The third film of the night was also the best, although it seemed less like a horror movie to me than a drama with very horrific elements. Borderland is another entry in a relatively new breed of horror films such as Hostel, Turistas, or Wolf Creek, in which people on vacation run afoul of unsavory local elements who intend to perform diverse deadly acts upon their bodies. In this case, three Texan college students wander down to Mexico for general debauchery and run afoul of a murderous and approximately Satanic cult, which they must struggle for survival against with the help of a few locals.

As a thumbnail, that sounds pretty generic. I’m here to tell you that the actual movie was both shot and acted exceptionally well. Each of our heroes had a different take on the mingled anger and hopeless despair of the situation. And if the majority of the cult members didn’t have much individual personality beyond “I’m going to kill you with a machete now, and not in the nice way”, well, the way they were filmed going about their business was far more realistic and disturbing than I’m usually comfortable with. And of those with personalities, the leader was spot on with his suave and utterly evil self-assurance, the muscle was even better at being simultaneously inhumanly effective and batshit insane, and Sean Astin’s disciple reminded me strongly of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now, with every bit as much talent.

There are good, solid reasons not to want to watch this movie. But they pretty much all revolve around how you feel about the content, because the presentation will be hard to top this weekend, and for my money stands up well among the movies that have been released this year.