By Jason Kerr
Cursed in Baja is a nightmare modern day noir from director Jeff Phillip Daniel’s who also stars in the lead role as Pirelli. A drug addled and disgraced former LAPD detective, is brought out of the shadows to help the Kemper family to find their grandson Quinn.
Pirelli has been here before; the flashbacks are holes driven into his past, he is in a battle which haunts him, fighting ghosts he cannot forget. Not a great career move for a recovering addict, he has been here before and is familiar with the Kempers having been employed by them to locate their daughter Helen previously.
The head of the Kemper family is a dying kingpin, silent and barely visible but etched into the tale as each string gets pulled. Pirelli plays the heroic cynic and the viewer is fed a feast of flashbacks and subplots that lead to where Pirelli stands today, in Baja in a world of shit.
Pirelli does not get a hero’s welcome in Baja, his arrival and his curiosity about Quinn is met with gang violence from gangster rapper Santanas and his associates. Pirelli cannot take a backward step as he tries to navigate the minefield he’s walking through. Ghosts of the past aside it’s the monsters of the present that are hell bent to destroy our mentally fragile sleuth. The film takes a twist as Pirelli finds himself in the clutches of a sacrificial cult, worshipping a canine bone crunching beast, the Chupacabra. Pirelli is just cursed full stop never mind in Baja. Cocaine Chupacabra v Cocaine Bear anyone?
Bloody Flicks 