Poison for the Fairies (1984)

Though billed as a horror movie, Carlos Enrique Taboada's final film is more of a deeply unsettling psychological drama in the vein of movies like The Spirit of the Beehive and Cria Cuervos, but with an injection of baroque fantasy. Poison for the Fairies is about a young girl named Flavia who befriends the school outcast, Veronica. Veronica lives with her aging and sickly grandmother and nanny, and is obsessed with satanism and witchcraft. She manages to convince Flavia that she is a witch herself, and uses threatens her with supernatural punishment if she does not do as she says. What follows is a fascinating power play between the two girls that leads to a shocking and unexpected conclusion. This is surely one of the most visually sumptuous films I have seen recently, Taboada's cinematographer Lupe Garcia gave the film the look of a colorful, but ominous fairy tale. The shots are taken from angles always slightly askew, and in a bold move, the faces of the adult characters are never shown, with the exception of two key moments. It is a child's world, after all, but hardly an innocent one. Taboada succeeds in unearthing the menace that lurks just beneath childhood comfort, that feeling of uncertainty and terror the world can evoke, and the subtle cruelty and manipulation children exert over one another. While there are moments of genuine terror that had me hiding under my blanket, those looking for a traditional horror movie will be disappointed, but those looking for something different and thrilling will find much to love here.