April 6: Viva Mexico — Pick a movie from Mexico and escribir acerca de por qué es tan increíble.

Lovers of the Lord of the Night was directed and written by one of its stars, Isela Vega. She’s probably best known for playing Elita in Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. This was the only movie she directed, which is a shame, because this is the kind of movie that movie people should be celebrating, particularly with the reborn love for folk horror as of late. She wrote this movie with Hugo Argüelles.

Venusita (Elena de Haro) has fallen in love with the scion of a wealthy family of merchants named the Venustianos. Her lover’s mother and father want better for their son, so they decide to send him to the United States, far away from Venusita.

She turns to black magic, visiting a bruja named Saurina (Irma Serrano, known as La Tigresa de la Canción Ranchera (The Tigress of Ranchera Music) who once starred in a movie opposite El Santo, El Santo y La Tigresa). She casts a spell that brings her young man back to Mexico, but also kills his father.

This played in the U.S. for the first time last year at Mexico Maleficarum at The Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures. That event was made of movies that I’m obsessed by, including Alucarda (those two movies played the same night), Muñecos infernales, Hasta el viento tiene miedo, El escapulario,  Misterios de ultratumba, La bruja, Santa Sangre, El museo del horror, El barón del terror, El vampiro sangriento, La invasion de los vampiros, La nave de los monstruos, Las mujeres panteras, La maldición de la Llorona, Veneno para las hadas, El espejo de la bruja, El mundo de los muertos, El vampiro and Cronos.

The horror elements of this film come in with the idea that when you get what you want out of magic, you must always pay it back.

I figure people will pay attention to this once it gets a fancy slipcase and they don’t have to hunt it out on Russian darkweb sites.