Diablo Rojo PTY (2019) Poster

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5/10
Panama!
BandSAboutMovies24 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This is a great set-up from the PR for this film: "A "Diablo Rojo" bus driver, his helper, a priest, and two policemen fall victim to a mysterious spell and end up lost somewhere in the Chiriqui jungle, where they will have to survive the creatures that inhabit the roads, with the old bus as their only refuge."

Diablo Rojo, or Red Devil, is the name given to the colorful buses that race through the streets of Panama, taking tourists all over and nearly ending their lives with insane driving.

The first movie for director Sol Moreno and the first horror film to come out of Panama, Diablo Rojo PTY makes use of the folklore of its country. I know nothing of Panama's legends, so this was an interesting trip into the complete unknown.

I now have learned that by the time they are 33, Panamanian witches must commit an act of atrocity worse than eating a baby. I also now know of La Tulivieja, a short woman whose breasts are so full that she must drag them around, followed by ants that drink the milk.

This is a film that has one foot in the 1950's and another in today, with practical gore and neon hues. It's unlike anything else that will come out this year, which is an achievement that I mean as a compliment.
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3/10
Some kind of movie with witches
MandarinaMelies6 April 2021
We could say that 'Diablo Rojo PTY' is a baroque film, an audiovisual experiment that combines witches, witches who turn into demons, indigenous cannibals, Catholicism, teleportation, and the torment of the ghosts of the past.

In essence, it is a story of men harassed by witches, but the film strays almost at all times from the genre codes associated with that kind of plot. The music seems taken from an episode of Bugs Bunny, or one of the first Disney feature films. The influence of the Latin American soap opera is also noticeable, not only in the sentimental subplot, but also in the acting style, in the dialogues (although seasoned with a very realistic vulgar local language) and in the repetition of ideas and situations. The characterization of the witches is a hybrid between the 'Xena: Warrior Princess' series and a 'Kiss' or 'Mötley Crüe' show.

On the other hand, the erratic plot and sometimes slow action could be identified with some Jess Franco movies. Perhaps, a blend between Jess Franco and the telenovela 'María, la del barrio' is a quite enlightening way of defining this difficult-to-define film.
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7/10
Pretty Cool
minayadesign30 January 2021
The movie reminded me of old school horror spooky fun of the early sixties. Nice vivid lighting in evening sets and the costumes were pretty cool too. The soundtrack was in Giorgio Moroder style. I would watch it again.
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10/10
Review
catpantry17 May 2020
Pretty good stuuuuuf here. In the old ways you'd turn a corner and see half of a truck being kicked down the street by a man. As the sun sets on a wednesday a giraffe rears up its hoofs and comes down hard on a couple hot wheels cars (put there by a careless fool). At that same moment a kiddy poll goes flying through the air like something is being generated by a strong mind. A man too slowly raises his recorcder (and at the same time raises his straight leg to 90°). Reaches out and grabs his own ankle like he's trying to survive a witch storm full of people with basic physical movement and smiling faces.
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