From killers to possessions, horror is truly a Latino obsession
- Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
Jose Chavez’s first exposure to the macabre was as a kid going to Catholic Mass with his family in his native New Mexico.
“I immediately looked at Jesus crucified and [saw] the beauty of horror,” the 37-year-old screenwriter said. “I was in awe of this violence and how it was being glorified.”
Religion was the gateway, but movies like “RoboCop” — along with the works of Chilean surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky, American weirdo David Lynch and master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock — converted Chavez into a full-on fanatic of the genre.
That fascination has also helped Chavez foster community— he co-launched the Latinxorcists writing group, which aims to help Latino creatives fine-tune their horror scripts.
The Latinxorcists’ origin dates to February 2022, after Chavez met co-founders Alfredo Hernandez and Ricardo Martinez at a virtual screenwriters mixer. Chavez had previously been in horror screenwriting groups, but they were usually composed of white writers.He said he was actively trying to join a troupe that would fully understand where his writing was coming from culturally. Hernandez and Martinez fit the bill.
Chavez said the collective aims to give other Latino writers the resources that he and his co-founders wished they had when they were coming up.
“We’re fulfilling a need in the industry where you can get your scripts read for free with notes,” Martinez said. “It’s really hard if you’re a fresh filmmaker to get somebody to read your script, and it’s even harder generally for Latinos to break into this industry. So we’re creating an opportunity ourselves to workshop and give that writer room experience and get better together about something that we all love and have fun doing.”
The Latinxorcists are also organizing a short-film festival titled “Noche De Terror,” which takes place this Saturday, Oct. 3, at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice. The event will highlight some of the screenplays that have been workshopped within the collective and will include panels with the writers and directors of the films.
“[The festival] isn’t necessarily meant just for Latinos, but it’s run by Latinos, and we are obviously pushing the Latino name forward and our presence forward,” Chavez said. “We’re also here for the entire horror community.”
The trio is helping to narrow the gap between the rate at which Latinos consume horror and the paltry representation that the demographic has historically had in the film genre.
According to UCLA’s most recent Hollywood Diversity Report, Latinos made up 29.1% of audiences for theatrical horror releases in 2025 while making up only about 20% of the total U.S. population. Despite these high levels of fanaticism for the genre, Latinos remain historically underrepresented in horror.
It’s not as though the entertainment industry doesn’t know we are in those theater seats. As Rodriguez noted, Universal Studios Hollywood recently began incorporating Latino folk horror into its annual Halloween Horror Nights festivities due to the overwhelming presence of Latinos at the yearly event.
The maze titled “Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America,” gave life to popular Latin American legends like Tlahuelpuchi, La Lechuza and El Silbón in years past. This year, the Horror Nights organizers have put a bloody spin on the traditional quinceañera celebration. In the new haunted house titled “Killceanera: Music by Slash,” 15-year-old Lola summons vicious spirits to inflict pain on school bullies.
Dr. Orquidea Morales, an assistant professor in theater, film, and television at the University of Arizona, believes part of the Latino affinity for horror comes from the community’s relationship with death and monster tales like those of La Llorona or El Cucuy.
“I don’t think it’s that we accept death, we just know it’s part of life,” Morales said. “We have Día de los Muertos, which celebrates our ancestors and celebrates that death is part of life, so I don’t think we’re uncomfortable with it, and that makes it easier to go into horror movies.”
Additionally, Morales noted that Latinos just like horror because it’s fun to see if you can bravely face a bloody adventure and enjoy it.
The professor also posited that the nature of horror films might provide catharsis for Latinos.
“When life feels difficult and heavy — like right now that we’re all scared of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], of not belonging — horror movies allow us to process those fears in a really safe way,” Morales said. “You go back to work and you live your normal life, but for a moment you were able to let those fears out — yell, jump, whatever — and now you can breathe again.”
The ubiquity of curanderas and a close connection to Catholicism also provide natural entryways into horror for Latinos.
“Some of the most popular horror movies have been religion-related,” Morales said. “I know ‘The Exorcist’ was huge in Latin America, and more recently, ‘The Nun’ did super well because Latino audiences gravitate to religious horror because many of us were raised Catholic to some extent.”
Hernandez, one of the co-founders of the Latinxorcists, had his own take as to why Latinos gravitate toward horror.
“It resonates with poor, immigrant communities, particularly brown, Indigenous and Latin, because at its core, a part of root of a lot of horror stems from poverty, meaning families come from farms or villages or rural parts of cities, instilling philosophies tuned to the art of suffering,” he said.
“We romanticize this suffering as the bread to our wins because for many of us, that’s all we’ve ever had and, in turn, [we have] nothing left to lose. So when we see despair and rage and pride through the lens of horror, we are actually looking at ourselves — we are monsters, victims and heroes.”
Or maybe it’s just that we like to be scared!
Latinos near the Texas borderlands are rejecting Trump
The New York Times recently did some great reporting out of Texas that further examines why Latinos are abandoning the Republican Party and President Trump ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
A recent NYT poll showed that Trump’s approval rating with Latinos has dipped to 26%. A paltry 8% of Latinos approved of how the president was handling the cost of living crisis, only 18% thought positively of his economic plans and just 26% said that he was doing a good job on immigration.
This is all taking place just two years Latinos helped push Trump back into the presidency.
In interviews with over two dozen residents of the Texas borderland, NYT reporters gave voice to personal accounts of the frustrations that many Latinos are feeling in the country. Some expressed buyer’s remorse, while others didn’t think Trump’s policies would personally affect them.
“I knew that he was going to start deporting people, but that he was going to go after bad criminals, like true hard-core criminals, rapists, killers,” Jessica Cantu Vuittonet, a 38-year-old coffee shop owner who voted for Trump, told the New York Times. Earlier this year, her brother was deported after a routine check-in with immigration officials.
“Years ago, you put a fence up because people were stealing stuff,” said Ariel Salinas, a 50-year-old who owns a construction company and a Trump supporter. “Now you put the fence up because ICE is stealing the workers. There was even a fence shortage in the summer. It caught all of us off guard.”
Good immigrant, bad immigrant
Julio Salgado is a visual artist based in Long Beach. His work has been displayed at the Oakland Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum. (@juliosalgado83)
Stories we read this week that we think you should read
Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.
Politics and immigration
- Is Cuba on the brink of collapse? A photographer took a road trip to find out
- ‘I’d rather die here than in Africa’: Migrants describe violent deportation flight
- New bill in Congress seeks to investigate toxic dump off California coast
- Gas prices, AI data centers and Trump’s long shadow: Top takeaways from the governor’s race debate
- Influencers filed ethics complaint against Raman campaign — with help from Bass lawyers
- What the ‘Taco Stand Karen’ fiasco says about right-wing Latinos
- A new Trump proposal would require tax filers to disclose citizenship status to the IRS (AP)
- Supreme Court grants review of Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants (AP)
- Justice Department files complaint against judges over immigration enforcement surge comments (AP)
Arts and entertainment
- ‘Obsession’ star Inde Navarrette doesn’t wish for her wins — she works for them
- ‘The De Los Podcast’: Comedy legend Cheech Marin on ‘Born in East L.A.’ and collecting Chicano art
- Akriila brings her unique alt-pop vision from Chile to the world
- Los Tigres del Norte honor Minneapolis community at relocated Hispanic Heritage Awards
- L.A.-raised comic Jack Assadourian Jr. turns his Mexican Armenian roots into fearless new comedy special
- Studio bets $450 million on stacked soundstages, sky bungalows to woo production back to Hollywood
Southern California
- Exceptionally long heat wave hitting Southern California, could last until mid-October
- LAPD is no longer majority white — but a recent scandal shows racism remains an issue
- Schools get easier access to arts funds, but LAUSD faces suit over alleged misspending
- L.A. suburb lifts ban, will allow its Little Leaguers back on city fields
- Los Angeles County reported 69 rabid bats. What you need to know
- ‘USC is not afraid to change.’ New provost vows to rebuild lost trust in higher education
- UCLA vice chancellor sues to block release of probe into allegations of bullying and misspending
