CHUPA - Mark Reviews Movies

Chupa, Netflix

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 6, 2023

Chupa is in a rush to get to the major points of its clichéd, predictable plot. In the process, it forgets to develop the one quality that might have helped us to overlook all of that: its heart.

There's plenty potential to be found in that regard here. The story follows Alex (Evan Whitten), a 13-year-old boy whose parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico. The kid's sad, since his father recently died, and lonely, because he doesn't have any friends at school and is bullied (by one particularly lazy bully) on account of his heritage. It's 1996, by the way—a detail that mainly seems to exist for some easy nostalgia and to make the several times the material rips off a more familiar movie come across as loving homage instead.

Some of the most obvious moments of "homage" come from the character of Richard (Christian Slater), a scientist exploring and examining a system of caves in the Mexican desert outside a small town. The guy has a very distinct look, more akin to a paleontologist, let's say, than the cryptozoologist he seems to be, and if the scenes in the desert feel a bit too familiar, director Jonás Cuarón includes a poster for said film—well, technically, the soundtrack for it—on our young protagonist's wall. It's not stealing, apparently, if one indirectly acknowledges the overt reference.

Richard is on the hunt for the mythical beast called el chupacabra, a blood-sucking creature that feeds mainly on goats. He and his team find one, along with its young cub, and give chase through the desert. The creature and its offspring are separated after a car collision on the road. As Alex is preparing to take a trip to visit his late father's side of the family on a farm near that area, the scientist is determined to track down the chupacabra again, because his whole expedition is being funded by a pharmaceutical company counting on Richard's promise that the creature's blood has healing powers.

All of this, of course, is an excuse for the third act to resolve itself with chases and standoffs and assorted rescue missions. None of that is a spoiler, unless the whole concept of this kind of storytelling is completely new to you. It shouldn't matter—or, at least, should matter a lot less—as long as the movie convinces us that it has some care for this material beyond hitting the routine points.

The screenplay by Joe Barnathan, Sean Kennedy Moore, and Marcus Rinehart never convinces, even if the possibility for a heart-warming story about bolstering family and overcoming grief with the help of an adorable creature is right there. Obviously, Alex is a bit out of place at the farm of his grandfather Chava (Demián Bichir), a former wrestler who suffered a brain injury and has increasing issues with memory (There's something uncomfortable about the way his condition seems to build toward a gag).

The kid doesn't appreciate Mexican culture, which disappoints his abuelo and his older cousin Luna (Ashley Ciarra), and only speaks a little Spanish, meaning he can't understand his younger cousin Memo (Nickolas Verdugo). Eventually, he starts to learn both of those things, and in the meantime, he discovers the chupacabra cub, which looks like a fluffy puppy and behaves a bit like a cute cat and has feathered wings, hiding in the grandfather's barn.

What follows in this story should be apparent, and it's almost as if the screenwriters, knowing that, have decided to bypass the parts of this tale where Alex bonds with the creature, the shared secret of the creature brings the family closer together, and all of that teaches our young hero a few lessons. To be sure, the movie pays lip service to these narrative and thematic ideas, but that's about the extent of them within the plot. Instead, Richard arrives at the farm almost as soon as the family decides to protect the creature together, and after that, the script hurries toward that extended climax, which features a four-way chase, a cliffhanger, an encounter with a mountain lion, another chase, and two sappy farewell scenes that aren't earned and share exact lines of dialogue.

The makers of Chupa don't try to hide exactly what kind of movie they're making and story they're trying to tell. The exercise is so shallow, though, that this only feels like the suggestion of that movie and that story.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products