‘Hurricane’ turns into feeble shower as mystery washes up on rocks of mediocrity

The twisted storm of Hurricane Season rocks viewers with a grotesque story; however, this movie has nothing to do with storms, hurricanes, or other meteorological effects. Just when viewers thought this film would be another installment in a series of storm chasers, they are introduced to the corpse of a village ‘Witch,’ who is found rotting in a river. Throughout the movie, viewers experience five different perspectives, including the opening overview scene, to figure out how the Witch died and understand the context of this murder, all with clear skies and no hurricane in sight. 

The first perspective portrayed in the film is of Yesenia, AKA “Lagarta,” (Paloma Alvamar) who serves as a witness to convict her cousin, Luismi (Andres Cordaz) out of envy. Eventually, it changes to Munra’s (Guss Morales) perspective. He ends up being an accomplice in the murder because he was giving the boys a ride, not knowing it was to the Witch’s house. Norma (Kat Rigoni) follows Munra with her story on how she had to endure a miscarriage that was unsafe for her, setting up a possible motive for the murder. Finally, we have Brando’s (Ernesto Melendez) point of view, which is the actual murder of the Witch when they attempt to rob her and she retaliates. 

In contrast to other movies, it can be argued that Luismi is the main character and yet viewers never get his perspective. His story is told through others.

This movie was definitely paced quickly, but the point was dragged out too long. It was made out to be a murder mystery, but viewers are aware who committed the crime in the first perspective. There was no suspense or need to keep watching. There also was no dread of looking away in fear of missing something. Though the hook draws viewers in, there’s a consistent struggle to keep attention. This movie was an hour and 40 minutes long, but really only needed about 50 of those minutes to tell the tale.

There was no need for Munra’s point of view, as the only thing it accomplished was telling viewers he was the driver, meaning he was innocent. Though he never backed out on helping Brando and Luismi, it’s his own fault that he’s an accomplice. Norma’s perspective was important to understanding Luismi’s motive, but Luismi then doesn’t actually commit the murder, so he’s supposed to be innocent. Contrary to Munra, viewers understand why Luismi would go. Though Brando’s perspective is essentially the most important, viewers already know what’s going to happen before and it makes him just feel like a pointless throw-in. The only new piece of information viewers get is that Brando is having an internal conflict with himself about being gay, and that causes him to murder the Witch in anger instead of the assumed murderer being Luismi. This whole section could’ve been much shorter, just like the other perspectives.

Another thing that slows the movie’s flow is that it seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the hurricane season. It appears writers just slapped on the name Hurricane Season and went about their day.

Though the movie itself didn’t really hit the mark, the approach for representation of the LGBTQ+ community is nicely woven into the story line. Contrary to many other releases, this one feels as though it was written with the intention of the boys being attracted to each other as  a first thought, not an afterthought that was then poorly thrown into the movie last minute to build an appeal to a larger audience. 

This movie brings a realistic sense of what it’s like for members of the LGBTQ+ community when they are unsure of what they want or what is going on as Brando specifically can’t seem to understand why he would be attracted to Luismi. Brando even gets angry at himself, then feels ashamed for his ‘inability’ to control his sexual preference. There is also a heavy presence of homophobic ideology, as slurs get thrown around in every other scene at every male character, though it comes to be that almost every single one is gay and they say that about each other to hide their own conflicted sense of self perception. 

Overall, this movie has a solid plot going in, but it didn’t give the suspense or the quick passing normalcy of other murder mysteries, making it a slog not worth wading through.

D+

The plot didn’t really accomplish too much, but the underlying representation of the LGBTQ+ community was outstanding and a refreshing take for it to not have been an afterthought.

by Ashley Schumann

Published November 27, 2023

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue 3