Don't Leave the Kids Alone

Before writing 'Don't Leave the Kids Alone', Emilio Portes and co-writer Alan Maldonado swapped stories about the stunts they pulled as kids, ones so reckless they still can't work out how they survived. Best known for comedies such as 'El crimen del Cácaro Gumaro', Portes turned those memories into his second horror film after 'Belzebuth', set over a single night in 1980s Mexico City.

Catalina Camacho (Ana Serradilla) has recently been widowed and has bought a huge house at auction for next to nothing, where she lives with her sons Matías, 10, and Emiliano, 7. One evening she spots a mistake in the sale papers and has to sort it out at a party with the Licenciado (José Sefami), with Marco (Jesús Zavala) at her side. When the babysitter cancels at the last minute, she takes a chance: she leaves the boys home alone, with Matías in charge and under orders to make sure his brother takes his pill.

With the place to themselves, the brothers go hunting for their games console among the unopened boxes while the previous owner's dog barks non-stop in the garden. Their usual squabbling turns nastier as the night wears on, until something convinces each of them that the other wants him dead so he can be mum's favourite. Over at the party, Catalina starts to hear why the house came so cheap.

Juan Pablo Velasco and Ricardo Galina, as the two boys, carry much of the film. It was shot in a vast house in Mexico City's Pedregal, in daylight, with the whole building covered over so it would pass for night, and it's lit by Martín Boege with a score by Aldo Max Rodríguez. After Rotterdam in early 2025 it won the Blood Window award for best Latin American film at Sitges and took best picture and best director at Screamfest. At Manchester's Grimmfest it won the audience award and the boys shared best acting duo, part of more than twenty awards so far.

Videocine opened it in Mexican cinemas on 14 May 2026, and the reviews were mostly positive. Nearly every critic singled out the two young leads and the atmosphere, though a few found the first half slow going.

• Horror
• Drama
• Thriller