Film Review: FIFTEEN: BOOKSMART Meets CARRIE in This Watchable and Intriguing Spanish Language Horror Film [SXSW 2026]

Fifteen Review

Fifteen (2026) Film Review from the 33rd Annual South by South West Film Festival, a movie directed by Jack Zagha Kababie and Yossy Zagha, written by Ricardo Álvarez Canales and Andrzej Rattinger and starring Greta Marti, Macarena Oz, Enrique Arreola, Mercedes Hernández, Andre Fajardo and Leo Bromberg.

The new Spanish language horror film, Fifteen (formerly known as Quince), is a clever spin on horror movies such as Carrie and Rosemary Baby with a comic Booksmart vibe that holds it all together. Fifteen is about two female outsiders who are best friends in high school – Greta Marti plays Ligia and Macarena Oz portrays Mayte. They’re both pretty, but overweight, teenagers.  Their awkwardness obviously makes them have problems fitting in with the “cool” crowd. They imagine themselves being the life of the party, but the dream isn’t going to repeat itself in reality anytime soon. Directors Jack Zagha Kababie and Yossy Zagha keep the horror blood-lite for many of the opening scenes, but it sneaks in some frightening graphic gore whenever it finds it appropriate later on.

Fifteen really starts getting interesting when Ligia, the more outgoing of the two girls, gets pregnant by a creepy young man with a very scaly and scarred back who seems to be a monster, especially judging from those scars on his body. Ligia starts becoming very weird when she is pregnant and makes inappropriate sexual remarks about her male teacher at one point. When Ligia goes to the doctor, she shows a demented side to her where her rage takes over. Ligia can’t find the father of the baby and is forced to cope with the demonic forces within her which take her over and make her a violent young girl filled with vengeance.

It soon becomes clear that Ligia isn’t carrying an angelic baby- quite the opposite. Well, that’s what the audience is led to believe as Ligia kills a classmate and a few adults. This picture ends with a surprise regarding the choice Mayte makes regarding whether or not to kill the baby and that decision sets the stage for a potential sequel. There’s the obligatory high school dance/quinceañera scene that plays interestingly as a demented Ligia cuts open a classmate’s stomach and her guts come pouring out. Yes, this is one of those types of horror movies.

The bond between Ligia and Mayte is well-conceived on-screen and the friendship reminded me of the girls from Olivia Wilde’s humorous Booksmart. They’re both sassy girls in Fifteen who have a lot of personality except for the fact that one of them is potentially growing a demon baby inside her stomach this time out. Rosemary’s Baby and Carrie are the obvious inspirations and the action in Fifteen is watchable throughout even though it pushes a lot of gross-out buttons in terms of the way it dishes out the sporadic gore it unleashes at key moments.

Greta Marti plays Ligia as a twisted teenager once she becomes pregnant and, apparently, possessed. Marti delivers a nice performance that goes back and forth between good and bad as Ligia shows some loyalty to Mayte, but ultimately puts herself first as she kills anyone who stands in the way of her delivering her baby to the world. Macarena Oz plays a likable heroine to pit against Ligia for the film’s signature dance party scene where all hell breaks loose towards the end of the picture. Oz and Marti establish a fascinating rapport on-screen that helps keep the pacing appropriate for the genre as its story plays out in twisted situations such as when an angry Ligia flips over a table to find Mayte.

There are some queer themes explored here between the two lead characters as one may expect. They’re integrated into the movie without affecting the horrific elements of the plot at all. The romantic vibes between Ligia and Mayte are more fantasized about than actualized in the movie. This is the kind of film that knows fifteen year-old girls and what motivates their decisions in life. It’s smart as much as it is scary.

If one enjoyed the aforementioned old school fright fest films, Fifteen should be sufficient entertainment. It has all the ingredients that most horror fans look for in a high school-themed tale of terror. Fifteen pulls out all the stops where gore is concerned although there are a couple of long stretches without graphic blood as well. This film has all the typical themes that saturate teenage horror movies and plays with them in creative ways where the girls test their loyalty to one another through some demented scenarios that manifest themselves in satisfying scenes throughout. Fifteen is a good, warped fun.

Rating: 7/10

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