Felipe Vergas’ Witchy Feature Debut Gets Swallowed

Creepy crawl space. Rotting witch’s corpse. David Dastmalchian looking for his air fryer. One of those things is not like the others, but Muchas Mas Releasing’s “Rosario” is a supernatural horror flick you’ve mostly seen before. “The Late Night with the Devil” actor appears in a supporting role here for the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Felipe Vergas. Dastmalchian’s slippery presence as the super-weird Joe — a clammy neighbor who maybe shouldn’t let an old woman borrow his kitchen appliance next time — both undercuts and strengthens this strange script from Alan Trezza.

Doomed to amuse audiences through funniness or fear, maybe forever, Dastmalchian can awkwardly hover in a hallway like no other performer. Still, there’s more than his role as a potential red herring in Vergas’ witchy look at heritage and grief to recommend it. Actress Emeraude Toubia stars as the title character, who goes by “Rose” instead of “Rosario.” The film opens with an unsettling memory from her childhood — establishing where she, her late mom (Diana Lein), her still-living dad (José Zúñiga), and her somewhere in-between abuela (Constanza Gutierrez) come from culturally and spiritually.

Draped in rich colors and lush production values, “Rosario” boasts a striking visual language with more to say about the Mexican American experience than many of its characters. We meet little Rose and Grandma Griselda at a party that inexplicably sees the elderly woman smeared in blood and lurking in a back room. Leaping forward in time, her chic Wall Street broker granddaughter is now semi-estranged from most of her relatives. This pale attempt at a complex female lead benefits from Toubia’s precise performance but makes a bad first impression with a sterile spin on the Manhattan girl boss rendered in various shades of gray, black, and white. The visual adjustment seems intended to establish Rose’s emotional distance from her family. Instead, it suggests a noncommittal personality that doesn’t match the rest of the weirdness in this film.

When Rose finds herself trapped inside a filthy New York apartment with her grandmother’s dead body, strong creature effects (rendered through a combination of practical and digital means) collide with a handful of truly sharp line deliveries to make something akin to a lesser “Drag Me to Hell.” Like Alison Lohman’s naïve banker from the 2009 film before hers, Toubia’s equity trader starts out as a well-intentioned woman who isn’t really trying her best to be kind. Begrudgingly answering a phone call from her grandmother’s landlord Marty (Paul Ben-Victor), she goes from watching stock prices rise to studying magic sigils etched into human skin over the course of a snowstorm.

Evoking the grimy regalness of “Evil Dead Rise” and “The Curse of La Llorona,” “Rosario” comingles blood-red gore, eerie green-gold lighting, and intricate earthy patterns in shades of burgundy and terracotta to create a genuinely compelling world near the corpse. Maggots bubble beneath every surface and the stench of ritualistic sacrifice hangs in the air as Rose slowly unravels, researching the ancient practice of Palo Mayombe (a real tradition rooted in forced migration and the slave trade) and theorizing that the dead woman put a curse on her for betraying the Fuentes family. Even Joe — who, for the love of all that is holy, just wants his goddamn air fryer back — can’t help but point out how little Rose has visited.

After finding her own bloody tampon on an altar in her late grandma’s home, Rose is smart enough to try and book it out of there. And yet, “Rosario” can’t find a single compelling reason to thwart that attempt. Throwing inclement weather, attack dogs, and more neighborly weirdness on top of a good core idea, Vergas doesn’t come across as afraid or insecure with his first feature, instead struggling to prove that he has good taste when pairing potentially discordant ideas. Decent jump-scares and an intimate unpacking of the guilt Rose feels having abandoned her family mimics “Hereditary” and last year’s “Exhuma” effectively but loses its crispy clarity somewhere along the hunt for Dastmalchian’s air fryer.

Bursting with effulgent eagerness, Toubia (who, it must be said, looks a lot like Charli XCX?) fights hard and gets in some solid scenes that could’ve been worked out on another director’s remix. “Rosario” is worth seeing for her and is otherwise mired in pretty good problems to have. An imperfect hidden gem worth ticking off for genre completionists, it’s also a suitable pick for Mother’s Day 2025 — one that will remind true horror myrmidons why the best springtime releases so often lurk in mess.

Grade: C+

From Mucho Mas Releasing, “Rosario” is in theaters Friday, May 2.

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