Santa Sangre · reception & legacy
1989 · Alejandro Jodorowsky
How Santa Sangre has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A modest art-house release in 1989 that Roger Ebert championed with four stars, it then spent years nearly impossible to see before a 2011 restoration and reissue cemented it as the consensus 'masterpiece' of Jodorowsky's filmography — his comeback film after a long absence from directing.
What's debated
Fans endlessly debate whether Santa Sangre or The Holy Mountain is the true Jodorowsky peak — and whether this, his most accessible and narrative film, counts as him taming his madness or perfecting it.
Its footprint
The image of a son standing behind his armless mother, acting as her arms, is one of cult cinema's most referenced tableaux, and the film is a fixture of 'greatest horror you've never seen' lists — even as fans argue it isn't really horror at all.
Where it stands
The classic gateway Jodorowsky: the film cinephiles hand to newcomers scared of El Topo, and a durable Letterboxd cult favourite.