Event

Santa Sangre

Made in 1989 and set in Mexico, Santa Sangre is Jodorowsky's deepest foray into the complex, surrealist horror genre. Co-written by Jodorowsky and Claudio Argento (brother of Dario), it tells the story of a young "child magician" Fenix (played by Axel Jodorowsky, Alejandro's son) who witnesses his father carry on an affair with another circus performer, and in a later confrontation, cuts off his mother's arms.

Starting as a show-act, the mother and son team perform with Fenix's limbs emerging from the armless sleeves. It soon becomes apparent that his mother can control his limbs as her own, and she leads Fenix to kill several women she finds a threat. Unfolding in a set of flashbacks and flashfowards, the film is a story of perverse and brutal acts in a fractured family.

Critic Roger Ebert has said that it is "as a horror film, one of the greatest, " and that "true psychic horror is possible on the screen--horror, poetry, surrealism, psychological pain and wicked humor, all at once."