‘Los Habitantes’ is a Mexican horror movie written and directed by Homero Bueno. It stars Jorge Luis Moreno, Estefanía Hinojosa, Jessica Mendiolea, Angélica Aragón and Luis Alberto Garcia. It is a well-conceived film about a man who finds himself to be the target of ghosts in his new house, only to discover their connection with his past. In fact, what really comes in the way of this being a decent horror film is how generic the actual ‘horror’ sequences are. But still, this is worth a watch, owing to how it uses ghosts in the context of trauma.
Los Habitantes (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Emiliano has just moved into a new house in Monterrey with his wife, Nina, and stepdaughter, Sofia. Four years ago, he had left a bar in the wee hours of the morning and crashed his car into a tree in a forest. He woke up three months later with no memory of what happened and his life, between the age of 30 and 35, a blank slate. After the accident, he moved to Mexico City with his mother. That’s when he got married to Nina and then left for Monterrey as a feeling of something incomplete, something missing, kept haunting him.
He had studied in Monterrey and had friends from college in the city, making it a place he naturally is attached to. Furthermore, he tells his psychiatrist that the last thing he remembers from before his accident is turning 30. He was ambitious and wanted to leave for Spain after selling his car and using all his savings to fund the trip. In fact, he does not remember going to Spain though everyone tells him that he did and returned after six months.
At his new house, uncanny occurrences are troubling him. He starts to experience the ghostly presence of a child who’s always running around and a woman who keeps trying to get closer to him. He keeps waking up at 2.45 a.m., and his headaches grow worse. After Nina finds out what’s happening, she takes him to a doctor. The MRI does not show any signs of damage, but the doctor states that such hallucinations are possible as surgery side-effects in traumatic cases.
The only mystery is why they have taken so long to surface. He refers Emiliano to the psychiatrist, which is how he ends up at her place. The treatment, though, is hardly successful. Emiliano’s hallucinations keep worsening and become more regular. He starts to confuse facts of his daily life, such as what kind of doll he bought Sofia. Seeing his state, Nina calls his mother to their place. This is when the hitherto unknown truths about his past start to resurface.
Who was the previous owner of the house?
When the ghosts’ terrorizing gets extremely serious, Emiliano decides to find out who the house belonged to in the past. The hope is that a discovery of the previous owners and perhaps some strange occurrences in the house’s past will explain the cause behind the presence. At the Registration Office, he bribes the officer and makes a shocking discovery. In January 2016, Emiliano himself bought the house from the builder Arce Architects. In 2018, he sold the house to his ex-roommate and friend, Arturo. Given that his memory between the age of 30-35 has been gone since the accident, Emiliano is startled and has no clue as to how that can be.
Why does Emiliano’s neighbor act strangely?
Across the street from Emiliano’s house, a lady resides who keeps giving him suspicious looks. She never interacts with him but is often seen strangely staring at him, as if she knows something about him or the house. Before heading to the Registration Office, Emiliano tries to find out about the house’s history and its past owners from her. She has been living there for 20 years and so clearly has an idea about what has happened there. But she does not divulge any information, escaping at the very sound of the question. As it turns out, the lady had witnessed the horror of what happened to Emiliano and his family in the past. Her looks can be interpreted as both sympathy for the man’s plight and probably disgust at seeing him so easily rebuilding a life in a similar fashion to his previous one.
Los Habitantes (2023) Movie Ending, Explained:
What happened with Emiliano after he left for Spain?
Emiliano had left for Spain after turning 30, with the intention of returning within six months. He met a woman named Amaya, fell in love with her, and postponed his return. He eventually did in December 2015 with Amaya, who was expecting their child. A boarding pass, pressed between the pages of a book, ‘La Pieza Faltante,’ that has mysteriously beckoned him since his arrival, attests to this fact. They got married, and he moved into the exact same house he was living in. They had a happy life together till an accident tore Emiliano’s life apart.
What is the cause of the accident?
One evening, Emiliano returned home and found the place empty. He tried calling Amaya, but she did not pick up. Assuming she was in the shower, he took a bottle of beer and put on a football match. He fell asleep and woke up at 2.45 a.m., still alone in the house. He called the police, and they discovered that Amaya and their daughter had been in the house all along. After returning home, Emiliano closed the pool curtain, not realizing that his wife and child were playing in there. She had taken a dip in the water with their daughter, and before she could come up, the curtain closed over their heads. They drowned and died there, with Emiliano completely unaware of what had happened.
The discovery devastates Emiliano. With no evidence of foul play, he was released from prison but had a difficult time returning to a normal life. He sold his house to Arturo, who let him stay there to help him recover and keep him company. One night, struck by his grief and guilt, Emiliano started drinking and took Arturo’s car out. He found a spot in the woods at Chipinique and drove the car into it in an attempt to kill himself. The story about him having left a bar is not true but had been placed in his head.
Seeing the state of her son and his suicidal tendencies, Emiliano’s mother got his memories of Spain, his family, their death, and his depression erased. She did it as a favor to him and, obviously, told him nothing about it. His friends and colleagues were informed and asked to play along. When Emiliano met Nina and Sofia, it became a trigger for his past memories to resurface.
A woman with a daughter unconsciously reminded him of Amaya and his child. So he started to rebuild his life with her in exactly the same fashion that he had created with Amaya. The fact that his memories had never really gotten erased can be seen in facts like he wishes to have a unicorn painted on the wall of Sofia’s room, much like his daughter had. Or that he confuses the princess doll he bought Sofia with a mermaid doll he had bought for his daughter.
What emerges from this is the fact that what Emiliano thinks of as ghosts terrorizing him are really just his own memories that are resurfacing. He never made peace with his trauma of losing his family, and the erasure of the memories only brought them back in a more horrific manner. The sense of something missing that he felt while living in Mexico City was possibly a desire to return to Monterrey so he could go back to his past that he had left behind without any closure.
After a confrontation with his mother and Arturo, the latter leaves behind a pen drive containing pictures from Emiliano’s life with Amaya. Seeing the images, making peace with his past, and accepting his present life restores Emiliano’s mental health. Yet, the final frame shows us that the ghosts are not gone. He is no longer disturbed or troubled by them as he was once. However, they continue to lurk in the recesses of his conscience.
![Revenge [2017]: A Roaring Rampage of Retribution](https://www.highonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/revenge-screenshot-2-768x322.jpg)
