“Women live in a more dangerous world than men. This is a fact”, says director Juan Pablo Arias Muñoz on his new film The History of Monsters. It’s in the realm of the fantastical that artists can use the practice of cinema to initiate discussion on controversial topics; as was the sentiment stated by Guillermo del Toro during his Oscar acceptance speech. Muñoz uses horror to do exactly as del Toro states, showing much promise in his cinematic career by illustrating a narrative which hauntingly toes the line between whether monsters and man are one and the same.

Evelyn (Valeria Gonzalez) lives isolated in a cabin in the woods haunted every night by monsters of unknown origin. One day she finds a man named Adam (Oscar Peña) in the forest and decides to help him. She becomes entranced by the stranger and struggles between her safety and her sexual desires.

Both Gonzalez and Peña have a clear chemistry that brings all the elements at play in the film together; making the only real sin of The History of Monsters that it’s only a short film. There is a raw fearfulness that Gonzalez brings to Evelyn, which is essential for a character who has been on her own for a long time and still realing from the trauma of a past assault. It’s this quality that is so expertly handled that makes the dramatic turn between the two characters at the end so much more heartbreaking. “Women and men are raised with a very different set of values and skills regarding sexuality and safety,” says Muñoz. “Men are taught to be aggressive. Women are taught to watch over their shoulders. Society has been designed by men so that whenever a woman decides to live out her sexual impulses, there’s a degree of self-preservation that she needs to give up”.

At its core, the film showcases the story of a woman who believes her sexual impulses have become a threat to her safety, pushing her to seek a way to destroy the object of her desire, Adam.

There are some stunning visuals that turn the wooded pockets of Los Angeles into a truly captivating, post-apocalyptic, world where monsters run rampant. We don’t get much visuals of the creatures themselves, but the glimpses and strategic moments of reveal is what give them a frightening power of suspense over the audience.