Cementerio del terror

My review was written in July 1985 after a Times Square screening.

"Cemetery of Terror" is an okay Mexican horror picture, made last year and currently playing the U. S. Spanish-language theater circuit.

Quite easy to follow without any English translation, Texas-set story concerns a mad Dr. Cardan (Hugo Stiglitz), plagued by nightmares of zombie attacks, who forges (in English) a court order to release a corpse from the morgue to his custody. Unlike the local pragmatic police captain, Cardan is a believer in Satan who is convinced the corpse is one of the undead about to wreak havoc.

It is Halloween and by a strained coincidence, three teenage couples out on a date at a spooky mansion next to a cemetery find a Black Book of satanic rituals. They need a corpse to carry out a Black Mass (with the book's aid) in the cemetery and, as a prank, head to the morgue and steal the same corpse Dr. Cardan is seeking.

The ritual proves effective, bringing the corpse back to life, whereupon the zombie kills all six teens, accompanied by gore effects. Better makeup work is used on dozens of other varied zombies who subsequently rise from their nearby graves. Several children, including the police captain's kids, visit the cemetery and are barely saved from a horrible fate by the lameduck arrival of Dr. Cardan. Fortunately for them, Cardan is played by Mexican star Hugo Stiglitz (who previously battled atomic zombies in 1980's "City of the Walking Dead") and he comes up with a new and temporarily effective method of fighting the undead by simply punching them on the nose. Ultimately, the zombies are destroyed by burning when the kids toss the Black Book in a fireplace.

Picture provides a good atmosphere and some solid scare, with its oddest element (common to some other Mexican films) being the Texas setting where all signs are and visuals are written in English but everybody speaks Spanish. Cast is adequate, featuring some new generation talent such as Andres Garcia Junior (the spitting image of his star father) and Rene Cardona III, whose dad and grandfather have directed dozens of action pictures over the years.

Some movies require more of our suspension of disbelief than others, and this is surely one of them. Lines of dialogue that don't quite comport with the scenario; small inclusions that either abruptly introduce an entirely new narrative element, or are maybe just so poorly considered that we have to either presume the same or go mad; characters written with so little intelligence or so much obliviousness as to be contrivances of pure Movie Magic; and so on. In fairness, despite any flourishes to present, at its core this is still a slasher - just one mixed with some supernatural aspects - and in no way is it a film that was intended to be approached with any but the most superficial and unbothered of eyes. It's a big ask to wholly dispense with any critical thought to watch a picture. I suppose if one is able to do so, however, this is passably enjoyable? Look, 'Cemetery of terror' just definitely is no height of horror storytelling or film-making, that's for sure. But it's entertaining enough.

The blood and gore look good. I like the production design and art direction. It's well made from a technical standpoint, and while the story in its broad strokes is nothing special, it's still suitable grisly fun. It's in the details that the feature falls apart. I've seen too many poorly made movies to count, and while I wouldn't say that this is one of them, no comparison readily comes to mind to have so enthusiastically encouraged willful myopia of the viewer such that we can't pick apart every minutiae therein. 'Cemetery of terror' demands that we turn off our brain to engage with it, or else we're confronted with an endless stream of flummoxed, skeptical reactions of "What?! ... okay, sure."

It's a pity that the writing weren't more cohesive, coherent, and complete, because if it were by even just a small measure, the feature would have greatly benefited. There are some swell ideas in here, and between the orchestration generally of some scenes, and the addition of Chucho Zarzosa's excellent score to cement the tension and atmosphere, some moments are especially well done. At its best - or at least in its best potential - this is pretty much just as solid as any like horror flick might be. At its worst, one can only respond with "you're kidding me, right?"

Against all odds I think the last third of the picture is sufficiently well done as to pick up the considerable slack that it had dropped earlier. I think the cast generally perform well with what they're given. More so than not this is pretty okay! I just really wish the narrative and scene writing had been tightened, for that would have made a huge difference. Don't go out of your way to watch this, and by no means is it a must-see, but if you have the chance to check out 'Cemetery of terror' and can abide the most severe inelegance it may boast, this is a moderately worthwhile way to spend ninety minutes.

Forget all the commentaries trashing this movie. This here is a Mexican horror classic. Ask yourself this, how many terrible American horror movies are out there? Gimme a break. Mexican films usually have low budgets, don't go big time on the silver screen or gain huge notoriety around the world. Especially not in the horror genre. Name a Mexican horror film. Just one. Exactly. Horror films aren't meant to win Oscars unless it's intelligent like Rosemary's Baby. This is just a fun film to watch. C'mon, it's 80s horror! That means tight blue jeans, white sneakers, horny teens getting killed, silly hairdos and wardrobe! Sleepaway Camp is one of the champs in this area.

The plot is 3 college females are asked by their boyfriends to attend a flashy high profile party and they are tricked into going to an abandoned house on a cemetery on Halloween night. They find a book and decide to steal a corpse which happens to be of a demonic murderer who happens to be the owner of the book. They reanimate the corpse through a spell and all hell breaks loose.

This film has elements from Halloween:The demonic killer was attended to by the doctor which is after him and is rebellious towards cops and never fails to talk about how the killer is the devil and must be stopped. Very Mexican Halloween. It doesn't hurt that the movie is on Halloween as well. The only problem here is that Hugo Stiglitz should've been the demonic killer. Ha ha. I love Hugo Stiglitz, he's one of my favorites and has a hell of a voice and presence, but he's known to play villains not heroes. It has an Evil Dead element in that they find a book of dead just like the Necronomicon and wakes the demons in the cemetery. These are the 2 movies that the movie combines into a great formula.

The cast like any horror movie in any country isn't all that great.The teens cast in the movie are weak and may spoil some of the fun but Stiglitz is awesome as usual and whether it's a horror or comedy that he's in, he never fails to take his roles seriously. You should see Stiglitz doing comedy movie villains, his level of seriousness is rock solid and he takes this role just as serious. The killer isn't very scary, but the soundtrack is just sweet. It has one of the creepiest piano tunes in all of horror and I remember this movie by that eerie piano tune.

Check this movie out and watch it at night. It's only $7 at Best Buy and it comes with Ladrones de Tumbas (Graverobbers) as a two pack for a cheap price. You might or might not like it, but if you appreciate how the producer wants to entertain you with what he has to work with you won't be disappointed. The movie doesn't rip you off.

The Sexy Erika Buenfil, Edna Bolkan and Jackie Castro along with their boyfriends go to a house in the middle of a cemetery, where one of them finds a book that says how to bring the dead back to life, so soon the boyfriends convince the girls to steal a body from the morgue (they are medicine students) but the dead guy turns out to be the one of a psycho killer, eventually the perform a ceremony and before you can slit someone's throat the psycho is alive, and of course he starts killing the students one by bloody one, also because it is Halloween a group of kids (i mean kids) also visit the same cemetery where they are terrorized by the same psycho. plus the living dead who have risen from their graves. This Mexican Zombies on the loose/Psycho killer flick is cool, there's lots of gore, graphic murders, atractive cast, large body count, is well acted and fast paced. I recommend it highly. Other Mexican Horror flicks that you shouldn't miss are "Ladrones de Tumbas" (grave robbers) and "Trampa Infernal" (infernal trap).

Cemetery of Terror (1985)

* (out of 4)

Incredibly stupid Mexican horror film that tries to capture the spirit of American slashers. A maniac who has killed 17 people gets killed by the police. The next day, Halloween of course, three couples go to a mansion to party. The girls won't put out so the guys have a black mass. This mass brings the killer back to life and he goes on a rampage. Oh yeah, at the end zombies show up. This thing turned deadly boring by the ten minute mark and the action didn't start till around the fifty-minute mark. Everything in this film was truly bad and the plot holes are just incredible. I'm not saying F13 was smart or anything but c'mon! This film rips part of the storyline to Halloween as well. The only saving grace are some wonderful special effects and the zombies look pretty good. This is on DVD with another Mexican film, GRAVE ROBBERS, but at the moment I'm too scared to watch it considering how bad this was.