"Barbarous Mexico" sure does live up to its name. Found this little known movie On-Demand, and thought I would check it out. I thought its cinematography was way above most movies of this genre. However, I also thought the directors needed to pull back on the reins just a little.

"Barbarous Mexico" is a horror anthology from south of the border. It tells different stories--some better than others. What I was in complete shock over was its rating. It is amazing this movie received the rating it did. On-Demand listed it as an "R" rating; I thought it should have received an NC-17 rating. Its savagery throughout had me turning away from my television on more than one occasion. And its nightmarish stories do not spare anyone-- including children.

Another reviewer apparently saw a lot more in this compilation than I did, but to each his own. WARNING: There have been few movies I have reviewed which I deemed needed to come with this label, but this is one of them. This movie contains full nudity of both sexes, a savage rape, simulated oral rape by a demon (complete with "member"),cannibalism of a child, graphic sexual couplings, and graphic violence. It should not be viewed by anyone UNDER 18.

I do not recommend it and I strongly caution all parents before allowing a minor to watch it.

Holy mother of toast I am in physical pain after watching this collection of terribleness. This anthology is so bad that it gives physical pain, like getting nails through your stomach.

I am going to go from the general to the particular, because... oh god...

General: Why did you put the name of the short AFTER the shorts? It is a complete anomaly. Also the gory title cards look so incredibly bad my PS1 cried of nostalgia and were absolutely not necesary. Also the introduction is non existant... okay it exists... sort of. Is at the end of the film. Why? I really want to know why, please, explain it to me. It is driving me crazy on its pointlessness.

1st Short - Tzompantli. For those not knowing, the tzompantli was an altar were aztecs exposed the heads of the enemies they killed in battle and/or sacrificed people. It had many motivations: in general intimidation while pleasing the gods. Specially intimidation. This one relates a short interview of a guy asking to know more about certain murders at a guy known for being with the narcs. It had a good setting, the dialog was decent even though the audio edition and their enunciation sucks hard, the actors tried at least and it was actually pretty interesting. It could have been a great feature film if they tried. As a short it lacks motivation, a conclution or a reason for us to care. It was fine at most, but it could have been so much more. (5/10)

2nd Short - Jaral de Berrios. It litterally is an abandoned hacienda in Mexico, maybe the biggest we ever had and one of the best preserved. It has so much history inside its walls that I could write several paragraphs (and I am no expert). Why they decided to make it demonic I am not sure. (It is a paranormal hotspot for reasons beyond my knowledge) but this is, by far, the best short... and it had not horror to begin with: 2 robbers are escaping after stealing lot of gold, so they decide to hide in the hacienda, that one of them (injured) says is haunted. Female ghost kisses and kills him, made the other guy give her a very graphic and bloody cunnilingus and later hangs him. He must suck at oral.

In general the acting is decent. The photography is divine, extraordinarelly delicious, the cinemathography, on the other hand, is okay at most. The dialog is pretty realistic by mexican standards. The sound design and music is not the best but not the worst. It could have been a decent horror film if it went into feature or a historic/horror film. (7/10)

3rd short - Drena (Drain). I am not going to say a lot about this one, because it is so extremely dumb. A woman finds a dead guy that has a cigarrette, smokes it and imagines a demon that tells her to drain her sister's menstrual blood or to get her soul ripped out of her posterior if not done before 12 hours. Yes, that is the plot. Yes, the execution is just as dumb as you are imagining. And there is another demon at the end that is recorded in such a terrible way you thought this was supposed to be a comedy, but they decided to try to make it a horror and failed miserably. A extremely bad one, but comedy. Nothing works. (2/10)

4th short - La cosa más preciada (the most precious thing). This one is, by far, the worst in the entire anthology. The alushes are mayan gnomes (around 30cm at most) that like to steal toys and socks. Someone somewhere got that info and understood "1 meter and a half diabolical beings that look like a lump of feces with huge genitalia, able to vomit yellow sleeping agent and that like to force dumb virgin damsels if they go to the forest" because that is exactly what happened in this short. The acting is forced, the dialog is horrible... SO HORRIBLE! ("I am not losing my virginity to a strawberry flavored condom!"),the cinemathography... has a filter attempting to make it look like recorded in a super 8 and failing miserably because it looks obviously terribly edited and they have cellphones and a 2014 sports car. The photography is horrible, the alushes look like excrement (literally and figuratively) and you get close ups of their genitals. lots of closeup of gnome/demon genitals... It is just disgusting. The horror is that someone agreed to act in this piece of non entertainment. (1/10 because IMDB does not believe in 0. The mayans are angry at you for that.)

5th short - Lo que importa es lo de adentro (what matters is in the inside. Hur hur great joke. Not). A mother and her two kids (a boy and a sick girl) live at an appartment complex. In front of it... lives? a guy that looks like the lost son of a trash bag and a porcupine that kinda helps the mother. This one is just gutwrenching: It has kidnapping, canibalism, organ harvesting and necrophilia. Writing that last word surely put me into a government watchlist and I recommend to not think too much about it. The acting is decent, the sets are pretty good (although the lighting does not help) but the story has too little for it. It is really hard to watch. (3/10)

6th short -Muñecas (dolls). Another one I am not going to talk about a lot... but this time it is because absolutely nothing happens. It tries to be artsy with a black and white filter, but absolutely nothing happens. No dialog, no action, no characters, no point. Totally expendable. (1/10)

7th short - Siete veces siete (Seven times seven). If you immediately thought about the bible, congratulations! you got it. It is the schizophrenic terribly explained, horribly dealt with, terribly edited and with awful special effects made story of the really imposingly named conejo (rabbit) bringing someone from the death just to kill him again. It explains why he killed him twice, but it is not horrifying. Just a revenge tale... with zombies. A total waste of time. (2/10)

8th and final short - Dia de los muertos (day of the dead). The story about a stripclub where all the strippers go mad for unexplained reasons were they kill the clientele. The plot is non-existant. The rest is decent, but without a plot it just goes flat. This one had potential if it just explained itself (4/10)

Average: 3/10. Do not watch this under any circumstance. Seriously don't.

Now, I stumbled upon this 2014 Mexican horror anthology here in 2021 by random chance and sheer luck. And I have to say that I was immediately lured in by the movie's cover. There is just something fascinating about that face paint that the Mexicans have for the Day of the Dead festival. Needless to say that I hadn't even heard about "México Bárbaro" prior to getting to sit down to watch it.

And I have to admit that I was a bit skeptic about it, given the fact that it was an anthology. Why? Well, let's just face it, horror anthologies tend to be rather bad most of the time. But still, I opted to sit down and watch "México Bárbaro" on the chance that I would be in for something akin to "Creep Show".

Needless to say that I didn't find myself in for something even remotely close to the entertainment level that "Creepshow" brought to the horror anthology genre. Nay, "México Bárbaro" was a massive swing and a miss. I suppose that perhaps you need to be familiar with Mexican folklore, superstitions and legends in order to fully appreciate "México Bárbaro". I am not familiar with that, and I must admit that "México Bárbaro" failed entirely to entertain me. And I gave up just about 30 minutes into the ordeal. Yeah, it was that boring!

"México Bárbaro" is not an anthology that I will be attempting to watch a second time, because the 30 minutes I sat through was brutal and pure torture.

My rating of "México Bárbaro" lands on a one out of ten stars.