The 1930s were the silver age of American horror pictures. James Whale, Tod Browing, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, and Boris Karloff are all iconic figues of the era and are still well known today. The classic I keep coming back to again and again is not Dracula or Frankenstein, but rather White Zombie. It is lurid and atmospheric (oh those facial close-ups!), but also trashy and melodramatic ("LOOK...! ZOMBIES!"). Not only it is the prototype for zombie subgenre, but it has a knockout performance from post-Dracula Lugosi and a story of longing and love. I bring up this piece of well known horror history to note that Mexico experienced a similar age silver age from the mid 1950s right through the 1960s. Films which are very much in the spirit and essence of White Zombie (over Browning’s Dracula or Freaks but in line with The Devil Doll). Many of these films, and there are many(!), have floated around for some time as atrociously dubbed camp-fests (courtesy of exploitive American importer K. Gordon Murray) on late night television, VHS tapes and mocked in Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episodes. CasaNegra is aiming to give this neglected era of Horror Cinema its due and they have lovingly restored two classic entries to their former glory: La Maldición de la Llorona (The Curse of the Crying Woman) and El Espejo de la bruja (The Witch’s Mirror). And there are more on the way - I’m absolutely looking forward to Braniac and Misterios de Ultratumba after seeing these two.
The fascinating thing about these films is that they are willing to go much further in the grotesque department than their American counterparts (albeit one should be cognizant of the fact that there is a 25 year difference between the two cinemas). Nevertheless, there is a distinct look about these pictures which is analogous of the differences between say George Romero’s Zombie films and Lucio Fulci’s. This is a good thing.
El Espejo de la bruja (aka The Witch’s Mirror)
It is too bad that El Espejo de la bruja is saddled with a Z-Grade plot featuring overly familiar (pun intended) Witch clichés (Cats, Owls, Mirrors, Ghosts and Satanic chants are par for the course, sometimes for little or no reason) combined with elements of Frankenstein and one too many clunky plot exposition scenes with the local police (worthy of the celebrated Ed Wood). This is too bad because the film more than makes up for these weaknesses with A-grade cinematography, and generates eerie gothic atmosphere. It is curiously similar to its contemporary American B-film The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, but ultimately superior to it for those technical reasons (did I mention the great castle and laboratory sets?) coupled with a mad-doctor, played by Armando Calvo, whose suave cigarette smoking is worthy of Humphry Bogart. The man does terrific acting with his eyes, nearly worthy of the great Bela Lugosi and carries himself like an ever-so-slightly heavyset Robert Forster. Even if he is a bit clumsy during the mad-scientist ravings, it is forgivable. Also giving a handsome performance is Isabela Corona as the witch who is the instigator of the plot after she fails to prevent the (somewhat arbitrary) murder of her lady of the castle. She resurrects her ward, sets things in motion and falls into the role of the films god-like observer with panache. At one point gets a man to confess his sins to the police by giving him an almost casual order to save his soul. Alec Guiness would be proud.
The chiller over thriller aspect of El Espejo de la bruja is further strengthened by the incredibly high hand-severing count (there is more than one scene that plays like the straight-up version of Guy Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee) coupled with the removal of skin and other body parts for grafting purposes. The laboratory scenes are just plain creepy with the good doctors left-over corpses casually propped up in his cold-room and his in-house crematorium. This all amounts to a great bit of nostalgic fun along the lines of something like Carnival of Souls. But it is unfortunate that some of the story construction and supporting characters acting keep this from being a bona fide classic.
La Maldición de la Llorona (aka The Curse of the Crying Woman)
A quick flip though the DVD insert, or a click over to Wikipedia gives the rich history of the ghost story Llorona; a story which has been put on film in various forms about as many times as the long stringy-haired ghosts in Asian horror films. Think the Mexican version of the Banshee and you are on the right track. Taking cautionary tale elements, director Rafael Baledón paints a motion picture to make one respect the dangers of the night, and a warning to girls seeking too much power in terms of influence, materialism and sexuality. Sodom and Gomorrah are referenced in the film alongside witches rituals, voodoo and sacrifice. Of the first to Casa Negra releases, La Maldición de la Llorona is the superior one.
With an introduction featuring the gruesome murders of passengers traveling through a dark and misty forest at the hands of an eyeless woman and her burn-victim servant La Maldición de la Llorona hooks right away. Have a phobia of large dogs? This film will only cement your fears as they casually maul more than one victim in the opening sequence. A further casual murder involving the carriage convinces that these are villains that truly mean business. Cut to a strange woman in a huge creepy Hacienda who refuses to cooperate with the police regarding the murders. The woman proceeds to make her niece (Rosita Arenas, also the victim in El Espejo de la Bruja, but far better here) and new husband who have arrived to visit her after their recent nuptials wait on her for no apparent reason other than that it amuses her. Rats, Rotting corpses in the basements and freaky half-humans and large dusty Church bells in the attic are just highlights from the mammoth set that occupies almost the entire movie save the opening sequence and a few exterior night-shots around the mansion. Inventive make-up and effective super-imposing effects (one scene featuring hundreds of floating animated eyes around a character is a real stand-out) give the movie style to burn and help it overcome some creaky model work, slightly stilted action climax (giving the They Live alley scuffle a run for its money in epic fist fight length) and occasionally wooden acting characteristic of the genre. Comparisons to Victor Halperin’s White Zombie are inevitable both in the story elements and the abruptness of Llorna’s final resolution, but also in terms of the way one character is induced into a trance and the many facial close-ups during this scene. I have a happy alternative viewing choice now when I’m in that sort of mood.
It is safe to say that no version of these films that has ever played outside of Mexico has looked as good as presented on this pair of DVDs. I’m even willing to bet that the crisp clean images may not have looked this good when playing in Mexico in the early 1960s. And the nice thing, more of these classic Mexican horrors are on their way.
Trailer for El Espejo de la bruja (downloadable Quicktime)
Trailer for La Maldición de la Llorona (downloadable Quicktime)
Stills Gallery (for El Espejo de la bruja and La Maldición de la Llorona)