Lupe
2021 · 10m · USA
Directed by J. Manzo
Genres: drama, horror, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
An immigrant mother hides her sick daughter in an abandoned church and turns to a priest for help — but confronting the dark presence there tests both their faith.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A priest-and-immigrant mother horror setup that could've been heavy-handed social allegory, but Manzo keeps the supernatural threat genuinely ambiguous—is it the church's darkness, or just desperation?—which actually makes the faith stuff land harder than expected.
Manzo draws from a lineage of Catholic-guilt horror and immigrant-subject melodrama, but the restraint here—how the camera holds in that abandoned space rather than exploiting it—suggests a filmmaker aware of both the genre's traditions and its worst impulses.
The entire film hinges on the priest's moment of hesitation before he acts, a single beat of silence where you watch conviction crack, and that micro-choice—one actor's pause—converts what could've been a sermon into genuine moral stakes.
Festivals
- HorrorFest International Film Festival 2022, Best Made-In-Utah Film
- Spooktacular Film Fest for Horror & Sci-Fi, Official Selection