When in the moment of covering a film festival with multiple stages and screens, there are conflicts that mean you often don’t get the chance to see everything you’d like to. Today, I’m talking about two wildly different movies that fell victim to this – Where is Juan Moctezuma? (dir. Alaric S. Rocha), and Human (dir. Matt Stuertz). Both go some way to express how varied the material at FrightFest can be, and how Guillermo Del Toro’s “Woodstock of Gore” pun doesn’t paint the fullest of pictures.
I remarked in my pieces about this year’s FrightFest that the weirdest movie to play during the long weekend was Toshiaki Toyoda’s Transcending Dimensions, and it probably is – but it does have competition. Another surreal experience was Alaric S. Rocha’s “documentary” about a mysterious Mexican filmmaker, Where is Juan Moctezuma?. I imagine you’re questioning my rationale on this, and normally (which isn’t a word often synonymous with FrightFest), that would be fair, but the rub here is that there’s no such person as Juan F. Moctezuma II. There’s a Juan López Moctezuma, who directed the utterly bonkers Alucarda (1977), but the subject of Rocha’s “documentary” is fictional, and if it wasn’t for the thoroughly modern looking footage that’s been “aged” through retro filters and digitised degradation, I would have probably bought this as real – for a little while at least.
Long before Moctezuma’s pursuit of a woman’s love leads to the theft of film footage and the third act’s Lucha Libre battles, the level of fabrication becomes apparent. Besides Arturo Ripstein and Brian Yuzna, the majority of notable talking heads are clearly actors, and in a telling nod to the theme of blurring lines, one of the other real names is former WWE wrestler, Paul London. His inclusion introduces the concept of “Kayfabe”, which is the industry term that alludes to the melding of reality and fiction that this project (I wouldn’t call it a “mockumentary” per se), uses to discuss Mexican cinema – from the illicit background of exploitation, to the obsession of both the documentary’s director, and the fictional subject himself.
Very few things will take me out of an experience more than the use of the director as an on-screen personality, delivering his script to camera as if he was another talking head, and the televisual expression and style didn’t win me over during my immediate experience of this FrightFest “documentary”. Yet this is but one avenue to appreciate Rocha’s production, as the other is to drink in the levels that he went to in the creation of his ruse. Aside from the rich life story, all of the movies “directed” by Moctezuma (according to IMDB), are short films made by Rocha that date back to 2014, and for which he has a co-director credit. That Rocha went to these lengths in his myth creation is impressive, and how much you believe will be a contributing factor in how much you enjoy Where is Juan Moctezuma?. While you have to appreciate the genesis and script writing, I have to question why it was made as a documentary as tonally, the material may have been better suited to something with more melodramatic and soap-operatic tendencies.
Let’s jump on over to Human, a movie that I would’ve watched if I’d only known how event ticketing worked, which is also my one criticism of Frightfest – it’s hard to comprehend as a first timer. Maybe that isn’t the right word because the army of brilliant volunteers and organisers don’t deserve that shade, especially as it’s more a shortcoming of just how many moving parts an event like this has, and taking place in Leicester Square, it’s a lot.
If I were to use one word to describe Human, it would be gross, and fully deserving of the promotional references to Peter Jackson’s Braindead (Dead Alive), and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. How it starts though, couldn’t be further away from the sprays of bodily fluids that we’re subjected to in the third act’s bathroom scene. Dani (Jackie Kelly), is laid in bed on her own, only this isn’t her room, but a film set where the studio boss, Jacky Verde (Brock Russell), has let her stay in lieu of a hotel room. For the first half an hour or so, Matt Stuertz’s movie starts in a very subdued manner as we witness Dani’s social interactions on her phone with a friend and a former flame, as told in the language of a screen-life movie. There are also a few bits around the (real), game of “Rocks are Cool”, which I thought was made for the movie, but when the credits direct the viewer to “Wishlist this game”, it becomes apparent that this is one of the grossest (visually, not politically), pieces of product placement media ever made. Granted it’s a type that gives a grander platform to something very small and independent, which laudable, and preferable to having my belief torn asunder by the cast use Bing as a search engine, or by slavishly adorning Apple, Coca-Cola or Pepsi logos in every scene.
As she lays in bed flirting with her old flame while simultaneously texting her friend, there’s a banging on the industrial doors of the studio. Upon investigating the noise, things take a turn for the worse, and Dani must wander the deserted studio armed with a sawn-off shotgun as she tries to fight off a mysterious invader. That may not sound like an opportunity for grossness, but whenever the gun (called Little Boo by its misogynistic owner), is fired and hits something, the impact is accompanied by an explosion of viscera. The over-the-top is the usage of bodily fluids is so extreme, the small team who came over with Human stated that the lead actor was sprayed with fake blood and fake shit for two days straight during filming – a testament to Jackie Kelly’s dedication to her craft. This graphic approach to violence is the sink or swim moment for many people as it will either be too much and repellent, or it will go all the way around to splatstick – that little special place that both Braindead and Evil Dead call home. It’s a point of balance that many directors fail to find, but it’s one of the reasons why this project with a tiny crew impressed me.
Two of the main criticisms of the movie at FrightFest were that Dani is unlikable, and that there’s no rationale behind the supernatural events that emotionally torture her. On a pure moment-to-moment basis, this would be correct, and whether people like a character or not is hard to debate – unlikability being a bridge too far for some. However, David Christopher Pitt and Matt Stuertz are saying something worthwhile with Human‘s subtextual identity, and the name is key to that as whatever the entity pulling the strings is, it’s using the emotional spectrum of human experience as a weapon against Dani. The movie reflects how we treat one another, calling out certain normal social behavioural ticks and showing how they can also be anti-social and perverse. It projects all of that baggage onto a horror narrative, albeit one with enough filth and spray to make people feel quite queasy.
Human will divide opinion. Some will hate how gross it gets, how much of a stylistic overload it is, or for its perceived vacuity (which I think is unfair). Then there are the gore-hounds and sickos who are happy to be along for the ride, and who call Frightfest a home away from home. Regardless of what you think, Human is brilliantly DIY – the entire project having a crew of less than a dozen people from beginning to end. That’s pretty punk and inspirational in my book, and it made me want to get out there and make more movies.
WHERE IS JUAN MOCTEZUMA? & HUMAN HAD THEIR WORLD PREMIERES AT FRIGHTFEST 2025
