La maldición de la Llorona

I almost feel the urge to spontaneously start a Mexican Wave in honor of this SUBLIME Gothic horror movie! When listing the most important classic horror titles and their countries of origin, people automatically think about Italy (with Mario Bava and his "Black Sunday"), Spain (with about a million Paul Naschy films) and naturally Britain (with the legendary Hammer and Amicus production studios). Mexico understandably always gets left out, but it truly deserves to be mentioned too, if it were only for THIS movie alone! "The Curse of the Crying Woman" is nearly flawless Goth-horror and features all the aspects that make the genre fans' mouths water. Filmed in beautiful black & white and bathing in an uncanny atmosphere, this movie is compelling from start to finish and several eerie images will haunt your thoughts even long afterwards. The story is simplistic, yet effectively creepy, the decors & set pieces are overwhelmingly sinister and the make-up effects are surprisingly convincing. No wonder this film often gets compared to Mario Bava's aforementioned milestone "Black Sunday". If you take the wise decision of purchasing "The Curse of the Crying Woman", you may expect to see endless dark forests, old mansions, ominous thunderstorms and – of course – a sardonic mythical storyline that tightly connects all these elements together. On the night of her 25th birthday, beautiful Amelia and her husband arrive at her aunts' Selma reputedly "cursed" house. Amelia has been looking forward to be reunited with her aunt since years, but she doesn't know that the sole reason of her invite is to serve as the final sacrifice to resurrect an ancient witch. Throughout the years, Selma became obsessed with the powers of Marina; an evil bitch that lures woods-travelers with her cries and kills them. Even if the young couple manages to avoid the curse, they still need to defeat Selma's horribly scarred servant and the mutated monster in the attic. The tension & atmosphere are masterfully built up, especially during the first 45 minutes. Director Raphael Baledón then seems to lose his tight grip on the story a bit around the hour, but he immediately rectifies himself again with an unforgettable climax. The sequence with the chiming bell alone is worth a standing ovation! Mesmerizing horror experience, recommended to fans of the genre all over the world.

* Special word of thanks to loyal IMDb-user G.B, for helping me to obtain this new personal favorite.

I know of a lot of people who swear that this is their favorite Mexican horror movie.While I agree that it is far from a stinker it isn't the best of the bunch either.Check out El Vampiro or the Witch's Mirror.But this one does have its moments.

The Crying Woman herself is pretty creepy looking as well as her murderous henchman who won't be winning any beauty contests.The opening scene set in a spooky misty forest is great.We're slapped with a couple of gruesome murders (especially when a young woman is run over by a coach).

It all boils down to a young woman coming "home" to her rightful inheritance.Too bad it is steeped in evil and involves bringing back to life a murderous witch.Pre dates Black Sunday by a few years.

You have to take the acting with a grain of salt as it is one of K Gordon Murray's bad dubbing jobs.The climactic fight scene is well done but seems to drag on endlessly.

Don't pass it up as it is better than average.

Curse of the Crying Woman, The (1963)

** (out of 4)

Another Mexican horror film but this one here really didn't do much for me. A young woman and her husband are invited to a castle by the girl's aunt but the aunt is wanting her help in bringing back the title character. This film runs just over 75-minutes and I could have sworn it was 75-hours. The movie goes very slowly and it never really captured me and pulled me into the thing. The opening sequence didn't work for me and the mystery behind the title character never got me interested either. The camera-work was nice and the visuals were good but that's about it.

Enter Gothic Mexico! Easily one of the best Horror films of the classic Mexi-Horror era. This film is oozing with the lush atmosphere, bizarre imagery and beautiful, shadowy photography which many of the Mexican horror classics of this era are known for. Like several other classic Mexican horror films, this one also plays off the the old Mexican folklore tale of Llorona, the weeping ghost/witch of the Mexican countryside. Real horror buffs will see (during the opening scene) a striking similarity between this film and Mario Bava's masterpiece, Black Sunday. The setting, where the Witch lives is actually a old Mexican Hacienda Mansion. I think the scenes where this "Haunted" mansion is depicted rivals that of the old Gothic castles which were typically used as settings in the European classics, mainly the Christopher Lee Dracula films. It just looks different but is creepy as can be. There is also some dreamy, almost psychedelic like sequences also not unusual during this period. Combine all this is the mutated, malformed man kept prisoner in the mansion, the boney flesh-eating hounds, Abel Salazar (Brainiac) playing the heroine and Rita Macedo playing the Witch you have a film any horror fan is not likely to forget.

This Mexican made horror flick is said to be based on an old Mexican legend called "The Crying Woman." However, this film has little to do with the legend and is essentially an original story about a women who comes to a haunted mansion to claim an inheritance and is plagued by the ghost of a dead woman and a rotting corpse that comes to life. Some descriptions claim the woman is a descendant of the original crying woman, but I saw no mention of this in video copy I saw. Perhaps this was removed when the film was prepared for English language release by K. Gorden Murray. I understand that there is a more faithful version of the original legend filmed in Mexico in 1930's.