El espejo de la bruja

I vaguely remember seeing a few Mexican horror films on my local TV channel when I was growing up. The quality of the prints weren't great and, even to an 8 year old, the dubbing was atrocious. This one and a Russian (Soviet) film called THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE stuck with me because they both featured witches. I've always been fascinated by witches in films and books because of the magic powers they possessed. However it had been years since I had seen WITCH'S MIRROR when this Casanegra release came out in 2006. I bought it (along with BLACK PIT OF DR M and CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN), watched it, liked it, but didn't watch it again until just recently when I was astonished by everything I found in it. This movie is an old school horror buff's dream come true.

The look of MIRROR is a cross between the shadowy low budget world of the Val Lewton RKO films and the atmospheric Euro Gothic films of Mario Bava and early Jess Franco. Then there's the plot which borrows heavily from the classic French horror film EYES WITHOUT A FACE (LES YEUX SANS VISAGE) where a doctor tries to restore his daughter's disfigured face. In this movie it's the doctor's second wife who is disfigured by the avenging spirit of his first wife (whom he murdered) abetted by her Godmother who is the witch of the title. Throw in a little of FRANKENSTEIN and a lead performance that rivals anything Bela Lugosi did at Monogram and you have the makings of a B movie classic. In fact, MIRROR has everything in it but the kitchen sink

One of the many delights to be had in watching this film is seeing how it just plows right ahead moving from one bizarre plot point to another completely oblivious to its own absurdity. The whole thing only takes 75 minutes and boy does plenty happen in that short length of time. The first wife is statuesque, the second is more conventional, the doctor is insane, and the witch is calm and collected. There's never a dull moment although I found the ending to be disappointing (NO SPOILERS HERE) but you can see for yourself. Unfortunately the Casanegra label disappeared a few years back and now copies of them are increasingly rare and cost a pretty penny. Definitely worth seeking out...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

I was surprised to learn that "The Witch's Mirror" came out a year BEFORE director Chano Urueta and producer Abel Salazar released their more-well-known cult horror film "The Brainiac" (1961), as this earlier effort by the same team strikes me as a much more polished, effective and professionally made piece of work. "The Brainiac" had almost seemed the result of a Mexican Ed Wood making his first film while on acid, whereas "The Witch's Mirror" turns out to be a bona fide find; one of the best horror films I've seen in a while. The picture can be seen as two distinct stories, actually, cleaving fairly evenly down the middle. The first half tells of the revenge that a witch, Sara (who reminded me of Dr. Joyce Brothers, of all people!), takes on the man who poisoned her goddaughter, as well as on this man's replacement bride. This first half has a positively Gothic feel and could easily take place anytime during the last 200 years. The second half of the film veers off suddenly into "Frankenstein" and "Eyes Without a Face" territory, with a more modern-day vibe. The film offers up some strikingly composed shots, beautiful B&W photography, some eerie moments and, most surprising, some shocking gross-out elements. The FX are, for the most part, very well done (those crawling hands excepted, perhaps), and the picture winds up most satisfyingly indeed. I'm not sure that Debra's (wife #2's) ultimate fate is deserved, but whatcha gonna do? This IS a horror picture, after all, and quite an excellent one at that. My thanks to Casa Negra for rescuing it from relative oblivion. All horror buffs, I feel, should pounce on this one.

You really never know what to expect from the Mexican Horror movies from the late 50's-early 60's. The rights to most were bought by K Gordon Murray.He dubbed the films generally using the same actors and the same stock music and ham handed re-editing cutting out crucial dialogue/scenes etc. Sometimes the dubbed dialogue is absolutely hysterical (and it shouldn't be).Every once in a while a great film sneaks through.

The Witch's Mirror is much better than most.The story concerns a witch's(Sarah) godchild(Helen) who sees her own murder in a mirror. The killer is her husband (a doctor/scientist) who is having an affair.As much as the witch tries to prevent the murder she is unable to do so.Helen is poisoned leaving him free to marry Deborah.

Sarah uses the powers of black magic to communicate with Helen in the grave. Helen is able to use the mirror to terrorize hubby and his bride.Flowers die instantly in a vase;cold winds blow through the house and the piano plays Helen's favorite songs..by itself.

Blaming the mirror for the haunting the doctor shatters it with a lit oil lamp. Deborah somehow is turned into a screaming fiery torch.She lives but is horribly disfigured.The doctor tries skin grafts from cadavers to restore her beauty.Then he moves on to living women for his needed tissues.Then Helen really gets p----d and her revenge is cruel and ruthless.

While you feel for Helen you also feel for Deborah who actually didn't know that her new hubby was married before.The cruelties inflicted on her are almost unwarranted.The husband deserved more punishment than she did.Then again having his wife's beauty destroyed ruins his life in a mad pursuit to restore her.

The dubbing isn't as inane as often happens in this film. The plot is good and the film moves along nicely with no tedious scenes.There also isn't any of the usual quick edits in the scenes that jar these films so often.

Studio Azteca is really not used to its full advantage as it has been in other films(The Vampire, The Brainiac etc).That's a minor quibble.Gets a big 9+.

A delirious concoction of Rebecca, Hands of Orlac, The Uninvited, and Eyes Without a Face, 1962's El espejo de la bruja wastes no time plunging us into the Gothic and even less time on useless characterization. This is a brutally efficient horror pic which rejects nothing, no matter how absurd, and despises the crippling effect common sense has had on the poetry of the macabre. The protagonists act as if hypnotized, stepping out of ghostly mirrors, wandering doomy-eyed, or running down dark staircases in terror--a Last Year at Marienbad done as a haunted soap opera, and curiously enough, released the same year.

Co-scriptwriter Carlos Enrique Taboada would go on to write and direct several Henry James-style moody horrors, but I much prefer his kitchen sink approach here. The lively, demented plot is well matched with Jorge Stahl Jr's arty, careful camerawork which invokes maximal imaginative power via simple effects such as voice-over, shadows, fog, cut-outs, and double exposure. Budget considerations limit this one to mostly set-bound interiors, but this only adds to the cramped paranoia, punctuated by hysterical outbursts at a piano playing itself or the presence of a dead woman in the title mirror.

The film's characters seem to shift from victim to tormentor on a dime, presided over by a cackling vengeful witch (Isabela Corona) whose folk religion is somewhat like Santissima Muerte mixed with medieval European diabolism (ominous credits and a warning as to the powers of witchcraft crawl over Goya copies, bookending the action). Shadowy and intricate, she prays to alters resembling Surrealist sculptures. Magic is real. There is no cop-out. The detectives at the end wonder what the hell they've seen. Everyone gets their just deserts. The moral: Beware the wrath of women, especially outwardly-loyal housekeepers.

The Witch's Mirror is a fine, mad thing, blissfully short on psychological subtlety, and as locomotive as the flipping pages of a gaudy sensacionale.

This is another Mexican horror classic being given a new lease of life via Casanegra's superb SE DVD.

The plot is a mishmash of various well-proved elements (with even a nod to Poe) - a young wife is forced to live in the shadow of her husband's former bride (largely through the machinations of the latter's devoted housekeeper) as in REBECCA (1940); when the wife is horribly scarred in a fire, her doctor husband resorts to body snatching for skin graft experiments as in EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959); the hands he gives her (unbeknownst to him, they belong to the revenge-seeking first wife he poisoned!) take on a life of their own as in MAD LOVE (1935), etc. - but which works reasonably well in the context of its essential "witchcraft vs. mad science" theme (to quote the DVD sleeve notes).

The first half is a bit slow, but the cheaply-realized yet often poetic visuals - borrowed from Cocteau and Dreyer! - keep one riveted; the latter stages are more frenetic, with several of the characters resorting to histrionics and a fair splattering of gore (leading up to a particularly busy and highly satisfying climax). The acting from all the major players is above-average for this type of film but, best of all perhaps, is Isabela Corona as the outwardly reserved but sinister and powerful witch; the two younger women also make an impression - Dina De Marco as the murdered wife who keeps turning up as a ghost to haunt her husband and her rival; Rosita Arenas as the innocent young bride who becomes the unfortunate victim in both the doctor and the witch's scheme of things (particularly effective when essaying the pathetic qualities of the bandaged-up, desperate and lonesome woman).

As was the case with THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M (1958), the Gothic/supernatural atmosphere deployed with the barest of resources through camera-work, lighting, sets and props is truly incredible...though the special effects (which get quite a heavy workout here), ultimately, leave a lot to be desired! I've purposely refrained from describing individual sequences (as I often tend to do) so as not to deny first-time viewers - as I was myself - the pleasure of discovering its considerable felicities on their own!

The supplements are similar to those of BLACK PIT: the Audio Commentary (by the same Frank Coleman) is just as interesting, but he seems to be enjoying himself a good deal here as he approaches the film with tongue-in-cheek - while retaining a justified reverence for his subject. One disappointing aspect of these DVD editions, however, is that the English-dubbed version of the films aren't included as they were released back in the day (for instance, in the Commentary it's mentioned that the narrated prologue accompanied by sketches in the Mexican original was dropped for the export version - but the DVD includes it, presumably with the 'new' lines recently looped in!).