El Chiflido Del Bosque
2023 · 3m
Directed by Demian Guzman
Genres: coming-of-age, fantasy, horror
Tones: dark, melancholic, mythic
Two young twin sister share a strong bond together, but one of them gets lost in the call of the Chaneque, an ancient creature of the forest. Score composed by Nga Weng Chio
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A Mesoamerican folklore nightmare that actually commits to its mythology instead of winking at the camera—the Chaneque as genuine loss rather than jump-scare prop is refreshing, even if the execution plays it safer than the premise deserves.
Guzman channels a deliberate lineage here: the folkloric horror of Guillermo del Toro's sensibility meets the formal restraint of Latin American magical realism cinema, and the compositional choices—how the forest itself becomes protagonist—feel earned and architecturally sound.
The decision to let the score (Nga Weng Chio's work) carry the separation between the twins rather than cutting frantically between them is what sells the sister-bond dissolution; three minutes with that much emotional weight compressed depends entirely on that one call.