Vacaciones de terror 2 (1990)

... aka: Pesadilla sangrienta (Bloody Nightmare)

... aka: Terror Vacations 2: Diabolical Birthday

... aka: Vacaciones de terror II: cumpleaños diábolico (Vacations of Terror II: Diabolical Birthday)

... aka: Vacation of Terror II

... aka: Vacations of Terror 2

Directed by:

Pedro Galindo III

Hard to believe anyone was eagerly anticipating a sequel to the very mediocre haunted house / cursed doll flick VACATION OF TERROR (1989), but they made it anyway. This one, which does not involve any kind of vacation despite the title, is directed by the first film's co-producer and brings back star Pedro Fernández in the role of Julio Aragón. From what little I remember of the previous film, Julio had accompanied his girlfriend's family to a remote old house for a summer vacation when the ghost of a witch started trying to kill everyone off. Now Julio has moved on with his life, runs an antique / curio shop and his mullet appears to have doubled in size. He's also not dating the same chick and also never even discusses the events of the first film. His love interest this time is played by real-life Latin pop star Tatiana, who really gets to stretch her acting muscles here playing a Latin pop star. OK, to be fair, she's cute, appealing enough and her acting isn't bad, and this is somewhat better than her next movie, FATAL NIGHTMARE (1990), where she was terrorized by a psycho armed with a Freddy-like clawed glove.

Tatiana's character, Mayra Mondragón, is a rising celebrity who's just recently been getting hounded by the press. Somehow (must be the power of the mullet), Julio manages to swindle a date out of her when she stops by his shop. As soon as Mayra leaves, a crazed man (Alfredo Gutiérrez 'El Turco') starts trashing the place and screaming about "the doll from hell!" He promptly runs outside and is hit by a car. Before he dies, he gives Julio some talismans to help ward off evil and recommends our hero consult something called "The Book of Tormented Souls." So off to the library Julio goes. He finds the book, rips out a few pages, sticks them in his pocket and leaves. Guess he forgot his library card.

Joaquín Cordero (DR. SATAN, PANICO), who's too good an actor for something like this but fine nonetheless, plays Tatiana's wealthy movie producer father, Roberto. He's planning an elaborate, Halloween-themed nighttime party for his daughter Tania's (Renata De Los Ríos) 7th birthday at his closed down film studio. To make things extra special, he's put his fx guy, Ramón (Ernesto Carregha), in charge of making it scary for all of the guests. His idea of "scary;" black streamers, strings of plastic pumpkin lights, balloons and cardboard cartoon replicas of Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and skeletons, plus a bouncy synth-pop performance of "Chicos, Chicos" from Tatiana, doesn't quite get the job done. Thankfully, Tania is in possession of a cursed dolly, which goes through some strange metamorphosis and eventually transforms into a clawed mini-creature. Well, that's not really scary either, but it at least proves to be a little more entertaining.

The little creature slashes up Ramón underneath the birthday cake table, which causes blood to spurt out of a fountain, which causes the party to clear out quicker than expected. Later that night, Mayra and Tania very stupidly go back to the studio because Tania forgot some silver coins her father had given her. When they get there, Julio, who's revealed to be some kind of demon slayer, is still lurking around trying to find the creature, which has since grown into a big, ugly, slimy, monstrous "bruja" (witch) with claws, fangs and a tail. Tania ends up getting sucked into some kind of otherworldly void, which means Julio and her sister have to find a way to defeat the witch before morning.

As far as the witch's motivations are concerned, the book lays it all out in pretty simple terms. She's from hell and cannot accept the fact she's dead, so this is really all about jealousy and lashing out by capturing the purest souls they can and using them as instruments of evil. The only way to defeat her is by embedding a silver seal in her flesh.

Since there's barely any plot to speak of, this usually comes off less like a movie and more like a collection of cheap spook show effects, with Julio and Mayra (later joined by the father) endlessly running around the foggy, closed-down studio encountering one horror after another. There are souls trapped inside of screaming coins, plastic pumpkins turning into fireballs, a phone shooting out slime, a toothy jack-o-lantern coming to life, a girl turned into a little Play-Doh doll, a room doing 360 degree spins, a room rapidly filling with water from the ceiling down, a melting gun, an earthquake, the ground cracking open and swallowing someone whole, a stabbing via doll tongue (!) and the witch impersonating the little girl to attack someone in a moving vehicle. These scenes range from extremely silly to fun and imaginative.

In many respects, this seems more geared toward children and young teens than adults. Though there's some blood and slime, there's no explicit gore, no nudity, no sex, barely any profanity and a low body count, with almost all of the deaths taking place entirely off-screen. You could snip brief shots here and there and probably end up with a PG or PG-13 rating. The production itself is fairly solid for a budget movie, with great shooting locations, some nice atmosphere, acceptable acting and a witch that's both well designed and well performed (by Luis Camarena). This is also slightly more enjoyable than the original film.

The director, part of a Mexican filmmaking dynasty that goes back to the early days of cinema (similar to the Cardona clan), also made THE DEATH OF THE JACKAL (1984), its sequel Massacre in Rio Grande (which is listed some places as having been released in 1984 and others 1988), HELL'S TRAP (1989), Panic on the Mountain (1989) and Theater of Horror (1991). Though I'm not sure the relation (brothers or cousins perhaps?), the co-writers and co-producers were Eduardo Galindo and Santiago Galindo, who had also worked on the first film.

The earliest sign of a home video release I could find was a tape from 1995 that looks like it was issued from a subsidiary of Video Treasures out of Troy, Michigan (Platino Video and Mex-American Home Video are both credited). They re-titled it Pesadilla sangrienta / "Bloody Nightmare" and the write-up on the back of the box includes both English and Spanish language plot descriptions.

This is now very easy to find all over the place. For us English speakers, it made its English-subbed debut in 2008 as part of BCI Eclipse's 8 film set "Crypt of Terror: Horror from South of the Border, Vol. 1," which also included the first Vacation, Trap, CEMETERY OF TERROR (1985), both English and Spanish language versions of DON'T PANIC (1988), GRAVE ROBBERS (1989) and The Demon Rat (1992). In 2023, Vinegar Syndrome released a Blu-ray and paired with the first film. All of the new interviews on the VS release cover just the original film, not this sequel.

★★

Incredible Petrified World, The (1959)

... aka: El mundo increíble (The Amazing World)
... aka: Le monde pétrifié (The Petrified World)

Directed by:
Jerry Warren

Like any other low budget 50s horror / sci-fi flick worth its grain in schlock, this opens with five minutes of narrated stock footage. We see the roaring ocean, an octopus and shark fighting and then a bunch of regular ole fish doing their thing. "We are now prepared to invade this black wilderness," says the monotone voice-over. Well, I was actually already prepared five minutes ago but thanks for your concern. After a few men at a private screening discuss the money and time sunk into ocean exploration, we're whisked off to somewhere in the Caribbean where Professor Millard Wyman (John Carradine) is preparing to test out his new diving bell, which should instead be renamed a "diving ball" because of its completely circular shape. Because both his peers and investors alike had no faith in what he was trying to accomplish, Wyman was forced to finance this project all on his own. Meaning, his reputation and pocketbook are both about to take a big hit.

Wyman's aluminum beach ball is slated to go "deeper than any man has ever gone before" so that a small group of explorers can see what exists "thousands of feet" below the surface. Since Wyman is already up there in age, he enlists four others to take the plunge in his place. There's ambitious, catty and cone-bra'd "lady reporter" Dale Marshall (Phyllis Coats), who's just received a Dear Joan letter from her estranged husband, oceanographers Paul Whitmore (Allen Windsor) and Lauri Talbott (Sheila Noonan), both former students of Wyman's, and scientist Craig Randall (Robert Clarke), the newest addition to their research team. Everyone is high in spirit and enthusiasm as the flimsy tin death trap is lowered into the water, but those good times won't be lasting much longer for our four-person crew.

Once they are 1700 feet below the surface, there's a glitch in the electricity, radio contact is lost and the cable lowering the contraption snaps, dropping the bell deep into the recesses of the unknown. Professor Wyman tries to stave off the obligatory bad press while fellow scientist J.R. Matheny (George Skaff), who's planning his own rival diving bell expedition with a different model designed by Professor Wyman's brother, Jim (Joe Maierhauser), keep tabs on what's going on and put their own planned underwater expedition on indefinite hiatus. Meanwhile, the crew, who passed out during the fall, finally awaken on what they first assume is the ocean floor. After a hysterical Dale has to be slapped back into reality, the group soon realize they're actually somewhere else entirely. They can see light through their porthole, which wouldn't be the case had they floated all the way down. And, well, they're still alive when they should be dead from the pressure increase.

The team throw on their diving gear and air tanks and head out to see where the light is coming from. They end up in an elaborate cave system, filled with countless tunnels illuminated by phosphorous. Pools of potable water are around and there's plenty of access to fresh seafood so at least their basic needs are met while they wait for help. Back on the main ship, Carradine and company have resigned themselves to the fate of their friends and are only hanging around nearby to potentially retrieve their corpses from the water. Radio operator Wilson (Lloyd Nelson) picks up what he believes to be the missing party on his sonar but his observations are all but ignored. Instead, Wyman discovers why his diving bell didn't work properly and goes to Matheny about possibly making adjustments to his diving bell so he can make a second attempt at underwater exploration.

By now, the four lost explorers have given up hope they'll be rescued. They use up most of their oxygen tanks making trips back to the diving bell to retrieve whatever may be useful for their long life living in the caves. They stumble across a big lizard, a human skeleton and, finally, a delirious, bug-eyed old man (Maurice Bernard) in a terrible wig and fake beard who claims to have been trapped down there for fourteen long years. As for why there's breathable air and clean water all the way down there, it's because they're situated somewhere underneath a movie volcano that only decides to become active when it's convenient for the plot. None of the new information raises morale or hope they'll ever make it back to the surface. With miles and miles of caves that are incredibly easy to get lost in, how will they ever be able to navigate themselves out of there?

This is actually pretty good for a Jerry Warren film which means it's still pretty bad but could have been a whole lot worse. The poster writes a check ("Terror!" / "Monsters!") the film can't cash and the science elements are dated and ridiculous as is usually the case for this era, but the premise itself I quite liked. However, the budget isn't there to do much with it and there's not nearly enough plot to sustain things. In lieu of that, we get lots of talking and wandering around plus lots of cuts back to the surface where more people sit around talking. As far as drama and tension are concerned, the Dale character acts a bit bitchy at times, Craig and Lauri reveal their love for one another and the voyeuristic caveman falls for Dale and hopes she'll agree to his plan to kill off the others so they can have the cave all to themselves.

Despite the cheapness of the production, they filmed the underground scenes at Colossal Caves in Tucson, Arizona so at least those "sets" are convincing. There's also something unexpectedly lovely and (accidentally) poetic about the long diving scenes thanks to overbearing overhead lighting, bubbles and reflective surfaces mixed with ethereal stock music and the grainy black-and-white photography.

Brianne Murphy, Warren's wife at the time and co-owner of their company GBM Productions, was the production supervisor (as "G.B. Murphy") and dialogue director. She and Warren can also be spotted riding an airplane with Carradine. This was filmed in 1957 but not released until a few years later on a double with Warren's awful TEENAGE ZOMBIES. The budget is said to be a paltry 15,000 dollars (!), with 2K of that going to Carradine for two day's work and another chunk of it spent on making a rubber monster suit that they ended up not even using! The full running time is 66 minutes and the film is in the public domain so it's been released by a whole slew of labels on both VHS and DVD over the years.

★1/2