, utterly unsuccessful.

And I'll admit that I'd much rather see Gustavo as the top cult-creep.

But all in all, this is a wonderful horror movie that deserves a lot wider recognition as such, IMHO.

Borderline

[Kazetnik · 4/10 · 21 April 2008]

Horror movie or docudrama? Both and neither.

The opening scene of this movie deceives, situating it firmly in Hostel territory, with grotesque violence and intense claustrophobic action. In the main action of the film, however, it seems as if the horror movie element of this is compromised by the fact that two of those involved are still alive. If safely dead foreigners can be depicted as the victims of graphic bloodletting, living and dead Americans cannot be. To be blunt, this film cops out. It is selective in what the audience are permitted to see entire and what is merely implied or suggested, presumably with relatives' and survivors' sensibilities in mind. There is nothing wrong with this, if this were packaged as a real life story, but as a horror movie it is a cheat. Instead of becoming more involving or thrilling as the action unwinds, it becomes increasingly distant, chilly and mechanical.

I can't help thinking it would have been far more successful to have taken the basic premise of the story and to have gone down the road of complete fiction, to sustain the energy and darkness of the opening scene, instead of the patchy and undigested amalgam it becomes. That way, it would have been a terrific horror. Instead, it's neither fish nor fowl, and unsatisfactory stuff.

A pretty good film for this genre

[vnums · 6/10 · 6 April 2008]

"Based on true events" is rather ambiguous at best and I think if you go into this film believing it's ALL true it will be quite an experience, however I find that the story too well follows a classic plot to be an entirely true story.

Three guys take a trip to Mexico that goes all wrong when they run into a cult of violent murderers. That's pretty much the gist of things.

The acting is actually rather decent and the story is well told and even believable to some degree and it kept my attention all the way through and proved to be one of the better films I've seen in this genre. I actually had to remind myself half way through that this was supposed to be a gore-filled horror film. There was nothing new in terms of blood, guts, and gore, and there really wasn't a whole lot of it given the length of the movie, but what's there gets the point across well.

Some people have referred to it as "goreporn" also which it really isn't. I'm glad at least some writers feel that gratuitous sex/nudity take away from a story when unnecessary.

Bottom line: If you go in expecting the same garbage this genre pumps out yearly, you'll be quite pleasantly surprised. If you go in expecting a masterpiece in horror theater, you'll likely be disappointed.

Does not chill to the bone. Does not do anything!

[armon2269 · 2/10 · 11 December 2020]

Not a great movie at all in the least bit. Good untilmabout 50 percent through and then takes a turn towards stupid. Really well filmed and great production quality but half assed and stupid movie.

Run Away from the Border!

[thesar-2 · 7/10 · 12 June 2017]

I've had my share of bad experiences in Mexico. Four to be exact. This movie, "Based on a True Story," is a bit extreme, but I can definitely see it happening.

It's all-but Hostel, South of the Borderland. Three American dudes run into a cult of really, really bad hombres and not the kind our foolish leader speaks of.

While I am usually skeptical of "True" stories brought to cinemas, this one, from my own experiences there, seems very, and sadly, plausible. Still, the movie takes some leaps in dramatic effect since some of the characters don't survive and I highly doubt CSI records were kept of their demise – so how do we really know what happened to them?

Though I'm ten years late in seeing this, it felt a tad cliché and predictable at times, even for back then. That said, for horror fans, it's worth checking out. It's extremely gruesome with outrageous bad guys and good guys turned psychotic with justifiable motives. It will please most fans, though if it is real, it's hard to take this as just "entertainment."

***

Final thoughts: As mentioned, I've had my bad experiences in/with Mexico. Incredibly long stories short, here are my four, progressively bad tales southbound:

A> My roommate "borrowed" my expensive camera without permission and took it to Mexico. Their hotel room was broken into and you'll never guess which singular item was stolen…

B> My first trip to Mexico with a group of friends, one of which took her stripper girlfriend with her that no one else liked. She ended up smuggling cocaine with her to the shock and disapproval of ALL of us. Luckily, nothing happened and mercifully, we never saw her again after that.

C> Went again with a new duo of friends. Both of them thought it would be a good idea to hang out with "locals" whom I strongly disapproved of and, yada yada, they almost got us arrested, I had to bail us out and one of them fist-fought my friend who, in turn, wanted to fist-fight me for not defending him against the very people I warned him against.

D> Final trip to Mexico of my life: February 18-21, 2000. After a successful night of partying with my supervisor and her husband, we ventured out to a desert bar on rented quads the next morning. My first time on one and it was defective and I crashed, sliding me 25mph across the sidewalk with the quad in tow. First, I was taken to an ER where the "doctor" who pretended to not speak English wildly misdiagnosed me (said my perfectly fine ribs were broken, but my hand that was clearly broken was OK) and he proceeded to drop me off the examination table, onto the floor and then overcharged me for stuff he could've done without doing. Next, I was hauled off to the police station and almost arrested for drinking and riding, but I hadn't been drinking – it was an accident. So the police decided it best for me to drain my bank account for a bogus "causing an accident" charge – they escorted me to the nearest ATM and required me to withdraw all my cash available. My face was half-charred from the sidewalk scrapping, my hand ballooned out and I was out $500+ for fraudulent hospital charges and unlawful police bribes.

No offense against anyone that lives there peacefully, but F your country. For as long as I live, I will never enter your country again. It's been 17+ years since I last was there and even that's too soon.

Traffic + Texas Chainsaw Massacre = Borderland

[alansmithee04 · 2/10 · 10 November 2007]

I was wondering when someone would try turning that whole Matamoros mess into a goreporn pic. Anyroad, here's a few things I learned about Mexico from watching this film.

~All Mexican Women Are Super Hot - Remember that little desert town in Unearthed? Yeah, well, this must be it's Mexican sister city. Don't even bother with the hookers, just put a few smooth moves on the hot bartender. She'll be just as hot as the prostitutes and probably doesn't have any kids as well!

~Half of Mexico is controlled by insane Satan-worshiping Palo Mayombe cultists. ¡Ay, caramba! The other half, as everyone here in the U.S. knows, is run by drug dealers. Fortunately, this doesn't much interfere with the sex-tourisim trade and our ultra-low wage factories down there.

~Mexican cops are useless. Don't go to them. Go to the nearest occult bookstore and ask the hot chick behind the counter what happened to your vanished friend. She'll be way more help than the cops.

~When you're being gruesomely tortured by the aforementioned bloodthirsty cultists, don't go reciting the Psalms or any part of the Bible, really. You'll just mess up the mojo.

Brutal, gritty awful true story

[OJT · 8/10 · 8 July 2013]

This American/Mexican movie from the border between USA and Mexico is loosely based on a true story, which is hard to accept. But evil exists, and it's awful to get to know about it. And this is a story difficult to see and comprehend.

Three young guys go down to Mexico one summer, where they experience that one of them disappears. One of them is kidnapped by humans believing in human sacrificing to the spirit Nganga. The cult leader is based upon The story of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo! The so-called Godfather of Matamoros. They found more than fifty corpses where brains and spinal cords had been removed. Well, that's the true story, of a case which still isn't closed, as several members of the cult still is on the run.

The film is technically good, and well done in all aspects. The colors are gritty, made with color filters, like many Latin American film has been lately. In this film it's very suitable. Sometimes maybe a bit too much, as it is sometimes difficult to see clearly, outdoors in the sun. Indoors it's better.

The film is made terrifying, as it should be. many actors are doings terrific job. Maybe not so much Brian Presley and Jake MuxWorthy as Rudef Strong. But the Mexicans are doing great, and I always admire Damian Alcazar (amazing in 2004-film Chronicas/Chronicles). The crook Marco Bacuzzi is amazingly terrifying as a violent evil man. One of the scariest I've seen on film ever. The bad guys here are really disgusting all of them. Well played.

I find this a very good film, Though I don't like this kind of violence. I hate watching it, and definitely more do when it is a true story. This is of course it's not everyone's porridge. If you trouble with graphic films, this is no film for you. It's no constellation "this is just film", 'cause it isn't just. It is based on a true happening, found in the insanity of some human's religion. Embrace yourself.

Disturbing true story.

[deatman9 · 7/10 · 19 October 2012]

This movie has kind of flown under the radar for most people and I don't see why. It is a very scary and chilling true story. The acting is good and the atmosphere is creepy as hell. There is some moments that make you want to look away but you just cant.

This movie is a bout a group of friends who travel down to Mexico to get their friend a hooker and party. Once they go their however they find out they are the target of a santanic group who wants to use them as human sacrifices.

Not many people have seen this movie and if you are into horror movies it really is a must see. It will leave you on the edge of your seat and straining to look at the screen.

South Of The Border, Down Mexico Way

[Lechuguilla · 3/10 · 19 August 2012]

Three libidinous college dudes from Texas head to Mexico to party, only to find that their bravado and swagger get the attention of a vicious satanic cult that also deals in drugs. It's a dark, dreary story premise transferred to screen through irritatingly revved-up action and lots of gore. Though the script borrowed its idea from the real-life Matamoros Cult Killings of 1989, the film offers very little narrative realism.

Our three youthful gringos are all jerks. None of them are worth caring about. They make one stupid mistake after another; but that keeps the plot moving. Character stereotypes abound. The script's first ten pages or so could have been condensed into about three. Plot structure is chaotic. And we never get a sense of where in Mexico we are. A few references to "Mexico City" confuse, it being nowhere near the American border. The "border" seems to refer to anywhere along the two thousand mile stretch of land between Tijuana and Matamoros. But who cares about facts when there's so much visual torture to gawk at ...

Cinematography trends dark. That jerky camera gets annoying rather quickly. Background music is highly manipulative. Acting skill is largely irrelevant. What counts here is the ability of a performer, helped along by the makeup and costumes department, to look suitably grungy and/or bloody. As such, these "actors" do a fine job.

Though the film advertises itself as based on a real event, that real event involved only one college guy, not three. And the lack of geographic specificity renders the entire production overly generalized. I was expecting a film that stayed closer to the facts of the 1989 incident, not a horror story that looks and feels more fictional than real.

"The border has no memory."

[Backlash007 · 29 June 2008]

~Spoiler~

Borderland is not at all what I expected from one of the After Dark Horrorfest titles. First off, it's doesn't strike me as a straight-up horror film. Yes, the situation is terrifying, but that doesn't necessarily make it horror. From the hype I had heard, I was expecting Hostel in Mexico. Thankfully the filmmakers went another direction. Borderland is simply a really engaging thriller with some visceral and bloody moments. But horror fans should not be put off by those comments. It's actually a good movie (which is more than I can say for the majority of the Horrorfest movies). It involves three friends who go to Mexico to live it up for a few days before returning home and possibly going their separate ways through life. One friend is kidnapped and tortured by an evil cult who operate near the border. The other two buds are left to their own devices when they get no help from the police or any of the scared townsfolk. The biggest surprise here is the acting. After coming off the disappointed Tooth and Nail (another Horrorfest flick), Rider Strong returns to my good graces with a wonderfully vulnerable performance. He plays the kidnapped friend and does a great job. Equally good are Brian Presley as the voice of reason among the friends and Jake Muxworthy in the role of the group's a$$hole. One actor going very much against type here is Sean Astin. He plays one of the cult's deranged followers. Now, this is a guy I love to love. This is Rudy...freakin' Samwise! I'm impressed that he was willing to try something different, but I just don't want to see that out of my Goonies. One other complaint comes at the finale. I wasn't as satisfied as I should have been at the end. Comparatively speaking, the villains did not get as good as they gave. Though nothing I would buy, I enjoyed the viewing experience and would recommend this to others.

Nasty little Shock-feature

[Coventry · 5/10 · 1 October 2008]

"Borderland" belongs in the category of the nowadays indescribably popular "torture-porn" movies, along with titles such as "Hostel", "Saw", "Live Feed", "Blood Trails", etc… This basically means they are excessively gross but nonsensical and forgettable films without a plot or amiable characters. But for some reason this one left an aftertaste in my mouth that is far more sour than usual. It's not a particularly good film, but it implements a truly unsettling atmosphere as well as an almost unequaled nihilistic narrative style. Perhaps this has to do with the fact "Borderland" is inspired by true events, namely the discovery of a mass grave just across the Mexican border and filled with victims of a satanic cult who had their brains and spine columns removed. The wraparound story of the three American guys may be fictional, but the ritual sacrifices of the cult are supposedly truthful and that is more than enough reason to label this as one of the most disturbing movies of the past couple of years. The opening ten minutes are particularly grim, cold and distant, showing two Mexican cops busting into an abandoned house in search of the cult's fugitive leader. One of the cops is submitted to severe torture – including removal of the eyeballs – whilst the other one is forced to watch. It's definitely an intro that counts and grabs your attention, to say the least. The next few chapters are more typical and clichéd horror stuff, with a trio of hormone-driven guys crossing the Mexican border with only booze, drugs, parties and sexy women on their minds. One of them naturally gets kidnapped by members of the cult and his only remaining purpose is to serve as the next sacrifice to their bizarre God. The two remaining friends, and a randomly picked up Mexican hottie, combine forces with the survivor cop from the intro. The majority of the film is actually very mundane, simplistic and even on the verge of being really boring! There also isn't much suspense, background information or character development… There's nothing extraordinary going on here, except relentless and genuinely shocking brutality. But hey, the lack of creativity is at least widely compensated by the dark ambiance and the grueling scenery. And multiple moments of extremely graphical content, of course! There's one integrally shown sequence, for example, in which at least seven or eight cult members club someone to death using meat cleavers, baseball bats and large butcher's knives. It's definitely not a film intended for the squeamish and/or people with a sensitive stomach. Most curious aspect is perhaps that Sean Astin, who gained name-fame and glory since the Lords of the Rings trilogy, stars in a truly inglorious role of loathsome disciple in service of the Mexican cult. Bizarre career move, if you ask me...

Flawed and Brutal

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 13 December 2009]

In Mexico City, while chasing the leader of a cult, Detective Ulises (Damián Alcázar) is forced to watch his partner being tortured and murdered by the criminals. One year later, the teenage Americans Ed (Brian Presley), Phil (Rider Strong) and Henry (Jake Muxworthy) are in a summer camp in Galveston and they decide to travel to the borderland in Mexico to get laid with Mexican hookers. Ed has a crush on the bartender Valeria (Martha Higareda) and the virgin Phil feels attracted by a young prostitute with a baby and decides to give a teddy bear to the child. However, he is abducted by the followers of Palo Myombe that are preparing a human sacrifice to get the Power of Nganga to become invisible while smuggling drugs.

"Borderland" is another flawed and brutal movie of torture. The story is very violent and graphic, and fans of this genre might like it. However, there are many holes and unreasonable situations in the screenplay like, for example, why Detective Ulises is in disgrace that is never well explained. Why Valeria joins Ulises and Ed when they break into the farm crowded of dangerous and fanatic drug-dealers is totally useless and unreasonable. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Limite do Medo" ("The Limit of the Fear")

Boring horror thriller.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 5 November 2010]

Borderland starts as three college buddies, Ed (Brian Presley), Phil (Rider Strong) & Henry (Jake Muxworthy) decide to head off to Mexico for a wild weekend of drink & women before going their separate ways as they leave school. The friends drive to a small Mexican border town where Ed meets a barmaid named Valeria (Martha Higareda) & Phil goes off with a prostitute. later that night they all meet again & Phil decides to go back to the hotel by himself but gets kidnapped on the street & driven off in a car. Waking up Phil finds himself tied up in a barn on a farm belonging to Mexican drug dealer Santillan (Beto Cuevas) & his cannibalistic cult of killers who worship him as some sort of God. Worried that Phil has gone missing Ed & Henry contact the Mexican police but they seem unwilling to help, together with Valeria & a old cop with a grudge against the cult they must go it alone in an attempt to save their friend...

This Mexican & American co-production was written & directed by Zev Berman & according to the opening titles is 'Based on True Events' although I'd take that with a pinch of salt if I were you, available in an 'Unrated' version that is the one I will be basing my comments on. Just how much of Borderland is actually based on true events is anyone's guess, I personally have never heard of anything like this before & maybe the makers just say a tiny little piece in a newspaper with sketchy details & went from there making most of it up, who know's? Who cares? At almost an hour & fifty minutes long Borderland is easily thirty odd minutes too long, with a low body count & not much of a story Borderland drags badly & I can't really say I remember that much about it even though I only saw it a few hours ago. The character's are all unlikable, despite a few attempts at human drama the script is poor & the attempts to flesh the character's out go nowhere like the speech where Ed says he's not going to college when they get back, the cops warnings in the police station, the rambling speeches that the main bad guy has, the Mexican barmaid who serves no great purpose & just about everyone else barely make an impact. Despite being 'Unrated' the body count is low, just three good guy's & a few baddies right at the end & none of the kills are particularly memorable. Some of the dialogue is difficult to understand as various people speak in thick Mexican accents, I can't say the story grabbed me & as a whole it was fairly predictable as well with the now standard hero kills bad guy's & ends up with pretty girl routine at the climax.

I must admit Borderland annoyed me, as well as being boring & not that gory the whole twitchy camera got on my nerves. While not as bad as some films where you can't see what's going on because of the excessive jerking of the camera Borderland features a camera that never stays still, it's always twitching & moving which just gets irritating. The film looks bland with bleached out colours, Borderland is just a unremarkable & colourless film. I was expecting a bit more gore here, there's a brief shot of a hand being sawn off, two plucked out eyeballs are seen (the eye's being taken out is not shown), there's a bit of blood splatter, a guy is stabbed with a machete in the shoulder, there are a few bullet wounds & a decapitated head but not much else.

Actually filmed in Mexico on what was probably a low budget, the production values are alright but that twitchy moving camera got on my nerves as did the very washed out colour scheme used. The acting was alright, nothing to write home about or anything though.

Borderland is another cheap horror film that thinks it's gorier & cleverer than it is, with little in the way of developed story or character's & an almost complete lack of gore along with the pedestrian pace means Borderland never gets going.

Texas chainsaw massacre

[rivertam26 · 7/10 · 9 November 2007]

Like Hoopers' original masterpiece the Texas chainsaw massacre. Borderland infuses some much needed life into the trur crime horror genre. It's disturbing, gutsy and scary. But not upsetting and depressing like the horrid Wolf creek. It is instead intelligent and involving and serves a warning on venturing out of this country into foreign lands where your not wanted, or wanted by the wrong people. the performances are strong especially Rider Strong and Brian presley and Martha Higareda. Just a warning this film is pretty hardcore and had me tearing in a couple parts. But it was a great way to start off this years horrorfest and one of the best horror films I've seen this year.

Why???

[ragingbull_2005 · 3/10 · 29 July 2012]

This movie is meant only for the mentally disturbed. I went for the movie knowing its story line and expecting no Academy stuff. I knew this was a movie where the omnipresent American hitchhikers encounter a "human-sacrificing cult". I knew there was going to be gore and cheap thrills. What i didn't knew was how boring it would all be. Three friends go to Mexico to do the "usual" things: get high, get laid. but one of them is kidnapped by the aforementioned cult because the head honcho of the cult believes that Satan would be pleased if they sacrifice some one after torturing the poor soul. the pleased Satan would enable their drugs to pass into the United States by making the drugs invisible to the custom officers. I mean, what the f**k where the script writers thinking? this must be the lamest excuse for the gore. As for the gore and blood, the best sequence which is truly hair raising is one in which one of the friends is chased through the length of the hotel in which he is staying by a machete wielding mob. The rest of the scenes are just pathetic. The director tries to give some back story so that we can "connect and identify" with the lame ass characters. but they still come across as clichéd. So kindly watch something else. Anything as long as it is not Borderland. For the lovers of violence, there still is no movie better than Martyrs. This pretentious sh*t is just that. a pretender. nothing more.

they dared to cross the border

[trashgang · 7/10 · 7 April 2009]

I have seen this film in Fango among others and I immediately was involved with it. As I am not only a horrorgeek I also have a lot of books concerning serial killers. So the articles did ring a bell but again in Europe it was the cut version so I bought me the directors uncut. Well I can tell, this movie gets you by the throat. You will have some goosebumps if you know that this really happened. Okay, all names and sites are changed by names. On forums people couldn't believe that this really was a fact, they thought it was a commercial stunt like they did with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Well, I can tell that it all happened with Mark Kilroy and the suspect was Adolfo Constanzo. Anyway, the movie. It starts of with some rough scene's so you are immediately connected with the film. Then we go one year further to know the characters. Luckily they didn't make any romance in this flick. Okay, there is a bit of love but that's aside the storyline. The acting is very well done especially on the gang itself, Marco Bacuzzi gives a great performance, doesn't say a thing but his face says enough. Beto Cuevas, normally a singer gives an arrogant performance. This movie really got it all for me, I was stunned. the director surely crossed the border.

Don't cross the border

[robert_de_brose · 2/10 · 26 April 2008]

This movie clearly has an agenda, which could be summed up like this: Never, never cross the border (either physical or metaphorical). Let's shun everything that's on the other side with a wall or a fence or something else, let's pretend all "gringos" are evil, satanic, or drug dealers. All that is outside one's country's border (and specially US borders) is dangerous, malevolent and people there will hate you, or envy you or try to steal you or something else. The "based on true events" is only a perverse tag that can be pinned on anything to give it some aura of credibility or, in this case, just to help pushing the film's ideology down some naïve throats out there. The perversity of the film lies in the fact that it reduces countries, people and all else into very black and white stereotyped categories: Mexicans into disgusting people, Mexican police into a bunch of corrupt cops, republicans into the right-wing morons, democrats into almost hippie humanists and so forth. Is there anything good about the film? I hardly think so, but may be you think differently.

A cut above

[Craig_McPherson · 8/10 · 23 July 2007]

I have a problem with the new genre of "torture porn" that has muscled its way into the horror movie limelight with such movies as Hostel and Touristas. It's sick, repugnant, and of virtually no redeeming value, and yet, like a moth to a flame, I can't bring myself to not watch it, even though I end up cursing myself for subjugating my mind to its imagery afterward.

Such was the case when the 2007 edition of Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival scheduled a screening of Borderland. I found myself driving downtown muttering to myself how I was going to regret this. And truth be told, I almost did, except that the movie came packaged in a fully fleshed out story (pun intended) that had the added impact of having been based on a true story.

In 1989, Mexican police unearthed 12 bodies in the town of Matamoros. Their brains and spinal cords had been removed. It was later determined that a gang of drug smugglers had been practicing their own form of Santeria, a religious hybrid of Catholicism and African religions, similar to Voodoo. The leader of the gang, Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, was worshiped as a living god by his followers and practiced the ritual sacrifice of wayward individuals in the belief that the gods would make them invisible to the police as they went about their drug smuggling operation.

This is the backdrop that Borderland sets itself against as it tells the tale of a trio of Americans from Texas who head for a short stay in Mexico to indulge in some fast women and cheap booze. Along the way they hook up with a stunning and resourcefully independent Mexican barmaid played by Martha Higareda (soon to be seen alongside Keanu Reeves and Hugh Laurie in The Night Watchmen) and, as fate would have it, cross paths with members of the gang. The movie also delivers some truly twisted casting as Sean Austin of Lord of the Rings renown takes a villainous turn as the lone American member of the Santeria drug gang.

Director Zev Berman, for whom this movie marks only his third stint holding the directorial reigns, does a remarkably good job keeping the pacing tight and focused, blending a nice mix of story, action and (I hate to say it) gore, even though it's this latter part that I dearly wish could be toned down. The version I saw had not yet been rated by the MPAA so if there's any hope, the more unnecessarily gory parts of it will be excised before it gets given its cinematic release. While I'm no advocate of censorship, some of the gorier shots were just plain gratuitous. Berman would do well to re-cut the movie taking a cue from the original Saw (as opposed to the sequels), which illustrated just how gory you could make a movie while showing so little.

Still, Borderland plays out to a satisfying pay off, and never let my interest flag along the way, even if it did have me watching large chunks (pun intended, again) through my fingers, which, I suppose, is a good thing for some folks.

Graphicly violent fact based tale rise above its genre but is not for the squeamish

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 30 July 2008]

Nasty film based on the killings in Matamoros Mexico where the search for a missing student turned up a drug running operation using black magic as a cover and to empower its members.

The plot of the film has three buddies going to Mexico for spring break. One goes missing, kidnapped by the cult and the other two go looking for him and end up in a world of trouble.

Violent nasty and at times down right ugly horror film that is extremely unpleasant. Graphic to the point of unpleasantness this is one to keep away from the kiddies. There is a real tension created in the film that manages to make you feel very uneasy. The performances are all fine, including Sean Astin playing against type as an American member of the cult. Its a sobering wake up call to anyone who goes wandering in foreign lands on spring break.

As films of this sort (Turistas, Hostel, etc) go this one is one of the best. I know it could be considered faint praise for a genre that is for the most part little more than death porn, but there is a real gravitas that other films don't have. I don't think its the "based on true events" (which it really is despite what some people say) because this film is far enough removed that it based on the events and not a dramatization. Its a good nasty little film-if you like that sort of thing.

I have only one real reservation and that the pacing is, for a good portion of the film, while okay, still makes you wish they would get on with things.

Recommended for those who like graphic nastiness in a fact based story. If you can't stand graphic violence look elsewhere.

The climax was disappointing

[baudelaire-18971 · 1/10 · 12 January 2021]

So you go through this ride of gory horror where the major villains really put their victims through the paces and when waiting for them to get the ultimate justice, their minions and background players get the worse of it while the major villains (2 in this movie) basically get dispatched quickly with gunshots to the head. Sean Astin's death was the only satisfactory one in this movie. It's almost like the directors are afraid of their own creations and don't want to disrespect them or something. I would love for a horror director to finally give the audience the satisfaction they deserve by giving these heinous villains the death they actually deserve, something Very very looooooooooooong drawn out and extremely torturous.