La tía Alejandra

"La tía Alejandra" is an interesting movie that touches on themes about witchcraft, with a good script and intelligent dialogues. The performances are good, especially those of Diana Bracho and Isabela Corona. The setting and filming locations mix to create a gloomy atmosphere. Arturo Ripstein's direction is correct. The soundtrack is good, most of it done with synthesizers, which could have been exploited but was forgotten. A classic of Mexican horror cinema.

When the grandmother dies, Aunt Alejandra (Isabela Corona) moves to the house of her nephew Rodolfo (Manuel Ojeda). He is married with Lucía (Diana Bracho), and they have the teenager Malena (Lilan Davis); the boy Andrés (Adonay Somoza Jr.); and the little girl Martita (María Rebeca), and the family welcomes her home. Soon, Aunt Alejandra, who is a witch, becomes close to Martita and teaches her witchcraft. When Malena and Andrés mock her, she revenges and the children die, in the beginning of the destruction of the whole family.

"La tía Alejandra" is a great supernatural movie directed by Arturo Ripstein. The film is never graphic or gore, but the plot is scary. The conclusion is ambiguous, but it seems that Martita has learned the lessons of Aunt Alejandra. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Tia Alejandra" ("The Aunt Alejandra")

"La tía Alejandra" demonstrates very well that rare, occult Mexican tradition of paying tribute to the dead, demons and the dark side of the Mexican folklore. For me, the movie has a dominant power in ambiance made possible by a a great cast (Diana Bracho has always been remarkable)and subtle horror. Overall most elements that bring a fantastic story alive, work very well together. In some sort of way the movie has a very Mario Bava feeling to it, the plot not being too complex nor too unpredictable, the fear factors are quite clear and the whole story emerges through Aunt Alejandras' character. Despite all this, the objective is not focused in puzzle solving by the viewer but frightening him with bleak surroundings and sounds (tough the music is a huge flaw in my opinion)I find this movie to get even more frightening as time goes by and since it was filmed in the late seventies the structure of the old traditional Mexico helps a lot to create mystery and mysticism; this, however might be difficult to relate to foreign viewers that are not familiar to "old" Mexican traditions but at the same time it pretty much gives a good idea of what Mexican ghost stories and legends are about."La tia alejandra" is perhaps far from being a horror classic but it is very overlooked and underrated, I recommend it for horror fans who prefer a chill in their spine than blood and guts on their screen.