"El Niño de Barro" (a.k.a. "The Mudboy") is based on a sinister true story. It takes place in the dark year 1912. It's set in one of the poorest and most pauperized suburbs of Buenos Aires. The plot revolves around a sadist serial killer who exclusively targets innocent and defenseless little children. Wow... how depressing can the description of a film possibly be?
Life isn't kind to young Mateo. He lives alone with his mother, in poverty, and then his (sort of) stepfather Octavio - a local policeman - still thinks he's spoiled and lazy. Mateo suffers from grim nightmares and hallucinations in which he sees children from his neighborhood getting murdered and their dead bodies put on display on a creepy carrousel. When children then also do turn up murdered in the area, Mateo becomes a suspect to the police and a subject of hatred among the villagers.
This is normally my favorite type of horror/thriller concept; - grim and disturbing serial killer stories that are so unbelievable they must be true. The script, inspired by the bizarre case of Cayetano Santos Godino, is compelling and astounding for sure, but for some reason writer/director Jorge Algora only managed to make a mediocre movie out of it. "El Niño de Barro" starts off frustratingly slow, and sadly remains slow-paced until far over halfway. Even though the story clearly wants us to sympathize with Mateo and his mother Estela, I didn't feel much empathy for them. In fact, none of the characters are memorable or even surpass the level of being one-dimensional, and that includes the supposedly good-hearted cop Petrie or police psychologist Dr. Soria. The performances are weak, and the recreation of early 20th century Buenos Aires also doesn't leave much of an impression.
When it's already far too late, "El Niño de Barro" does turn into a nail-bitingly tense thriller and a harrowing drama. The last 10-15 minutes are very powerful, and especially the bleak climax is likely to haunt your thoughts for a long time. The recurring images of the merry-go-round with children's corpses is also authentically creepy, so thanks to that the film still ends up with a 5/10.
