Museo del horror (1964)

... aka: Museum of Horror

Directed by:

Rafael Baledón

A young woman walking home alone late at night is stalked and then ambushed by a caped, behatted, skull-faced fiend. After she passes out, he carries her into a cemetery and opens the lid on an above ground sarcophagus. Inside is a secret passageway. He takes her down below, carries her through a hallway with mummy-filled caskets lining the walls and then into a room that's hidden behind one of those caskets. There, he lies her down on a table, pulls a boiling cauldron over and then dumps molten wax all over the screaming woman's face. This extremely atmospheric opening credits sequence proves that there are few greater combinations in the horror world than high contrast black-and-white photography, proper night lighting and a little bit of swirling fog. Gorgeous. This latest victim turns out to be the third of such disappearances in the area in the past few months. The police are baffled as there are no witnesses and no clues thus far. However, there is something of a pattern: Each disappearance has been of an attractive young lady in her early 20s and each girl disappeared at around the same time of the evening near the same location.

We next meet numerous characters staying at a boarding house run by the gossipy Doña Leonor (Emma Roldán). There's Luis (Joaquín Cordero), who was once a promising actor until a crippling injury put an end to that career. He now manages a theater and gives tours at a wax museum. Reading about the disappearances in the paper, Luis comments that the missing girls, being young and all, probably either ran off with a guy or split town to go on a little adventure. Not interested at all in the conversation is the grouchy and misogynistic Professor Abramov (Carlos López Moctezuma), who goes on an angry rant about how he despises the "chronic chatter of women" and how "God made a mistake putting tongues in women's mouths!" And then there's Raúl (Julio Alemán), a nice, upstanding young doctor (or so that's what everybody thinks), and Leonor's daughter, Marta (Patricia Conde), a nice young nurse. Raúl, who's known Marta since childhood, is interested in pursuing a relationship with her but she's not quite sold on him.

All three male boarding house residents are set up as the prime suspects. Luis is hoping to secure a grant with his new exhibit on the heroines of art and theater. He has painstakingly molded each of the lifelike wax figures and his museum only features female characters because, in his own words, he holds women in such high esteem. Or does her? Raúl is up to some sketchy things himself. In a Burke and Hare-influenced twist, he pays a pair of drunk lowlifes (José Dupeyrón and Vicente Lara) to rob graves and bring him fresh "specimens" to conduct his secret experiments on. He also has a collection of human heads he keeps in vats of liquid hidden in the hospital morgue. As for the professor, who is seldom seen without a scowl on his face, we've already established what he thinks about women, but he also has a thing for taxidermy and is developing "a new technique for embalming" on top of that.

After getting dropped off at a nightclub (where all of the principle characters happen to be in attendance) by her "papi," prostitute Sonia (Sonia Infante) becomes victim #4 during her late night stroll. Only in this instance, there's a witness: One of Raúl's patients. When he goes to the boarding house to tell the doctor what he's just seen, someone shoots him in the back with a poison dart. That finally brings the police, headed by David Reynoso as the Commissioner, to the home. It's discovered that the poison used to kill the witness was curare and the only person to have a bottle of it on hand is the good professor. Still, that's not enough to pin blame on him. Despite the murder, bosomy blonde nightclub chanteuse Norma Ramos (Olivia Michel), who's sick of the cheap hotel she's been staying in, decides to rent a room there.

In an interesting twist, Marta rejects a marriage proposal from straight-laced Raúl and instead finds herself falling for Luis. While he's older, crippled, less financially secure and more emotionally complicated, there's just something about him she's drawn to. Of course, this infuriates Raúl, who accuses Marta of mistaking pity for him and his disability with love. He also informs her that everything he's done in life thus far he's done to set up a good life for the two of them as a couple (awfully presumptuous, ain't he?) and he's not going to give her up without a fight. However, both Raúl and the professor seem to be fighting off their desires for the attractive singer who's just moved in.

A seldom-viewed film, this was an unexpected surprise. It boasts good performances and a competently-structured (though ultimately predictable) mystery with well-drawn characters courtesy of writer José María Fernández Unsáin, who pinches ideas from a number of other films, namely The Lodger, The Body Snatcher and House of Wax. However, where this really shines is in the atmosphere and visuals, with Raúl Martínez Solares' great cinematography aiding the mood immensely.

While obviously a low budget production, director Baledón also adds just the right amount of visual embellishments. One standout sequence features one of the proposed victims losing it after venturing out into the underground catacombs as a flurry of images of decaying corpses flash on the screen. There's also a very interesting bit where the grave robbers hit a patrolman over the head with a shovel and then bury him alive, which then segues into a nightmare scene of cobweb-covered zombies rising from their tombs. The shots used for the latter are extremely creepy and look like they come from another film (or films), which makes me wonder just what film exactly. One source claims stock footage from Bava's HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) was used.

To my knowledge, this has never been officially released in America. 5th Dimension Films, Creature Feature Videos and DVD Party are just three of the websites that carry this with English subtitles, though I don't believe any of these releases has been sanctioned.

★★★

El hombre y el monstruo (1959)

... aka: Il prezzo del demonio (The Price of the Devil)

... aka: Man and the Monster, The
... aka: O Homem e o Monstro

Directed by:
Rafael Baledón

Ricardo Souto (Abel Salazar) gets more than he bargained for upon arriving in the small village of San José to interview world famous pianist Samuel Magno (Enrique Rambal). Samuel was at the height of his career, and dubbed one of the world's greatest musicians, when he curiously decided to retire from the business altogether and retreat to the small community to live a hermit-like existence. He now lives in a country home with his domineering mother Cornelia (Ofelia Guilmáin) and his talented female protégé Laura (Martha Roth), who plans on carrying on where Samuel left off and will be making her big concert debut very soon. Ricardo's first night in town, he stumbles upon a dying woman who was involved in a minor car accident right outside the Magno home. When he goes to ask for help, Cornelia refuses and closes the door in his face. The police write the whole thing off as an unfortunate accident. Ricardo learns that Cornelia is rumored to be a witch and all of the townsfolk refuse to enter their home for obvious reasons.

The next day, Ricardo attempts to get some information about Laura's upcoming concert and is met with open hostility by Cornelia, who isn't actually a witch, just overly protective and apprehensive others are going to discover a dark secret her son is hiding. Samuel acts like he's a nervous wreck and tells Ricardo he can no longer play. Laura later refutes those claims by saying her mentor only plays late at night. In fact, any time Samuel plays he has to lock himself inside his room and throw the keys outside. And that's because he's sold his soul to become "the greatest artist in the world." Several years earlier, Samuel had been in the shadows to a virtuoso named Alejandra (also played by Roth) and, jealous of her success, plead with whoever out there was listening; offering up his soul to become the best pianist in his world. Someone takes him up on that offer, but things don't work out as planned. Samuel murdered Alejandra with a pair of scissors and has kept her body hidden away in a room ever since.

Now Samuel is both blessed and cursed. He's blessed because, with Alejandra out of the way, he has indeed become the most gifted pianist in the world. He's cursed because he cannot play the piano without turning into a werewolf-like beast in the process, which almost renders his talents meaningless since he cannot share them with the world. And that's where Laura comes in. Samuel hopes to live vicariously through her, though things don't go quite as planned.

Alfredo Salazar scripted this entertaining, well-made film - one of the best South-of-the-border genre offerings from its decade, no doubt - which mixes up elements from sources such as Faust, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Beauty and the Beast, The Phantom of the Opera and The Wolf Man to very good effect. The normal Samuel is meek, gentle, kind and passive, while the monstrous Samuel is a laughing, sneering, jealous and arrogant creature. The dueling personas, with the normal Samuel not able to remember a thing he's done as the monstrous Samuel, follow your standard Jekyll / Hyde format, yet this really has something to say about the dangers of ego, pride and taking shortcuts to fulfill your dreams. The addition of the character of Samuel's mother, who is able to keep her son in check regardless of what form he's in (even the monster cowers at her mere touch), gives this an interesting Freudian touch.

Reasonably well-shot in black-and-white and utilizing expressionistic, shadowy lighting, this is adequately atmospheric in the same Gothic vein of the tales its takes its inspiration from. The monster makeups are really pretty great for their time. The beast has untamed hair, thick black eyebrows, a flat nose with large nostrils and crooked teeth, though Rambal's exaggerated, intense eyes under all that makeup is what really brings the creature to life and makes it menacing. I'm not familiar at all with the lead actor, but he gives a performance here that is very much in league with what classic horror stars like Chaney and Karloff were capable of doing; playing both a gentle character and a dangerous monster with equal pathos. The rest of the cast - particularly Guilmáin - is also very good.

Director Baledón also made SWAMP OF THE LOST MONSTERS (1957), THE HELL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1960), the well-regarded THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN (1961), GHOST JESTERS (1965), THE SHE-WOLF (1965) and others. His young daughter, Ana Laura Baledón, plays the little girl who gets a fatal Tchaikovsky lesson at the hotel.

The DVD is from CasaNegra Entertainment, an unfortunately short-lived company who specialized in restoring and releasing Mexican genre films.

★★★