Uncooked pasta, lengths of celery, dry twigs: what do all these things have in common? When enough force is applied, each one mimics one of the most horrible sounds on Earth: a broken bone. One of the most painful things you can experience, broken bones have been a cringe-worthy source of discomfort for years now, whether it’s from skateboarding accidents on YouTube or some of the most brutal horror films. With XYZ Films and Shudder’s upcoming release, Huesera: The Bone Woman, that horrible cracking noise will soon flood your local theater and late-night streaming sessions.

Huesera: The Bone Woman is Michelle Garza Cervera’s feature film debut, with a North American release arriving in just a few months. Combining motherhood, Mexican folktales, and that horrible squelching noise, Huesera: The Bone Woman looks to be a mortifying examination of societal pressures and drawn-out body horror.

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This is everything we know about Huesera: The Bone Woman.

Huesera: The Bone Woman: The Plot

The official plot summary for Huesera: The Bone Woman is as follows.

Family worries, societal pressure, and the constant grinding and cracking of bones punctuate Huesera: The Bone Woman’s trailer. There’s a distinct audio and visual motif that’ll likely be shared in the full film, with chickens being snapped in half, knuckles being cracked, and crib bars splintering apart. While we won’t see likely won’t see buckets of blood and gore, there’s more than enough sickening sound design going on to unsettle even the most hardened of stomachs.

“Valeria, a young woman expecting her first child, becomes cursed by a sinister entity. Plunged into a terrifying and dangerous world, a group of witches emerge as her only hope for safety and salvation, but not without grave risk.”

Based on the film’s teaser, it looks as though religion and witchcraft will play a significant role in the film’s story. Valeria’s (Natalia Solián) pregnancy is given a Christian blessing, a golden statue of what looks to be the Virgin Mary looms over an isolated woodland area, and Valeria’s dependence on witchcraft to cure her curse may involve a conflict of faith to potentially save her life. The teaser is careful to omit what exactly gave her the curse and what exactly the curse is.

The trailer alludes to the idea that motherhood isn’t exactly in Valeria’s interest, down to the first very first time we see her. She walks by a playground and dully observes the children there, the faintest of smiles quickly wiped away as she inches closer to them. A later shot shows her interaction with another child, whose wide-eyed stare and strange facial expression leave her and the audience mildly perturbed. As her pregnancy progresses, bizarre phenomena begin to occur, and the habit of cracking her knuckles leads to bending a finger backward at a stomach-churning 90-degree angle. It’s a pretty gross effect, with likely more to come in the rest of the film.

A review from The Hollywood Reporter seems to corroborate this idea. Without spoilers, it’s possible that anxieties surrounding Valeria’s eventual motherhood are a source of the increasingly painful and frightening situations that she faces. This goes hand-in-hand with religious, societal, and familial expectations indirectly contributing to it.

Huesera: The Bone Woman: The Cast & Crew

     XYZ Films/Shudder

Leading Huesera: The Bone Woman is Natalia Solián, an actress who some may recognize from the Netflix original series Somos. She will be playing the role of Valeria and based on the bits and pieces of her performance shown off in the film’s trailer, she’ll hopefully be able to capture the complexities of a character like Valeria.

In the supporting cast, Alfonso Dosal will play Raúl, Valeria’s husband. Dosal made a splash in a variety of Mexican television shows, from A que no me dejas to Para volver a amar, and fans of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico will recognize him as Benjamin Arellano Félix. Enoc Leaño will also make an appearance as Luis, having previously been involved with Netflix’s award-winning film Roma. Other cast members include Samantha Castillo, Sonia Couoh, Martha Claudia Moreno, and Aida López.

The film’s director, Michelle Garza Cervera, has previously directed the short films La Rabia de Clara and Isósceles, which were released in 2016 and 2013, respectively. Her previous works also dive into similar ideas of familial conflicts and external, supernatural forces. Cervera co-wrote the film with Abia Castillo, a screenwriter who also has a published novel, My Lips Will Not Be Closed, under her belt.

Release Date

Huesera: The Bone Woman will release in theaters on February 10th, 2023. An on-demand release will follow suit on February 16th, 2023, along with an eventual release on Shudder.

Everything Else We Know

Huesera: The Bone Woman originally premiered in 2022 at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it was originally titled Huesera. The film had significant critical approval, with Variety praising it for a lack of jump scares and impressive sound design. Comparisons are also made to contemporary successes like The Babadook and Hereditary, signaling that Huesera: The Bone Woman is not a film to be missed. While the film may not outshine domestic box office titans, Huesera: The Bone Woman looks to be a promising start to next year’s wave of fresh and inventive horror titles.