La trajinera del terror (2006 Video) User Reviews (3)

Disappointing and barely worthwhile horror/thriller

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 3/10 · 13 October 2014]

Taking a boat-ride with their friends, a small group of friends find themselves trapped in a strange land where several of their friends have become possessed killers and must rely on a fallen saint to save them.

Overall, there's not a whole lot here that really works all that well for this one. The thing about this is the fact that there's just absolutely nothing of any interest happening here because the scattershot story tends to throw everything it possibly can into the story to make some kind of sense about what the intentions are in here. The story about the haunted boat and the trip into the rather confusing land would've made for a rather intriguing premise here over whether they inadvertently traveled on the wrong boat or other such luck, yet then comes the decision to make it about the discovery of the Quija board leading to the possession of the friends and how they bring the rest of the group into the strange land to kill them off. This of course is further confusing by the mysterious man-in-black shown to be traveling and stalking the group from the very start which is further proof of how utterly confusing this is. The discovery of the saint furthers nothing and makes even less sense as to why he would be allowed to inhabit that world if he can save the group from their misfortunes but it's totally worthless since all it amounts to is him looking at the camera funny and suddenly becoming filled with the wounds of stigmata, all the while everyone else just stands around and looks at him while they do nothing so this just eats up endless minutes of time repeating the same type of scenes over and over again and never getting anything really accomplished. Add to all this storyline confusion utterly lame stalking scenes that really should've been avoided due to their inherent inability to hide the stalker all that well, atrocious special effects that are none too convincing and a lame resolution that really makes the whole movie pointless and it tends to really have a lot more wrong than it really should. The fact that this one does have some good in the form of that travel into the haunted section of the forest and the confrontations in the church at the finale were actually quite enjoyable here and provided the basic framework for something interesting to happen here, yet the multitude of excessive flaws really hammered that out.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language and heavy religious themes.

I have several Spanish words I could use, none allowed here

[Bou · 3/10 · 8 August 2013]

Wow. I have recently begun watching a number of Mexican films, and I vacillate between finding it a shame and being relieved that the current horror genre there seems to be as weak as it is in my own good ol' United States. This is one of of the worst films I've ever seen. I didn't give it a 1, because I reserve that for films in which a living being is actually killed or injured. It escaped a 2 rating only because it shows and applauds Xochimilco (I'm all for Xochilmilco being preserved and treasured), because it shows reasonably convincing stigmata, and because it features several dogs who do *not* die (Percy the Rottweiler even gets an end credit).

This is not a long film, but it feels interminable. A group of seven young friends decide to celebrate a birthday by taking a trajinera, a long, colorful, poled boat outfitted with a table and benches, through the waterways of Xochilmilco.

Nothing happens for roughly the first third of the film. The friends flirt, talk, and drink beer. There are many silences and shots of the boatman (made even more inexplicable because several of them are of his feet). The only break from this are shots of a man with really bad teeth who looks like a cross between the bad guy in a spaghetti western and the thing in _Jeepers Creepers_. He is inexplicably following the trajinera. Oh, and there's a scene when two of the characters sing while one plays guitar (the guitar seen in the opening minute was a sure sign of viewer pain to come; I might have run away). The singing and playing were clearly recorded in the studio, but the scene is shot as if we are hearing just what we are seeing. Oh, ugh.

Then the birthday boy finds a Ouija board under the table. Most of the friends want none of it, and there's about three minutes of yelling at him about it. There follow two minutes of what is supposed to be a scary Ouija sequence, but because we are deprived of reading what is spelled out, the audience soon tires of this too.

Nearly half an hour in, the boatman mysteriously and abruptly jumps off the boat and runs into the jungle. All of the passengers scream and cry in wild terror and despair, despite the fact that the boat pole is clearly left on the deck. This bizarre fact sets up what happens--or doesn't---for the rest of the film. This vagueness is not helped by the injudicious use of scene repetition, slow motion, and voice-over. The youngsters get off the boat at some point, and we don't know when or why. People split off from the group without explanation. They get killed when the menace is clearly in view and could have been stopped or evaded---repeatedly. I have never seen a film with a lamer group of protagonists. Their impotent nature rather reminds me of Edward Gory characters.

All in all, the film has no discernible motive or plot. The opening credits hint that this is about La Llorona, but I sure didn't see any sign of that in what followed. I think, given the dolls in the opening, that the filmmakers may have wanted to make a film on the genuinely creepy Isla de las Muñecas and couldn't get permission to. What and who the group encounters after the trajinera is never made clear. The implication is that two characters have become possessed by the Ouija board and their stubborn refusal to leave it alone, but the creepy man in black follows them all from the very first scene, when they're parking their cars. He follows them throughout, though most of the time he just looks constipated. A man they encounter at a shrine may or may not be St. Francis. I can't even figure out whether the Rottie was supposed to be good or a familiar of some evil being.

Needless to say, there was no budget. The sound is poorly recorded (not that it matters when the dialogue doesn't help), and the ending music runs out before the credits do, so they just start it over.

I suspect that a couple of the actors might have some talent, but the script and direction are so terrible that it's impossible to tell. I end this review as I began it---wow.

Odd Mexican Shot on Video Flick

[MonsterVision99 · 6/10 · 2 November 2019]

Low budget mexican schlock piece with some fun moments and interesting concepts. It does feature some decent production values for a movie of this kind and sometimes it even comes close to looking like a slightly bigger production.

It has some enjoyable campy moments that deliver the cheap goodness I find entertaining but it sort of drags for some of its lenght. Worth of a watch if you are into Z grade horror from México.