Director Guillermo del Toro has praised Canoa: A Shameful Memory, describing its legacy as, “part of the generation of films that changed Mexican cinema.” The credit is well-deserved, del Toro highlighting the movie’s focus on the “anxiety” and “brutality” felt during the repressive time period and how it turned a “figure that was sacred in Mexican film” into a monster. Canoa, by director Felipe Cazals, might just be one of the scariest movies with actual legitimacy to the claim of being based on a true story. Made only eight years after the true incident, Cazals relies on naturalistic techniques to make sure no one forgets the massacre and the larger implications of it.