Director/co-writer Luciano de Azevedo’s Cabrito (2020) is a sin-sational horror film that deftly incorporates Christian symbolism and ideals such as subservience to create a narrative that explores the psychological turmoil of a rural Brazilian family. This film is extreme, to say the least, with its graphically raw imagery and content verging on exploitative slasher film. A focus on Catholicism and family, however, grounds Cabrito in an uneasy reality.

Broken into three distinct chapters that represent increasing stages of violent madness, Cabrito (meaning “goatling” or “kid” in English) follows a family living in the rural countryside of Brazil. Lead by an abusive father, the family is split into factions, with two children following his abusive lead and taunting their brother, while their initially ineffective mother languishes in the background praying for salvation for herself and her abused son. When one day their father pushes the abused son too far by urging him to kill a man in order to put meat on the table, the mother urges her abused son to repent by riding the earth of their devilish oppressor. However, one devil is exchanged for another, as the son continues his descent into maddening cannibalism.

The newest f*cked up family of horror cinema, the characters that Azevedo creates in Cabrito could give the Sawyer family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre or mother Margaret White from Carrie a run for their money. Much like Carrie’s mom, the mother in Cabrito is an overbearing religious zealot who, along with other forces, pushes her son past a psychological breaking point from which there is no return. The journey that Azevedo takes the audience on to tell this story is emotionally heartbreaking and often visually grotesque, its intensely nauseating scenes of sadism eliciting an uncomfortable feeling of being right next to the killer due to Azevedo’s often up close and personal camera positioning.

Though the narrative as a whole is understandable, I did not feel I was prepped for the transitions between the chapters, and only through labored deduction did I realize the narrative is leaping forward years in time with the same characters. Despite these holes, the exploration of metaphor and symbolism in the movie was compelling enough to keep interest in the story, particularly the goat/kid title, which religiously plays into the goat symbolizing those disobedient to God and who sit at his left (as opposed to lambs which sit on his right and symbolize purity). Left of God describes this story and its antihero perfectly, displaying a perversion of obedience to father and mother taught in the bible as the abused son does his parents’ bidding to the detriment of his own soul.

At all times, religious artifacts and a bright portrait of Jesus loom over the dark happenings within their home, in stark contrast to the sickly display of cannibalism and the son donning a sewn-together pig-head mask during the slaughter, something like Leatherface’s. Azevedo’s directorial and writing style is both visceral and unflinching, showing the brutality of real life. Fashioned to feature-length from his 2015 short of the same name, both as a short and feature film, Cabrito has racked up awards for photography and audience choice at numerous festivals.

6 out of 10