Hasta los huesos
2001 · 12m · México
Directed by René Castillo
Genres: animation, comedy, fantasy
Tones: darkly comic, surreal, whimsical
A man arrives in the world of the dead, where he is received by a worm, smiling calacas and La Catrina herself; after a while of fun and flirtation, he discovers that being dead is not so bad after all.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Death-as-party-destination is exactly the kind of premise that makes committees nervous, but Castillo's refusal to make the afterlife portentous or scary feels almost dangerous in its lightness—a subversion of every solemn memento mori we've been trained to expect.
A formally assured entry into the Mexican tradition of Día de Muertos cinema, where visual wit and tonal control matter more than plot; the smiling calacas and La Catrina's presence anchor this in a lineage while the 12-minute structure demonstrates real curatorial restraint.
The real decision here is the tonal one—treating death's acceptance as genuinely *fun* rather than either tragic or grotesque—and that single choice, held steady across the runtime, transforms what could've been a greeting-card premise into something that actually lands.