Light It Up

 

I'm a sucker for a good hat. When you open a film with an outfit like this, complete with sequins that don't quite come across in this still, you've got me:

Quick Plot: Incredibly stylish, woefully sad Maria Jose is considering jumping off a ledge in her small rural town when a mysterious, muddied child appears. Maria pauses her end of life plans to take the girl to the nearest police station but gets pulled over instead. When the cops get physical with her new surrogate mother, the child summons some telekinesis to make one policeman kill the other before bursting into flames.

As babysitting gigs go, it's not the worst job.

See, Maria Jose has had a rough life. Thirteen years earlier, her son Lolo, a dwarf hated by his classmates, died by suicide after severe bullying by the mayor's son. Maria Jose's husband David has since left to start a new family with the much younger (but very sweet) Ari. Teenagers dub her as a witch, and their parents are no better. Even the town's head priest treats her as if she's infected.

The arrival of Lucia, as Maria Jose soon dubs her, changes her mood significantly. Lucia is a dwarf and fits perfectly into Lolo's clothes. She also brings news that she's going to destroy the town and its awful inhabitants. Maria Jose is fully down.

As the locals are struck by unexplained illness and physically impossible suicides, all eyes fall on the outsiders. In doing so, the town's own ugly history (long-term and recent) comes to roost. Chaos ensues, and honestly, I don't know that I can actually explain it.

That's not a spoiler warning. I mean at the 3/4 mark, Everyone Will Burn seems to spin out of control in terms of landing any kind of narrative. Shocking things happen only to be immediately undone. Characters are killed...and then they're not. The credits roll and a coda pops up to nearly take us into a completely different movie.

It's frustrating because despite a good twenty minutes spent watching with my head in full confused head tilt, I still loved this movie. Director/co-writer David Hebrero starts things with a bang and keeps the energy up in ways that are stylish, spooky, funny, and fun. At its core, Everyone Will Burn takes a basic apocalypse and lets us see it from the point of view of one small town dripping in hypocritical Catholicism that might indeed deserve its satanic end. The cast is sharp, the score is grand, and there are acts of violence executed in ways I've never quite seen. I wish I understood the actual story more comfortably, but I can forgive a lot when I'm this entertained.

High Points

Everyone Will Burn probably works despite itself due to the incredibly dynamic performance of Macarena Gómez. With soap opera experience, it's not surprising that she's such a master of her own face. Maria Jose is an interesting character on the page, but in Gómez's hands, she's positively riveting

 

Low Points

I'm kind of smart. I paid close attention. And I still have no idea what actually happened in the last twenty minutes of this film

Lessons Learned

Ginger on a fried tomato is magic

When covering up a murder, never forget the crepes

No matter how classy and high-end your life becomes, you never really grow out of wanting to have sex on the chest freezer in your basement

Rent/Bury/Buy

Everyone Will Burn is obviously far from a perfect film, but I had a fantastic time with it. Find it on Kanopy with the full understanding that it doesn't actually come together...and that's okay.