We talked about Álex de la Iglesia and his film Day of the Beast here before. Now, we have another of us films, based on the 1992 Barry Gifford novel 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango. It also takes inspiration from Magdalena Solís, the so-called “High Priestess of Blood,” who was hired by Santos and Cayetano Hernandez to be an Incan princess as part of their cult that was fooling villagers into becoming slaves for them. The power went to her head and she took over, starting a series of drug-fueled blood drinking and murder rituals.

Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) is trying to scatter the ashes of her sister when she meets Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem), whose police blotter includes crimes like bank robbery, drug dealing and pretending to be a Santeria priest, which mainly involves doing coke and hacking up corpses. Now, he’s refrigerating human fetuses and taking them to Vegas for Mr. Santos (Don Stroud, The Amityville Horror).

Perdita decides that they should capture and eat someone, so they kidnap two geeky college kids, assault both of them and then just before the ceremony to sacrifice the girl, another gang attacks. They go on the run, kids in tow, all the way to their destiny in Vegas.

James Gandolfini shows up as agent Woody Dumas, who continually gets hit by cars and survives.

Perdita also appears in another Gifford novel — and the movie it inspired — Wild at Heart, where she was essayed by Isabella Rossellini.

During the Santeria scenes — which are much closer to Santa Muerte — look for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, one of the most important figures in the history of rock ‘n roll.

This movie was a dividing line in De La Iglesia’s career. Spanish-speaking fans felt that he sold out by having the movie in English and featuring big stars, while American audiences were frightened off by all the sex, drugs and violence.

As for me. I was stunned by how the end of the film transforms into the 1954 Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper film Vera Cruz.

You can watch this on Tubi. Supposedly, Severin is releasing a new version of this on blu ray this year.

This film is based on the life of ascetic 5th-century Syrian saint Simeon Stylites, who lived for nearly 40 years on top of a column. It was directed by Luis Buñuel after he had to take his second exile in Mexico, as his movies were lambasted by the government and the Vatican.

Along with Viridiana and The Exterminating Angel, these movies form a trilogy of films that are critical of religion and star Silvia Pinal and Claudio Brook.

Simón has lived for 6 years, 6 weeks and 6 days in the midst of the desert atop a pillar, praying for spirital purification. Then, an assemblage of priests and townspeople offer him a new pillar and a chance at priesthood. He claims that he is unworthy before climbing up to his new perch.

But first, an amputee asks him to give him back his hands. As soon as Simón heals the man, he slaps his child and says that he is unimpressed with the religious man. He then either judges or ignores the other people who come to him.

Interestingly enough, that man is Buñuel.

Then, Satan (Silvia Pinal) visits him three times. First, as a cursing girl, hen as Jesus and finally as himself. Time and again he begs our protagonist to come down from the pole before finally moving him to a nightclub in our time, as a dancefloor begins doing the Radioactive Flash. Simón just wants to go home, but Satan says he must stay.

While this film was to be much longer, budget cuts gave it the short run time and what some may see as an abrupt ending. I really enjoyed it, as it feels like some strange parable sent to us from another dimension.

Mario and Fernando Almada are brothers that ended up in the same movie, with Mario as Sheriff Bob (BOB!) and Fernando as the equally epically titled Roy. They had another brother named Horacio who stayed home, far away from this movie that’s pretty much a cop movie that turns into a Mexican giallo. No puedo creerlo!

Speaking of family, this was directed by the father and grandson team of Pedro Galindo and Pedro Galindo III. The elder Pedro was an actor, producer and musician. His song “Malaguena Salerosa” is on the soundtracks for Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time In Mexico. Meanwhile, Pedro III made the crowd pleasing Vacaciones del Terror 2 and Trampa Infernal.

Anyways, there’s a killer loose cane with a sword in it and a giant dog that helps him murder, paying back that mutt who used to talk to Berkowitz.

This has one of the best kills I’ve ever seen in an exploitation movie, where a dead man is thrown through a glass window and on to the stage of a strip club, where his lifeless form collides with a fully nude dancer.

A movie that skirts the edge between slasher and giallo, which is a thin one when you think about it hard enough. This is dark and scummy, which is pretty much exactly what you’d hope it would be.

There’s also a sequel, Massacre In Rio Grande, that I’ve been trying to hunt down. If you can find it, let me know. I’ll be your mejor amigo!

There haven’t been many movies that we cover that have been made into operas. In 2016, this became one of them.

A surrealist film, Buñuel left it up to his audiences to decide what the story — a group of rich people cannot leave a party — is really about. Roger Ebert said, “The dinner guests represent the ruling class in Franco’s Spain. Having set a banquet table for themselves by defeating the workers in the Spanish Civil War, they sit down for a feast, only to find it never ends. They’re trapped in their own bourgeois cul-de-sac. Increasingly resentful at being shut off from the world outside, they grow mean and restless; their worst tendencies are revealed.”

During a formal dinner party at the lavish mansion of Señor Edmundo Nóbile and his wife Lucía, the servants all leave but the guests cannot. As the days past, some die, some commit suicide and nearly all of them go mad.

Only when they recreate the party — after failed mystic rituals and the attempted slaughter of their host — can they leave. Yet after attending a religious service to give thanks, they remain trapped again and disappear, along with the priests, as riots break out in the streets.

In Russia, the idea of people not being allowed to “leave a party” was considered offensive and anti-government, so the film was banned. And Buñuel himself believed that between the budget and the conditions in Mexico, the film was a failure. He wishes that it had been more extreme.

I have no idea how to properly convey how important this movie is to me.

Directed, written, produced, co-scored, co-edited, set designed, costumed and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky, this is a film that reduces me to tears at times if I even think about it.

Words will fail to explain what this means. This is an absolute movie, one that can only be explained by those that have experienced it, meditated on it and have been changed by it.

The story comes from Ascent of Mount Carmel by John of the Cross and Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal, an unfinished book that is nearly all allegory. The end — which is not an end but a beginning — is what Jodorowsky felt was the proper way to finish the story.

I find it hard to watch all of this film in one sitting, as the bursts of images unlock such deep emotions within me that I can only fully explain months after the watch is over.

Last year, I went through a professional divorce. In an attempt at trying to mend fences and rebuild the relationship, I gave away my blu ray of this film. It was, quite honestly, my most prized possession. It was an attempt to divest myself of material objects and destroy my ego, to lay myself bare and show that I was ready to continue the journey that we had started together. “I want you to have this,” I barely choked out. “This is my heart.”

I don’t know if my former co-founder ever watched this film. The fact that it never came up again told me what I needed to know. I’ve grown past this pain, which nearly ruined my love of film.

Instead, I have decided to move on, to take my own journey. The loss of this film was just the loss of a blu ray. Its lessons have not disappeared, the power that it has over me has not grown dim. If anything, I have reflected on my own path up and down the mountain and found that I have not regretted a step.

Please find this movie for yourself.

I really tried to go all three weeks of Mexican films without a lucha libre film, but man, when it’s one this strange, I couldn’t help myself.

Before Tyler Mane played Michael Myers in two Rob Zombie films, he was known in Mexico as El Nitron. Here, he plays El Vampiro Interespacial, who is conquering the galaxy. A space prince tries to get away, which brings him, as always happens, to Earth.

Lucadores de las Estrellas has a simple premise but presents a movie perfect to run in the background of any party.

A girl from the spaceship comes to Earth and decides to take over the life of a deceased singer named Larossa. She’s played by Gloria Mayo, who was also Adriana in Santo vs. the She-Wolves and also in the baffling Vampiro, Guerrero de la Noche.

Luckily, she finds El Mistioso and El Volador(who would one day become Super Parka and whose son Volador Jr. is a big star in CMLL today), who teach her all about drinking beer and wrestling. They end up having an empty arena match with Nitron, as well as another match filled with the lucha stars of 1992, such as Satanico, Pirata Morgan, MS-1, Blue Demon Jr., Ponzoña, Bestia Salvaje, Janette, Martha Villalobos, Cynthia and more.

The evil minis that hang out with Nitron and sound like chickens are played by some major mini-luchas: Mascarita Sagrada, Aguilita Solitaria and Espectrito.

The idea for this film was a combination between Antonio Peña, who would soon leave to form AAA in the biggest Mexican wrestling news of perhaps all time, along with Ramón T. Cerro (who was also part of the team that made the Vampiro movie), Francisco Alonso Lutteroth (also known as Paco Alonso, perhaps the most powerful man in Mexican wrestling in the latter half of the 20th century) and Mayo.

This film is everything it should be: fights, a little romance, no small amount of comedy, masked men and aliens. All films should be this much fun.

Benito also directed Munecos Infernales, Santo vs. the Zombies and the astoundingly titled Frankenstein el Vampiro y Compania. This time, he’s sending his movie up north where Espiritismo will become Spiritism thanks to K. Gordon Murray.

This goes the Monkey’s Paw one better by having Satan himself grant the wishes. I mean, when the Lord of Lies is giving things away, that’s when you start questioning things.

This movie features a character so clueless that she goes to a seance for herself, which sounds like a joke I should be saving for the next time someone wants to play The Dozens against me.

You can watch this on YouTube.