Netflix Brings Us A Whole New Genre of Spanish Horror in ‘Honeymoon With My Mother’

In more than one way, Spanish horror films have had a transformational effect on the genre over the last three decades, launching the careers of directors like Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Amenábar, Nacho Vigalondo, and J.A. Bayona, among many others. But it has also been a source of ingenious new proposals on what horror is and how it looks, and it’s clearly marked by the legacy of the Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, and the culture of Fascist Catholicism imposed over the country, lingering to this very day.

Netflix has dipped its hand in Spanish Horror before, scoring with The Platform and its unique take on social horror. Their newest iteration is, if we go by the trailer, a horror film with an aesthetic that I have never seen before save for Ari Aster’s sunlit Midsommar or Luca Guadagnino’s tribute to Giallo in Suspiria. Even the trailer tricks your brain, with its bright colors, rapid-edit cuts and broad-strokes comedy. But don’t get confused, Honeymoon With My Mother (“Amor de Madre” in Spanish, “A Mother’s Love”) is a horror film, through and through. It’s basically a new way of conceiving psychological horror with elements of the psycho-biddy but taken to its most horrific conclusion: Freudian Horror, or Oedipal Horror.

Starring Carmen Machi (a popular comedic actress) as the mother and Quim Gutiérrez as the son, this is clearly the story of a broken young man, the only child of a mother who has crossed every single line of a normal mother-son relationship. In the Catholic-Latin culture, that’s saying a lot.

The plot shows Quim’s character being jilted at the altar in a spectacular fashion. His mother (probably the reason why the bride was so eager to dump her son for another man), trying to cheer him up, decides to accompany him into what would’ve been his honeymoon because the travel package has already been purchased. If that weren’t bad enough, she starts pretending they are a married couple to obtain all the free perks given to honeymooners …

A series of surreal scenes give us an idea of what we are to expect as the son slowly loses his mind and dignity in a tsunami of cringe. The trailer points to the son finally submitting himself to this very, very, very inappropriate set of circumstances. I gotta say, this is one hell of an original proposal. I’m not sure if I can stomach watching this, and I am the kind of person that watches that scene in Hereditary out of sheer fascination with horror. But this? Whoa. Too much man.

Honeymoon With My Mother streams on Netflix on April 29.

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Header Image Source: Netflix