BOWELS OF HELL | 2026

This review is part of Tropical Alien’s coverage of the 50th São Paulo International Film Festival.

Why we recommend it

Review

According to Freud – yes, I’m starting a text with the words “according to Freud”, please forgive me – the second stage in the process of a person’s psychosexual development is the “anal stage”. Beginning between the second and fourth year of life, this period is marked by the discovery of pleasure through command of one’s own bowel functions. The process of holding in and letting go of feces extends to the ability to keep control of oneself, and also to the joy of letting go. Because it’s such a basic and significant experience, defecation unites us as a species and as a society. Everybody poops.

So, of course, there was already a need for a horror film to come along and explore this. Horror is a genre that only works by appealing to sensations shared by all people, analyzing essential fears and desires. Fortunately, directors Gustavo Vinagre and Gurcius Gewdner have filled that void with the wonderfully titled Bowels of Hell.

It’s about killer toilets.

Yes.

Martha Nowill plays Malu, an event director traumatized by memories of the past, when one of her twin children died in a bizarre bathroom accident. Since then, she has suffered from a terrible toilet phobia, which also ends up causing an extremely severe case of constipation. She also has trouble dealing with the gender fluidity of Gênesis (Benjamín), her surviving child, who refuses to give up on defending their non-binary identity to their mother. That’s exactly why Gênesis confronts her upon finding out about her new job: organizing the gender reveal party for a rich influencer who produces motherhood content. Malu’s grief, her maternal disappointment and the pressure at work end up manifesting in a strange curse that affects the bathrooms of the building where she lives, leaving all the residents defenseless against the attacks of the malevolent latrines.

The synopsis alone already grants the film trash status, less a psychological horror – even though it depends on the protagonist’s dramatic arc – and more an over-the-top festival of surreal figures and explicit gore. The directors themselves make clear their admiration for the cinema of José Mojica Marins, our precious Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe). One of the film’s first deaths even seems to reference a similar moment in Embodiment of Evil, from 2008. That way, even if the drama with Malu and Gênesis is handled in a fairly objective manner, the satirical reality in which the film takes place manifests around it.

And maybe the best example of this – even more than the possessed toilets – is the character played by Olivia Torres, the mysterious Madame Katka. The less said about her, the better. Not only because the moment she’s introduced is already worth the price of admission, but because the composition of the character and the actor’s performance have created one of the most bizarre figures in Brazilian cinema. And, for that very reason, she has the potential to become one of the most celebrated. It’s Mazzaropi, Li’l Zé, Captain Nascimento and Madame Katka in the same pantheon. Suffice it to say that she offers some unusual assistance to the caretaker Villaça (Otávio Muller) when he finds out what’s going on in the building’s pipes.

Even if Bowels of Hell has some pacing and length problems (if it were between ten and fifteen minutes shorter, it would be a masterpiece), it has the ability to establish itself as a gem of trash horror, precisely because it offers this blend of authorial intent with shameless fun and gratuitous violence. And if the Freudian introduction to this text didn’t work as a good defense, know that any film that lets you say “I didn’t understand how that guy dressed as a clown shit his pants and then had his leg amputated” doesn’t need to justify its own existence.

Where to watch Bowels of Hell:

Credits

Bruno Weber