Movie Review: ROSARIO

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 2nd, 2025 / 02:01 AM

ROSARIO movie poster | ©2025 Variance Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Emeraude Toubia, José Zúñiga, Diana Lein, Emilia Faucher, Paul Ben-Victor, David Dastmalchian, Constanza Gutierrez, Nick Ballard, Luna Baxter, Guillermo Garcia
Writer: Alan Trezza
Director: Felipe Vargas
Distributor: Variance Films
Release Date: May 2, 2025

In case one was wondering, Palo Mayombe is a real belief system. A quick Google search turns up a description of it as “the dark side of Santeria.”

Palo Mayombe looms large in ROSARIO, which begins with the onscreen information: “The path of Palo is one of sacrifice. As with all religions, in Palo there exists light and darkness.” The onscreen information then reiterates, “Darkness.”

We open in 1999 Brooklyn, at the Fuentes family home, where Rosario (played as a child by Emilia Faucher) is celebrating her first Communion. Told to locate her grandmother/abuela, and bring her into the living room for a group prayer, Rosario finds the old woman, Griselda (Constanza Gutierrez), in a room with dirt on the floor and bloodstains in the closet.

Abuela says that her beliefs are not the same as those of Rosario’s Catholic family and chases the little girl away. Abuela does venture into the family room, but only Rosario sees her, as everyone else has their eyes closed in prayer.

Then we’re in present-day Manhattan, where Rosario (played as an adult by Emeraude Toubia) is now a very successful financial advisor. She’s doing her best to play down her Latina roots, asking that everyone call her Rose instead of Rosario.

The city is being buffeted by a huge snowstorm when Rosario receives a call from Marty (Paul Ben-Victor), the manager of the rundown apartment building where Abuela lives. Or lived – Marty just found Griselda dead. He’s not sure what happened to her.

Rosario feels bad about avoiding her abuela since her mother (Diana Lein), Griselda’s daughter, passed away. In an attempt at penance, Rosario offers to sit with the body until the ambulance can make its way through the storm to retrieve the corpse.

The apartment is in awful condition, with peeling plaster and bugs crawling over the dishes in the sink. The odd across-the-hall neighbor Joe (David Dastmalchian) insists that Griselda borrowed his air fryer and demands it back. An attempt to go outside ends in near disaster.

And inside … Griselda has collected some peculiar items, plus an illustrated spell book that Rosario can’t entirely understand. And of course, Rosario isn’t alone in there.

Writer Alan Trezza and director Felipe Vargas succeed in making something creepy and visceral about familial obligations and the guilt, shame and assumptions that often accompany them. There is plenty of body horror, demon horror, and even set decoration horror to go around here.

There is a bit of BUFFY-esque humor that rises up in ROSARIO whenever the title character isn’t frightened out of her mind. She talks to herself, her grandmother’s corpse and a few objects in a quippy tone that alters the mood slightly without wrecking it.

Griselda’s spell book is a wonderful set piece, but we’re never clear how Rosario is able to interpret any of it (even when she misinterprets it, we can’t tell how she’s figuring it out).

Expanding on this, even though it’s a plot point that the rules of the magic are opaque, by the end, it seems like we ought to have better comprehension of what was deliberate and what was accidental.

Toubia gives a fluid performance as Rosario, going from reasonable suspicion to blind terror to determined action with assurance. José Zúñiga as Rosario’s adoring father, Ben-Victor, Dastmalchian, Lein and Gutierrez all provide strong support.

ROSARIO is too chaotic to sustain lengthy suspense. However, as a trapped-in-a-scary-place movie goes, it works.

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