Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good movie but grossly overrated

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I am from Texas and am more than familiar with the actual incident in which a UT student on Spring Break was abducted by a an insane narco-cult that ended up sacrificing him. I remember the news stories. So, this film instantly perked my interest. However, I was also more than aware that this was not exactly a big budget film and gave the appearance of being yet another torture horror movie. However, I was blown away by the final product. This film has a slick an exceptional look, the scenes are so well shot, cinematography and choreography, great. Secondly, the acting is exceptional. Not super famous actors here, but they are putting there all into these performances. You really start to feel like you are in this dark Mexican underworld where crazies are looking to perform human sacrifices. In the end, what you have is a very intense, well acted movie that hearkens back to the classic midnight movies of the 1970s. The violence level is intense in many scenes, but hey, the actual story this was based on was grotesquely violent, so.. Give this film a shot, if you can get past the intensity, you will be impressed.

I was expecting a much better movie. Based on a real story very, very loosely. I didn't find this to be much of a thriller and with the run time and limited action it felt slow. Overall these characters make a lot of poor decisions under the guise they are rational choices. If my friend gets kidnapped in Mexico I'm not going rogue to get them back knowing that like is going to end with all of us dead and no one even knowing where we are. The most action was one situation in a hotel where one of the characters had to try to escape a mob of machete wielding satanic lunatics. For some reason Sean Austin was in this movie as part of the Mexican satanic gang which made virtually no sense and his acting was comic relief that didn't fit the overall genre they were going for. Overall given what passes for horror/thrillers it was okay but nothing like I thought per the reviews.

This American/Mexican movie from the border between USA and Mexico is loosely based on a true story, which is hard to accept. But evil exists, and it's awful to get to know about it. And this is a story difficult to see and comprehend.Three young guys go down to Mexico one summer, where they experience that one of them disappears. One of them is kidnapped by humans believing in human sacrificing to the spirit Nganga. The cult leader is based upon The story of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo! The so-called Godfather of Matamoros. They found more than fifty corpses where brains and spinal cords had been removed. Well, that's the true story, of a case which still isn't closed, as several members of the cult still is on the run.The film is technically good, and well done in all aspects. The colors are gritty, made with color filters, like many Latin American film has been lately. In this film it's very suitable. Sometimes maybe a bit too much, as it is sometimes difficult to see clearly, outdoors in the sun. Indoors it's better.The film is made terrifying, as it should be. many actors are doings terrific job. Maybe not so much Brian Presley and Jake MuxWorthy as Rudef Strong. But the Mexicans are doing great, and I always admire Damian Alcazar (amazing in 2004-film Chronicas/Chronicles). The crook Marco Bacuzzi is amazingly terrifying as a violent evil man. One of the scariest I've seen on film ever. The bad guys here are really disgusting all of them. Well played.I find this a very good film, Though I don't like this kind of violence. I hate watching it, and definitely more do when it is a true story. This is of course it's not everyone's porridge. If you trouble with graphic films, this is no film for you. It's no constellation "this is just film", 'cause it isn't just. It is based on a true happening, found in the insanity of some human's religion. Embrace yourself.

For those familiar with the case of the Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo and the „Matamoros"-killings, you might probably agree that it had been one of the most bizarre and shocking cases from that period in time. It had everything that would eventually make a riveting movie: crime, drug-dealer cartels, black magic (a hotchpotch of Christianity, Voodoo and Palo Mayombe), human sacrifice and more sadism then the average mind would feel comfortable with. Having read a fair share about the case, I had waited and rooted for an adaptation and this adaptation came 2007 with "Borderland".Naturally, in times of "Saw", "Turistas" and similar "Torture-Porn", making a straight thriller or Slasher would not suffice (nor would it have done reality justice). "Borderland" starts promising, suspenseful and very brutal. Then it moves into familiar territory: a group of party-hungry American youngsters go across the border and soon fall into the crowd of the bad guys.In essence, to make a cut above the rest, the movie would have had to concentrate on the antagonists rather than the tourists (all of which are portrayed as stereotypical and, concerning acting skills, forgettable as can possibly be, I might add). Indeed, "Borderland" had a colorful and interesting band of antagonists, like the creepy Gustavo (Marco Bacuzzi), tattooed cult-leader Santillan (Beto Cuevas) or the menacing "Ghost Rider" (Wilebardo Bucio), who appears in a few scene and is never really seen again. Sadly, the movie never digs deeper into those characters, giving us no background story, in the end killing them all off rather unspectacular.What's left is an average, run-of-the-mill torture-porn with a few grisly effects, no more than many other "Hostel"-clones and many wasted opportunities. Hence, we'll have to wait for the movie that will tackle the horrible story of "Matamoros" adequately.4/10 points is the maximum I can give for this. A note and recommendation to those interested in the "Matamoros"-case would be "Perdita Durango". Though the film isn't actually based on the crime itself, Javier Bardem plays a Palo Mayombe priest-cum-gangster, that comes much closer to the Santillan of "Borderland)