The party goes global...

Free counters!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Don't Open That Door! #5: El Vampiro aka The Vampire (1957)

Who knew that Mexican horror flicks from the 1950s could be so good? Okay, lots of people knew, but never mind that -- the point is that this weeks column over at PopMatters features 1957 Mexican vampire movie El Vampiro, known to us gringos as The Vampire. It's pretty great, and I had a grand old time writing it up for my series, Don't Open That Door! To wit:


"Good natured Marta returns to her home in Mexico’s remote Sierra Negra mountains to visit her sick aunt Eloise; circumstance throws her in with Enrique, a fellow traveler on the same road. Oddly, no one is there to meet her at the station, so she and Enrique bum a lift partway, then go on by foot. Little do they realize that they’re being trailed by a statuesque, black-clad woman who possesses unusual skills such as blinking in and out of existence and raising strong winds just by standing around. When Marta arrives at the house, things get even weirder when it becomes evident that Aunt Eloisa isn’t as sick as originally thought. Heck, she looks better than she has in years! But the real shocker is that Marta’s other beloved aunt, Maria Teresa, is in fact freshly dead and buried. Of course, around here, being “freshly dead and buried” means something slightly different from where the rest of us come from, but that’s another story. Or, hmm, maybe it isn’t."

You can read
the whole column here, and you really should, as there are a couple of clips to watch that give a nice feeling for the eerie spookiness (or is it the spooky eerieness?) of the whole enterprise. Plus of course a few jokes and giggles.

As ever, if you find yourself enjoying yourself, please hit the Facebook Like icon, and/or Tweet it or G+ it etc. The more this kind of thing happens, the longer I'll be allowed to play in the sandbox, which is all I ever really wanted to do anyway.

Someday I'll  sit down and try to figure out why iexactly vampires are so perennially popular. It's kind of a mystery to me. As far as movie monsters go, they're probably my least favorite, but obviously, their appeal is widespread and long-lasting. Any thoughts on this are welcome.

No comments: