The horror genre, outside of the UK and USA, has yielded some interesting offerings with the likes of Dario Argento, Guillermo Del Toro and Lucio Fulci providing tremendous visual ideas and contrast, even if the films have only found their core audience amidst the genre and horror conventions where people are more than aware of the people both in front of and behind the camera.

Now, it is the turn of Panama to throw its’ knife into the gut with the very first horror film to come out of the territory, with the new horror offering DIABLO ROJO PTY.

‘Diablo Rojo’ translates as ‘Red Devil’ – and for a couple of erratic bus drivers, who have been singled out on the news as people who don’t deserve to be out on the road, a wrong turn becomes the catalyst for a series of misadventures, which begin when their bus almost runs over a girl one of them knows called ‘Josefina’, her picture decorating the side of the bus.

Nothing wrong with that, but when they are pulled over by a couple of police officers, more complications emerge, not least when one of the officers is bitten by a demon. Even more trouble emerges when they visit a local church in the vicinity – and the priest who lives there says that they are about six hours from anywhere.

The area is full of ghostly and occult history – and there may be a few unresolved scores that need to be settled by the subjects of the stories, which were told to one of the officers….

No more simplistic than you would expect from any number of mainstream and indie horrors from the US like a FRIDAY THE 13TH or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, DIABLO ROJO PTY is more reminiscent in tone of John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS (!988) and the island sequences in Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE / ZOMBIE FLESH-EATERS (1979).

As with all the best international offerings, the characters are both foolish and fun in their execution and once the blood starts flowing, you know where you more than stand, with some neat pay-offs in the executions, as a manner of speaking. It’s an admirable romp and certainly bodes well for the film-making team behind it, co-directors Sol Moreno and J. Oskura Nájera, who have played to the rules in the genre with maximum effect

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