Retro Horror Reviews: ‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’ The Supernatural Fairytale of Childhood Lost

Director Issa López’s Tigers Are Not Afraid made waves within the horror community when it first hit screens in 2017. Mexican culture has long held an inclusive and all-encompassing belief in ghosts. This belief in a supernatural world have shaped the landscape of the region in both its folklore and religious beliefs. Celebrations like Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) show a reverence for the dead. It’s no wonder that these supernatural elements have seeped into the cinema of Mexico.

Academy award winning director, Guillermo Del Toro, mixes Mexican fairytales and ghost stories against the backdrop of the Spanish civil war in both Pan’s Labyrinth and Devil’s Backbone. Both works offer a fantastical narrative and social commentary. Perhaps it is because of this that he has been such a vocal champion for Issa Lopez and her 2017 film Tigers are Not Afraid, a fairytale set against the ghost towns left behind by the real-life horrors of the Mexican drug wars.

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Even before the first image appears on screen we are hit with some sobering statistics. Since 2006 over 160,000 have been killed and 53,000 have disappeared due to the drug war plaguing Mexico. Many of the Mexico City’s children have been orphaned because of the escalating violence. We see this manifested through the introduction of Shine (Juan Ramón López). An orphan living on the street, stealing what he can to survive, in this case a dropped cell phone from a cartel leader, and having to make choices that no child should ever have to make. These children have been abandoned.

Juxtaposed with these scenes come our introduction of Estrella (Paola Lara), sitting in a bright classroom, with a clean uniform, surrounded by other kids her age. We see the vast contrast between childhood lost and those that are blooming. But when gunshots outside the school erupt, we quickly see that nowhere is safe from the violence for the community.

The image of children hiding under their desks while a firefight ensues is an all too familiar fear these days, and to comfort Estrella, her teacher hands her 3 pieces of chalk and tells her they are wishes from a fairy tale. These wishes will become much more prevalent as our story unfolds, serving as more of a Monkey’s Paw, since what you wish for isn’t always what you get.

With the school closed, and upon walking into an empty home, Estrella is confronted with the fact that her mother is missing, most likely taken by the cartel. Days without food and an eerie presence in the house drives Estrella into the camp of some fellow orphans lead by Shine. Clearly there are parallels to Peter Pan here and Estrella serves as a Wendy to these wayward boys. They can’t stay innocent or protected forever as in the story books as the drug dealers are closing in, desperate to retrieve the missing cell phone which has incriminating evidence.

The rag tag group is forced to leave their makeshift home after they are discovered and trek across what feels like a dystopian landscape to find a new home. Unfortunately for them, though they may feel like wildcats roaming the streets, they are still being hunted by a predator whose future is on the line and who is determined to get that phone no matter what the cost.

Visually Tigers are not Afraid is a tour de force. The production design of the dilapidated buildings and dwellings of the misplaced youth, the color pallet and the gritty handheld documentary style filmmaking give the world a real and fantasy feeling at the same time. Images like a burning grand piano in the darkness of an abandoned building, koi pond in the middle of a cracked hallway due to a busted fish tank, or the cave painting like storytelling through the graffiti created could be framed as works of art. 

Much like the films of Del Toro, the ghosts in Tigers are not Afraid, although scary to look at, are not the villains of the story. The worst horrors are perpetrated by the men who create the ghosts through torture and fear.  After making her first wish a dark entity enters her home and reaches out for Estrella.

Seemingly always hidden in the shadows, the spirit whispers cryptic advice and instructions to find the one responsible and demands the vengeful dead exact their revenge. As the tension and danger arise so too does the number of ghastly figures, giving us a haunting representation of all the lives lost to this cartel. Ghostly forms aren’t the only supernatural elements in this tale. 

A trail of blood acts like a narrative weaving itself through each scene, sometimes leading the way, other times acting like a Rorschach pattern when death has or will occur. With miniature Dragons, flying bird bracelets, animated graffiti and my favorite, a stuffed animal that comes to life and helps lead our hero out of the path of a killer, one wonders whether these apparitions are really there, or just a manifestation by the children to cope with the upheaval they have been subjected to. Either way the fantastical elements shine like a light through an otherwise dark tale. 5/5

Tigers Are Not Afraid is a fairytale at its core and like the brother’s Grimm, there isn’t always a happy ending. Blending the harsh reality of the casualties of the drug war with the fantasy of a children’s fable, Issa Lopez delivers a film that shows the wonder and perseverance of children in the darkest of circumstances and the notion that the supernatural aren’t there to be feared if we take the time to listen.

You can check out the trailer for Tigers Are Not Afraid below and the film is currently streaming on Shudder. As always be sure to stay tuned to ScaryNerd for more of all things horror, sci-fi and more.

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