Reten (1991)
- Armando Hernandez
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
The future is fucked and all thanks to atomic warfare & global pollution that ends up mutating some of the human population.
In an unnamed city (it’s literally just Mexico City), a special police force patrol around to keep mutated people away from the safe parts of the city and most of the mutated people just happen to be mostly criminals as well. Special agent Galad (Sergio Goyri) is teamed up with Fera (Telly Filippini), a stunning woman agent that is hoping to capture the big group of human rebels whom work alongside the mutants. As it turns out, Galad’s long-lost brother Modred (Jorge Luke) is the leader of this group and he’s been acquiring weaponry through corrupt police captain Mur (Roberto Ballesteros). They plan to dominate the city and perhaps even the world, as fucked up as it is.
Mexican post-apocalyptic films exist and Reten is one that’s been ignored over time and pretty much unknown to the rest of the world. At least some people on the internet know of it still. While it’s not exactly as big as Comando De La Muerte, Reten is still a fun watch with plenty of crudely-made sets, cheesy make-up fx, and crazy props to make everything of the film look futuristic. I’m also fond of them using an old factory to make it look like the mutants & rebels are living in an abandoned part of the city (looks to be La Laguna or somewhere else similar). They really got lucky there! They also got lucky with using Plaza Imagen for a futuristic-looking shopping mall setting as well. Oh, and the UPN Mexico campus worked wonders as the main Reten headquarters.
35 years later and the future isn’t exactly like the one we see in Reten, but we are truly living in dooming times for sure & Sergio Goyri is also very grey looking now. Can this movie finally get some traction outside of its very small audience that still remembers it? Hopefully so. Will Sergio Goyri get back to making movies again? Nah. But at least he did plenty in his heydays.
