People watch horror to escape from problems that exist in the real world. But what if the real world is the horror?

Issa López’s acclaimed Tigers are Not Afraid is a hard-hitting Mexican horror fantasy that depicts harsh truths about life in the Mexican cities controlled by drug cartels. To tell this tale, López chooses not to focus on members cartels, which might inadvertently glorify the criminal lifestyle, but the children who have found themselves alone and abandoned as a result of cartel’s actions.

Tigers are Not Afraid tells the story of Estrella (Paola Lara), a young girl whose school day is interrupted by the sound of gunfire. While hiding on the floor, Estrella’s teacher gives her three pieces of chalk- each, she is told, represents a wish. Later that day, Estrella goes home to wait for her mother, but her mother does not come home. After some time, Estrella begins to worry that her mother may be a victim of the Huascas, a local cartel that deals in human trafficking, Eventually Estrella gets hungry and tired, so she tries wishing for her mother to return. But the wish quickly goes into “The Monkey’s Paw” territory.

Meanwhile, El Shine (Juan Ramon Lopez), a young delinquent who lost his family to the Huacas, seizes the opportunity to pickpocket the gun and iPhone of a drunk cartel crony named Caco. The next day, Shine is caught by Estrella stealing from her home. But after Estrella is driven out by what she assumes is her mother’s ghost, she seeks the help from Shine and his small group of street misfits in order to survive on the streets.

Unfortunately, the timing could not be worse, as Shine is about to learn that the Huacas ain’t nothing to fuck with. Fortunately, Estrella still has two wishes.

It is near impossible to write about Tigers are Not Afraid without commenting on how much Issa López’s film channels the early works of Guillermo del Toro, particularly The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. Like del Toro, López uses limited resources to skillfully craft a beautifully choreographed work of magical realism. And like del Torro, López incorporates fairy tale elements into Tigers are Not Afraid to thematically highlight lost innocence. Estrella believes she has been granted three wishes, but like most tales about wishes, she learns that they come at a tragic price.

(It should be noted that at the time of release, del Toro was actually a huge advocate of this film.) 

Tiger’s are Not Afraid does an excellent job at keeping you guessing whether Estella’s visions are real or part of an overactive, trauma-infused, imagination. Shine, unlike Estrella, does not have fantastic delusions, but he does like to entertain the other children at night with a fantastical story about a tiger that roams the city streets. In the film, the tiger acts reoccurring motif representing the dangers in the environment, but also what the children themselves aspire to be. When they are safe, López shows us that the children behave as children should; but the story provides very little screen time where they are shown feeling safe. The gang violence that has orphaned these kids has forced them into a life of petty crime, which in turn increases their exposure to the cartels.

Even though Tigers are Not Afraid draws obvious comparisons to del Toro, when watching the film, I also found myself comparing it to Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow. The supernatural in both films are essentially foreign invaders encroaching on an already oppressive, life-threatening environment. It underscores the sad reality that these protagonists, despite being part of a community, are more alone because of their gender. In Estrella’s case, being a homeless girl makes her a particularly valuable target for the Huascas. Shine and the other boys also recognize that Estrella’s presence makes their group more vulnerable and this always puts distance between her and the boys. That she alone believes in the wishes and has visions of the unnatural only reinforces her exclusion from the group.

But if Tigers is Not Afraid has a kindred spirit, it is 2024’s Rita by Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante. Like López, Bustamante employs the dark fairy-tale within his own film to make a real-world horror more palatable. Guillermo del Toro may have been an obvious influence on López, but Rita‘s contemporary, targeted social critique suggests that Bustamante might had been more influenced by López. In this way, López’s film is groundbreaking.

In making Tigers are Not Afraid, Issa López has achieved a difficult task: to tell a story about Mexican drug cartels that does not inadvertently glamorize them. By focusing on victims, López effectively illustrates the danger living in a society where cartels have political control and police are afraid to engage them. López’s fusion of fantasy and hyper-realism also provides the movie with wealth of unforgettable images that heighten the film’s sociopolitical sub-text. Tigers are Not Afraid demonstrates the power of horror films to explore the human costs of a nation in crisis, and presents its real-world horrors in a way a global audience can understand.