In theaters Friday the 2nd of May, 2025
What begins as a somber trip quickly unravels into a chilling descent through dark family secrets and generational horrors, after an unexpected death.
Rosario is a story about identity, legacy, and the price of buried truths. Blending supernatural horror with psychological tension, Felipe Vargas’ feature debut delivers a slow-building, skin-crawling thriller that keeps you on edge throughout the film. The film, written and directed by Vargas, known for his award-winning short Milk Teeth, tackles the collision between grief and generational guilt with an unflinching gaze. Rosario maintains an atmosphere of creeping dread, using dark family history and occult mythology to unravel not just a haunting, but a whole bloodline’s worth of sins. While it flirts with familiar horror tropes, Vargas infuses the material with a deeply personal and emotional core, creating a story that feels intimate even amid its most disturbing moments.
The story follows Rosario Fuentes (Emeraude Toubia), a successful Wall Street stockbroker who returns to her late grandmother’s snowbound apartment. Expecting only a grim task of sorting through belongings, Rosario instead finds herself trapped overnight with her grandmother’s body, and the horrifying realization that her family’s past hides more than just old memories. A hidden chamber of occult artifacts, sinister rituals, and dark, unanswered questions soon pulls Rosario into a nightmare where the boundary between the living and the dead disintegrates.
Emeraude Toubia anchors the film with a commanding and emotionally resonant performance. Her portrayal of Rosario captures the tension between success and vulnerability, ambition and fear. As a “daddy’s girl” who carved her own path in the corporate world, Rosario initially approaches her grandmother’s home with skepticism, but curiosity soon takes over, and her determination to uncover the truth makes her an active, intelligent protagonist. Toubia’s performance is layered with subtle shifts: wary glances, sharp instincts, and steely resolve in the face of mounting terror. She never feels like a passive victim; she fights, thinks, and survives, making her journey all the more gripping.
Opposite her, José Zúñiga brings warmth and complexity as Oscar, Rosario’s protective yet secretive father. Zúñiga plays Oscar with a quiet concern that hints at deeper guilt, creating an undercurrent of tension in every father-daughter interaction. His care for Rosario is evident, but so are the secrets he is desperate to keep buried, a dynamic that enriches the film’s exploration of generational trauma.
Visually, Rosario leans heavily into shadow and texture. Vargas and his cinematography team craft a world where the flicker of a candle or the creak of a floorboard becomes danger lurking in the shadows. The use of color shifts from the sterile coldness of Rosario’s Wall Street life to the suffocating warmth of the apartment, mirrors Rosario’s internal descent. Disturbing imagery, tight framing, and long, uncomfortable pauses create an atmosphere thick with paranoia and dread. The snowy isolation outside only amplifies the claustrophobia inside, turning the apartment into a haunted maze of paranormal menace.
The film’s greatest strength lies in its ability to make the supernatural feel deeply personal. The occult elements aren’t just random scares, they are tied to Rosario’s identity, her family’s survival, and the choices made long before she was born. As Rosario digs deeper, the film forces her and the audience to question whether the rituals were protective, sinister, or perhaps something more complicated. The tension escalates methodically, punctuated by shocking moments and unsettling twists that keep the viewer guessing.
Rosario doesn’t rush to explain itself. Instead, it trusts the audience to sit with the discomfort, to experience the same creeping realization that Rosario does: that understanding your family’s past can be both a liberation and a curse. Rosario succeeds the supernatural thriller with strong performances, sharp direction, and an emotionally resonant core. For those who appreciate slow-burning, dread-soaked horror with deeply human stakes, Rosario is a journey well worth taking, one that will leave you unsettled, disturbed, and looking a little more closely at the past you thought you knew.