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While
driving on road 31 late one night, Agata winds
up in a car accident and falls into a coma. Her twin
sister, Catalina, is naturally concerned about her
and feels that there's something more to the accident
than what reaches the eye, so she decides to
investigate further into the matter. Together with
a friend and her boyfriend, she tries to uncover the
mystery of road 31, but what they're about to find
out is something far more horrifying than they could
have ever imagined...
Kilometro 31 is the extremely original horror flick
based on the legend of La Llorona (the wailer)...
Nah, I'm just screwing with you, Km 31 is a complete
The Grudge rip-off where they've turned La Llorona
into a ghost girl reminiscent of the ones that we've
seen in Asian horror flicks over the past couple of
years. Oh, Hideo, had you only known what you started
when you made the first Ringu movie...
Mexico hasn't been active in the horror movie industry
for several years now and it's really a shame that
their return to the genre is something as uninventive
and generic as a J-horror rip-off. The main plot
borrows heavily from "The Ring" where a young woman,
Catalina, her boyfriend, and a friend of hers (who
is destined to bite the dust sooner or later) tries
to uncover the mystery of road 31. It doesn't take
long before the friends start having ghostly visions
and strange hallucinations - could this have something
to do with road 31 perhaps?
The first forty minutes or so are really just too
generic to be true. It's like they didn't even try
to come up with something new. However, when the
movie finally gets going, it's, well, it's still
just as generic, but it's actually quite entertaining.
The special effects are absolutely stunning and
La Llorona really is the most beautiful ghost that
I've ever seen. The pathetic scares that seem to
have been thrown in at random places by the
producers fail to actually scare, but manage to
recapture your interest in the story for some reason.
Pacing-wise, the movie isn't bad. As I mentioned
before, the movie is surprisingly entertaining and
it never really slows down. They've taken some of
the best ingredients from J-horror and just removed
atmosphere and scares - so we still have a relatively
intriguing story to follow. Unfortunately the
characters are all pretty flat. I can't say that
I cared for any of them even though it was obvious
that the script writers had worked hard on getting
us to root for them (perhaps even too hard?).
Ultimately, Mexico's return to horror is a decent
effort. It's not spectacular but I can see why they
decided to play it safe. Perhaps the success of this
generic ghost movie will build a path for future
Mexican horror movies, who knows? Either way, it's
entertaining enough for you to give it a chance...
unless you're horribly sick of long-haired ghost
girls trying to scare the shit out of the heroine
every chance they get.
Nope.
Generic soundtrack and I'm pretty sure that's almost
the exact same melody that was used in "The Ring"
that we hear in here. Strangely enough, no piano
music in this one.
There's only one word to describe Kilometro 31;
UNORIGINAL! These guys hardly even tried, they took
every J-horror movie out there, mixed them together
with their American remakes and put a Mexican twist
on the concept by letting the long-haired ghost
girl be La Llorona. Clever? Not really, but it's a
decent movie and good enough to check out if you're
in the mood for a ghost story.
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