''Legend Quest: The Legend of La Nahuala'' (released in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

as ''La Leyenda de la Nahuala'') is a 2007

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

horror comedy film Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary genre, literary, television genre, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three ty ...

released in theaters on 1 November 2007 in Mexico. It was the fourth animated feature film in Mexico to be released, and the first to be exhibited in DTS. The film was a box-office success on its opening weekend, grossing a total of $42.2 million

pesos The peso is the monetary unit of several countries in the Americas, and the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries the peso uses the same sign, "$", as many currencies named "dollar" ...

(US$4.03 million). It was produced by Soco Aguilar and Ricardo Arnaiz and directed by Arnaíz. It was later released

direct-to-video Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was p ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 2008. The film is currently one of the most watched on Netflix (2022).

Plot

The movie takes place on the

Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...

of 1807, in the city of

Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...

. A narrator starts the plot off with a story about an abandoned house in Puebla, which is haunted by a malevolent force known as “La Nahuala.” 52 years ago, it was the home of the affluent Villavicencio family, who were holding a feast for family and friends for the Day of the Dead. Unbeknownst to them, they were being haunted by a malignant nahuatl who wanted to become all powerful. It killed and possessed the cook's body, turning the woman into La Nahuala, a witchly host, and initiated a ritual to take over. La Nahuala ends up killing the Villavicencio family by poisoning their soups and murders the rest of the household.-Among those killed are the Villavicencio’s young daughter Teodora and Teodora’s servant Xochitl as ritual sacrifices, but before La Nahuala could finish her final victim she was "stopped.” However, her soul and the souls of all the people she killed are trapped in the abandoned house - and it is said she still awaits for a child to come near the manor at night so she can finally complete the ritual. The story ends as it is revealed to have been told by a mischievous boy named Nando San Juan, who told the story to his nervous and cowardly younger brother Leo San Juan, whom he enjoys teasing. Just as Nando scares Leo, the two boys are herded to mass by their grandmother and their nanny. Leo (who serves as altar boy) can't stop thinking of the legend of La Nahuala during the service and his trembling causes a series of accidents that disturb mass and humiliate Friar Godofredo, the

Franciscan friar , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

who officiates mass. Despite the mess, Friar Godofredo only gently reprimands Leo and soothes his fears by assuring him that La Nahuala is dead. Friar Godofredo then shows him his hot air balloon, promising to take Leo on a ride once the balloon is ready to fly. During the festivities, Leo is shunned by two children in front of the seemingly kindly Santos'

candy Candy, also called sweets (British English) or lollies (Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language an ...

stand for his stuttering and for peeing when he's afraid (a fact Nando has been spreading). Santos assures Leo that the Villavicencio house isn't haunted - he says Leo should confront his fears by going into the house, and gifts him with a golden medallion: the Medallion of Miquitzli, which he claims keeps fear at bay. Before the two part, Santos gives Leo a brief show of the

fireworks Fireworks are a class of Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a l ...

he has just acquired. Back at home, Leo's good mood is ruined when his nanny Dionisia gives him a large order of bread to be delivered to a Señor Machorro (later revealed to be Santos) at number ten Nahuala street, the very street where the abandoned Villavicencio house stands. Leo makes it to the front of the abandoned house, where Nando unexpectedly jumps out and frightens him; the shock makes Leo pee himself and drop the bread. Adding insult to injury, Nando steals the medallion of Miquitzli from Leo and dodges into the Villavicencio house, pretending to be caught by La Nahuala to further humiliate Leo. As Leo sadly walks away, the medallion begins to glow, and Leo turns in time to see a ghostly hand burst from the house and drag a screaming Nando inside. Leo goes to Friar Godofredo for help. The elderly friar reveals to him the real story of La Nahuala: 52 years ago, a young Friar Godofredo and a

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...

joined forces to hunt the nahuatl when they caught wind of the appearance of La Nahuala in the Villavicencio house. The two men led a mob to the house, where La Nahuala prepared to consume the souls of Teodora, Xochitl, and Teodora's friend, Toñita San Juan, who is revealed to be Leo and Nando's own grandmother. The party arrived too late to save Xochitl and Teodora, but Toñita resisted, ripping the medallion of Miquitzli from La Nahuala's neck and upsetting the ritual as Friar Godofredo and the shaman fought the witch. Although the ritual's failure stopped La Nahuala from gaining immortality and power, her spirit took over the house, leaving the friar and the shaman no choice but to seal the house and evacuate Toñita and the cook's young son, the only two survivors. Friar Godofredo warns that he must destroy the medallion before the night is over or La Nahuala will come back to life, prompting Leo to run back into the Villavicencio house. Friar Godofredo tries to run after him and is overcome by exhaustion. When he runs into Santos and attempts to enlist his help, the candymaker instead knocks Fray Godofredo unconscious. Inside the house, Leo runs into various frightening sights including two living

sugar skulls Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double s ...

, finally running into the

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

of Xochitl. The girl offers him her help, explaining that La Nahuala will enslave the dead and feed on the souls of all the living in Puebla if she can conclude the ritual (apparently using Nando's soul as a replacement). The house itself seems resolved to kill Leo with living knives, lava-spewing pots and other apparitions. They also run into trouble from the cursed

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

s of the Villavicencios and their guests, who are starved and want to eat Leo. After escaping them, they run into the ghost of Teodora: though friendly to Xochitl, she is stuck up and spoiled. Leo has to trick her into opening the door to the next area of the house by convincing Teodora that her hairbrush is on the other side of a locked door she initially refuses to open. Elsewhere, Santos threatens Fray Godofredo. He reveals that he is aware of the medallion's power and orchestrated the night's events, as he was the young boy that was rescued from the Villavicencio house 52 years before: the son of the cook La Nahuala possessed. He is resentful of Friar Godofredo for sealing his mother away and manipulated Leo into entering in hopes of finally being with his mother again. Before he can hurt him, however, Friar Godofredo escapes. At the San Juan

Bakery A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who ...

, Toñita finds her grandsons missing and rushes to the abandoned house with Dionisia when she concludes it must be La Nahuala's doing. Back at the abandoned house, the approach of midnight increases La Nahuala's powers. She makes Teodora and Xochitl succumb to her influence and confronts Leo, letting him choose between staying and leaving. She releases nightmarish apparitions on him when he insists he will stay to rescue his brother. The chase leads Leo to the house's library, where he meets a dragon alebrije and the Don Quijote-like ghost Don Andrés. The Alebrije (who presents himself as the Library Alebrije) reveals that La Nahuala can take any shape she wishes and puts Leo through a series of tests to make sure ''he'' isn't the evil spirit. When the boy passes all three, Alebrije concludes that Leo is not La Nahuala, but rather a boy singled out by destiny. Alebrije then shows Leo a vision of a warrior using a black skull to destroy something (referred to as 'the evil') inside the medallion to destroy the spirit. Leo runs into the house's chapel, where he is captured by La Nahuala. She reveals that it was Leo's soul she wanted for the ritual, and had used Nando as bait. Though his grandmother, and then Friar Godofredo, attempt to stop them, Santos knocks the old woman unconscious and fiercely battles Fray Godofredo to allow La Nahuala to complete the ritual. After La Nahuala's spell rebounds on them by way of Friar Godofredo using the skull of

Tezcatlipoca Tezcatlipoca (; nci, Tēzcatl ihpōca ) was a central deity in Aztec religion, and his main festival was the Toxcatl ceremony celebrated in the month of May. One of the four sons of Ōmeteōtl, Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the God of providenc ...

's mirror, Santos begs his mother for help with his wounds. To his horror, La Nahuala finally reveals she isn't Santos's mother, but that she consumed his mother's soul and has chosen to look like her to keep Santos in her service. Betrayed and regretful, Santos sacrifices himself to allow Leo to escape. With Nando's help, and under directions from a dying Friar Godofredo, Leo uses the black skull of Tezcatlipoca to confuse La Nahuala, then hurls the skull on the evil that emerges from the medallion of Miquitzli. Once it's destroyed, a defeated Nahuala turns to stone. Before he passes on, Friar Godofredo bequeaths Leo his

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

and declares himself at peace in the knowledge that Leo remains to defend Puebla. Freed from La Nahuala's influence, Teodora and Xochitl also move on (but not before kissing Leo's cheek in gratitude). A regretful Santos is collected by the spirit of his real mother, who forgives him for his trespasses. Santos rejuvenates into a ten year old boy as he ascends to heaven hand in hand with his mother. Before the night ends, Leo gently ridicules Nando for peeing himself in terror after the two sugar skulls (who reveal themselves to be on Leo's side) sneak up on him. A year later on the feast of the Day of the Dead, the San Juan Bakery is visited by a crowd of spirits: Santos, the Villavicencio family, Xochitl, Teodora, Don Andrés and even Fray Godofredo. The ghostly friar also relays a message to Leo: he must travel to

Xochimilco Xochimilco (; nci, Xōchimīlco, ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') of Mexico City. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the ...

, which is besieged by

La Llorona ''La Llorona'' (; "The Weeping Woman" or "The Wailer") is a Hispanic-American mythical vengeful ghost who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned. Origins Early colonial times provided evidence that the lore ...

. He, along with Alebrije, Don Andrés and the two sugar skulls (named Finado and Moribunda) depart on Friar Godofredo's hot air balloon.

Cast

*Fabrizio Santini as Leo San Juan *Bruno Coronel as Fernando "Nando" San Juan *Ofelia Medina as La Nahuala *Germán Robles as Fray Godofredo *María Santander as Toñita San Juan *Luna Arjona as Nana Dionisia *Andrés Bustamante as Don Andrés * Jesús Ochoa as Santos *Rafael Inclán as Alebrije *

Martha Higareda Martha Elba Guadalupe Higareda Cervantes () (born August 24, 1983) is a Mexican actress, producer and screenwriter. Life and career Higareda was born in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, the daughter of actress Martha Cervantes and artist and ther ...

as Xóchitl *Mayté Corderio (as María Teresa Cordeiro) as Teodora Villavicencio * Manuel 'Loco' Valdés as Lorenzo Villavicencio *

Pierre Angelo Pierre Angelo Antonioli Flores (born September 24, 1972) is a Mexican actor, director and humorist. He was first known for his role in the kids 80's show Chiquilladas, which launched his career into the comedy world within Mexican television, the ...

as blind man *Verónica De Ita as Sra. Pérez *Ginny Hoffman as Sra. López *Carlos Segundo as Sr. López *Gabriel Villar as Gaznate seller *Grecia Villar as Fray Sinfonolo *Jorge Alberto Aguillera as Himself (voice)

Release

The film was released on October 31, 2007, in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. In the

release, the film was rated PG "for some scary images, language, thematic elements and rude humor" by the

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

Box office

The film opened #1 at the Mexican box-office, earning $15,832,363

($1,479,685

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

). It is one of the most successful releases in Mexican cinema history.

Production

This

was produced by

Animex Producciones Animex Producciones is a Mexican animation studio, established in Puebla, which specializes in digital animation productions for film and television. It was founded in 2000 by Ricardo Arnaiz. The studio utilizes the Toon Boom Animation software f ...

. It uses a hybrid of 2D and 3D with

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Eff ...

(visual effects and compositing),

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...

(background art),

Autodesk Maya Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya ( ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interact ...

(computer animation),

Avid Media Composer Avid Media Composer is a film and video editing software application or non-linear editing system (NLE) developed by Avid Technology. Initially released in 1989 on Macintosh II as an offline editing system, the application has since evolved to al ...

(editing), MASSIVE (rendering) and

Toon Boom Harmony Toon Boom Animation Inc. is a Canadian software company that specializes in animation production and storyboarding software. Founded in 1994 and based in Montreal, Quebec, Toon Boom develops animation and storyboarding software for film, televi ...

(traditional and paperless animation) on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

hardware and

Wacom () is a Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, that specializes in manufacturing graphics tablets and related products. Headquarters locations The main headquarters are located in Kazo, Saitama, Japan. Its office in the USA ...

tablets.

Awards and nominations

Sequels

After the success of the film, a sequel, titled '' La Leyenda de la Llorona'', was released on October 21, 2011. The third film, titled '' La leyenda de las Momias'' was released on 30 October 2014 in the 4DX format. Both of the sequels were animated and produced by Ánima Estudios.Anima Puts ‘Momias’ into Pre-prod (EXCLUSIVE) , Variety
/ref> A fourth installment, titled '' La Leyenda del Chupacabras'',Ánima Estudios on Twitter: ¡La próxima película de la saga de Las Leyendas está en camino! Esperen más noticias a través de nuestras redes.
/ref> was released on October 14, 2016 in the

and October 21, 2016 in

. The fifth installment, titled '' La Leyenda del Charro Negro''. was released on 19 January 2018.Ánima Estudios on Twitter: "¡Los rumores eran ciertos! Próximamente descubrirás cómo Leo San Juan se enfrentará a esta siniestra Leyenda."
(in Spanish) Accessed on 5 April 2017.

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. The trilogy has also been adapted into a

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

original series, titled '' Legend Quest'', which was released worldwide on 24 February 2017.

References

External links

Interview to director Ricardo Arnaiz

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Leyenda de la Nahuala 2007 films Mexican animated horror films 2007 animated films Animated comedy films Mexican comedy horror films 2007 comedy horror films 2007 comedy films 2000s monster movies Animated feature films Holiday horror films Films set in the 1750s Films set in 1807 Films set in 1808 2000s Mexican films 2000s Spanish-language films