Being Film #6 for Hooptober 2025
We continue a run of beautifully shot films that pack in a load of subtext under a veneer of horror. Although in the case of The Untamed, that horror comes from the action of its primary characters as they wrestle with their sexual appetites and the violence the repression and sublimation of those desires evoke. I mean, you can take out the Lovecraftian tentacled space alien and you’d have the exact same film. That’s right: this is a movie about a Lovecraftian space alien with an insatiable libido that becomes aggressive and hungry, and that NOT where the horror in this film lies. How about that?
THE QUICK SUMMARY: A giant, slimy tentacled alien crashes to Earth and is hidden in a barn. Turns out it will give you the absolute best sex of your life, addicting you to its Lovecraftian caresses, but it soon grows weary of the same old and may decide to take a bite out of you. We don’t know how this was discovered, or what in returns it’s giving the older couple that house it in their barn, but that’s okay: we’re more concerned with how this scenarios affects the lives of a quartet of people living in Mexico: Veronica, the thing’s current lover; FabiĆ”n, the gay nurse who treats her when she’s savagely bitten by the alien; Alejandra, FabiĆ”n’s sister who is in a loveless, battered marriage with Ćngel, who when not being a bigot and homophobe is frantically having an affair with FabiĆ”n. As this group struggles with the tangled knot of love, sex, and violence they each meet the thing in the barn, to various ends…
Writer/director Amat Escalante excels at embedding the fantastical elements of The Untamed in a very grounded reality. There’s something here about the repercussions of both hiding and indulging in our sexual proclivities, and there’s also a lot being said about how we still view and treat LGBTQ+ people, both in modern Mexico but also all over the world.
So it’s necessarily messy and maybe doesn’t quite all add up, but I think Escalante’s intent is in asking the questions and confronting you with behavior and attitudes alien to your own (get it?), and then let the experience marinate in the viewer’s mind. This could have been a run of the mill drama, but by introducing the alien element it couches the questions in a way that linger much longer in my head than they would otherwise.
From a performance perspective, it’s unsurprising but everyone is superb. Simone Bucio has an otherworldly beauty as Veronica, the woman we meet a the very beginning in the throes of passion with the creature. The mythology and backstory is giving in tantalizing glimpses, letting us fill the spaces in ourselves. But as she meets FabiĆ”n and, in turn, Alejandro and Ćngel, she turns in a slowly dissolving performance as her withdrawal from the alien leads her down a path of futility. And as the crazed, closeted Ćngel JesĆŗs Meza runs like a bull in a china shop, unaware of how to be gentle, or understand how to properly deal with both his and others’ feelings. Both ultimately wind up in the same place, but their journeys are quite different.
As far as being scary? No, not even a little. The violence comes from the drama of the moment, and if anything The Untamed is more disturbing commentary than truly horrific in the way typical horehounds might want. But like Demon before it, there’s a lot here to dig into, and when it’s executed this well I’m more than happy to excuse not being frightened.
Cinema Dual 
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