Bou

Wow. I have recently begun watching a number of Mexican films, and I vacillate between finding it a shame and being relieved that the current horror genre there seems to be as weak as it is in my own good ol' United States. This is one of of the worst films I've ever seen. I didn't give it a 1, because I reserve that for films in which a living being is actually killed or injured. It escaped a 2 rating only because it shows and applauds Xochimilco (I'm all for Xochilmilco being preserved and treasured), because it shows reasonably convincing stigmata, and because it features several dogs who do *not* die (Percy the Rottweiler even gets an end credit).

This is not a long film, but it feels interminable. A group of seven young friends decide to celebrate a birthday by taking a trajinera, a long, colorful, poled boat outfitted with a table and benches, through the waterways of Xochilmilco.

Nothing happens for roughly the first third of the film. The friends flirt, talk, and drink beer. There are many silences and shots of the boatman (made even more inexplicable because several of them are of his feet). The only break from this are shots of a man with really bad teeth who looks like a cross between the bad guy in a spaghetti western and the thing in _Jeepers Creepers_. He is inexplicably following the trajinera. Oh, and there's a scene when two of the characters sing while one plays guitar (the guitar seen in the opening minute was a sure sign of viewer pain to come; I might have run away). The singing and playing were clearly recorded in the studio, but the scene is shot as if we are hearing just what we are seeing. Oh, ugh.

Then the birthday boy finds a Ouija board under the table. Most of the friends want none of it, and there's about three minutes of yelling at him about it. There follow two minutes of what is supposed to be a scary Ouija sequence, but because we are deprived of reading what is spelled out, the audience soon tires of this too.

Nearly half an hour in, the boatman mysteriously and abruptly jumps off the boat and runs into the jungle. All of the passengers scream and cry in wild terror and despair, despite the fact that the boat pole is clearly left on the deck. This bizarre fact sets up what happens--or doesn't---for the rest of the film. This vagueness is not helped by the injudicious use of scene repetition, slow motion, and voice-over. The youngsters get off the boat at some point, and we don't know when or why. People split off from the group without explanation. They get killed when the menace is clearly in view and could have been stopped or evaded---repeatedly. I have never seen a film with a lamer group of protagonists. Their impotent nature rather reminds me of Edward Gory characters.

All in all, the film has no discernible motive or plot. The opening credits hint that this is about La Llorona, but I sure didn't see any sign of that in what followed. I think, given the dolls in the opening, that the filmmakers may have wanted to make a film on the genuinely creepy Isla de las Muñecas and couldn't get permission to. What and who the group encounters after the trajinera is never made clear. The implication is that two characters have become possessed by the Ouija board and their stubborn refusal to leave it alone, but the creepy man in black follows them all from the very first scene, when they're parking their cars. He follows them throughout, though most of the time he just looks constipated. A man they encounter at a shrine may or may not be St. Francis. I can't even figure out whether the Rottie was supposed to be good or a familiar of some evil being.

Needless to say, there was no budget. The sound is poorly recorded (not that it matters when the dialogue doesn't help), and the ending music runs out before the credits do, so they just start it over.

I suspect that a couple of the actors might have some talent, but the script and direction are so terrible that it's impossible to tell. I end this review as I began it---wow.

Okay, with the title this movie has, it was eventually going to get a look in this household. The dedicated cult-movie fan will sometimes follow a title like this into a so-bad-it's good experience. Sometimes it's time well spent. Most of the time one remembers why one does not play the ponies or the stock market.

What to say of this movie? Well, there's lots of driving. Not Steve McQueen stuff, though. No, more like "Manos, the Hands of Fate." And the walking! More walking than in "The Beast of Yucca Flats." I will admit that my thumb leaned heavily on "FF." Even then, the pace was unendurable.

However, I did not fast forward through some truly inspired dialogue uttered by the satanic leader, who wears some sort of helmet of leather and horns---perhaps a ram's head? No matter. Whatever it is, it successfully hides the identity of the actor(?) as he intones such lines as "For rejecting the serpent, prepare to surrender thy unhallowed flesh to all that is evil!" and "Now, whore, shall ye know the hard-on of sin!" (What happens next gives new meaning to "Lust in the Dust," as well as an ironic twist to the director's name.)

I suppose I should mention that there's a topless waterfall-shower scene, as well as a topless woman in a thong carrying around a boa constrictor . . . if you like that sort of thing.