Noe Hernandez Archives

Review: ‘Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse,’ starring Farid Escalante Correa, Leonardo Cervantes, Mateo Ortega Casillas, Norma Flores, Horacio F. Lazo, Carla Adell and Noé Hernández

April 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse”

Directed by Isaac Ezban

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Mexico, the horror film “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” features an all-Latin cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: During a zombie apocalypse, three underage brothers live in a house where they are hiding a big secret.

Culture Audience: “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching above-average zombie movies that do a very good job of balancing human storylines with realistic gore.

Mateo Ortega Casillas, Farid Escalante Correa and Leonardo Cervantes in “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” (Photo courtesy of Firebook Entertainment)

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” is a well-acted and haunting depiction of a family trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse. This gruesome movie tends to drag with slow pacing and repetitive scenarios. However, the story is not predictable. This unpredictability—along with some suspenseful and emotionally gripping scenes—make “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” worth watching for people who can tolerate watching zombie movies that has explicit bloody violence.

Written and directed by Isaac Ezban, “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” had its world premiere at the 2024 Fantasia Festival. (The word “párvulos” means “little ones” in Spanish.) The movie’s synopsis describes the story setting as “a dystopian future ravaged by a viral apocalypse.”

However, there’s a distinctly retro look to “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” because the technology and clothing shown in the movie suggest that this story could have taken place in the 1980s. There are vinyl record players and an illustration of a 1980s-styled computer in a book, but there is no mention or indication of cell phones or Internet technology. The movie’s cinematography is also drenched in a sepia and gray tone that’s reminiscent of old film footage.

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” takes place in an unnamed city in Mexico, where the movie was filmed on location. Like many zombie apocalypse movies, the terror happens in a remote and isolated area. Unlike many zombie apocalypse movies, the story is told from the perspectives of children who have no adult supervision. The events of the movie take place after much of the Earth’s population has died from a virus-spreading pandemic that turned people into zombie from the most recent vaccine. It’s mentioned later in the movie that there are only an estimated 144,000 people left on Earth.

The movie begins with a voiceover narration from a boy who is later revealed to be Oliver (played by Leonardo Cervantes), the middle of three underage brothers who are living in a two-story house in a remote wooded area. Oliver is about 12 or 13 years old and has a fearless and logical personality. The eldest brother is bossy and paranoid Salvador (played by Farid Escalante Correa), who is about 16 or 17 years old. The youngest brother is inquisitive and perceptive Benjamin (played by Mateo Ortega Casillas), who’s about 8 or 9 years old.

In the voiceover narration, Oliver talks about not remembering much about school except for the day he learned about natural constants in his natural history class. Oliver says he father (whom Oliver describes as “the smartest person I ever met”) wasn’t impressed with this academic lesson. Instead, Oliver’s father said that he believed in only two constants: family and change.

“I didn’t understand what he meant for a long time.” It’s later revealed that before the apocalypse. The brothers’ father (played by Horacio F. Lazo) was an engineer, and the brothers’ mother (played by Norma Flores) was a nurse. The names of the parents are not mentioned in the movie.

Salvador and Oliver have told Benjamin that their parents have gone missing. When Benjamin asks Salvador if their parent could have died from the virus, Salvador says no because the virus is from “the old world.” Salvador also explains that the pandemic’s Omega virus mutated faster than the vaccines that were available. There’s a possibility that another vaccine exists that could be a cure, but there is no mass communication to find out if this vaccine really exists.

Salvador is the leader of the brothers, who have to hunt for their own food. They communicate by walkie talkie. They also have a shotgun and bullets. Salvador’s left leg is amputated at the knee, but he uses a brace, crutches and a makeshift prosthetic leg to help with his mobility. The movie later shows how and why Salvador’s leg was amputated.

An early scene in the movie shows how desperate the brothers are for food because they shoot a stray dog, which they later eat after butchering it and putting the dismembered parts in the freezer. The brothers also keep rats in a box. These rats are also used as food. One day, Benjamin finds out that the meal that Salvador served for them was their pet frog Manchitas. Benjamin gets very upset and starts crying. There are also indications of other death, because the brothers see three dead zombies hanging from a tree, early on in the movie.

The brothers have a big secret: There are growling sounds that are coming from the house’s basement. Salvador and Oliver know what’s causing these noises, but Salvador says that Benjmain can’t go inside the basement until he is 10 years old. It’s very easy to figure out who’s in the basement. The secret is revealed to Benjamin about in the first third of the movie.

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” also shows the brothers encountering various strangers in or near their house. One of these strangers is a feisty young woman named Valeria (played by Carla Adell), who presents the brothers with the option to stay where they are or to go with her to try to find the miracle vaccine. The brothers also encounter a man in the woods named Rogelio (played by Juan Carlos Remolina) in one scene that becomes a turning point in the story. And a religious fanatic named Enoch (played by Noé Hernández) shows up at the house with three sidekicks (played by Marco Rodríguez, Emilio Galván and Jason Luis Rodríguez), leading to one of the movie’s most intense sequences.

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” (which has a total running time of nearly two hours) could have used better editing in the first third of the film because it takes too long to reveal the “family secret” that’s easy to guess within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Still, the movie excels in other areas, such as showing some unexpected dark comedy with family dynamics after this secret is revealed. The comedy is a good counterbalance to other parts of the movie that are unquestionably brutal to watch.

The acting performances are convincing, with Cervantes showing a maturity that makes it believable when Oliver reveals he’s a lot more complex than he originally seemed. In addition to Rodrigo Sandoval’s compelling cinematography, “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” benefis from an effective music score composed by Edy Lan and Camilla Uboldi that give thrills and chills in all the right scenes. The movie has also proficient sound design that adds to the realistic gore.

“Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” also significantly depicts morality dilemmas in an environment where survival often means being cruel to other living beings. The movie also shows psychological trauma, as Salvador is shown frequently having nightmares, as he experiences the heavy responsibility of being the “father figure”/protector of his young brothers. But the movie also authentically shows that he’s a teenager who’s discovering his sexuality and doesn’t quite know to handle his raging hormones. Despite a few flaws in the story (such as not really explaining how the brothers can watch a movie on a film projector when there’s no electricity), “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” is a memorable zombie horror film that shows how family loyalty can be tested in a deadly “survival of the fittest” apocalypse.

Firebook Entertainment released “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” in select U.S. cinemas on April 4, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on June 17, 2025. “Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse” was released in Mexico on November 7, 2024.

Review: ‘Son of Monarchs,’ starring Tenoch Huerta

November 1, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Son of Monarchs”

Directed by Alexis Gambis

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2019 in the Mexican city of Angangueo and in New York City (with some flashbacks to Angangueo in the late 1980s), the dramatic film “Son of Monarchs” features predominantly Latino cast of characters (with some white people and a few Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A Mexican biologist, who is living in New York City and has a fascination with monarch butterflies, goes back to his hometown for his grandmother’s funeral and confronts trauma and secrets from his past.

Culture Audience: “Son of Monarchs” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in contemplative character studies about immigrants who come to America and are conflicted about how much of their lives in their native country they should leave behind.

Kaarlo Isaacs in “Son of Monarchs” (Photo by Alejandro Mejia/WarnerMedia 150)

The well-acted drama “Son of Monarchs” (written and directed by Alexis Gambis) draws interesting parallels between butterfly transformations and what can happen when immigrants start a new life in another country. The movie is also about family, dealing with trauma, and coming to terms with having the experience of living in more than one country in a lifetime. Should you give preference and allegiance to one nation of over another in order to maintain a certain identity? Or is it possible to give equal importance to each national identity?

These are issues and dilemmas facing a biologist named Mendel (played by Tenoch Huerta, also known as Tenoch Huerta Mejía), a Mexican immigrant in his late 30s who has been living in New York City for an untold number of years. Mendel is originally from a working-class municipality in Mexico called Angangueo, which has had a long history of mining as its top industry. The movie, which takes place in 2019, and flashes back about 30 years earlier, never shows Mendel’s immigrant journey or explains why he decided to leave his entire family behind to live in the United States.

What is known—because it’s constantly shown and it’s the basis of this movie’s title—is that Mendel has been obsessed with monarch butterflies, ever since he was a child. The movie’s opening scene shows Mendel at about 5 or 6 years old (played by Kaarlo Isaacs) and his brother Simón (played by Ángel Adrián Flores) at about 7 or 8 years old, while they are playing in the woods in Angangueo. The two brothers look at a cluster of butterflies hanging from a plant formation on a tree. Mendel says the cluster looks like a bear, while Simón says the cluster looks like body of a dead person.

It’s the first indication of how different these two brothers are: Mendel is more of an optimist, while Simón is more of a pessimist. Later at night, when the two bothers are in their shared bedroom, Mendel asks Simón many questions about what happens when people die. Simón says that people’s spirits go up to heaven in a ladder that can be found in the clouds.

Simón just wants to go to sleep, so with each question that Mendel asks, Simón gets a little more impatient and annoyed. The last question that Mendel asks is if their parents are in heaven. Simón answers yes with a sad expression on his face. It’s how viewers find out that these two brothers are orphans. They are living with their Uncle Gabino and have a beloved grandmother (Gabino’s mother) named Rosa Maria Martinez De Guerrero.

Not much information is given about Mendel and Simón’s parents, such as how long ago they died or their cause of death. There are no flashbacks of the parents either. However, there was a huge mining accident in Angangueo that killed several people when the brothers were around the ages that are shown in the movie’s flashbacks. This accident is why Mendel has some repressed memories about his childhood and why he keeps having a nightmare that he’s drowning.

The movie fast-forwards to 2019. Mendel is now a bachelor with a low-key personality and routine lifestyle. He lives alone in New York City, he’s never been married, and he has no children. Mendel is well-respected in his job, where his supervisor Bob (played by William Mapother) seems to admire Mendel’s analytical nature and his professionalism. Mendel is still fascinated with insects, especially monarch butterflies. According to the Mexican folklore he learned as a child, these butterflies represent visiting ancestors and are considered miraculous.

Life seems to be going fairly smoothly for Mendel. But then, he gets a phone call from his Uncle Gabino (played by Ignacio Guadalupe) telling him that Mendel’s grandmother Rosa (played by Angelina Peláez) has passed away. Mendel goes back to Angangueo for the funeral, where he sees people whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in years. And one of them is his estranged brother Simón (played by Noé Hernández), who is now a parent of teenagers.

Why are Simón and Mendel estranged? It comes out later in an argument that Simón thinks that Mendel moved to the United States to become a hotshot scientist, with little regard for loved ones left behind in Mexico. While Mendel was living in the United States, Simón went through some hardships (including being unemployed for two years), and he felt that Mendel should have been more caring and supportive during these tough times. At the funeral wake held in the family home, Simón practically snarls at Mendel that this is Simón’s house, as if Mendel is trying to be some type of interloper.

Mendel is a non-confrontational type of person, so it might be easy for viewers to speculate about any number of reasons why he avoided keeping in touch with Simón. However, the movie doesn’t give straightforward answers, except to indicate that Simón and Mendel have very different memories about what happened on the night of the mining accident. It’s an unspoken trauma that has caused some emotional damage to the two brothers. More is revealed when Mendel and Simón finally talk about that night for the first time since their estrangement.

Other people whom Mendel sees during this hometown visit include two of his friends from childhood. Vicente (played by Gabino Rodríguez) and Brisa (played by Paulina Gaitan), who (unlike Simón) are very happy to see Mendel. (In flashbacks to their childhood, Pablo Salmerón plays Vicente, and Natalia Téllez plays Brisa. ) In conversations with Vicente, viewers find out that Mendel had a mischievous side to him as a child. Mendel and Vicente have a laugh over remembering how they played some pranks, including lighting something on fire where fortunately no one got hurt.

And in talking to Vicente, viewers also find out how Mendel feels about Donald Trump. Vicente asks Mendel, “What’s the deal with your [U.S.] president?” Mendel replies, “He’s not my president. Do I look orange to you?” Vicente laughs but then says in all seriousness, “Is it okay over there?” Mendel says, “I don’t know.”

There are hints that Mendel is lonely but he doesn’t really want to admit it to anyone. When he talks to Brisa, it becomes clear that they had some kind of romance as a teenagers, but it never really led to anything serious. Brisa is now happily married with kids. When she asks Mendel why he hasn’t gotten married, he dismissively makes a vague comment that marriage has never been a hugely important to him.

But that doesn’t mean that Mendel doesn’t have a love life. He has a love interest named Sarah (played by Alexia Rasmussen), a social worker who interacts with undocumented immigrants, many of whom have been separated at the border from family members. Sarah is learning trapeze skills, so there are scenes of her get trapeze lessons. There’s also a part of the movie showing how obsessed Mendel is with butterflies. It has to do with a large tattoo that he gets, what he uses later for tattoo ink, and how it all ties into Mendel being a proponent of CRISPR technology that can edit genes.

“Son of Monarchs” had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, which is given to an outstanding feature film about science or technology. It’s not a fast-paced movie or a story with a lot of melodrama. “Son of Monarchs” takes on the personality of protagonist Mendel, by being sincere but often not revealing deep emotions right away.

It seems as if writer/director Gambis wanted to give viewers a sense that Mendel is someone who would prefer to be analytical rather than emotional in making life decisions. It’s why Mendel finds more comfort in studying insects in labs instead of having meaningful personal connections with people. However, Mendel cannot hide from his emotions, especially when his hometown visit brings back a flood of memories and feelings that he thought he had long since buried.

Huerta gives a compelling performance as someone who is caught between two cultures and having mixed emotions about which one he should identify with more. He clings to his fascination with butterflies because they represent the one constant he can count on in his life. “Son of Monarchs” has plenty of beautiful imagery of butterflies, which serve as this story’s metaphor for personal transformations and resilience. After seeing this movie, viewers might come away with a new appreciation for monarch butterflies and what they can teach people about thriving in a world that is sometimes hostile and dangerous.

WarnerMedia 150 released “Son of Monarchs” in select U.S. cimemas on October 15, 2021. The movie’s HBO Max premiere is on November 2, 2021.