(1991)
Dir - Pedro Galindo III
Overall: WOOF
A sequel to René Cardona III's exceptionally tedious Vacaciones de terror is the aptly titled Vacaciones de terror 2, (Vacations of Terror 2), which brings back Pedro Fernández as the same character who never mentions any of the events of the previous movie because ah, who cares? That is hardly a significant problem here though as there is plenty more to complain about, plenty more than before. For one, three screenwriters including director Pedro Galindo III are credited with a script that is so asinine and one-note that it boggles the mind that a chimp with a single typewriter did not author it within fifteen minutes. Whereas the first movie only started spinning in monotonous circles around the halfway point, this one gets to the redundancy much earlier as four characters spend an insulting amount of time slowly wandering around abandoned streets after a Halloween party where a witch that looks like a reject goblin from Legend occasionally grabs them. This one barely comes up with enough arbitrary supernatural occurrences to maintain anyone's interest and the ones that do arrive are more stupid than hilariously wacky. At least a lone musical number arrives before the plot cements itself in endless circles, at which point it would be wise to just turn the whole thing off and cut your losses.
(1996)
Dir - Daniel Gruener
Overall: GOOD
The full-length debut from filmmaker Daniel Gruener, All of Them Witches, (Sobrenatural), is a deliberate, thematic cousin to Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy and an exquisitely photographed one at that. A mysterious murder, books on witchcraft, a dubious husband, a doctor prescribing pills to a distraught woman, said woman being told to stay indoors; there are numerous direct references to Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Tenant, with Rosemary actually shown on a TV screen as Susana Zabaleta's protagonist plays the exact same anagram game in trying to decipher the disturbed mystery that is afoot. In her first theatrical role, Zabaleta proves well-suited and is on screen for the majority of the proceedings, balancing her character's innocent, sexy, emotionally ravaged, and terrified behavior that contributes to a largely impenetrable narrative until the very final moments finally shine some much needed light on things. The trek to get there is unhurried at times and the film could afford to lose several minutes of meandering shots, yet those same shots are often inventively done by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, giving the film a giallo-esque style even if the story is exclusively in the supernatural thriller mode.
(1998)
Dir - Leopoldo Laborde
Overall: MEH
A flawed fallen angel horror film from writer/director Leopoldo Laborde, Angel of Light, (Angeluz), channels its alt-90s, Dutch angle-friendly style into an interesting yet clumsily executed story. Hugo Stiglitz is on board as a scientist/holy man that is tracking down an angel/demon hybrid that according to some half-assed exposition, is part of an ancient species that went extinct and has now taken the form of a Gothy, Mexican teenager. The first two acts establish a D-rent yet acceptable The Crow via The Prophesy aesthetic where Roberto Trujillo, (no not THAT Robert Trujillo from Metallica/Suicidal Tendencies fame), begins to unleash his biblical powers on a group of criminals who are hunting down his friends. The wheels start to spin off even before Stiglitz catches up with the teenagers though as the action sequences are unintentionally hilarious and awkwardly staged, where Trujillo usually just growls, slowly maneuvers in foggy backlighting, and gently tosses people out of the way, something that only kills them when the script needs them to die. Things are particularly embarrassing in the third act where Stiglitz' character bafflingly puts a young kid and his even younger sister in direct danger with absolutely no plan on keeping them safe, besides giving them a walky talky and saying that they can call for help so that a couple guys in lab coats can shoot some useless bullets at the superpowered, rage-fueled Gwar demon.
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