Films by country: Guatemala

GUATEMALAN HORROR [1950 - 1990]

An IMDb search of Guatemalan films from 1890 to 1990 turns up just nineteen titles, the earliest of which - 1950's El sombrerón / "The Man with the Giant Hat" ▼ - also happens to be horror. More specifically, it's a technically crude ghost tale based on local folklore the you can read more about on my review. It's also the earliest listed Guatemalan film on both Letterboxd and a Wiki list of films from the country and appears to be the earliest surviving Guatemalan sound film period. Not that there were a lot of others before it. If there were, I'm not aware of them.

El sombrerón would actually be the only Guatemalan genre film from this time period if not for co-productions. All of the 70s films listed below were co-financed by the production company Tikal Internacional (called Cinematografica Tikal after 1973), which appears to be Guatemalan. While I'm not 100 percent sure about the origins of this company, every film in their catalogue was shot on location in Guatemala (mostly in and around Antigua) and most were either directed or produced (sometimes both) by Guatemalan-born Rafael Lanuza. However, Mexican directors Arturo Martínez and Tito Novaro also worked on these and most of the stars were Mexican wrestlers like Mil Máscaras and Blue Demon. In other words, it's rather hard to tell here so I'm making a concession until I know better. The "Champions of Justice" and most of the "Mummies of Guanajuato" series' were made by this particular production company, along with a number of Superzan adventures. Another production company called Acuario Films produced several genre films in Guatemala as well, though without the presence of Lanuza as producer I'm leaving them off the main list.

In recent years there's been a number of Guatemalan horror shorts as well as two features that I'm aware of: Rodrigo Estrada Alday's Exorcismo Documentado (2012) and Jayro Bustamante's La llorona (2019); the latter being a French co-production.

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1950s

- Man with the Giant Hat, The (El sombrerón) (1950; Guillermo Andreu, Eduardo Fleischman)

1960s

😒

1970s

- Robbery of the Mummies of Guanajuato, The (El robo de las momias de Guanajuato) (1972; Tito Novaro) [co-Mexico]

- Castle of the Mummies of Guanajuato, The (El castillo de las momias de Guanajuato) (1973; Tito Novaro) [co-Mexico]

- Macabre Legends of the Colony (Leyendas macabras de la colonia) (1974; Arturo Martínez) [co-Mexico]

- Triumph of the Champions of Justice (El triunfo de los campeones justicieros) (1974; Rafael Lanuza) [co-Mexico] ▼

- Mummies of San Angel, The (Las momias de San Ángel) (1975; Arturo Martínez) [co-Mexico]

- Mansion of the 7 Mummies (La mansión de las 7 momias) (1977; Rafael Lanuza) [co-Mexico]

1980s

😒

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TOTAL:

7

NOTES:

-

REJECTED:

- Alfredo B. Crevenna's filmed-in-Guatemala La satánica (1973) is a melodrama involving a gold-digger and isn't horror.

- However, Crevenna's La mujer del diablo / "The Devil's Wife" (1974) and Pesadilla mortal / "Deadly Nightmare" (1980) ARE horror and both were filmed in Guatemala. I'm just not sure if the production company - Acuario Films - is Guatemalan or Mexican so they're being left off for now.

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