It’s October, which can only mean one thing: It’s officially espooky season!
In the latest episode of “The De Los Podcast,” hosts and Times editors Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito explore the Latino community’s fascination with horror and why the genre is popular with the demographic.
“It’s not just anecdotally that we can say Latinos appreciate horror. There are also statistics that show how much Latinos show up for horror movies,” Exposito pointed to the 2026 edition of the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, which found that Latinos accounted for 29.1% of all audiences for theatrically released horror movies despite making up roughly 20% of the total U.S. population.
“For me personally, the occult or the paranormal, the fantastical, the scary nature of horror has always been a presence in my life,” Martinez said. “I mean, the first movie that I recall seeing in the theater was ‘The Crow.’ My dad took me to see ‘The Crow.’ Mind you, I was like 6 years old when I saw this.”
Martinez also attributed his love of all things spooky to “Stories That Must Not Die,” a collection of bilingual folkloric short stories from South Texas compiled by Juan Sauvageau first published in 1975.
Martinez and Exposito also highlighted Latino filmmakers who have used horror as a vehicle to talk about broader issues like civil war, narco-violence and genocide. Among them are Guillermo Del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), Issa Lopez (“Tigers Are Not Afraid”) and Jayro Bustamante (“La Llorona”).
“I do think it matters who is making these films. And I do think that we should give credit to Latin American and Latino filmmakers in the horror genre for using this genre as a means to talk about deeper things. Something that all of these movies do is speak to the fears, the traumas, the anxieties that are shared by many in the Latino community,” Exposito said.
“And I think approaching these subjects as allegories is just a really smart way to address a dimension of the culture that we don’t really see reflected in the rest of Hollywood. What does it mean that so many of us not only consume horror, but we’re also making [and shaping] the genre?”
You can find the full episode below:
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