Movie Twitter Blog: Classic Mexican Horror ...

The Curse Of The Crying Woman

(1961)

A creepy classic that like a fine wine has matured into an invested pleasure, The Curse Of The Crying Woman is a rare find, unearthed for a modern audience onto the digital format, and looking pin sharp from the Casa Negra label.

Meticulously moulded from the same creepy cast that Italian movie making legend Mario Bava became synonymous with, but this Mexican movie monolith engraves its own identity sublimely into your psyche. A powerful concoction of malevolence unfolding like a poisoned rose, beautiful in design yet ever more potent as it unravels its intentions. Truly a cumulative chiller that delivers on so many levels.

Amelia is a young woman who is invited by her aunt back to the home that she knew well as a child. It is the eve of Amelia’s twenty fifth birthday, the significance of which is known only too well to her aunt Selma. She and Amelia are descendants of a family heritage that harkens back to a time of heresy and witchcraft. The superstitions linked to the centuries old home keeps the locals distanced from its doors, still mindful of their ancestors tortured and killed by an evil heretic, and labelled witch known as The Crying Woman. Her reign of terror then brutally halted by the local populace as they in turn tortured and killed her, but her dominion with the occult bequeathed upon her immortality !. Before the moment of her death her final words were to defiantly spite the local community and their direct descendants. Her corpse left to rot for all time within the confines of the dungeon room of the mansion, a spear piercing her body, and her immortal being trapped in a lifeless limbo. Through the female blood line of her own line her evil has remained, for this is The Curse Of The Crying Woman !.

The movie opens on a startling horror high, with impressive visuals of the possessed Selma holding the leash to three mighty mastiff hounds, baying for her command to attack. Her loyal hunchbacked servant Juan also obedient to his masters instruction. They await under the cover of darkness, lit only by the light of the moon, for unsuspecting travellers upon the through road. It is not long before a horse drawn carriage comes along and the three occupants, along with the driver, are brutally attacked and killed. The scene is then set for the terror to unfold as the arrival of Amelia is the catalyst to resurrect The Crying Woman.

The foreboding air of dark intent is ever prevalent and sensed by Amelia upon her arrival to the old mansion with her newly wedded husband. As if turning up at the doorstep of a mist enshrouded ancient old structure, with the design of The Alamo that’s enough to have Jim Bowie himself arming up with extra knives for protection, doesn’t unnerve the couple, the sparse reality of their welcoming environment causes immediate concern !. The stately home, replete with bell tower, is evidently residence to just Aunt Selma and the one servant, Juan. That’d be just the ‘Juan’ servant then !.
All of the mirrors are mysteriously covered, and it is only upon unveiling that the reasons become apparent !?.

Just what has Amelia come back to ?, why is access to the upper level of the mansion padlocked ?, and what is the source of the wailing cries that seem to emanate through the pours of the structure itself ?. Bats in the belfry, club footed, hunchbacked henchman, flesh hungry hounds, devilish deviancy, and a witch who casts no reflection in a mirror. All this and a sustained eeriness manifesting itself through a witches cauldron of pot boiling brilliance as the film unravels deliciously to its climactic chimes to midnight, and Amelia’s coming of age. Will she succumb to the over whelming compulsion to inherit the calling of her birth blood line or can the love of her husband overcome The Curse Of The Crying Woman !?.

If ever the stark brilliance of the sharp monochrome film stock were perfectly adjoined to script, director, cast and settings, then this is one of those such films it most definitely applies. Fabulously re-mastered from original newly restored vault elements Casa Negra are to be applauded for their diligence in acquiring the rights to distribute this to a modern audience. Fans of both old school Universal Studios Horror pictures, and Sixties Euro cinema will be enthralled to discover the magnificence of Mexican horror through the Casa Negra label, and The Curse Of The Crying Woman is a superlative jumping on point. Any true fan of great genre cinema must not turn down the opportunity to rediscover the exquisite rapture that this Mexican horror classic encapsulates.