Latin American Horror

LATIN AMERICAN HORROR [1950 - 1990]

This section will be covering most of Central and South America as well as the island nations in the Caribbean and for a grand total of thirty-three countries. Note: The countries listed below are ones who produced some pre-1990 genre films but not in excess of fifty so this is essentially the "Latin American (Other)" category for the less prolific countries. I'm also throwing in Puerto Rico. Though it's technically a U.S. dependency and not a country, it's the only one of the fourteen U.S., UK, French or Dutch dependencies in this region to have any horror productions prior to 1990 and even that was very minor. Film production was either completely nonexistent or at least next to nonexistent in most of these countries until the advent of easier and more affordable digital video technology here in recent years.

Many of these countries will be discounted right away. For starters, three managed to hit our 50 film threshold for their own sidebar button: Mexico (the most prolific film and TV production country in all of Latin America), Brazil (by far the highest-populated country at a population of 212+ million) and Argentina (thanks mainly to TV productions). Of the thirteen Caribbean countries, only one - Cuba - had their hand in pre-1990 genre films, so we can scratch twelve of the others off the list. What's mostly left are countries whose genre presence was limited to perhaps just a few or, in some cases, just one filmmaker carrying the torch for the entire country.

It's worth noting that many regions in Latin America were popular shooting locations for outside film crews. Various production companies, namely British, Italian and American ones, would often go to Jamaica, Haiti and other countries to film and take advantage of the scenery. Often local talent was tapped to work on these films. Italian Joe D'Amato even filmed an entire series of sleazy horror films in Dominican Republic, but these aren't technically Dominican productions even though they're sometimes falsely listed as such online.

LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES

Click on one of the flags below to learn more (not all links are currently open but will be soon)...

El pantano de los cuervos (1974)

...aka: Swamp of the Ravens

Directed by:
Manuel Caño

Death, dismemberment, zombies, necrophilia, mad science and a facially deformed pan flute playing homeless leper. Yep, it's another obscure gem brought to us by the fine folks at Something Weird video. A Spanish-American co-production filmed in Ecuador and directed by the same guy who brought us the more famous (barely!) schlocker VOODOO BLACK EXORCIST, this is essentially another standard issue obsessive mad doctor flick spiced up with sex, gore, and even several memorable musical moments you have to see to believe. Brilliant geneticist Dr. Frosta ("Raymond Oliver" / Ramiro Oliveros) is denied access to corpses for his experiments by the medical ethics committee, so he does the next best thing - steals them... off the streets... before they're actually dead. You see, he's trying to "correct" that mysterious medical condition known as death and the fresher the bodies, the better. Frosta retreats to a secluded swamp front shack (decorated with bird skeletons, caged monkeys, mice and vultures and pickled babies in jars!) where no one will bother him and begins abducting people for his experiments. There's really not much in the way of detail given as to how he can bring the deal back to life, but it has something to do with magnetic brainwaves, nucleic acids and blood transfusions. He also has a mostly docile zombie-like Igor type fella who has nothing to do other than wade through swamp waters every once in awhile to dispose of the failed experiments.

Aside from having trouble procuring cadavers, dealing with a facially-scarred leper's blackmail attempts and trying to keep his university co-workers from getting suspicious, he's also got lady problems. Girlfriend Simone ("Marcia" / Marcelle Bichette, from H.G. Lewis' The Gruesome Twosome) has decided to leave him and reconcile with former beau Richard ("Mark Mollin" / Marcos Molina), a Tom Jones-style lounge singer (yessss!) who treats us to no less that three wonderfully cheesy musical performances. The best one is when he sings a song with lyrics that go "Wherever you may find yourself, I wish you were dead. My own robot. My own. My lady..." to a mannequin that looks suspiciously like Simone. Instead of being terrified by that act of creepy obsession like most of us would rightfully be, Simone soon finds herself trying to flee the country with this guy. Frosta follows them to the airport and manages to kidnap Simone without anyone noticing. He takes her back to his shack, ties her to up to a table, fondles her, kills a Puerto Rican prostitute, drains her blood and then begins using Simone as his blood transplant guinea pig. She eventually dies, but that doesn't kill Frosta's love for her and he indulges in a little post mortem hanky panky ("Never have you been so mine!") The film sidesteps a few times to deal with the town sheriff's (played by Fernando Sancho) investigation of missing persons and random body parts found around town for some boring filler.

And how about them ravens in the swamp? Well actually, there are no ravens in the swamp, just lots of buzzards perched on tree limbs and circling above. Some of the most atmospheric scenes in this film (which are quite good actually) involve the bodies that have been dumped into the water coming back to life. Instead of climbing out of the water and feasting on flesh, the zombies just poke their heads out of the water and sit and stare and wait. For what, I couldn't tell you. But white heads peaking out of the dark water and surrounded by green plants are pretty arresting and creepy images. There's even a scene where a man is strangled to death by a disembodied hand. I guess Frosta's experiments worked after all. The director even found time to take a trip to the local morgue where some morticians are performing an autopsy that from all indications is being done on a real dead body. The makeup fx in this film are pretty good, but they're not that good.

Strange, very strange. There's wonderfully catchy synth theme music, dubbing and dialogue are for the birds and the names have been anglicized to protect the innocent. Not one of Something Weird's best quality prints; it's dark and there's some color damage and grain, but thank God they're around to unearth and distribute movies like this, huh? It's paired with the silly Filipino shocker THE THIRSTY DEAD (1973), but the DVD is still worth every penny just for this film, as well as some of the extras, such as some great trailers and a full episode of the Swedish TV series "13 Demon Street" hosted by Lon Chaney, Jr.

★★