Mexican horror

[Fenril]

If I may be allowed a little self-publicity:

Started a tumblr account, and that is related to this thread, because among other things, I'm using it to share my collection of posters and book covers, with a special emphasis on Mexican and Lationamerican horror.

Yawar's collection

PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE IS ADULT CONTENT ON THAT BLOG, with posts labelled "nsfw" as needed.

[Fenril]

- Dame tus ojos. Abril and Mayo (April and May, geddit?) are hitchhiking across Northern Mexico. After a disastrous incident with a man who picks them up, the two young women discover they share an affinity for killing --and a taste for human eyeballs! Soon they begin a cross-country killing spree, while an alcoholic policeman and his tabloid reporter ex-girlfriend are hot on their trail. As these people are drawn to each other, they'll be forced to face a few unpleasant truths about themselves...

Entertaining if ordinary thriller that attempts to update pulp clichés, not always with successful results. While the kills, the shootouts and one memorable fistfight scene are all as gory and/or violent as you please, there's very little logic on display from the cast, not to mention a third act plagued by so many improbable plot twists, the movie might as well be considered an involuntary comedy. To be fair, Paula Luckie is very good as Mayo, the more neurotic of the two killers, complete with a much more grounded story; she even manages to be genuinely frightening whenever her homicidal impulses come out.

[slayrrr666]

Finally managed to get another one done: Curandero: Dawn of the Demon.

Brought in by the Mexican police, a local healer is thrust into a battle by the police against a Satanic-led cult of black magic and its powerful leader which forces him to use all his powers to stop him.

There's a lot to like with this one that manages to get in some plentiful enjoyable elements. The fact that this one centers so much around the concept of black magic and demonic powers that there's some utterly demented and disturbing visuals here. Flashes of dismembered and desecrated bodies bleeding profusely from sacrificial wounds, covered with bugs and insects or scenes of people covered in blood or massive wounds in just his point-of-view start getting more and frequent as time goes on in here and this truly starts getting all the more chilling when it slowly starts getting play in the storyline about what they all mean. It really feels quite cohesive to the story about the mystical cult leader who is actively given a lot of time to strut his powers by appearing only to torment the hero in numerous opportunities, forcing strange and violent visionary day-dreams upon him and using his demonic powers to keep himself alive in the face of his enemies so we have a ton of reasons to fear him and what he can do, so the connection with those deranged visions feels so logical they become immeasurably chilling and creepy. When added with a lot of action scenes including several shoot-outs and a chilling chase through a crowded marketplace, this really sets a chilling tone that works quite well for the film. About the only thing that really doesn't work in this one is a bit bigger than expected, which is the plot-line involving his father. It makes a lot of sense to include such a thread in a story like this, but the fact that it really just feels so shoe-horned into the action that it strangely manages to slow down the plot so that it can not only introduce a storyline to help the hero but fix a problem that was never noticed until then. It makes the film sort of drag into the finale rather than sprint into it, but this isn't all too damaging and still keeps it quite enjoyable throughout.

The list now reads:

1. Grave Robbers
2. Cemetery of Terror
3. The Curse of the Crying Woman
4. Fangs of the Werewolf
5. Don't Panic
6. Santo and Blue Demon in the Land of the Dead
7. Vacations of Terror
8. The Vampires of Coyoacan
9. Even the Wind is Afraid
10. Santo vs. The Zombies
11. Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters
12. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
13. The Phantom in the Red House
14. The Mummies of Guanajuato
15. Santo vs. The She-Wolves
16. Here Espantan!
17. The Beast is Alive
18. Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and The Wolfman
19. The Vengeance of the Vampire Women
20. Santo and The Vengeance of the Mummy
21. Capulina Against the Mummies (The Terror of Guanajuato)
22. Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter
23. Nostradamus and the Monster Destroyer
24. Capulina vs. The Monsters
25. Night of the Bloody Apes
26. The Return of the Monster
27. Killer Bees
28. Helena's Cry
29. The Resuscitated Monster
30. Hell's Trap
31. Angel of Light
32. El Fantastico vs. The Nahual
33. Night of a 1000 Cats
34. Tintorera!
35. Spritism
36. Marina: On the Other Side of Time
37. The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
38. A Woman Possessed
39. The Incredible Professor Zovek
40. The Cursed II
41. The Raven's Mourn
42. Fangs of Fury
43. The Mansion of Madness
44. All of Them Witches
45. The Gap
46. The Man and the Beast
47. La Llorona (58)
48. Zone of Silence: Parallel 27
49. The Man in White
50. Santa Sangre

[slayrrr666]

Finally managed to get another one done, though this is a little different since I can't really find a suitable translation for the title and was hoping you could help me out a little with this: It aired as La trajinera del terror, but that's all I know.

Taking a boat-ride with their friends, a small group of friends find themselves trapped in a strange land where several of their friends have become possessed killers and must rely on a fallen saint to save them.

Overall, there's not a whole lot here that really works all that well for this one. The thing about this is the fact that there's just absolutely nothing of any interest happening here because the scattershot story tends to throw everything it possibly can into the story to make some kind of sense about what the intentions are in here. The story about the haunted boat and the trip into the rather confusing land would've made for a rather intriguing premise here over whether they inadvertently traveled on the wrong boat or other such luck, yet then comes the decision to make it about the discovery of the Quija board leading to the possession of the friends and how they bring the rest of the group into the strange land to kill them off. This of course is further confusing by the mysterious man-in-black shown to be traveling and stalking the group from the very start which is further proof of how utterly confusing this is. The discovery of the saint furthers nothing and makes even less sense as to why he would be allowed to inhabit that world if he can save the group from their misfortunes but it's totally worthless since all it amounts to is him looking at the camera funny and suddenly becoming filled with the wounds of stigmata, all the while everyone else just stands around and looks at him while they do nothing so this just eats up endless minutes of time repeating the same type of scenes over and over again and never getting anything really accomplished. Add to all this storyline confusion utterly lame stalking scenes that really should've been avoided due to their inherent inability to hide the stalker all that well, atrocious special effects that are none too convincing and a lame resolution that really makes the whole movie pointless and it tends to really have a lot more wrong than it really should. The fact that this one does have some good in the form of that travel into the haunted section of the forest and the confrontations in the church at the finale were actually quite enjoyable here and provided the basic framework for something interesting to happen here, yet the multitude of excessive flaws really hammered that out.

The list now reads:

1. Grave Robbers
2. Cemetery of Terror
3. The Curse of the Crying Woman
4. Fangs of the Werewolf
5. Don't Panic
6. Santo and Blue Demon in the Land of the Dead
7. Vacations of Terror
8. The Vampires of Coyoacan
9. Even the Wind is Afraid
10. Santo vs. The Zombies
11. Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters
12. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
13. The Phantom in the Red House
14. The Mummies of Guanajuato
15. Santo vs. The She-Wolves
16. Here Espantan!
17. The Beast is Alive
18. Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and The Wolfman
19. The Vengeance of the Vampire Women
20. Santo and The Vengeance of the Mummy
21. Capulina Against the Mummies (The Terror of Guanajuato)
22. Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter
23. Nostradamus and the Monster Destroyer
24. Capulina vs. The Monsters
25. Night of the Bloody Apes
26. The Return of the Monster
27. Killer Bees
28. Helena's Cry
29. The Resuscitated Monster
30. Hell's Trap
31. Angel of Light
32. El Fantastico vs. The Nahual
33. Night of a 1000 Cats
34. Tintorera!
35. Spritism
36. Marina: On the Other Side of Time
37. The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
38. A Woman Possessed
39. The Incredible Professor Zovek
40. The Cursed II
41. The Raven's Mourn
42. Fangs of Fury
43. The Mansion of Madness
44. All of Them Witches
45. The Gap
46. The Man and the Beast
47. La Llorona (58)
48. Zone of Silence: Parallel 27
49. The Man in White
50. La Trajinera del terror
51. Santa Sangre

[Fenril]

Yeah; this was a shot-on-video movie with no budget, so I guess it's not surprising that the plot makes no sense overall.

A Trajinera is a very specific kind of boat, which is primarily used to navigate the hollow waters of Xochimilco. This is a popular local attraction and they are traditionally used for daylong parties and reunions, as they are large enough that they can be used as a floating dining room.

It's worth noting that the islets of Xochimilco are host to several ghostly legends, such as La isla de las muñecas, an islet entirely filled with broken dolls, said to guard the place against evil spirits. Or a yearly staging of the legend of La llorona. I'm still waiting for a scary movie that makes good use of this locale.

Anyhow, I suppose the title would be "Trajinera of terror" or just plain "Boat ride of terror".

[slayrrr666]

Oh, so the boat they're using in the beginning is the trajinera? Cool, thanks for that.

That locale during those early scenes certainly looked bright and festive with all those lanterns and streamers all over the place, doesn't really seem like the proper place for what you claim are a series of ghost stories about the location. I'll have to look up those, they sound intriguing especially that killer doll one. Something about that concept always works on me so that actually has me hopeful that something will come up with that kind of storyline.

[slayrrr666]

Somewhat of a belated Halloween effort but one more down over the weekend, Blacker Than the Night (aka Más negro que la noche).

After inheriting her grandmother's house in the countryside, a woman and her friends stay there to help sort out matters but grow increasingly convinced something is living in the house with them and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This turned out to be quite an enjoyable effort with a lot to really like here. One of the biggest pluses here is the fact that this one really manages to get the look and feel of the Gothic/Victorian style house here which is quite expertly handled and gets a lot of mileage out of. Filled with the grand layouts, spacious designs of the rooms and the twisting labyrinth of walkways and passages throughout, it fits the bill quite nicely with this one keeping up appearances quite well in addition to the fact that the last half of the film takes place in the secret rooms of the house. Using the underground library and the garden outside as the main locations in these sections makes for a rather chilling time with the multitude of encounters throughout there and how the earlier scenes set-up these encounters by focusing on the actions of the ghostly housekeeper and her cat. These are handled well enough for the rather impressive finale to feel like a continuation of these scenes which is where the fun of these come from while also accounting for the chilling nature of such encounters. While there's a lot to like here, it also has a few flaws in the incredibly clichéd and contrived set-up involving her and her friends moving into the house she has just inherited which really has no point here in generating any kind of originality or credibility in forcing them onto the property to begin with. As well, the fact that the girls' stay there includes the visitation by their boyfriends who are left alive by the disturbing lack of deaths here does make their intrusion seem pointless and drags out the running time in the middle when they're featured, yet this still manages a lot more good than bad points.

The list now reads:

1. Grave Robbers
2. Cemetery of Terror
3. The Curse of the Crying Woman
4. Fangs of the Werewolf
5. Don't Panic
6. Santo and Blue Demon in the Land of the Dead
7. Vacations of Terror
8. The Vampires of Coyoacan
9. Even the Wind is Afraid
10. Santo vs. The Zombies
11. Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters
12. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
13. The Phantom in the Red House
14. The Mummies of Guanajuato
15. Santo vs. The She-Wolves
16. Here Espantan!
17. The Beast is Alive
18. Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and The Wolfman
19. The Vengeance of the Vampire Women
20. Santo and The Vengeance of the Mummy
21. Capulina Against the Mummies (The Terror of Guanajuato)
22. Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter
23. Nostradamus and the Monster Destroyer
24. Capulina vs. The Monsters
25. Night of the Bloody Apes
26. The Return of the Monster
27. Killer Bees
28. Helena's Cry
29. The Resuscitated Monster
30. Hell's Trap
31. Angel of Light
32. El Fantastico vs. The Nahual
33. Night of a 1000 Cats
34. Tintorera!
35. Spritism
36. Marina: On the Other Side of Time
37. The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
38. A Woman Possessed
39. Blacker Than the Night
40. The Incredible Professor Zovek
41. The Cursed II
42. The Raven's Mourn
43. Fangs of Fury
44. The Mansion of Madness
45. All of Them Witches
46. The Gap
47. The Man and the Beast
48. La Llorona (58)
49. Zone of Silence: Parallel 27
50. The Man in White
51. La Trajinera del terror
52. Santa Sangre

[slayrrr666]

May not be entirely accurate for the holiday but spent Cinco de Mayo with one last night so saw another one in The Devil's Dagger (aka La Daga del diablo).

Told by a storyteller, a demonic dagger passed throughout a small village starts to disrupt the lives of those it comes into contact with and causes them to turn on their friends and loved ones before attempted to be destroyed.

This was quite a decent effort with a couple of problems in it overall. The film's biggest issue is the fact that this one is told as an anthology effort with three different stories intertwined about the deadly device which really causes this one to loose focus a lot during here. The stories here are so short anyway that it's really hard to get into them because they're so short and it really tends to amount to the same thing over-and-over again due to the inability to really get anything going throughout here in how the stories come off with the first two segments really needing a lot of work to get to anything good while the last one is easily the most straight-forward and determined of how to go about things. Still, hardly anything here really amounts to how cheap and low-budget this one is, with the whole film's shot-on-video look coming across so well that there's barely anything here that really allows it to exhibit any kind of class or really any horror. The laughable special effects that show the demonic possession, the lack of blood or even graphic kills, the crude sets and even the work done on the dagger itself all come off as cheap and very low-brow which manages to make this feel all the more cheap and yet never manages to turn this into fun as everything comes off a little too serious for something of this caliber. While all these flaws might lower it a lot there's still enough good points that this one does become quite good at times, and this is mainly centered on the supernatural properties of the dagger itself. Accompanied by flashing eyes, a tilted head and an utterly creepy low, droning voice chanting in Latin throughout its' scenes here this one does manage to make it somewhat fearful of a device at times, especially in the first segment when the couple are convinced there's something in the apartment with them as the shadowy keeper is briefly glimpsed in the background or the scenes in the bedroom with their friends in the second story. Likewise, the third story attempts to explain and destroy the dagger for much of the running time leading to a rather fine and action-packed sense of urgency that's missing from the other segments. While not enough to combat the flaws, it's enough to make it more than watchable for this type of effort.

The list now reads:

1. Grave Robbers
2. Cemetery of Terror
3. The Curse of the Crying Woman
4. Fangs of the Werewolf
5. Don't Panic
6. Santo and Blue Demon in the Land of the Dead
7. Vacations of Terror
8. The Vampires of Coyoacan
9. Even the Wind is Afraid
10. Santo vs. The Zombies
11. Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters
12. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
13. The Phantom in the Red House
14. The Mummies of Guanajuato
15. Santo vs. The She-Wolves
16. Here Espantan!
17. The Beast is Alive
18. Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and The Wolfman
19. The Vengeance of the Vampire Women
20. Santo and The Vengeance of the Mummy
21. Capulina Against the Mummies (The Terror of Guanajuato)
22. Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter
23. Nostradamus and the Monster Destroyer
24. Capulina vs. The Monsters
25. Night of the Bloody Apes
26. The Return of the Monster
27. Killer Bees
28. Helena's Cry
29. The Resuscitated Monster
30. Hell's Trap
31. Angel of Light
32. El Fantastico vs. The Nahual
33. Night of a 1000 Cats
34. Tintorera!
35. Spritism
36. Marina: On the Other Side of Time
37. The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
38. A Woman Possessed
39. Blacker Than the Night
40. The Incredible Professor Zovek
41. The Cursed II
42. The Devil's Dagger
43. The Raven's Mourn
44. Fangs of Fury
45. The Mansion of Madness
46. All of Them Witches
47. The Gap
48. The Man and the Beast
49. La Llorona (58)
50. Zone of Silence: Parallel 27
51. The Man in White
52. La Trajinera del terror
53. Santa Sangre