I admit it, I am a sucker for a single-location thriller. Rosario, directed by Felipe Vargas and tightly written by Alan Trezza is a great example of one. The film begins with the career-minded Rosario (Emeraude Toubia) as she is successfully navigating the corporate world in her office overlooking Manhattan. A blizzard is bearing down on New York City and Rosario is eager to head straight home. That’s when Rosario gets the call from her father, Oscar (José Zúñiga) with the news that her estranged grandmother has just passed in her downtown apartment. Plans change and Rosario leaves work to head to her grandmother’s body in wait for the ambulance. Hanging out with a dead abuelita that you haven’t been close to in years during a blizzard isn’t exactly ideal. The good news is that it gets worse.

Granny has secrets. Lots of them. She also has a collection of oddball neighbors including her gruff super, Marty (Paul Ben-Victor), and the nebbish Joe (David Dastmalchian). Vargas sets a dreary scene as Rosario arrives at the impossibly decrepit building. The wind howls outside and Carlos Osorio‘s gritty production design thrusts us into a crumbling building replete with peeling wallpaper, creaky floors, and grime. Entering her grandmother’s apartment, Rosario discovers dishes that haven’t been done, along with slushing piles of bugs feasting on the leftovers in the sink. Grandma lay dead on the couch and Rosario watches from the window as multiple ambulances zoom around town on more urgent calls. She decides to make the best of it and starts to clean. Cleaning leads to exploring, exploring leads to nasty discoveries about what granny was really into all these years. Think candles, curses, skulls, and rituals.

The proceedings are broken up with moments between Rosario and the weird neighbor, Joe, wonderfully played by Dastmalchian. Soft spoken, with a slight cough, and a reluctance to make eye contact, Joe just wants his air-fryer back that granny borrowed. We know, however, that good ol’ Joe is being a little too persistent about an appliance for it just to be about that. Meanwhile Rosario’s father, Oscar pops into the story every so often on his journey through the blizzard to come to Rosario’s aid.

As I mentioned I love when a thriller can stay in one place without feeling claustrophobic. The action turns inward, exploring Rosario’s slow discovery on granny and her secret life that could possibly be affecting everyone she knew. It’s also so much fun to relish a strong female lead. Toubia is a lot of fun to watch as she puts her business attire through absolute hell trying to survive the night. She has a lovely screen presence and I hope to see more of her.

Rosario felt a lot like a mix of Drag me to Hell and the Autopsy of Jane Doe but with a decidedly new flavor. It’s a movie about generational guilt and what happens when we try to reconcile the means we used to get to where we are headed. Rosario is a nasty, inventive little piece of supernatural fun with a healthy dose of gore.