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Plot happens.
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* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The KangarooCourt Salazar is put through and larger GovernmentConspiracy to use him as a scapegoat all does a '''really''' bad job at covering things up or making any sort of coherent argument as to how Salazar could have even done what they say he did that doesn't rely on InsaneTrollLogic and blatant stereotyping. Unsurprisingly, it's clear by the end that the vast majority of people realize the truth about what happened, even they don't know the "why" of it.
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* OurZombiesAreDifferent: [[spoiler:The monsters that killed the town are much faster and more brutal than Zombies are usually depicted, and implied to be the result of a HatePlague. They also look downright demonic at times, though this may simply be due to the poor quality of Salazar’s pictures of them.]]
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* OurZombiesAreDifferent: [[spoiler:The monsters that killed the town are much faster and more brutal than Zombies are usually depicted, and implied to be the result of a HatePlague. They also look downright demonic at times, though this may simply be due to the poor quality of Salazar’s pictures of them. They tend to appear warped or distorted even in images where other figures are clear, and some ambiguously look as though they might have inhuman anatomy. They also manage to disappear entirely after the massacre without a trace.]]
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** Lawrence Ross becomes this as well: While he presents the argument that Salazar had ''no'' way of actually committing the massacre of Sangre de Cristo by himself, he uses the massacre as a soapbox to present his own argument that it was a racial motivated murder by the state of Arizona. [[spoiler:He also has evidence that could've definitively exonerated Salazar if publicly released, but doesn't share them until after the appeal out of selfish fear, which ends up sealing Salazar's fate.]]
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** Lawrence Ross becomes this as well: While he presents the argument that Salazar had ''no'' way of actually committing the massacre of Sangre de Cristo by himself, he uses the massacre as a soapbox to present his own argument that it was a racial racially motivated murder by massacre somehow involving the state of Arizona. [[spoiler:He also has evidence that could've definitively exonerated Salazar if publicly released, but doesn't share them until after the appeal out of selfish fear, which ends up sealing Salazar's fate.]]Arizona (either perpetuating it or covering it up).
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* AllIssuesArePoliticalIssues: A major theme of the film is apolitical violence and tragedy being hijacked for the sake of pushing a political agenda. In this case, a [[spoiler:small-scale ZombieApocalypse]] is twisted into a debate about border control policies, and the real problem is ignored at best, or actively covered up at worst.
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* AllIssuesArePoliticalIssues: A major theme of the film is apolitical violence and tragedy being hijacked for the sake of pushing a political agenda. In this case, a [[spoiler:small-scale ZombieApocalypse]] is twisted into a debate about border control policies, and the real problem is ignored at best, or actively covered up at worst.
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* AllIssuesArePoliticalIssues: A major theme ApocalypticLog:
** Salazar's photos, which paint a picture of him surviving thefilm is apolitical violence night of pure chaos and tragedy being hijacked for death that embroiled Sangre De Cristo.
** Duane Putnam's phone call during thesake of pushing a political agenda. In this case, a [[spoiler:small-scale ZombieApocalypse]] is twisted into a debate about border control policies, and massacre just before he commits suicide, the real problem is ignored at best, or actively covered up at worst.only call to come out of Sangre De Cristo that night. It's a broken, nigh incoherent rant in which he justifies mercy killing his family
** Salazar's photos, which paint a picture of him surviving the
** Duane Putnam's phone call during the
* BewareTheLiving: Salazar survives the massacre in one piece, though he's understandably traumatized by it. [[spoiler:It's the living who claim his life by using him as a scapegoat and sentencing him to death.]] On the whole, the film makes clear the people trying to cover up or spin the destruction of Sangre De Cristo for their own ends are just as much endangering the public as the monsters themselves.
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** Lawrence Ross becomes this as well: While he presents the argument that Salazar had ''no'' way of actually committing the massacre of Sangre de Cristo by himself, he uses the massacre as a soapbox to present his own argument that it was a racial motivated murder by the state of Arizona.
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** Lawrence Ross becomes this as well: While he presents the argument that Salazar had ''no'' way of actually committing the massacre of Sangre de Cristo by himself, he uses the massacre as a soapbox to present his own argument that it was a racial motivated murder by the state of Arizona. [[spoiler:He also has evidence that could've definitively exonerated Salazar if publicly released, but doesn't share them until after the appeal out of selfish fear, which ends up sealing Salazar's fate.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Even before the massacre, Salazar is noted to have been a very strange guy prone to doing weird things like constantly taking photos of everyone and everything — including random dead animals — and to have been a loner prone to lurking on the outskirts of the town instead of interacting with his neighbors even though they all liked him. Unfortunately, the media spins his odd behavior to make him look creepy and guilty.
* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: What the government of Arizona and prosecution tries to invoke with Salazar, making up for the total lack of any case against him by spinning his strange behavior and stereotyping as signs of him being unhinged. The successfulness of this is dubious at best, but [[spoiler:he ''does'' get convicted, if only because the whole trial is blatantly rigged.]]
* CurbStompBattle: Part of the reason people point out it's impossible for Salazar to have committed the massacre. It was a complete slaughter in which the townsfolk were totally outmatched, when it logically should've been the other way around given the townspeople outnumbered Salazar by several orders of magnitude and, even more pivotally, had ''guns'' while Salazar was armed with nothing but a machete and pickaxe.
* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: What the government of Arizona and prosecution tries to invoke with Salazar, making up for the total lack of any case against him by spinning his strange behavior and stereotyping as signs of him being unhinged. The successfulness of this is dubious at best, but [[spoiler:he ''does'' get convicted, if only because the whole trial is blatantly rigged.]]
* CurbStompBattle: Part of the reason people point out it's impossible for Salazar to have committed the massacre. It was a complete slaughter in which the townsfolk were totally outmatched, when it logically should've been the other way around given the townspeople outnumbered Salazar by several orders of magnitude and, even more pivotally, had ''guns'' while Salazar was armed with nothing but a machete and pickaxe.
* DevouredByTheHorde: The fate of anyone unlucky enough to be caught by the monsters.
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: It's suggested the monsters may have existed for a very long time prior to this and that the attack on Sangre De Cristo was just the first time they got bold enough to target a population center, as Carlos Olivares notes that the area has a long history of the border patrol periodically finding corpses that are partially eaten in ways that don't match typical predator patterns, around which the officers have built of culture of simply not talking about for some reason. On a bigger scale, discussion of the massacre is hampered by the reluctance of pretty much everyone to acknowledge that it looks a lot like [[spoiler:a zombie movie]].
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* GovernmentConspiracy: It’s speculated by in-universe conspiracy theorists that the massacre in Sangre De Cristo was a racist attack of some sort that the government covered up for whatever reason. [[spoiler:What they’re ''actually'' covering up is the ZombieApocalypse that destroyed the town.]]
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* GasLeakCoverUp: The cover-up of what happened in Sangre De Cristo is an especially bad one of these, pinning the deaths of fifty seven people — the entire population of a small town — on a single man using mundane weaponry, despite massive and abundant evidence to the contrary. Predictably, very few people believe it and [[spoiler:the fact that Salazar is convicted and executed despite the prosecution's borderline nonexistent case raises even further suspicion]].
* GovernmentConspiracy: It’s speculated by in-universe conspiracy theorists that the massacre in Sangre De Cristo was a racist attack of some sort that the government covered up for whatever reason. [[spoiler:What they’re ''actually'' covering up is the ZombieApocalypse that destroyed thetown.town, though their motives for doing so go unrevealed.]]
* GovernmentConspiracy: It’s speculated by in-universe conspiracy theorists that the massacre in Sangre De Cristo was a racist attack of some sort that the government covered up for whatever reason. [[spoiler:What they’re ''actually'' covering up is the ZombieApocalypse that destroyed the
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Implied to be part of why Salazar is scapegoated for the massacre. Also, the trucker who picked up Salazar after the disaster and [[spoiler:had his camera]] dies under mysterious circumstances soon after delivering [[spoiler:the photos]] to Ross…
* ImAHumanitarian: The monsters bite and eat parts of their victims, which Salazar's accusers try to spin into him being a cannibal.
* ItCanThink: Maybe. One of Salazar's photos shows monsters not doing anything, just lurking around the one landline in the town as if guarding it in case anybody tries to call for help, which would suggest they are much more than mere mindless beasts. But if that's really what they're doing is impossible to determine from the available evidence.
* KangarooCourt: It's abundantly clear that the "trial" Salazar was put through was bought and paid entirely by the people covering up the truth of the massacre to ensure he was found guilty, largely because the prosecution's case is embarrassingly weak and yet the judge sides with them on everything.
* KillTheOnesYouLove: Duane Putnam murders his own family to prevent them from being killed by the monsters.
* KangarooCourt: It's abundantly clear that the "trial" Salazar was put through was bought and paid entirely by the people covering up the truth of the massacre to ensure he was found guilty, largely because the prosecution's case is embarrassingly weak and yet the judge sides with them on everything.
* KillTheOnesYouLove: Duane Putnam murders his own family to prevent them from being killed by the monsters.
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* ManipulativeEditing: The in-universe documentary is blatantly editing things in such a way as to support Ross’s “it was a hate crime” theory and portray those who disagree in an awful light.
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* ManipulativeEditing: The in-universe documentary is blatantly editing things in such a way as to support Ross’s “it "it was a hate crime” crime" theory and portray those who disagree in an awful light.
* {{Mundanger}}:
** Salazar survives against the monsters that attack his town. [[spoiler:It's the living and their desire to deny what's really happening that claim his life.]]
** At one point, Carlos Olivares talks about many of the spooky things he's seen over the years as a border patrolman. Some of them are eerie and unexplainable, but others are perfectly mundane, if tragic, like illegal immigrants dying of dehydration extremely close to hidden caches of water.
** Salazar survives against the monsters that attack his town. [[spoiler:It's the living and their desire to deny what's really happening that claim his life.]]
** At one point, Carlos Olivares talks about many of the spooky things he's seen over the years as a border patrolman. Some of them are eerie and unexplainable, but others are perfectly mundane, if tragic, like illegal immigrants dying of dehydration extremely close to hidden caches of water.
* NoEndorHolocaust: Averted hard. One section of the film is dedicated to exploring the collateral damage of the massacre, like the effects it had on the families and friends of the victims.
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** In particular, it’s mentioned that a few of the bodies weren’t even found, with evidence that the attackers dragged them off into the desert afterwards. We never find out why.
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** In particular, it’s It’s mentioned that a few of the bodies weren’t even found, with evidence that the attackers dragged them off into the desert afterwards. We never find out why.why.
** Some of Salazar's photos show the monsters not really doing anything, just standing around, with one in particular showing them huddled around the only landline in town. Why they do this is as unexplained as anything else.
* NotUsingTheZWord: The monsters are probably [[spoiler:zombies]], but nobody ever dares use the word, even those who acknowledge that something unnatural happened. Deconstructed, as this just means [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom everyone is too scared of sounding silly to directly discuss the very real danger]].
** Some of Salazar's photos show the monsters not really doing anything, just standing around, with one in particular showing them huddled around the only landline in town. Why they do this is as unexplained as anything else.
* NotUsingTheZWord: The monsters are probably [[spoiler:zombies]], but nobody ever dares use the word, even those who acknowledge that something unnatural happened. Deconstructed, as this just means [[ElephantInTheLivingRoom everyone is too scared of sounding silly to directly discuss the very real danger]].
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* PoliceAreUseless: Deconstructed; the cops probably could’ve done something, but it’s speculated that the residents of Sangre De Cristo were scared to call them, since many of them were illegal immigrants. Worse, the town was poor and many residents didn’t own proper phones, meaning they couldn’t call if they wanted to.
** The only person who does manage to call anybody outside the town is Duane Putnam, and he's so traumatized that he's almost incoherent. The call was not sent to the police, contains no useful information, and is essentially a rambling suicide note justifying the MercyKill of his family.
** The only person who does manage to call anybody outside the town is Duane Putnam, and he's so traumatized that he's almost incoherent. The call was not sent to the police, contains no useful information, and is essentially a rambling suicide note justifying the MercyKill of his family.
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* PoliceAreUseless: Deconstructed; the cops probably could’ve could've done something, but it’s it's speculated that the residents of Sangre De Cristo were scared to call them, since many of them were illegal immigrants. Worse, the town was poor and many residents didn’t own proper phones, meaning they couldn’t call if they wanted to. \n** The only person who does manage to call anybody outside the town is Duane Putnam, and he's so traumatized that he's almost incoherent. The call was not sent to the police, contains no useful information, and is essentially a rambling suicide note justifying the MercyKill of his family.
* RiddleForTheAges: Due the nature of the film, a lot of questions are purposefully left unanswered at the end for the audience to chew on. What were the monsters that attacked the town? Where did they come from and why did they attack? What precisely happened during the massacre? What happened to the bodies that got dragged off to the desert? Why is the GovernmentConspiracy trying to cover it all up?
* SpringLoadedCorpse: [[spoiler:Danny Montes, a local teen, shows up at Salazar's house bleeding heavily. Salazar tries to help the boy only for him to die on Salazar's couch… and then ''come back to life and lunge at Salazar''.]]
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The KangarooCourt Salazar is put through and larger GovernmentConspiracy to use him as a scapegoat all does a '''really''' bad job at covering things up or making any sort of coherent argument as to how Salazar could have even done what they say he did that doesn't rely on InsaneTrollLogic and blatant stereotyping. Unsurprisingly, it's clear by the end that the vast majority of people realize the truth about what happened, even they don't know the "why" of it.
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* TheUnreveal: While the nature of the massacre is strongly indicated (a [[spoiler:zombie outbreak]]), the source of it is never revealed.
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* TheUnreveal: While the nature of the massacre is strongly indicated (a [[spoiler:zombie outbreak]]), the source of it is never revealed.revealed, nor is the reason for the coverup with Salazar.
* WhamLine: "Teeth marks". The point where it becomes abundantly clear that the events in Sangre De Cristo were ''NOT'' natural.
* WhamLine: "Teeth marks". The point where it becomes abundantly clear that the events in Sangre De Cristo were ''NOT'' natural.
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* RealityIsUnrealistic: In-universe. Most of the characters refuse to believe that the town was [[spoiler:attacked by zombies]], despite the mountain of evidence.
** Racist hate groups have been known to target white people campaigning to advance civil rights, most famously [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo Viola Liuzzo]] in 1965. This knowledge makes Ross's staunch insistence that the townspeople, including the white folks, were victims of a hate crime at least ''slightly'' less ridiculous.
** Racist hate groups have been known to target white people campaigning to advance civil rights, most famously [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo Viola Liuzzo]] in 1965. This knowledge makes Ross's staunch insistence that the townspeople, including the white folks, were victims of a hate crime at least ''slightly'' less ridiculous.
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* ShockJock: One of the interviewees is a talk radio host who tries to portray the incident as the work of some nebulous Mexican gang and spends half of the film smugly insulting immigrants and Mexicans.
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* ShockJock: One of the interviewees is a talk radio host who who, when he isn't outright insulting immigrants, tries to portray the incident as the work of some nebulous Mexican gang and spends half of the film smugly insulting immigrants and Mexicans.gang.
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* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Apparently what happened at the water tower, where eight people climbed up and then [[DrivenToSuicide jumped off]]. It's heavily implied that [[spoiler:the zombies]] had started to follow them up, and they chose to die rather than face the inhuman horror pursuing them. These victims' families use this as proof of Salazar's innocence - no single human SpreeKiller could frighten a whole group of people ''that'' badly.
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* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Apparently what happened at the water tower, where eight people climbed up and then [[DrivenToSuicide jumped off]]. It's heavily implied that [[spoiler:the zombies]] had started to follow them up, and they chose to die rather than face the inhuman horror pursuing them. These victims' The more skeptical families use this as proof of Salazar's innocence - no victims question how a single human SpreeKiller could frighten a whole group of people ''that'' badly.
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* DeathOfAChild: It’s explicitly stated that Sangre De Cristo’s children were amongst the many victims. [[spoiler:Grace, despite being the main person Salazar was attempting to save, sadly is killed by the monsters attacking the town.]]
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* DeathOfAChild: It’s explicitly stated that Sangre De Cristo’s children were amongst the many victims. [[spoiler:Grace, despite being the main person Salazar was attempting to save, is sadly is killed by the monsters attacking the town.]]
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* EverythingIsRacist: One of the main interviewees is a journalist who keeps insinuating that the whole thing was a racial hate crime based on flimsy evidence and despite the fact that some of the victims were white. Becomes especially bad when it’s revealed [[spoiler:he was the one to get Salazar's roll of film and develop the photos, so if anyone should have been able to figure out the truth, it was him.]]
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* EverythingIsRacist: One of the main interviewees is a journalist who keeps insinuating that the whole thing was a racial hate crime based on flimsy evidence and despite the fact that some of the victims were white.evidence. Becomes especially bad when it’s revealed [[spoiler:he was the one to get Salazar's roll of film and develop the photos, so if anyone should have been able to figure out the truth, it was him.]]
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* HopeSpot: Salazar is convicted of the massacre in his first trial, by just as his automatic appeal process starts, the photos he took that night are released to the public. These images show monsters attacking the town and appear to exonerate Salazar. Unfortunately, the judge rules the images inadmissible as evidence in the second trial, so [[spoiler:Salazar’s conviction and death sentence are upheld, and he is ultimately executed.]]
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* MistakenForPedophile: The sheriff uses Salazar’s entirely innocent pictures of Grace Putnam, next to his photography of dead animals, as “proof” that Salazar is a pervert. This is the only alleged motive the prosecution has, showing just how weak the case is.
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* DyingTown: Even before its destruction, Sanger de Cristo was a very small, very poor community with little to no economic prospects. People who wanted more out of life simply moved away.
* MercyKill: Duane Putnam kills his wife and son to spare them from the monsters.
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** The only person who does manage to call anybody outside the town is Duane Putnam, and he's so traumatized that he's almost incoherent.
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** The only person who does manage to call anybody outside the town is Duane Putnam, and he's so traumatized that he's almost incoherent. The call was not sent to the police, contains no useful information, and is essentially a rambling suicide note justifying the MercyKill of his family.
