TEKENCHU: THE RITE OF THE NAHUALES

A Mexican folk horror about the serial murders of children in various villages, which propels a descent into ancestral legends, Indigenous rituals, primal violence and supernatural entities. Expanding from a previous short, TEKENCHU: THE RITE OF THE NAHUALES is Carlos Matienzo Serment’s first feature film.

Shot in the Mexican woods of San Luis Potosí, TEKENCHU: THE RITE OF THE NAHUALES plunges us into the twin realms of the human and the sacred. A federal agent is investigating a complex case: a series of chilling infanticides in which the victims’ teeth have been extracted; meanwhile, in a nearby village, two healers find a wounded man in the woods and offer him refuge. These two plot lines will eventually converge in a surprising fashion thanks to Tekenchu, a mythological creature – half man, half beast – that filmmaker Carlos Matienzo Serment first explored in a 2020 short.

With its mixture of folk horror and crime fiction, TEKENCHU: THE RITE OF THE NAHUALES is an atmospheric and suspenseful slow-burner that arrives at an unexpected and cathartic final crescendo. Universal themes such as evil, guilt and retribution are explored in relation to ancestral beliefs and ritualistic practices. “In the face of a lack of protection from the institutions, we create divine figures that can provide security for our peoples,” says Matienzo Serment.

– Cristina Álvarez López

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