A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother.
Santa Sangre's content puts it beyond the call of duty for even the most slavishly devoted art-house denizen.
– Michael Upchurch,
Seattle Times,
15 Nov 2013
rotten:
What Jodorowsky lacks is a sense of humor, in the absence of which his films turn ludicrous.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Tribune,
15 Nov 2013
fresh:
Drawing on his training in mime and his fascination with Gnosticism, Jodorowsky converted a story about a bizarre murderer into a grand work of art, full of symbols and imagery that reach beyond language to something primal and original.
– Noel Murray,
AV Club,
26 Nov 2012
fresh:
Visionary and haunting, Santa Sangre is a mixture of blood poetry and gobbledygook that keeps springing astonishingly to life.