Growing Up Never Felt So Confusing in Mexican Body Horror Fifteen (SXSW)

Title: Fifteen

First Non-Festival Release: TBD

Director: Jack Zagha Kababie, Yossy Zagha

Writer: Ricardo Álvarez Canales

Runtime: 97 Minutes

Starring: Greta Martí, Macarena Oz, Aminta Ireta

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

This film’s review was written after its screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2026.

In various Latin American cultures, a quinceañera is one of the most important days in a young girl’s life. Transitioning from girl to woman at the age of 15, the coming-of-age ceremony highlights the joys of raising daughters and the excitement of reaching adulthood.

Ligia (Greta Martí) and Mayte (Macarena Oz) are on the cusp of their fifteenth birthdays, which means they are studying up on the best ways they can throw their quinceañera. A wrench is thrown into their plans when Ligia decides to have sex with her boyfriend Joel (Andre Fajardo). Joel is acting strangely and the weird behavior escalates to the point of scaring Ligia away but not before they consummate their relationship. Days later, with limited contact from Joel, Ligia begins experiencing her own transformation that rivals his. Driven by a fierce appetite and emotional shifts, Ligia is pregnant with something far more terrifying than a child. As the girls work to navigate the impossible situation, they will have their friendship tested in ways they never thought possible.

Fifteen is a colorful horror comedy that struggles to tie its story together.

Its strong start sets the tone for the Spanish language body horror before fizzling out in technicolor glory. A slice of Ligia and Mayte’s life, Fifteen details the perils of being a teenage girl in a world that is hostile to their mistakes. The casual bullying and working-class setting transforms real hardships to full on horror when Ligia is subjected to her horrific transformation. The limp drama between Ligia and Mayte ends up sucking the air out of Fifteen long before it reaches its chaotic climax.

With their fractured friendship driving the conflict, Fifteen doesn’t quite know what to do with its story. Outside of its inciting incident and the eventual party, the in between blends together in an uninteresting display of teenage bullying. It doesn’t help that both Ligia and Mayte are underwritten in their teenage angst, inconsistently responding to the various interpersonal spats coloring their lives. This compounds when their company is even less developed and interesting. Schoolyard bullies lack teeth and stern administrators fit the stereotypes they are asked to but contribute little to the story as Ligia’s threshold for determining danger lowers.

While it does have a few instances of upsetting body horror, most of the film hinges on Ligia’s unconvincing psychological turn. Throughout her ordeal, Ligia leads with confusion and intense emotional reactions, likely heightened by the burgeoning changes her demon baby has imparted upon her. An obvious ode to the painful and distressing parts of pregnancy, her erratic behavior feels more as a flimsy motive for the various deaths that lead to the massacre than a real character trait worth developing. Even in her final scenes, Ligia is written in a way that makes it impossible to know what she wants, and Fifteen doesn’t seem interested in caring about that development. She becomes everything and nothing at once in a way that feels underbaked.

It’s disappointing that the reveals never make the impact they need but Fifteen finds other ways to get under the skin. Ligia’s deterioration and transformation yield some gnarly body horror moments that spark genuine fear and disgust. A slightly comical but entirely brutal assault on a secret abortion clinic is the best example of what Fifteen tries to be throughout its runtime. Darkly comic and gory, this sequence also highlights the true horrors the girls face: poverty and wanton adult supervision.

There are certainly fun moments within Fifteen but it fails to make its body horror stick or give sufficient substance to its central relationships. A few moments of chaotic violence at the end and some cool imagery don’t make up for the listless narrative or lacking performances. The messiness takes center stage but there’s a clear foundation to the horror to make the coming-of-age story sweet enough.

Overall Score? 5/10