Director: Fernando Mendez (Black Pit of Dr M); Chamo Urueta (The Witch’s Mirror & The Brainiac); Rafeel Baledon (The Curse of the Crying Woman)
Scripts: Ramon Obon (BPODM); Alfredo Rumova & Carlos Taboada (TWM); Adolfo Lopez Portillo & Frederico Curiel (TB); Fernando Galiena & Rafeel Baledon (TCOTCW)
Cast: Gaston Santos, Rafael Bertrand, Mapita Cortes, Carlos Ancira (Black Pit of Dr M); Rosita Arenas, Armando Calvo, Izabela Corona, Carlos Nieto, Alfredo W-Barron (The Witch’s Mirror); Abel Salazar, David Silva, Luis Aragon, Reno Cardone, Ruben Rojo, Carlos Nieto, Susan Cora (The Brainiac); Rusita Arenas, Abel Salazar, Rita Macedo, Carlos Lopez, Mocto Zuma, Enrique Lucero, Victoria Blanco (The Curse of the Crying Woman)
Running time: 81.5 minutes (BPODM); 75.5 minutes (TWM); 77 minutes (TB); 80 minutes (TCOTCW)
Year: 1959 (BPODM); 1961 (TWM); 1962 (TB); 1963 (TCOTCW)
Certificate: 15
This excellent collection from the ever awesome Powerhouse Films’ Indicator Series (https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/box-sets/products/mexico-macabre-four-sinister-tales-from-the-alameda-film) includes four tangy tortilla treats from the late fifties and early 1960s Mexico. These four macabre titles from the vaults of one of Mexico’s best-known film companies offer uniquely Mexican takes on the usual array of ghosts, witches, and monsters familiar to all fans of horror cinema and fiction.
Black Pit of Dr M (1959, 81.5 mins)
Fernando Méndez’s Black Pit of Dr. M sees a certain doctor Mazali make a pact with his dying colleague in order to learn the secrets of the afterlife. However, the doctor doesn’t realise that the price for this occult knowledge is going to be very high. When the daughter of the deceased doctor arrives on the scene an improbable love triangle materialises between the doctor, Patricia and the doctor’s new intern. And, since most of the film is set in a lunatic asylum there are a number of crazy characters lurking on the periphery including a mad female patient who escapes, destroying a very paper machė-looking wall in the process, and one of the doctor’s assistants becomes violent when his facial surgery goes wrong and he’s left horribly disfigured.
Black Pit of Dr M, or Misterios De Ultratumba to call it by its Mexican name, is a fun surgically-themed horror with some gothic undertones and lots of dry ice! It plays with a number of themes including spiritualism, back-street surgery and just plain old murder. There’s a supernatural element running throughout that enhances the twist ending that most will see coming from a mile off. Black Pit is full of flickering candles, deep shadows and very similar-looking men with thick hair and even thicker moustaches.
The Witch’s Mirror (1961, 75.5 mins)
Chano Urueta’s The Witch’s Mirror (aka El Espejo de la Bruja), begins with Elena (Dina de Marco) being shown her destiny in a magic mirror by the housemaid, who’s also a witch. The demon within the glass predicts that Elena’s older husband will murder her and marry his new lover, Deborah. The witch’s magic is proved correct, and Elena is poisoned by her callous husband, Eduardo (Armando Calvo), and he wastes little time in installing his new bride, Deborah (Rosita Arena), at his creepy mansion.
However, Eduardo doesn’t get his own way for long as the housekeeper had promised to Elena that she would bring her back from the dead to wreck her vengeance on her betraying husband, which is exactly what she does. Beginning with a couple of low-level scares Elena brings dread and paranoia to the new bride before setting Deborah alight. Deborah survives but is terribly burned leading to Eduardo going all ‘Eyes without a face’ on Debs and sourcing young female flesh to aid him in his DIY surgery experiments in his basement lab, always overlooked by… err, an owl!
Obviously, things go from bad to worse for the new couple and eventually the betrayed Elena reaps her revenge on her cheating, murdering husband.
There’s a lot to enjoy with regard to The Witch’s Mirror – the performances are all good, the costumes and set design are excellent, particularly the witch’s ‘lair’, so to speak, and the effects are very good, particularly the disturbingly real fire effect that is still quite shocking to this day. I literally did a double-take, when it played out, and had to rewind it to watch it again. Admittedly, the story doesn’t cover any new ground, but what it does do it does with real style and panache.
The Brainiac (1962, 77 mins)
Probably the nuttiest film in the set (and that’s saying something!), Urueta’s The Brainiac (aka El Barón del Terror), begins in 1661 where Marcus Miranda comes to speak to the Spanish Inquisition on behalf of Count Vitelious d’ Estera, another nobleman being tried for necromancy. The inquisitors turn down Miranda’s request for leniency and for his humane efforts he receives 20 lashes while the Count is burnt at the stake. However, before he dies the Count curses the inquisitors and their bloodlines and vows to return one day to take his revenge.
300 years later and it’s the swinging Sixties and a comet passes overhead, sending a meteorite crashing to Earth. Said meteorite opens up and releases what appears to be an alien, but this is, in fact, the nefarious count resurrected in the form of a brain-eating creature that can also mimic those it kills, taking on their form, if it wishes to. The creature soon finds a human subject, to copy, before it heads out to locate the descendants of those that wronged its previous incarnation.
Two students of astronomy, (working locally at an observatory) get embroiled into the disappearances and it soon becomes apparent that one of them is descended from one of the inquisitors on the ‘Brainiac’s hit-list’ and the other from Marcus Miranda, the Count’s wannabe saviour. These youngsters then become the audience’s window into what’s going on in the town that their based in. Meanwhile, the Brainiac continues to stalk its prey, sucking on the brains of its victims in quite a silly, but weirdly disturbing way.
The Brainiac is captivating right from the start and it’s obvious the Count is a bad dude when he enjoys his own torture and releases himself from his balls and chains and willingly heads off to be executed, scoffing at his captors as he goes. The film doesn’t take itself seriously either with intentional comedic moments sprinkled throughout, especially from the cops that are trying to solve the on-going mystery. One even jokes about ‘brain escallops’ while in the mortuary.
Some elements haven’t dated so well, including the creature costume, but it’s still a fun creation, especially its weird tube-like hands, its ability to sort of teleport, and particularly in the way that it licks its victim’s brains. And, for fans of universal and Hammer horror films, there are a few nods to earlier movies, including Dracula’s disintegration scene from the original Terence Fisher-directed Hammer film, Dracula (Aka Horror of Dracula in the US), from 1958.
The Curse of the Crying Woman (1963, 80 mins)
In Rafael Baledón’s The Curse of the Crying Woman (La Maldición de la Llorona), a young bride, Amelia (Rosita Arenas), visits her aunt’s Gothic – Adam’s family–like – mansion, and eventually she discovers that she is the descendent of one of Mexican folklore’s most terrifying figures, The Crying Woman. Her aunt, (Rita Macedo) and her manservant, Juan, are clearly preparing the niece for her new role as some kind of vessel for the crying woman’s evil spirit and woe betide anyone who gets in their way, including Amelia’s unfortunate hubbie, Jamie (Abel Salazar) who gets into one of the longest movie fights I’ve ever seen toward the end of the film.
The Curse of the Crying Woman is certainly crammed full of atmosphere, creepy sets, equally creepy manservants, vicious dogs that kill and eat people, disturbing organ music and more dry ice than you can shake a proverbial stick at. In other words, it’s a lot of eerie gothic fun. And, although the visual effects are somewhat basic they still work, for the most part, especially the aunt’s weird eyes.
The cast all work well together (including the three Great Danes!) and the film is nicely shot, with a disturbing soundscape underlying the increasingly bizarre plot. I particularly liked the tower staircase shots looking up as characters were chasing each other – nicely discombobulating.
The Curse of the Crying Woman is certainly a nice take on the long-standing legend and is worth a look, especially for horror fans who like spotting references to other horror films. In this film alone there several Mario Bava and Hammer horror references, for example.
Special features
As always Powerhouse Films have gone beyond the call of duty in sourcing interesting extras for all the films in the set.
Black Pit of Dr M
Audio commentary with Abraham Castillo Flores – Flores talks about the cast, crew and the director’s influences, explaining that Fernando Mendez was one of the pioneers of Mexican cinema, after first training as a painter. Apparently Mendez ended up specialising in Orchid gardening following two heart attacks.
Daniel Birman Ripstein – Preserving the legacy (20 mins) – Ripstein talks about his grandfather, the producer on the picture, who once made three consecutive films in eight weeks. The interview is nicely peppered with posters and behind-the-scenes photos.
Eduardo de la Vega Alfero: Black Pit of Dr Medez (26 mins) – Alfero talks about the director’s life and works, saying how he learned his craft in the USA before returning to Mexico to shoot over 40 films. Apparently, Mendez was known as the Cecille B. DeMill of Mexico. Mendez went on to film four horrors, although he also made a rock n’ roll movie, which is a different kind of horror!
Theatrical trailer (3.07 mins) – Usefully subtitled
The Witch’s Mirror
Audio commentary with Mexican cinema expert David Witt – David talks us through the film’s various quirks including the illustrations at the start, which are paintings by Spanish artist Goya. He also talks about the director and him having a very distinctive style, namely that he enjoys using in-camera optical effects and regularly uses attention-grabbing images.
Rosita Arenas at Mexico Maleficarum (13 mins) – An interview conducted by Abraham Castallo Flores at the Academy Museum of Metin Pias on 7/10/22. Flores does a good job translating and keeping the interview flowing as she talks about being scared by the fire effect (she was separated from the fire only by a sheet of glass) and how wearing all the bandages was hard work.
Mondo Macabro: Mexican Horror Movies (24.5 mins) – A nicely put together, fast-paced documentary, by genre experts Pete Tombs and Andy Starke, that gives a potted history of horror films in Mexico, with lots of clips and posters, etc. to help illustrate various points. Apparently the Mexican horror boom was in the late 50s/early 60s, although the horror genre still persists there today.
Theatrical trailer (3.29 mins) – Quite thrown together
Image Gallery – 22 images, including a poster, press book and lobby cards
The Brainiac
Audio commentary with Keith J. Rainville, editor of the Parts Unknown magazine – Rainville notes that despite the 1960s setting the film has more of a classic Universal horror vibe, especially those made later on during the 1940s. He also shares the fact that the film makes use of sets previously used for a Mexican mummy series.
Eduardo de la Vega Alfero: iQue urva Chano! (23 mins) – Here Eduardo talks about director Chano Uruata who directed 120 films. Chano apparently had a chaotic way of making movies, hence used to annoy the producers he worked with, but director Sam Peckinpah obviously liked him since he cast him in The Wild Bunch.
Theatrical trailer (3.46 mins) – The too-long trailer lists the whole cast and claims the movie to be: ‘A most violent work of suspense’.
Image Gallery – 35 images, including a poster, press book and lobby cards
Fotonovela-37 – A cool extra where at least the comet effects look more convincing as stills!
The Curse of the Crying Woman
Audio commentary with Morena de Fuego – Morena presents a more academic essay on the film, which is interesting nethertheless. She talks about the history of Mexican horror (for example, the first sound Mexican horror film was made in 1933) and goes into detail regarding character’s motivations and tactics in the film.
Julissa de Llano Macedo & Cecilia Fuentas Macedo: The daughters of La Llorona (25.5 mins) – The daughters of the ‘crying woman’ actress talk about their mother and her life and career, which saw her growing up in prison. We learn that the weird eye make-up was done with black felt and wax, but in real life mum had a ‘killer gaze’ anyway, so they think she didn’t really need any such eye enhancements! Sadly, she ended up taking her own life (she shot herself – twice!) and one of her daughters takes the mum’s ashes with her on holiday, demonstrating that real life can be weird too!
Eduardo de la Vega Alfero: Daydreams & Nightmares (17:43) – Here Eduardo talks about the director’s career, and how he made 90 films. He also gives background to the crying woman mythology and how it seems to have originated during colonial times.
Theatrical trailer (4.12 mins) – The image is a bit soft, so this probably hasn’t been restored, but it’s still very watchable.
Image Gallery – 26 images, including lobby cards and a cool poster, where the three dogs are very prominent.
There’s also a limited edition exclusive 100-page book with new essays by José Luis Ortega Torres, David Wilt and Abraham Castillo Flores, an archival essay by Andrew Syder and Dolores Tierney, an obituary of Abel Salazar, and film credits and an exclusive set of five art cards. I didn’t get sent these so can’t comment on them but knowing Powerhouse they’ll be really nice additions to the set.
EAN: 5060697923414
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