Belzebuth (film)

Lore & Background

The story begins in a hospital with detective Emmanuel Ritter and his wife celebrating the birth of their baby son. When Ritter receives a call from his office, he leaves and a nurse takes the baby to the nursery. Another nurse, who took the next shift, locks the nursery door, takes out a scalpel, and starts to stab Ritter's son and other infants in the nursery. Before anyone can break into the nursery, the nurse has killed all the newborns and slit her own throat.

Reader's Guide

Many years later, Ritter remains traumatized and emotionally distant, unable to process the death of his son. At work, he learns of a mass shooting at an elementary school. This turns out to be only one of a series of gruesome massacres in the area. Ritter embarks on a paranormal investigation, looking for an excommunicated priest and trying to find the evil force responsible for the shocking incidents. The film received an 80% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 critics' reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10.

Did You Know?

• The film is a 2017 Mexican horror film directed by Emilio Portes.
• It stars Joaquín Cosío and Tobin Bell.
• The plot begins with a nurse killing all newborns in a hospital nursery, including the detective's son.
• On Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 15 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10.

Origins & Creative Team

Belzebuth is a 2017 Mexican horror film that arrived as part of the country's ongoing contributions to the genre. The project was directed by Emilio Portes, who guided the film's overall vision from development through final cut. The two principal stars named in the film's credits are Joaquín Cosío and Tobin Bell, whose pairing at the center of a supernatural horror narrative gives the production a distinctive casting dynamic. As a product of Mexican cinema released in 2017, Belzebuth sits within a broader wave of Latin American horror that has drawn increasing international attention during the 2010s. The film's classification as horror, combined with its paranormal elements, positions it among a crop of genre entries that blend local storytelling sensibilities with the conventions of global horror filmmaking. Portes' direction and the dual-lead structure built around Cosío and Bell form the creative backbone around which the film's narrative and thematic concerns are constructed.

The Nursery Massacre

The film opens in a hospital where detective Emmanuel Ritter is celebrating the birth of his baby son alongside his wife. The moment of joy is shattered when Ritter receives a phone call from his office, compelling him to leave the ward. A nurse takes the newborn to the nursery, and the scene shifts to a different nurse who has just taken over the next shift. This second nurse locks the nursery door from the inside, retrieves a scalpel, and begins stabbing Ritter's son and the other infants. The horror is absolute and irreversible: before anyone outside can break through the locked door, the nurse has killed every newborn in the room and then slit her own throat. This opening sequence establishes the film's central trauma and sets the emotional stakes for everything that follows. The image of a mother's joy destroyed in a single, locked-room massacre becomes the wound that defines Ritter's character for the remainder of the story.

The Paranormal Investigation

Years after the nursery tragedy, detective Emmanuel Ritter remains deeply traumatized and emotionally distant, unable to process the death of his son. His personal grief has calcified into a permanent state of psychological damage that colors every aspect of his life. The narrative reignites when Ritter learns at work of a mass shooting at a local elementary school. This incident, however, is revealed to be merely the first in a series of gruesome massacres spreading through the area. Confronted with violence that defies conventional explanation, Ritter embarks on a paranormal investigation. His search leads him toward an excommunicated priest, a figure connected to the supernatural force behind the killings. The shift from procedural detective work to a hunt for an evil, otherworldly entity transforms Ritter's role from a man processing grief into a man actively confronting a demonic threat. The excommunicated priest serves as a crucial narrative waypoint, bridging the rational world of law enforcement with the irrational realm of supernatural evil.

Critical Response

Belzebuth received a generally favorable reception from the critics who reviewed it. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80 percent based on reviews from 15 critics. The average score across those reviews stands at 6.4 out of 10, indicating that while the film was broadly well-received, it did not achieve universal acclaim or extraordinary enthusiasm. The 80 percent figure places the film in a solid positive range, suggesting that the majority of professional reviewers found the film to be a worthwhile entry in the horror genre. The relatively modest number of 15 critic reviews indicates that Belzebuth, as a Mexican production, did not generate the massive critical coverage that larger-budget Hollywood horror films typically attract, yet the positive consensus among those who did review it speaks to the film's effectiveness within its genre. The 6.4 average reflects a film that critics found to be a positive experience, even if it did not command the highest possible scores. The combination of a strong approval percentage with a mid-range numerical average paints a picture of a film that met genre expectations without reaching landmark status.