KM 31 review

A big hit with its home crowd, this Mexican frightener may have started out as a riff on local folklore (the legend of ‘La Llorona’, aka the Weeping Woman), but it ends up as just another J-Horror copycat. The steals kick in with the set-up, where a near-naked boy – possibly a Latino cousin of Ju-On’s mewling ghost child – lures Agata (Iliana Fox) into a highway calamity. As Agata lies comatose, twin sister Catalina (Fox again) attempts to solve the mystery of Kilometre 31, a quest that toggles between planes of reality and levels of sense: one minute lucid, the next completely baffling. It’s less the lack of cohesion or freshness that perturbs than the frighteningly low scare count, writer/ director Rigoberto Castaneda flailing for the right Ring tone with cheap shocks and slightly pricier CG effects.