Film Review: ‘Rosario’ (2025)

Rosario mixes a mother’s Mexican immigration horror story with a young woman’s sadness and confusion at the loss of her grandmother.

The storyline of Felipe Vargas‘ Rosario is baed upon a young woman Rosario (Emeraude Toubia) who ends up forced the spend the night with her grandmother’s dead body due to a blizzard, but it seems as though a solid plot and true direction for this film were left outside with the snow.

The camerawork is something I did appreciate, as the sideways shots made the entire first half feel like a fucked up fever dream, which is even more the case because the plot oftentimes just didn’t make sense. I felt like the producers might have attempted to make an experimental horror but overall, there was way too much going on, leaving a ton of plot holes and creating weird side quests. It was hard to focus on the good pieces and I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief, thus I didn’t feel any sense of fear throughout the entire film.

The incorporation of the horrors that stem from crossing the Mexican-American border was refreshing and interesting, and was the first time I’ve seen it acknowledged in a modern horror flick. Immigrant’s stories are SO important to tell, especially in our current political landscape.

I’ll admit that David Dastmalchian’s role was a large reason I wanted to see Rosario but his role was utterly purposeless and a disappointing use of his talent.
He performed perfectly with the little script he was given as Rosario’s creepy weird neighbor Joe, but if that role was left out the story wouldn’t have been different.

The bit about the air fryer was cute because it gave us a glimpse into a Mexican families cooking culture but it was completely unrelated to anything else. On the note of the airfryer bit, the random humor injected was the definition of cringe, using Gen-X over-used humor. Alan Trezza‘s writing felt like it was meant for a book, describing things that were obvious or things that didn’t need to be explained because…we were watching it…because it’s a movie.

The vibes I got from the writing:

No shade to Emeraude Toubia, because her acting was great, but her character couldn’t have been more unrelatable. She wasn’t scared by her grandmas body being a horrifying green color or being on the ceiling but threw up at the sight of her OWN old tampon? She
told her dad there was “no way she’s leaving her grandma” but she already tried to leave but the snow wouldn’t allow her to. For this being a horror, I never actually felt scared, no racing heart even at the over-used “jump scares”. And that’s saying a lot, because my boyfriend consistently scares the piss out of me just by walking by me in our shared apartment. I hope to see Emeraude Toubia work with a better script so we can see what she’s truly capable of.