Getting near the end of the IMDb Horror board's 2012 "Horror Challenge",I began to think about what films I would like to end the challenge on.Taking a look at some titles the a friend had kindly sent me,I was thrilled to discover,that I had been sent an uncut version of an exciting sounding Mexican Horror,that I had originally heard about in connection to a horribly cut "Elvira" DVD version of the film.Being thrilled about seeing the movie the way the it had originally intended to be seen,I decided that it was time to open the book of stone.
The plot:
Arriving to her employer's isolated,enclosed villa,Julia Septiem is greeted by her new boss Eugenio Ruvalcaba.Deciding to get any uncomfortable matters out of the way,Ruvalcaba decides to double check that Julia knows what her job could involve,due to Eugenio having recently decided not to send his daughter Silvia to school,thanks to her recently having shown some strange behaviour.
Catching him by surprise,Septiem tells Ruvalcaba that she is all set to handle any trouble that comes her way.
Looking around the villa's huge garden,Jullia quickly finds Silvia,who tells her that she is currently playing games with an imaginary friend called Hugo.Initially thinking that Silvia has created Hugo,due to her dad having recently got re- married to a woman called Marianna,Septiem quickly finds out that Silvia's "imaginary" friend Hugo,is not actually imaginary at all,but is in fact a statue,that has over looked the villa with a chilling smile for the last few hundred years.
View on the film
Confiding 90% of the film's running time to the closed in,isolated mansion,writer/director Carlos Enrique Taboada uses the fleeting moments that the movie gets away from its "restricted" zone,to brilliantly punish any of the character's who leave his haunting,Gothic villa behind,and attempt to enter the "modern world".
Keeping a divide between the Gothic and the "Modern" world,Taboada uses the character's attempts to break the villa's enclosed atmosphere,by pulling the Hugo statue out of their world,as a way to deliver a deliciously sharp,scorpion tail twist ending,that can proudly sit side by side with the best,most bleak twist endings of Rod Sterling's The Twilight Zone.
Smarting using Julia Septiem's (played by the wonderful Marga Lopez) arrival to Ruvalcaba (played by a stern Joaquin Cordero) and Marianna's (played by a gorgeous Norma Lazareno) villa as an intelligent way to display Julia's chilling discoveries around the villa to be from the same point of view as the audience.
Bravely staying away from taking the easy route out of making the film be a Haunted House movie,Taboada instead slowly builds up an unsettling,misty atmosphere to the film,with Catlos fantastic directing initially making Silvia's (perfectly played by Lucy Buj) friendship with "imaginearey friend" Hugo ,to be one on the outside view of Septiem and the audience , that originally looks like it is putting a smile on the lonely face of Silvia,but as Taboada delicately peels the shine off ,to revel the decayed root buried deep in the villa's foundation,that terrifyingly transform's Silvia's smile from one that's displays pure,Innocent joy,to be a smile that's cracking apart from the menacing smirk,hiding underneath.
The plot:
Arriving to her employer's isolated,enclosed villa,Julia Septiem is greeted by her new boss Eugenio Ruvalcaba.Deciding to get any uncomfortable matters out of the way,Ruvalcaba decides to double check that Julia knows what her job could involve,due to Eugenio having recently decided not to send his daughter Silvia to school,thanks to her recently having shown some strange behaviour.
Catching him by surprise,Septiem tells Ruvalcaba that she is all set to handle any trouble that comes her way.
Looking around the villa's huge garden,Jullia quickly finds Silvia,who tells her that she is currently playing games with an imaginary friend called Hugo.Initially thinking that Silvia has created Hugo,due to her dad having recently got re- married to a woman called Marianna,Septiem quickly finds out that Silvia's "imaginary" friend Hugo,is not actually imaginary at all,but is in fact a statue,that has over looked the villa with a chilling smile for the last few hundred years.
View on the film
Confiding 90% of the film's running time to the closed in,isolated mansion,writer/director Carlos Enrique Taboada uses the fleeting moments that the movie gets away from its "restricted" zone,to brilliantly punish any of the character's who leave his haunting,Gothic villa behind,and attempt to enter the "modern world".
Keeping a divide between the Gothic and the "Modern" world,Taboada uses the character's attempts to break the villa's enclosed atmosphere,by pulling the Hugo statue out of their world,as a way to deliver a deliciously sharp,scorpion tail twist ending,that can proudly sit side by side with the best,most bleak twist endings of Rod Sterling's The Twilight Zone.
Smarting using Julia Septiem's (played by the wonderful Marga Lopez) arrival to Ruvalcaba (played by a stern Joaquin Cordero) and Marianna's (played by a gorgeous Norma Lazareno) villa as an intelligent way to display Julia's chilling discoveries around the villa to be from the same point of view as the audience.
Bravely staying away from taking the easy route out of making the film be a Haunted House movie,Taboada instead slowly builds up an unsettling,misty atmosphere to the film,with Catlos fantastic directing initially making Silvia's (perfectly played by Lucy Buj) friendship with "imaginearey friend" Hugo ,to be one on the outside view of Septiem and the audience , that originally looks like it is putting a smile on the lonely face of Silvia,but as Taboada delicately peels the shine off ,to revel the decayed root buried deep in the villa's foundation,that terrifyingly transform's Silvia's smile from one that's displays pure,Innocent joy,to be a smile that's cracking apart from the menacing smirk,hiding underneath.