Synopsis
Interview
Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower recently interviewed writer and director Isaac Ezban about his new horror feature, Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse. The film began limited screenings in theaters nationwide starting on April 4, 2025.
Lightly edited for content and clarity.
Isaac Ezban:
Hi Glen, great to meet you. A great poster behind you! What a cool place to do an interview. And great chair, too! I understand that reference.
Glen Dower:
I love a good movie reference myself. We’ll talk about those in a minute while we talk about your movie, of course. The Children of the Apocalypse, what a rollercoaster. I had such a great time with this film. It was awesome.
Isaac Ezban:
Thank you.
Glen Dower:
Let’s talk about the three boys, first of all. The main characters and they’re the heart and soul of this movie. And if you told me beforehand they were brothers in real life, I would have believed you, no problem. But how did you find Mateo, Leonardo, and Farid?
Isaac Ezban:
Yeah. A professor of mine used to say, when you’re making a movie, casting is 50%. I think when you’re working with children, casting is 80%. Because it’s all about nailing the right decisions for the right role. And if you nail them, you have it. There are two kinds of filmmakers, the directors that write something thinking on how they’re going to make it happen. For example, I have this friend who said, “I wrote the character of a kid. I’m going to put very little dialogue into this character because he’s a child.” I’m not that kind of filmmaker. The other kind is, you write whatever the fuck you have in your mind, and see how to make it happen. That’s what I did.
And the moment when I delivered the script to myself or my crew, I was like, wait, how are we going to find these kids? Kids that can carry the whole weight of the movie. I mean, somebody told me, man, you made a two-hour movie carried by three kids because you see the parents and the girl only a little. So, it was all about the casting process.
I work with Rocio Belmond. It’s my third movie with her. She’s a great casting director. We opened up a casting process for like eight months. We saw a lot of kids, you know? Mateo, the youngest, was the easiest to find because the moment I saw him, I was like, “That’s him.” Then Oliver, the middle brother, was a little harder. But I would say the hardest was Salvador, the oldest kid. Originally, I envisioned somebody younger, like 11 or 12, somebody who wouldn’t look.
Isaac Ezban:
You see the movie, and you see one teenager and two boys. I didn’t want that. My original idea was three boys, and the oldest one would be like 11 or 12. So when he’s in that scene with the girl in the bed, it would seem like he’s a little kid with an older woman. But it was hard because, you know, that role, he’s yelling a lot. He’s performing. It looked like they were playing. So the casting director told me, Isaac, let’s age him up. And we started looking at kids that were 16, 17. We found Felix, who I think does an amazing job, but I had to kind of compromise and let go of that idea I had of like a young kid with an older girl.
She’s still much older than him. You know, he’s 17 and she’s 25. Somebody told me that you can see the age in the eyes of a person. But still, because he’s very tall, it almost looks like there are two people of the same age hooking up, but I had to let go of that idea, which still works between them. There’s great chemistry. She still looks more mature, but I had to let go of that idea in my mind of a kid and an older woman to, for the rest of the movie, have an actor that is better for the role. And that was a little bit of a casting process.
Glen Dower:
I mean, they’re so believable. They’re so sweet together. They do have that brotherly bond where they want to be the older brother. But in moments of peril, they do look to him and he steps up so many times. It’s amazing. And they’re just a joy to watch, and they don’t annoy you! So a tip of the cap for the casting over there. And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the parents. We don’t want to give too much away, of course, but Horatio and Norma. I just love their characters, despite everything. I made a note while watching: ”lots of teeth acting”. How did you direct them in those moments?
Isaac Ezban:
Well, those roles are very, very physical. So I needed actors that would deliver a very physical performance. I was thinking of actors that will deliver that performance. That could be very physical actors. You know, sometimes you look at actors in terms of how their performance is. How is their technique with dialogue? And sometimes you just look for a physical type. In this case, I needed to look for both. I needed actors that were very, very skinny. Very, very thin. Because I didn’t want to make fake zombies.
Somebody even suggested a CGI beast. I was like, no way, I want them to look human. So actually, we did a lot of research on real human conditions like anorexia, like people with eating disorders, like people losing hair due to cancer. We did a lot of research on that. So we needed actors that would be very thin, that would be very expressive in their eyes, that would have a lot of control in their movements. We needed a woman with very short hair so she wouldn’t have a problem, you know, going all bald. It was a lot of boxes they had to tick. We were lucky that Horacio and Norma ticked those boxes.
Isaac Ezban:
Norma is actually a model and a teacher of movement for actors in Casa Azul, which is one of the biggest acting schools in Mexico City. And that’s what she does. She has this real control of her body, which I discovered on day one. And then Horacio. I chose him more because of his facial expression and because he didn’t have so much control over his body. But that worked out great because they were not the same creatures.
I feel Horacio is more like a classic Romero zombie, and Norma is more like a creature, like a reptile. Men and women are different in the real world. So it only makes sense that when they become creatures, they can also be different. So I like the contrast between them. Instead of trying to force one into being what he’s not, I just used both of their skills conditions, or characteristics to make the characters different. And it was great working with them.
They had to be in makeup for almost four hours every day they were filming. So in the house, it was very easy because we would just call them at seven, eight. We would start with the kids, and then they would be ready by noon. But the tough thing was when we did the basement, the basement was at a separate location and it was only them for five days. So that week, they had to be the first ones to arrive, the last to leave. That week was insane for them. But they used those feelings in their performance.
Glen Dower:
They did. They were both scary and empathetic, which is what you want from a zombie, especially with a story like this. You do want to feel their pain, and you want to see the tragedy within. Let’s talk about the references. You and your co-writer must have had fun playing with the zombie lore. I noticed some other little references here and there, including The Fly, as well as some other zombie movies.
Isaac Ezban:
If you look at my letterbox, you’ll see The Fly is one of my four favorite movies of all time! And yeah, of course, a lot of zombie movies as references. Some of my favorites are, of course, Wreck, 28 Days Later, and The Girl with All the Gifts. I would say a big reference was Romero’s Day of the Dead because that’s a very bleak movie. That’s one of the few movies where you see how they’re training a zombie, trying to teach things to a zombie. Day of the Dead is totally like that. It’s a movie about teaching things to a zombie.
So those were some of the references. But I also always like picking up on something that already exists and twisting it a little bit. So that’s something I did with this movie. I picked up on the zombie tradition. But there have been a million zombie movies. They’re all about the same thing as zombies invading the streets and invading houses at the end of the world. And I decided that’s not so interesting. What’s interesting for me is to make a movie about a different family, a family that works upside down, a movie that is more intimate, more contained.
Somebody said it was like Stephen King meets Romero. I wanted to give it that touch of coming of age, that aspect of it. I always like using the genre as a metaphor. In this case, it’s a metaphor for the universal truth of how parents take care of their children, and then it’s the other way around. So I wanted to make a story about how, from a very young age, kids have to take care of their parents. At the same time, it’s a story about trying to save a family and keep a family united no matter what, which is something I can personally relate to.
That’s how I try to differentiate from other zombie movies. There are references included from those zombie movies I mentioned, even to great coming-of-age movies that I love, like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, which for me are the two masterpieces by del Toro. Or even other movies with children in leading roles, like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. But I would say the one movie that was the genesis of the idea was Goodnight Mommy. When I saw Goodnight Mommy, it blew my mind. I wanted to make something in that vein.
Glen Dower:
Wow. Yes, and as a member of the movie geek audience I love seeing all the references in there, which shows your passion for the genre. I’d like to talk about your own family for a moment, as this film is all about family and you’ve dedicated the movie to your two brothers. Were there any areas you drew from real life that went into the story?
Isaac Ezban:
Well, I actually deeply considered dedicating it to them because I didn’t want people to assume that, you know, my parents were zombies! I come from a very tight-knit, united family. My parents are great, and they’ve been a great support for me. So none of that is from real life.
But yeah, the family dynamic. I’m the oldest of three brothers. I wouldn’t say I put a lot of my brothers into these characters, but because it’s a story about three brothers, I wanted to dedicate the movie to them. The only thing I would say is that I grew up the least physical of my brothers.
I was always more ‘strategic’ but I never played football, I never did any sports. And my brother, the one in the middle, was karate, soccer, football, all that. So, in my original version of the script, the older brother was in a wheelchair, and the two younger brothers were carrying him around. Maybe that was my way of saying, yeah, I was always the less physical of my brothers. And that’s the only thing. Out of that, I don’t think there’s a lot of my life in this other than three brothers, like me and my brothers.
Glen Dower:
That’s a perfect homage to your relationship. Wonderful. Well, sir, it’s been a real pleasure. And like I said, I enjoyed your movie. I loved how it brought something new to the genre and also honored it as well.
Isaac Ezban:
Thank you so much, Glen! And hopefully you can recommend it to your readers and listeners. It comes out this Friday, April 4th. We’re excited to see how it plays out.
Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse from Firebook Entertainment began screening in theaters on April 4, 2025.
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