(1961)
Overall: MEH
A dopey and heavily talky witchcraft export from director Benito Alazraki, The Curse of the Doll People, (Muñecos infernales, Infernal Dolls, The Devil Doll Men), tosses together its horror cliches in a silly manner. Seeing dwarf-sized actors in dead-eyed rubber masks stumbling around dark rooms with pointy needles is both viscerally unsettling and weirdly humorous, plus there are thankfully several such moments scattered about as a vengeful witch doctor gets his revenge against scientists who disrespect his particular brand of voodoo. This inadvertently leads to a monotonous structure where everyone gets picked off one by one and each character keeps having the same conversation throughout the whole movie as to whether or not supernatural activity is afoot. Everyone on screen is a cardboard cutout with zero personality, save for Quintin Bulnes who spouts hilariously arrogant dialog while raising his eyebrows in a cartoon bad guy manner. The finale is both abrupt and ridiculous where he easily hypnotizes his pursuers, only to allow them to show a cross at him in his hubris. This forces him to cower so that his puppet minions can stab him, naturally leaving him no alternative than to torch his own hideout while his would-be victims easily get away. In other words, this is nothing to take seriously, but it is worth a few chuckles for those that can endure its tedious nature.
(1962)
Overall: WOOF
The Mexican Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Frankestein el vampiro y compañía, (Frankenstein, Vampire & Co.), sees Manuel "Loco" Valdés and José "El Ojón" Jasso standing in for the famed American comedy duo and they do a particularly not funny job with the also particularly not funny material. Granted, Alfredo Salazar's plagiarizing script follows the plot of the Abbot and Costello classic almost to a tee and therefor should have some inherent humor to it, but with gags like a mustached man fooling everyone as a belly dancer, the "least conscious of what time of night that the full moon rises" werewolf in cinema history, Valdés bizarre penchant for hopping up and down and making seal noises for no reason, and much more stupidity all sink the ship. Director Benito Alazraki keeps the tone juvenile throughout and he does his best within the meager production values to make an underground laboratory give off a nostalgic Universal monsters vibe, but the constant mugging and "dumb dumb fall down" high jinks become grating right from the onset. Also, the wolfman makeup is atrocious, the Frankenstein monster does absolutely nothing until he gets Valdés' brain in the finale and busts out the whole obnoxious jumping seal thing, plus Quintín Bulnes hardly makes for a menacing Count Dracula when he can be thwarted by such bumbling antics.
(1962)
Overall: MEH
Director Benito Alazraki's Espiritismo, (Spiritism), bears as little resemblance as possible to his dreadful Frankestein el vampiro y compañía from the same year. A somber cautionary tale of evil forces being utilized in dire situations when conventional Christian faith fails to do the trick, Alazraki lets zero humor into the proceedings, instead creating a heavy melodrama where a family loses everything and it all ultimately points the way of religious redemption. Arriving in the early 1960s before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead helped usher in more nihilistic outcomes for horror movies, this one bypasses a fully miserable conclusion, but it comes awfully close by slamming home a level of despair that low-budget Mexican genre exports were less often to get away with. A tragedy then first and foremost, it is unfortunately burdened by a repetitive plot and padded dialog that crawls to a foreseeable conclusion that introduces the age old "Monkey's Paw" concept in its final act. When the film is not stuck in the muck with characters repeating mere variations of the same information over and over again with its cumbersome process to get all of everyone on board with the fact that in this universe, spiritualism is all too legit, there are intense performances and some spooky set pieces to appreciate.
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