SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers about “Rosario,” now playing in theaters.
“Rosario,” now in theaters from Mucho Mas Releasing, has several hallmarks of a traditional dark magic movie: There are ghostly figures, gross body horror and creepy hands emerging from the dark. However, writer Alan Trezza had something deeper in mind when writing this story.
Emeraude Toubia stars as the title character, a businesswoman who feels inconvenienced when she has to tend to the body of her just-passed grandmother at her apartment while waiting for an ambulance. The paramedics are running late due to a huge storm in New York City — Trezza’s nod to the early days of the pandemic, when family members’ bodies were trapped inside for long stretches because healthcare workers were so tied up. Once inside the apartment, Rosario has to deal with a creepy neighbor (David Dastmalchian) and the realization that her grandmother seemed to be conjuring some heavy magic, which could have shaped her journey in growing up to be a success.
While Rosario’s world is the anonymous and monied grey skyscrapers of the city, her grandmother’s home is filled with symbols of her Mexican culture — even the dark corners with evidence of witchcraft. Trezza says he wants to intentionally show discourse around immigration and assimilation. Given that he is the child of immigrants and his wife is Mexican American, it evokes his own upbringing.
“For someone to make it in America, to get that American dream, it costs sometimes more than just sacrificing one’s time,” he says. “Sometimes it’s the sacrificing of one’s own identity. I wanted to explore what someone needs to sacrifice from another country in order to get the American dream: Sometimes their familial roots, sometimes their culture and ethnicity. So many times people feel the need to change their names, change their appearance, change the way they speak just to hit the next rung on that ladder to success.”
In researching the dark magic that surges through her family, Trezza wanted to avoid frequently discussed arts like Santería and Voodoo. Instead, he focused on the religion of Palo Mayombe.
“People use it for good and will also use it for bad,” he says. “Some pray for health and well-being, but there are also people who use it for nefarious means. In my research, it’s been co-opted a lot by the Mexican drug cartels. They take it to the extreme and practice human sacrifices for power, for wealth, for protection from the DEA. There are several stories of the DEA busting into these warehouses owned by cartels where they would find massive amounts of drug money, but also these iron cauldrons filled with human remains. There have been many cases of American students who are vacationing in Mexico who are kidnapped and were later found at the hands of drug cartels, who are suspected to have used them for human sacrificing to the gods of of Palo Mayombe.”
As Rosario learns more and more about her family, she is also faced with scares that, were it the average haunted house movie, would have tracked as typical bump-in-the-night spooks. Yet she realizes as the film goes on that the monstrous moments she experiences are indicative of the real-life horrors her family faced crossing the border, in the dangerous and unsure moments that prove scarier than any ghosts. Trezza says it is essential that these scares not be empty but rather tie back to the central theme, which gives them true terror.
“Being a lifelong fan of horror films, the most effective scares have meaning to them,” he says. “They have some sort of theme, some sort of symbolism. Since this was a film about dealing with the immigration experience, I said, ‘What better way than to tie in the dangers and the horrors and real-life death that these migrants experience every single day trying to make their way to a better future for themselves to use as the horrors in this story.”
The cultural-infused storytelling has opened up Trezza’s imagination, and he says he has already written another script about “someone who uses magic to heal people.”
“It’s exploring the good side of magic — white magic — and black magic,” Trezza says. “This one deals with white magic again, also themes of our character escaping her past and using her special skills in order to get away from some very nefarious individuals who use this brand of magic but for harm.”
Ultimately, Trezza is happy to write material that touches on his upbringing in a way that can satisfy audiences that relate, along with people just learning about the culture.
“The Mexican culture, Latino culture, it’s filled with incredible stories, incredible themes and incredible people,” he says.
Watch the exclusive new international trailer for “Rosario” below.
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