La Tia Alejandra (1980) w/ Abraham Castillo Flores

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Prepare yourself for the terror, the prison of madness. We
have few inter and nonritter. Welcome to Unsung Horrus with LUNs.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
And Dereka.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Leave all your sanity behind. It can't help you. Now.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome to another episode of Unsung Horrors, the podcast where
we discuss horror movies with fewer than one thousand views
on Letterboxed, I'm Erica and Time Lance. But this is
no Rules November, which means we toss out our rule.
But we are still trying to shine a light on
films that are less known to folks. And so for

(00:57):
this episode, we are going to be talking about aunt
Allah from nineteen seventy nine or Tia Alejandra. And there
is no better person in the world and the entire
Mundo to talk about this film than our dear friend
Abraham Castillo Flores. Welcome back, Abraham.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So delighted and happy to be back with you, both
of you and on Songhorz, your all wonderful audience. Thank
you for that wonderful introduction. It really brings warmth to
my heart in this year that has been so so weird,
and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can
say that. So thank you. I'm delighted to be back.
And yes, we're going to be talking about lat Alejandra.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yes before we get into the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Though.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
It's been a few years since you've been on the show,
and I know you've been up to a lot of
amazing things, including helping with Blu Ray releases and with
some other presentations and productions and stuff like that. Talk
about yourself, like, you know, pimp all the good stuff

(02:03):
that you've been doing recently for our listeners to get
a handle on anything that releases that you're on that
you want to bring some light to go off, Abraham,
tell us all that even working.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
On Okay, so I've been I left the festival that
I had been programming for twelve years, and I've been
concentrating on resurrecting Mexican horror films, and what I mean
by that is making sure that they get re released
on Blu rays. You know, the whole gorgeous treatment of
new transfers, restorations when it's possible, doing special features, booklets,

(02:41):
new interviews, digging out information that has been sitting there
and does not want to be I don't want it
to be lost forever in time, so I've been concentrated
on that. I've been very lucky that I found incredible
partners in different labels like Indicator, Severing films, other films
you know, have been resurrected, not by me, but other

(03:03):
labels like Vinegar Syndrome, so I've been able to help
with that. So it's been quite incredible. And at the
same time, I was very honored to curate a film
series at the Academy SEEN called Mexico Maleficatum, which allowed
us to bring twenty Mexican horror films from the twentieth
century to the big screen, and in some cases we
were able to restore sometimes save some films, so that's

(03:25):
been incredible. I was able to take that to the
Cinema techton Fays in Paris, which was amazing, and as
I said, you know the Blu Ray releases which have
been incredible. We did the box sets Mexico Macabre and
Elwan Pido, which were incredible deep dives into Mexican classic
cinema that allowed me to have new interviews with either

(03:49):
the family of the creators or you know, to deep
dive into the archives and find material that have not
been you know, looked at in like probably forty years,
so that was really beautiful and do quite a job
of resurrection. And lately I've been obsessed with mummies. I
love mummies in general, but Mexican mummies is one of
my personal favorites. And I did ah. It started as

(04:13):
a masterclass in the end of becoming a show called
The Testament of the Mexican Mummy, which is the story
of mummies in Mexican cinema. At the same time that
that happening, I had to deal with my father's death,
and I had to say that that doing that saved
my life. Like it really I got a fourth taste
of like how they say that sometimes you know, doing

(04:33):
what you love can save you on art talking about
mummies and death and then actually, you know, experiencing the
death of my father, I was able to bring that
together and it did save my life, So I can
say that Mummy's help definitely. So that's what I've been
doing lately. And I have a release coming up next
year which I cannot say yet, but we've restored a

(04:54):
very weird movie and which I'm sure is gonna make
a lot of people very curious about Mexican Sceineai because
this is an a normal in Mexican cinema. So that's
that's I think what I can say at the moment.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Okay, well, I mean, if your stamp is on it,
then I'm already sold. So sign me up.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
You'll be very happy when you hear about it. And
there's some fantastic partners with that release.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
So yes, wonderful. And you know, I'm still waiting on
Ship of Monsters but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, we didn't know there's well, as I said, this
was a very strange year. A lot of the great
deals that were about to happen fell because you know,
the world isn't you know, it's kind of upside down.
Yeah not, there are not probably nice words to say
about to say what is happening right now, but yees,
some of the things got derailed. But I'm working on.

(05:47):
As I said, I like resurrections, so I'm working on
the resurrection of that.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well, we appreciate that any effort.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, no, but the ship, the Ship of Monsters is
right at the top the list. Do not worry about that.
There's there's a there is not only a mission with
the with Mars, with Venus, but with the vampire monsters
in that so wonderful. So there's a lot of a
lot of emotion and a lot of miss there's a
mission to bring them back wonderful.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah. I think in our we had our Horror Gives
Back challenge last month and there was a Bela Lagosi
movie that I had mentioned to Lance. I think it
was a Todd Browning movie where Bela Lagosi's woman that
he's traveling with like flies in on these giant bat
wings and I'm like second only to Lorraine of Alaskaz,

(06:42):
But yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I am a vampire queen definitely, Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
One and only and never to be dethroned. I'm really
excited about all this stuff. I know we had a
number of our listeners from California who went out to
your presentation at the Academy, So I wish I could
have been out there for that. But it sounded amazing.
Every time someone was posting about that, I was like
so jealous. I'm not there right now, but so happy

(07:10):
for you. That sounds like such an amazing project.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
It was great, and I have to say it was
like really beautiful to see the Academy Museum interested in
that and putting all that effort, love and work into
Mexican horror cinema. It was a beautiful thing and I'm
not sure that could happen right now, So yes, I
think we took the chance at the perfect moment and
the perfect time, And the best part is that I

(07:35):
think it kind of pushed so there was more light
into more interesting two Mexican horror cinema and a lot
of people open up to it. And then there was like,
you know, hopeful. We made sure some of the films
that we put there were available on Blu Ray, and
it was interesting doing that. So I think it was like,
you know, a snowball effect, which was delighted it happen

(07:55):
wonderful and Sony California doing snowball effects in Sonny California.
But we did.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
All right. So let's jump into our film for today,
Latia Alejandra. She moves in with her relatives, husband Rodolfo,
wife Lucia, and their three children, Martita, Andreas and Melena.
She immediately starts le'd say, poisoning the air with superstition

(08:24):
and bruaria. She terrorizes the children and wages a sort
of passive psychological war on her hosts. Her spell work
escalates until the household turns into a pressure cooker where
every slight against her becomes a potential curse. I know
I left that vague, but that's really like. The story

(08:48):
is very simple. It's just about her moving in with
the family and strange occurrences start happening all around her.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
We're going to.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Start with the crew on this. The film was directed
by Arturo Ripstein. I've only seen a couple of his films,
one being Deep Crimson from nineteen ninety six that has
a criterion release and it's sort of like a retelling
of the Honeymoon Killers. And I've also seen Time to
Die or Tiempo de Marier, which was his first feature

(09:21):
film after working with Luis Booniel and Selfish Plug. I
actually have a booklet essay in that release, that Blu
Ray release that you can get from Vinegar Syndrome, and
it's all about Gabrielle Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes and
the Latin boom and sort of that connection to film

(09:42):
that was happening at that time. So I highly recommend
the film and my essay, Abraham, Yes, what can you
tell us about Arturo Ripstein?

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Okay, after reapstates a super interesting character in the Mexican
film Versus, he's considered a sacred cow. He's in the seventies,
he's one of the leading directors that tries to do
autor cinema, and because of the political situation and the
changes in just in the film scape, he has the

(10:14):
fantastic films that are like super important right now, I mean,
and the Curious Thing of Alexandra, which is the thirteenth
feature film in his career, is that it's a total
anomally first because it's the only one that's horror, even
though a lot of his films have a lot of
horrible things happening in it, and he really likes, you know,
the dark side of the spectrum of human behavior. This

(10:38):
one is the only one that he openly, you know,
uses genre tropes and he doves into the whole blukerya
and black magic stuff. And he openly says that what
interested interested him in doing this film is to doing
a film that was fun, fun, a film that was
like able to seduce audiences and just take them on
a fun ride. So it's interest thinking that he considers it, No,

(11:04):
I'm not going to say a lesser work, but it's
not of his prime films. And it's very interesting because
when this film came out, the reactions were mixed, but
there were some of the most important film critics at
that time mentioned that this was an anomaly because it
was probably one of the best horror films ever to
come out of Mexico because they he didn't go the

(11:24):
usual route of the you know, the zany monsters or
like any of them, which or the things that we
find and it's they even call it subtle. I don't
know if subtle was the word you can use in horror,
but they called it subtle, and that was why it
was so well loved by many by ben in film critics.
Interesting to mention about mister Arthur Ripstein is mister Ripstain.

(11:47):
You mentioned that he was an assistant with Wunuel, but
that's an actually sort of a legend because although he
did work as an assistant Fornuel in The Exterminated Angel,
he actually really just carried his briefcase because told him anything.
The interesting part is no, no, and he says that
they made a legend about it because he asked things
to do about Bunuel and everything, and he never shared

(12:10):
anything about really about filmmaking. How he got into that
is that mister Ripstein is the son of Alfredo Ribstein,
who's the owner of Alameda Film Films, one of the
most important film production companies in Mexico that still today exists.
Actually they're the owners of many of the horror films
that are so important in this the century. But that's

(12:34):
another story. The interesting part here is that there's a
film from nineteen sixty two called Elspetola, which is Mayor
directed by Channel Ruetta. This man, Channel Ruetta, is actually
the mentor Couro Ripstein and lat the Alejandra is really
a riff on a cinematographic level, not on the script

(12:56):
I'm going to talk about that a little bit later,
but a riff on that film, and they play really well.
There's the connection points are incredible. But also because Channel,
who is the director of the of the which is Miror,
was the mentor oft he mentions that was the most
intelligent man working in the film industry that did the

(13:18):
shittiest movies. That's what I don't saying. It is like,
you know, he's he's a he's a badass. He's not
he's not a nice man. He's very harsh. He's hard.
He sets are you know, he likes to scream, he
likes to have terror in his in his sets. So
he's a difficult man. But you know his over is fantastic.

(13:39):
And we're not gonna we're not talking about likability. We're
talking about film filmmaking, right, so let me get back
to channel channel. Very intelligent man, super interesting and he
made some of the craziest movies. He's responsible for the
Brain act. Yes, I think that says at all. Yeah,
the Witch is Mirror. In the Witch is Mirror, the

(14:01):
actress who plays like the Alejandra plays a witch Satah.
So imagine having the same actress from a Witch's Mirror
become a witch forty years later or something like that.
I think it's it's I mean, it's definitely a connection point.
And there are many scenes where he mirrors things from

(14:21):
the other movie, so there's like a cinematographical match to
that movie. And you know, it's the same actress, So
I think it's it's impossible not to bind them together
and consider it. Some people even say that this is
a sequel or like, you know, an unofficial sequel. It
is not because they're not related, but it's very easy
to see the connection points. And I think that's why

(14:45):
it's very interesting when you start, you know, doing deep
dive into this movie, because you find not only the
stuff about the movie, but then the connections throughout time
between these two very interesting movies about witches and how
you know which is are so important in I mean
not only in the horror rum but also in Mexican.

(15:05):
In the Mexican culture, the idea of a woman being
able to control the elements in a in a private
way within their homes, it is. You know, almost everybody
can tell you that they know someone in their family
who either dows into that or that uses that. So
it's I think it's a beautiful way of dealing with that.

(15:26):
Am I going okay so far? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (15:28):
No, no, no, you're you're wonderful. I definitely saw the
Witch's Mirrors connection, not just because of Isabella Corona, but
just it having I hate throwing the word vibe out,
but it definitely has that element. Although Witch's Mirror is
much more explicitly horror.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
I think, yeah, the more gothic feeling.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, this one's a little bit more kind of like
you said, understated.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
I could probably tell you that, you know, eighty percent
of the movies that use you know, the blugary aspect,
they will use a female in the as the leading. Yes,
there are warlocks, but there are there are.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
Definitely fewer Walking Castro and Doctor Satan.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Tempo doctor exactly, which is there's actually a connection to
Doctor Satan and delighted that you brought him up. We'll
come to that one, that one later. I want to
take something that I found in the ads for this
movie in the lobby cards, which is really nice. It says,
you know, it's this is this is the app It says,
this is a due Alexandra. This is a duel to

(16:35):
the death between two women. One is young, the other
one is sold. One is rich, the other one is poor.
One is a mother, the other one's a spinster. But
one of them is a witch. Yeah. So I thought
it was long, but I really liked it quite a lot.
And you find and it's on the lobby cards, big no.

(16:56):
So I you know, I thought it was very much
this idea of like the young versus the old, and
Danna Barracho versus Isabella Corona. And we're going to go
into some interesting gossip about them, which makes that even
more interesting. One very important thing that I want to
mention is about where this story comes from, because as
you know, people are going to say that they're going

(17:17):
to start thinking about the official sequel offer the which
is Mirror. But they started a short story, the short
story nineteen seventy five short story called n Vesta so
doll dressed in Blue so from a writer called Delfina Carriaga.
She turned that short story into a screenplay with Sabina Verman.

(17:38):
Sabina Vermin is a very well known author, novelist. She's
author of plays, and she's done quite a bit of
films and she's a very interesting woman. She's actually been
working with Alejandro Gone doing the new Tom Cruise movie.
But this was her first screenplay. And that screenplay one

(18:01):
I'm a contest for the National screenplay contest for the
writers Guilt in Mexico, so that you know they caught,
They got I'm not gonna say famous, but they got noticed. Right.
So at some point the owners of this script look
to to Richten and asked him to do another movie.
He said, oh, I did that that movie Ship. I'm

(18:22):
not going to do it. Let me see what else
you have, and they showed him the script for Lat Alexander.
It was already called that Alexandra not Doll dressed in Blue,
and he liked it very much. He said that the
actual script was shipped and that's that's his words. He
really likes the ship things when he says he doesn't,
and this is for real. In any case, he disliked

(18:44):
the script and he told the producer, look, let me
get a crack into the script. I'm going to rewrite it.
Will be sent Heleneo be Sentello is another sacred cow
of Mexican cinema. She is probably the most revered screenwriter
in Mexican cinema, and he kind of every big hit
of of of Mexican cinema. You're probably gonna find his name.

(19:06):
He sent Heleneo. So these two guys rewrote the story
and that's what they they They shot in a curious thing.
Two years later, when the movie came out, it won
the Screenplay Award and Delfina Kiaga and Sabina Berman got
the award, not be sent Heleneo and Altro Ripsen. So

(19:29):
I thought that I should mention that that was an
interesting thing and This was also a movie that was
shot very fast. It was they should imagine from the
sixth of December to the fifteenth of December, so if
I'm not mistaken, that's like ten days. They shot this
movie in ten days, and A said he was very
happy with all the clue that that he was able

(19:50):
to work with this film. Everybody was fantastic. But he
did say that, you know, very limited money, very limited time,
and he wish he he would have had more time.
I want to mention something that knowing that Lance brought
the Doctor Satan thing, the director of photography of this
film was a very very curious man and interesting Ramos.

(20:13):
This man has two hundred and fifty six film credits
under his belt. Imagine that. Yeah, he did everything musicals, drama,
western's comedy, the horror, and in the horror he has
when you have film, but in his horror credentious. Let
me just bring out some beautiful things. He did Doctor
Satan and Black Magic. But he also did the Brainiac,

(20:37):
the Curse of Like Your ownA, Santo in the Wax Museum,
Santos Versus the Vampire Women, Santo and the Revenge of
the Vampire Women, and Santa versus the zombies. So he
knew his way around horror movies. And I find it
fantastic that you know that this man is also in
Calejandra and all of even all of those films that

(20:58):
I mentioned are most of them are in color, in
black and white except to say them a black match,
which you can see him, you know, using that subwhat
fare and that the flair in this movie.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, I think it has that advantage of it was
only you know, if it was only shot in ten days.
It is single location, and I think it's one of
the more effective ones in that if you call it
a subgenre single location. I mean there's a couple other
x like at the opening where the grandmother dies, and

(21:33):
then a couple of scenes with like the doctor and
the train station, but for the most part, it's all
within that house. And so I think it makes it
easier when you're on a tight schedule to have that
type of film and also just sort of adding to
the claustrophobia of this sort of you know what did
I call it earlier, like pressure cooker element.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
To absolutely yeah, absolutely forgetting one wonderful location, which, if
I may say so right now, it is my favorite
part of the movie the moment when the Alejandra brings
Andres and Martita, where the younger kids of the family
to see the mummies of San Angela, which you know,
everybody talks about the mmies of Ajuata, but here in

(22:13):
Mexico City we have there's a there's an old convent
where they have eleven desiccated mummies and you can go
see them still to this date, and they're wonderful. And
she tells, you know, Martita, can you hear them? And
she says, yes, do you understand them? No? And I thought,
that's one of my favorite moments. I love it. And
of course that's the very that's that's a section I

(22:36):
go over and over and over in the in the
whole show I did about the mummies, and uh, it's
one of those first elements that starts starts bringing you
into there is another realm. This woman is in touch
with something else and in a delightful way. They never
tell you how she does it or how it works,

(22:56):
but they give you all these hints. She goes to
the market to buy, you know, the herbs, and she
does all these like things with black candles, and she
has like a secretive thing. She buys birds. You know,
she has like an agenda, although she's always smiling, which
I think is a very interesting part of this film.
You talked about the passive aggressive thing, and I think

(23:17):
that is crucial. She's always trying to be helpful, but
then these weird things start coming about, and when things
don't go on her way, she comes starts you know,
going all over the place. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
I do like how she sets her witchy weighs up
and explains it to the family that it's and I
don't know if this is lost on translations and the subtitles, Abraham,
you could you could let me know if this is accurate,
But the subtitles she calls it old woman mania, Like yes, no.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
No, no, that's what she says. Absolutely, that's they did that, right,
That's how she says it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
I like how it's immediately set up like she's she's
kind of you know, explaining that you're going to see
some weird stuff. But this is just old woman mania
to the family. But you know, obviously it starts the explanation,
starts becoming more clear what her intentions are.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, that's how she's like, she's starting being nice to everybody.
But as soon as someone is not nice and just
gets nasty, she gets nastier. Oh yeah, and it's really
interesting how you know she just goes up super fast.
There's that section where she almost boils the young the
teenager girl when she's taking a bath. I don't know

(24:24):
if you remember that. There's a moments like you shouldn't
be in the hot water. No it's not hot, it's
like it is hot, it is very hot, and something starts,
you know, getting super hot. I really know. I thought
that was that was that was super interesting. Yeah, so sorry,
going back to the to the whole crew thing there,
you know, there's whole pros in this movie. There's a

(24:46):
younger director. You know, he has thirteen movies by this time,
so he knows what he's definitely knows what he's doing.
But he's still on the on the young side. But
his dp's like, you know, he's been working since nineteen forties,
so he knows his stuff. He's fast. There's also a
detail that I want to bring up, which is a
lot of people don't know about. But the music. The
music is quite the bizarre and kind of kind of

(25:08):
not talked about important detail. The man who has the
credit for the musicis Louis Achebeton, who's an old timer.
He came to Mexico during the Spanish Civil War in
the late forties. He only does one track. The rest
of the track was done by Felix Martin, who was
the assistant of Artuo Ripstein, and Breman, who had been

(25:31):
a student of his, and they made the two of
them together made their synthesizers, and they started playing with
the synthesizers, and they made up all this music just
to create this bizarre atmosphere that I think works really
really well and brings it, I think, more into the
into the into the seventies, not late seventies when the

(25:52):
film was done, and it just takes it out of
the more classical era. And I thought that was very
interesting because not many people talk about that, but I
think that the whole music thing gives it a vibe
that was not found in most Mexicans. In most Mexican
films at the time, very few people were were using
that device, with those devices and that type of music,

(26:13):
and I think it's important to yeah, bring it up.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
That really stood out for me, so did Breton, who's
another link to Doctor Satan. He did the music there,
but did he Is it just the opening track that
he did with the music box?

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Do you know what? The open just the opening, the opening,
the opening track, and I think that the last track okay, well,
although there's someone that has that has a has a
credit for the last for the valves at the end.
So I'm there's there's that. I still have that thousands
of how much of louisbe Atton did for that music
or maybe he did a score and then they they

(26:49):
didn't use it, but they had to put him because
of Union things. You remember that shooting Union in Mexico
in Mexican cinema is a very important thing and actually
even affected the casting of this film. I'll go into
that later, but I'm there there is something there. It's
not talked about in the books and everything that I researched.
There is not but you know, there's definitely a thread

(27:12):
eye that left me there with a question, why is
we there credited when there's almost nothing of him in
the movie.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, when I understand when I heard that score, I
was like, Lance is going to dig this?

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Oh yeah, it's very disorienting. I mean, it builds tension wonderfully,
especially when which will get you Andres is walking down
this you know, the stairs and his roller skates the
music there, there's this this electronic soundtrack that seems to
be playing backwards when Alexandra is in her bed and
she's putting her necklaces on. It's yeah, it's it's very

(27:45):
experimental and something I've like you you pointed out, Abraham,
it's something that you don't see in Mexican horror like
this during this era.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Absolutely, and I think that was a big element of
what you know, made the movie not only different, but
it just created another feeding, another vibe and you're gonna
dig this. They they actually created three different synthesizers for
this movie, and they actually had a nickname for them.
For the synthesizers, they were called Larry Mowe and Curly.

(28:13):
They are definitely playful. It's exactly very obvious homage to
certain beloved comics.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Is there anyone else on the crew that you wanted
to mention before we move on to the cast.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
I think that's as far as well the art direction,
the production design. They got like they got an award
for doing that. The interesting part is that there was
a very interesting woman there in the credits called Luceu
Sak Ruscedi Sak is the woman that she was one
of the most important production designers in Mexico. And she
was actually the one that fought forgetting production designers not

(28:50):
only a more prominent role but respect within the film industry.
And she was a very important lady in making sure
that women got into the into the industry. And she's
not very much talked about, but she was crucial in
developing art direction and the role of how what you
saw on the sets, the wardrobe and the makeup had

(29:12):
to go in together. Like she was really important in
learning that lu Seti Sack, So that's definitely a woman
that should be more studied. They made a wonderful book
about her last year here in Mexico, which so if
people are interested in like pioneers in Mexican cinema, female
pioneers in Mexican cinema that are not director, she was.

(29:32):
She was an art director. She was also an artist.
Luceri Sack is definitely a legend. They should make a
serious about her. She was a dancer, she was she
did the album covers for very important pop artists here
in Mexico. So yeah, definitely an artist to find out
sack well and when I's go into the casting, shall we.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I wonder if it was
her choice to put up the Star Wars Star Wars
and Rocky poster.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
And delighted that you brought it up. I'm sure that
was her. I'm sure that was her. I could bed
money on that. I know the woman that wrote the
book about hers, and that's I actually wrote the question
when I was doing the notes for this talk that
we're having. It's like, you need to talk ask Lisa
about does she think that it was her who pulled
the Rockie end of Star Wars post herself. I'm sure

(30:19):
it was her. It takes a lot. It is quite
a statement to put those pictures there. I think it is.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Yeah, I mean, like and also with the music, like
you said, it's very It seems to me it makes
it timeless. I mean it is a locked air. You know,
you're moving into the eighties, but watching this movie, it's
it kind of it's jarring. You're kind of expecting a
certain dethday that it's it stands alone kind of timeless.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
In my in my view, I think so too.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
All Right, I want to get to this gossip. I'm
very excited for it. So we're going to talk about
the cast next, just really quickly run through, and then
I'm going to let Abraham loose with the gossip. So
Tia Alejandra, as mentioned earlier, is played by Isabella Corona.
I think a lot of our listeners know her, as
we mentioned already, from which is Mirror Lucia played by

(31:07):
Diana Bracco. This one she doesn't. I don't think she's
been in very many horror movies, but I did notice
she was in Ittoo, Mama Tambien Rodolfo played by Manuel
Ojeda and the Doctor Ignacio.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
I think I'm saying this right, Rettis, Yes, that's it.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Close enough for me. I tried.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
I know you did it fantastically.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Okay, So Abraham tell us all about this cast.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
All right, So let's start first with Isabela Corona. On Alexandra.
Isabela Corona, it's sadly not one of the huge Mexican
superstars of classical Mexican cinema, but she should be. She's
on the level with Betty Davis and see Monseignor from France.
I would say definitely she was usually like a villain

(31:54):
or like, you know, a lady with like a very
hardcore attitude. Her first role in cinema was a witch,
and then she did the Witch's Mayor and then t Alejandra,
so that's why she got She always, you know, was
considered good for the villain roles. Isabela Conna, you know,
originally from Gallajara, the same birthplace of Germodel too, and

(32:17):
she started very young. A very famous painter from Mexico,
doctor Adel, discovered her. She had a wonderful, wonderful voice,
and she saw that she was very good uh residing poetry.
So she brought her to different poets, like some of
the most important poets of the time, and they saw
how good she was and they encouraged her to go

(32:38):
into the not only poetry, but into acting school and there,
along with Julio Bracco in the nineteen thirties, they got together,
they even married, and they they started a revolution in
Mexico theater. They together, they were the first to present
the works of people like Coctea O'Neill and Pulklo Del

(32:59):
in Mexico, and Isabella Corona was considered like the first
lady of theater in Mexico during the thirties and forties.
It was really really good. She was asked to go
into movies at a very early time, but she kept
saying she was one of those that considered cinema to
be like a lesser art from movies. So she got

(33:20):
in there late. Having said that, you know, once she
got into film roles, she got really good film roles
she got she did great. There's a movie from nineteen
fifty called a Dorota Kayes street Walker that if you
can get your hands on, it's fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, And
it's actually written and directed by a female director, Mattil

(33:43):
de Landetta in the nineteen fifties. And this is actually
the second woman in you know, commercial commercial Mexican film
history to have directed the film, Mattil de Landetta. So
I think that's that's an important thing to say. Also,
you might remember Maria, right, you guys know, Marie Felix,
like probably the most important, you know, icon of Mexican actresses. Right.

(34:07):
There was one role called a film called Dona Barabada
that that's the one that made Maria Felix super famous.
That role was written for isabel A Corona and at
the last minute she was let let go for that
role and the role was offered to Maria Felix. So
there's people that say that there was black magic involved,

(34:27):
because there's people that say that Maria Felix was a
witch and this and that, you know, they took her out,
But it was just a producer who said, look, the
other one's younger, and she looks she's much more attractive,
and she's going to become a box office. Yes, the
other one's a better actress. And apparently isabel A Corona
understood this. She never held hold that, you know, a grudge.

(34:50):
They didn't become friends, but she understood what was happening.
You and I don't know. I thought it was important
to say that, you know, those two paths, those two
paths crossed at some point and a huge Mexican film
star was created from from from that role that was
tailored for her. Wow, so important to know. In nineteen

(35:11):
sixty four, she kept working at this time, I said,
she kept working on cinema, she kept working on theater.
But in nineteen sixty four she started getting in problems
with the theater, with the theater owners and the unions.
So what Isabella Corona started doing that. When there were
problems with doing work in theaters, she started working in
cabarets and she would started to sing and doing like,

(35:32):
you know, shows in cabarets, which was kind of from
heard of someone from the theater going into cabaret curious thing.
When she was offered the role for this film, she understood,
you know what. She of course probably was the one
who saw the connection with the Witch's mirror. She was
a bit reluctant to work with Leanna Abraco because Leanna
Abraco the daughter of Julio Braccio, who was once thesband

(35:56):
her husband, and you know, this is Leanna Bracho, the
daughter of another woman. So she was a little bit
reluctant because she thought that Danna Brach was not going
to be nice to her. So she was not very
happy about the idea until she met Deianna, who apparently
was super nice and was delighted to hear all the
stories about you know, her father's first marriage. So actually

(36:20):
they became close and apparently there was a very good
relationship while they were working. So I thought that was
kind of curious, not but imagine imagine.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
That I was waiting for the cat fight.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
There was no cat fight, but you know when they
got into the into the you know she's that she's
her nemesis. You can understand, you know why she was reluctant.
You know, this is like you know, this is the
this was like you know, before mom, there was this
woman who's now the wait was taking over the house.
Of course, there was like, you know, something to uh

(36:55):
to work with emotionally and dramatically. I thought it was
no probably Paly thinking this is very smarting as well,
not from the side of the director. Now it's like
you put this woman who has backstory that affects the
two actresses, it would be it would not be smart
not to use it.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah, I think it's like the uh, this is a stretch.
But the casting and doppelganger Ofrew Barrymore's actual mother in it,
and like their star.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
I was thinking of Johnny Guitar with Mercedes McCambridge and
Joan Crawford. They had that conflict based on previous lovers.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Like absolutely absolutely, I know this one's a nice outcome.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
I know. I mean it's not as a juicy gossip,
but it's good gossip, no use, it's used in positive terms.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
It is it's nice to know that women can get along,
not me personally, but you know.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
No, but and it's it's also this clash of generations. No,
and the movie is very much about this, you know,
the clash of generations between these two female characters, but
also in real life. You know, Isabella Corona, the big
you know, grand lady of theater doing you know, a
role late in his life in Mexican cinema. And then

(38:16):
the younger actress who's like also the daughter of one
of the most important because I'm gonna switching out to
Danna A Brachio, who plays Lucia, you know, the who's
who's like the head of the household where the Alejandra
moves in. She's the daughter of Julio brachu one of
the most revered directors of Mexican cinemas well. He did
another done this Tinto Manesse, which is a jewel of

(38:36):
of film noir. If you haven't seen it, you've got
to take a crack at it, called another done distinto Manse.
And then there's another famous movie called Sombradlo, which is
I'm not sure about the name of English, but this
is the first movie that denounced, uh, the problems of
the presidential presidential succession when there were still many generals

(38:59):
involved in after the Mexican Revolution, And it was based
on a very important book and apparently had the backing
of the military when they did it and everything. But
the film as soon as it came out, it got
banned and it radically altered the career of Julio Bracco.
He stopped doing films for a while, and you know,

(39:20):
this is probably his master work. So all that stuff
is like the daughter of that man is, you know,
playing in this in this film. Danna Braco she had
made her debut in screens with Too Ribsten in Castillo
de la Pureza in the nineteen seventy two, so almost
like ten years earlier she had she had, you know,

(39:41):
first worked in cinema with her to the Ribs and
so they knew each other. No, Also, Danna Braccio, she's
her aunts is daughter Rio and Andrea Palma, also huge
ladies of Mexican cinema. So she's like, should we say,
like in cinema Mexican Royalty sounds okay, Yeah, And she
actually played Maria Felix in twenty fifteen a short film

(40:03):
called Maria Bonita, So there's also the Maria Felix connection
comes back again, even though it hadn't happened at the time,
but you know there it had been there. You had
mentioned that into Mamata Bienda as one of her most
important films. She she was key in all the big
seventies films from Mexico. Dana A Brachu was there the

(40:25):
Castle of Purity at Castrilla Buresa, Las Pokienchi's, which actually
just got remade in a Netflix series called the Las Mortas,
which you can see. It's the same story about a
brothel that was run by two women. She was in
the original film. And then there's another film called El
infierno ETLs tantnido that he everyone fears, and she's in

(40:46):
all those films too. And Leanna Brachu was one of
those actresses that she not only worked steadily in film,
but she also made the jump into TV. And she
was very smart in choosing her roles in telenovelas because
she chose some of the most iconic telenovelas and she
made quite another name for herself also in theater. She

(41:08):
made huge impact when she did Masterclass I don't know
if you remember that play by Terrence McNally. She did
Master Class here in Mexico for many years and it
was an incredible, incredible show also the role for but
interesting fact, Leanna Bracho was not the first choice for
this role. Originally, Arthura Ripstein wanted Elena Rojo from Agere

(41:32):
The Graph of goth and Under the Werner herdst movie.
I remember her. Okay, they wanted Elena Rojo, but they
couldn't use her because there was a union dispute because
Elena was a member of a different union and they
could not work with this production. So they had to
go to Leanna Braco. Interesting.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
I mean, I think Deanna Braco is great in this
so I mean, I guess it's happy it ended up
this way.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
It is, no, that's but I thought it was very
suddenly thinking okay, yeah Elena, because you think of this
connection with the Isabella Corona and everything. It kind of
seemed you would not even think about it, but then
thinking there was someone else before her, so this came
about later. It gives you, It gives you thinking of
how sometimes not getting what you want at the first

(42:20):
uh your first option sometimes works for the best Yeah. Absolutely.
I keep thinking about the story of how del Toto
had to deal with Andrew Garfield leaving Frankenstein and ended
up with the Jacob Lordie and now he's getting old.
You know everybody, every everybody's loving him. No, so sometimes
you know, second choices are best. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
Well, Elena Roja went on to May to Work and
Don't Panic, which is one of my favorite just bonkers.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Movie, totally bonkers, absolutely and one of the another on
some on some glove film. It's really bizarre because although
it's a Mexican FAMI does really feel like an American film.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, it definitely does. The Dinosaur PJ is one.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Well, yeah, the cast, the cast thing, how it looks.
I mean, it really tries hard to be something else.
And because there are many Mexican films that I've tried
to do that, but I think that's one of the
most successful ones. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Well, Galindo Junior Cemetery of Terror and Grave Robbers that
stars the young Martita and he had a young daughter,
Marie Rebecca. Filmed in the RGV the Rio Grand Valley, Brownsville, Texas,
my hometown.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Oh yeah, really, I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
That's fantastic I'm from harlan Gin, but yeah, from the Rio,
Grand Valley Born And there.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
We go Biva Texas TV. Sorry we got on went
on a tangent. Oh no, you're coming coming back. Manuel Hera,
the guy who plays Rodolfo, the husband of Lucia. He's
one of the from Money. He's one of the best
Mexican actors ever. I don't know why he did not

(43:59):
become a superstar, but he was great. He had this
powerful presence and for American audiences take a peek at
Romancing the Stone.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah, yeah, I grew with me.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
As soon as there was that clear picture of his
face when he first begins working into the basement working
on the music box with with Alejandra, I was like,
that's that's Colonel Solo.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
That's amazing. I loved that movie. He was The movie
is amazing, but he was. He was fantastic. I really
would have thought that he would become very famous after that,
but he didn't. And curious enough, right after it, he
did the Romance in Stone movie. He was He appeared
in Alfred Hitchcock Presents an episode called Breakdown and he

(44:44):
plays another nasty general, which is really really good to
have it take a peek at that that Alfred Hitchcock
presents episode called Breakdown, and you'll see manuel Lehea there
doing you know, horrible villain once again. So he didn't
become startup. But also like then a balacchuo. He is
in all the top seventies movies Fantos in to Meado,

(45:08):
las Poqueenchiese, and he had this really you know, bizarre
vibe and like really good stare. I think he had
his villains. Stare was great, and he did the tones
of the TV. He was in a lot of soap
operas also historical Teenlinovela's. One of the things here was
in with telenovelas here in Mexico is that they were
not only the usual soap opera style, but there was
a lot of soap operas that dealt with the history

(45:30):
of Mexico of Mexico and they retold like the big
moments of history. And people didn't know this, but there
was like there was like a pact between the television
company that made them and the Ministry of Education so
that they kind of were in the same track in
what they were going to say. Because when the television

(45:51):
industries first started doing uh, historical telenovelas. They kind of
went to a different slant and the government got mad
at them, and they they said, let's do them, but
let's do them in the same track, so you know,
we can educate people. But once again I went on
a side truck.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
I'm sorry, I don't apologize at all.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Okay, And on the on the casting things, so we
can close it up. Ignacio Retties, which you mentioned, he's
a very interesting character. Although Ignacia Rettas does not have
a lot of cinema credits, he is a super important
part of Mexican arts. He was a very important director
of theater, very important. He's like one of the pillars

(46:32):
of Mexican theater and probably as important as Isabella Corona
was in theater. But he was a director. There's a
there's a big theater in Mexico City under the name
Ignacia Retes. His son, Gabriel Retes became a very important
director also in the seventies, and I'm happy to say
I was was you know, I worked on his movies
when I was younger. I was my first film experiences

(46:55):
under Gabril Retes, and I did meet on Ignacio Retes
and which at the time of course I didn't know
he was the guy from Telexander took me, like, you know,
it took me a little bit to figure it out.
But he was not he was not very talkative, but
he was like, damn was he smart. He was very
very smart man. And you know, probably the most his voice. Also,
he had this thing of like I caught him reading

(47:16):
some stuff out loud. He was incredible and he had
really really good presence. He only directed one He only
directed one movie, but you can see him in many
supporting roles in quite quite a few films.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Did Ignacio Retes ever direct Isabella Corona in a stage play?

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yes, in stage places he did. He did. Oh okay,
I'm sure. It's it's nice that they put them. They
put them on screen as like you know, old old
bodies that they don't say anything because they were all bloodies.
They knew each other. So this idea. Remember there's a
moment when Roo says, do you guys know each other?
It's like, I got this vibe. It's like it's definitely
they knew each other from a long time ago. Yeah,

(47:53):
it's like a Rosemary's Baby vibe that I got. Absolutely
totally the Rosemary's vibe. It made me think a lot,
But when I rewatched it for ourard talk, it made
me think a lot about that. It's perfect. Definitely the
Rosemary's Baby moment. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
I love their relationship in it because I think it
sort of exemplifies the movie as a whole, like everything
is very understated, nothing is explicit, like that that moment
when the doctor is on the phone with Lucia and
Alejandra is like listening behind him in the background, and
then through the door you see this naked woman in

(48:31):
pink smoke, and you know, it's never explained, it's not acknowledged,
but it's just one of those other elements of this
mysterious relationship and what's happening and all around them, And like,
that's one of my favorite scenes.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Yeah, I feel like it's super creepy at the end.
It's very creepy. Yeah, it's it's one of the most
jarring scenes, and it's so casually presented where you're just
like what am I looking at? Yeah, but I feel
like it hints in my interpretation of the ending that
we get this full circle which we'll get to.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, they're preparing for something there's definitely
something bigger going on that, you know, we're like barely
scratching the surface.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
Yeah, because we never we never really quite know what
Alexandra's end game is, what's her goal is she Is
she trying to teach the youngest daughter? Is she trying
to create a coven of witches? Is she trying to
train and pass down the torch? Like that's kind of
what it feels like. And I kind of got that
from that. The young girl and the naked girl, maybe
that's maybe that's someone that they're already like have taken

(49:34):
hold of and our training and passing the secrets too.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
I think it could be that like passing along or
this is a you know, bitter old spinster point of
view speaking where it could be like maybe like after
the grandmother dies and she's like, Okay, this part of
my life is done. I spent my entire life taking
care of this woman. Oh this they have this whole family,

(50:00):
this whole happy dynamic. That's not fair. So she goes
in like a tornado to fuck everything up as like
kind of you know, as sort of payback for the
life that she had to live, like that she had
to give up, not that I care about, like missing
out on having children or anything like that, but that
could have been, you know, part of her motivation. I

(50:21):
think it could go either way, but the movie doesn't
tell you explicitly either, so I think, which I love.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, definitely, that's one of its like aces under the sleeve. No,
it's like it leaves it room for so much in
many interpretations, and it just gives you hooks so that
you can, you know, go bunkers into how you think about,
you know, why she did it? What is the end game?
As Lance was saying. And a curious detail, remember that

(50:49):
in that scene that we were talking about, when when
there's the ritual in the back with the naked lady,
there's like a pentagram kind of thing and the underneath
her I don't know, I didn't know. If you notice,
it's the same it's the same pentagram they used in
the Witches Mirror. And also there is a moment in
the when you see ti Alejandra and you see her

(51:11):
or all her whichy stuff is like her office I'm
going to say her which office? If you see the
Witches Mirror, it's very it's it's it is, it's not
the Mirror, but it is very similar. It is very
similar the way the things, the things are placed, the
objects that are on the table, and even where the
camera is placed. It echoes a lot of the things

(51:33):
from from from which is Mirrors, And I'm sure that
was totally a purpose.

Speaker 4 (51:36):
Yeah, so it makes sense that a lot of the
audiences would think that this could be some sort of
sequel like where the Witch was and ended up.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
I rewatched Which Is Mirror recently in October, and that
definitely that definitely stood out to me when it came up.
I was like, Oh, it's just like that. Oh, it's
also Isabella corn and it's all these things that.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Wouldn't fault anyone for saying, oh, it's an unofficial sequel,
because it definitely it feels like it could be a
continuation of that story. It's like her her work is
not done yet. So but what I one of the
other things I really do love about this is, you know,
getting sort of back to everything being sort of understated,

(52:19):
nothing being explicit. It's just these minor strange occurrences after
she arrives, you know, anytime Ridolfo and Lucia try to
get it on the house starts shaking, you know, one
time that.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Very very very more realistic. Yes, don't get each other,
break it up, don't get frisky.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
It's like you've got enough children already.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Like you know.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
What else, the oh, the levitating the small table just
casually in the living room.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
I love how the I mean Alejata, she wastes no
time thrusting these young children into her witchcraft or her ritual.
And I love how you know, Rudolfo just comes home,
opens the door and they're chanting. The table's levitating, and
then it cuts to the next scene. There's no reaction.
You don't understand, you're not quite knowing if perhaps he's

(53:13):
on her side. Obviously she's the breadwinner and he loves
he'd rather work in the basement on music boxes than work,
and so I don't know if he's turning a blind
eye to it, but or does he know more like
the doctor there, Yeah, I like everything is presented and
the viewer isn't watching how they're reacting to these strange situations.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
It just abruptly cuts yes, and then it made me think,
So going back to what eric I was saying about
the pressure cooker within the family, dynamic, or sometimes when
you see something really weird in the family, but you
were like, fuck, this happened, but you don't say anything.
You're like, okay, yeah, kind of let it go. It
made me feel like that, and I think it works

(53:53):
really well into the cold toxic family dynamic. I don't
know if you remember that in the later part of
the film when after the children start dying, Rodolfo starts
drinking quite a lot, turns out, and in the short story,
in the original short story, he was a drinker from before.
And one of the things that Lucia likes a lot

(54:15):
when the Alejandra moves into the house is that at
first everything is really nice, and the first good thing
is that Rodolfo stops drinking when Tlejanda first moves in.
That's in the short story. That they didn't use that
in the in the in the in the in the
in the movie. But I thought it was an interesting element,
you know, of like how being alcohol is being like

(54:35):
the big bad guy in terms of family dynamics and
alcoholism in Mexico. But it was it was to me.
It was an interesting, interesting thing. And also the levitating
table thing, coming right after going to see the mummies.
You imagine the trip. You go see the mummies in

(54:58):
the morning, and then you have a class of how
to levitate the table afterwards, and then you get.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
The puppet show, the puppet show at night. Maybe that yeah, eventually.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Puppets, right, talk about those, well, you had mentioned that.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
You know, it's about a Corona and her voice and
reading poetry, and she really showcases it. Her voice range
while she's doing these puppets voices and also the moaning
when she and her death scene. It her voice is
very captivating and I could see her doing theater for
sure after since she said and she gets a stereotypical
witch cackle during that performance.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
I know it's like she I think she really had fun.
I have a feeling she had fun doing that. No,
she's like it seems like Nonsbay's one and you know,
go into strange places. But also bravo on the on
the on the on the creepy puppets. No, yeah, I
think that that appears when the father is drinking one
in the corner and then at the end when they

(55:55):
push them out of the trunk and they're like inexplicably alive. Fuck,
that's like, you know, super badass moment.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
Yeah, it's like mister Rogers neighborhood nightmaker, terrorizing the family.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
I would have loved to see the puppets just casually
laying on the ground, just in random scenes but never acknowledged,
you know, just like randomly just in the corner on
the floor over here, but no one sees them or
even talks about them. It's like were Gonn talking about
the puppets? No, No, we're not like everything else.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
I have to say, I mean, I have to say
going down on that idea, this movie is like I'm
amazed they haven't really they haven't thought of remaking it
because it is so you know, good for you know,
using the family drama, limited locations, no, and maybe go
off use those ideas as to kind of pop up

(56:50):
the horror a little bit more. Yeah, it would work
really well.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
I think that's a great idea. And also I think
that's just a case of not enough people have seen
it to think to remake it. You know, it's it's
probably got I'm sure it's got a much bigger audience
in Mexico, but here, I think it's while it is,
while it is no rules November and we did break
our one thousand views on Letterbox, well it's still fairly low.

(57:17):
So it's one of those things where, like you know,
Lance and I went on a tangent in our No
Rules November episode about like no original ideas and remakes
and stuff like that. I won't I won't go back there.
I've said my piece. People know how I feel about it.
But you know, something like this, as much as I
love this, in the right hand, I could definitely see

(57:37):
a remake of something like this, especially for someone who
is a low budget filmmaker having a single location. I
would you know, I would prefer that it was made
by somebody in Mexico.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
But well, yeah, definitely, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
I can't control these things.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
And also you were saying about the availability of this
when I when I was programming Mexico Mexicatto, this was
one of the films that was very interesting in showcasing,
but the rights issues were like, we're like a minefield,
and you know, it came to a point where I
was like, Okay, this is one of the ones that
I'm gonna have to let go because it's like it's
it's tough. Yeah, And I mean, that's one of the

(58:16):
horrible things with Mexican whror cinema and Mexican cinema in general.
There's there's many wonderful films that are trapped. I'm going
to go on another tangent since we're liking tangents today.
But there's like a YouTube channel that is uploading really
good copies of Mexican classic films, but they're changing the names. Interesting.

(58:38):
They are like they're doing restorations and they just like
they changed the name and I'm sure that's like, you know,
something to go over copyrights or like, and I know
there's I mean some of the films I know have
like who's the owner issues? And I was like, and
I talked to them, like when I saw them, I
called them, was like, did you see what they're doing?
It's like, yeah, these fuckers, And it's like it's it's

(59:00):
you know, I'm sure that they found a loophole or something.
But they're like and they're uploading like five a week.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
How are they searchable? Like how would how would one
go about finding these movies?

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Like how did you? I'll send you, I'll send you
the links that you can take a pick of a
It's a YouTube channel, but it's you know it's it's
it's it's out of this world. It's like suddenly they
just you know, they just changed the title. So but
even now, when you're looking for a film, you don't
find the film right. You need you need to like know,
you really need to know the new name or like

(59:35):
if you're looking for the actor, go by one by
one to see where the actor is or what the
year of production was. But it's crazy, like the stuff
about rights and everything.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Yeah, we had told we had to point our listeners
for this movie in particular to awkrew or the Russian YouTube,
which I mean, you know, shout out to them, like
they put some stuff up that you know that you
can't find on YouTube, So i'd be.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
No, Mexican cinema is like most of the jewels are
there are more available there than than on YouTube. Yea.
And I mean we're not going to even go into
the whole Russia United States thing right now, but it's
you know, it's different channels suddenly.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Like yeah, the OK crew, the version that we kind
of shared with our viewers, they do have subtitles that
actually work. We're on YouTube if you can find uh,
you know, Mexican horror or cinema movies that you're looking
for you have to auto translate, and that's that doesn't
work about fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Oh yeah, no, that never never works. So yeah, at
least they got. They got. They're aware that, you know,
without the subtitles, they lose you know, they lose you know,
a lot of their audience. All right, but anyway, let
let us leave, Let us leave world world relations between
the United States and Russia and come back to to

(01:00:56):
our dear friends in the Sorry, I'm afraid to go
into politics.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Oh no, it's okay, we hate it here, it's all good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
I wanted to bring up something interesting. Remember going back
to the levitating table. Remember they're chanting something which translated
as everything is something else. Yes, you know that's what
they're channing. I found an interview with Leonardo. Leon was
the head. He's a film critic, historian. He he made

(01:01:28):
a really beautiful book about the A lot of interviews
with him, and he ran the cynetecha here for many years.
And he mentions that he has this theory that the
whole movie Telejandra is a metaphor. At the time that
this movie was happening, was was being made a new
president had been sworn in Mexico Coselopes Portillo, and one

(01:01:50):
of the things he did is he put his sister
in charge of film, Marart Portillo. During that time. That's
known as one of the darkest moments in Mexican film
history because she she made the whole arts scene like
her realm, like any The only things that were happening

(01:02:12):
were things that she liked or thought were good, and
everything else was shipped.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
She was especially nasty to the film industry. She she
made she made up charges to a few people who
were running the studios, and she put them in jail
and tortured them, and then mysteriously, at some point the
Cineteca exploded. There's tons of dark history of doing that.
So said to Rips them is like, there's people that

(01:02:39):
say that it's a metaphor about the Alexandra being, you know,
a presence of Margretalos Portig and your whole film is
you know, it's a metaphor for how how much she's
working up Mexican cinema, and rips and said, well, to
tell you the truth, I never thought about it. That
was not the intention. But it is a really good

(01:03:00):
it's a really good story. I might and I just
might be repeating that once from here on, I'm going
to say that was the case, because it's a really
good you know, it really works well, and I thought
it was interesting to mention it just because you know,
it was. It's one of those things when it lines up,
it lines up. It could work that way, and even

(01:03:21):
though he didn't think about it, it could work on
a meta fictional level. And I just wanted to bring
that up just because one of the projects I'm doing
right now really deals with that time of margaritalops Portia.
She was and it's one of those interesting moments where okay,
there's a woman beheading cinema, but she did it all wrong. No,
it's just you know, a genre doesn't automatically it's going

(01:03:46):
to make things work wonderful. You know, we're both human beings,
both females and males, and we can suck up equally.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Yeah, I like that. Ripsteam just embraced that. He was like, no,
I didn't attend that, but fuck yeah, I'm going with it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
So right, it's good. It sounds it sounds good, which
is I mean, he's famously he's famous for getting in
in uh in fights with the critics or that don't
agree with him or saying other things. So the fact
that he actually embraced it was you know, quite quite
for me. It was like probably the first time I
heard him embrace something critics said. So that's why I

(01:04:21):
thought it would be interesting to mention it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Yeah, Lance, what are some of your sort of favorite
moments from the film that we haven't talked about yet.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Well, I do want to point out that we've had Abraham.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
This is the second time you've been with us, and
there's a music box involved again like with the Black
Pit Doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Yeah, absolutely, music section.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
I planned this all along, you did.

Speaker 4 (01:04:49):
Now some of my favorites, some scenes visually and just
some of the ideas. One of my favorite visual scenes
is when the youngest daughter, Martita, she climbs out of
the mother's bed and she joins Alejandro on the rooftop
and you know, there's like these dry cleaning kind of
blowing in the night sky. Then it becomes a course
un suddenly when she starts, you know, scaling the balcony rail,

(01:05:12):
but that as.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Soon as she walks out and walks toward on handra.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
It's so beautifully shot, Just a great, great scene, and
then the deaths, the murders of everybody. Poor Rodolpho death
by waterbed. It's like clumsy, it's anti climatic, very kind
of goofy, but at the same time it's kind of terrifying.
It's like he's just sitting there and his wife is

(01:05:38):
just watching him drown on top of the waterbed.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
At first, I thought, is it not a waterbed? And
he's like sweating out all of the alcohol he's been
drinking and like drowning him.

Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
Well, as soon as he laid down, I saw it
like Edwards siss her hands movement.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
I'm like, they got a waterbed.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Yeah, but yeah, and the burning of the oldest child
that with the dummy on fire, lots the screaming and
pay in agony, that whole scene was great. I know
we mentioned it's mostly a single single location except for
a few exterior shots. That whole setup seems like it
might have taken a long time to film because that
whole fire department showing up and the actual burning and

(01:06:23):
putting out the fire, that whole scene's real impressive.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
That's obviously one of my favorite scenes, along with you know,
the death of Andreas and honestly did Alejandra do it
or was that his fault because he's walking around, he's
walking downstairs and skates like you're just you're asking for
it at that point. So whatever, that's that's one of
my favorites. And then as well as Marina Dummy on

(01:06:48):
fire but yeah, you're right, like I was like, oh wow,
there's a real fire in.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
The fucking building. Great scene they do. Dlipsin does mention
that one of the things he's proudest of is working
with bep she effects crew. He said he did like
an incredible work. And I think it goes to mention
with what Lence was saying about, you know the big
fire scene and you know it's it's it's complicated. And
then there's for example, remember when they're bearing andres and

(01:07:14):
it's drenching. It's not raining, it's drenching. No, And it's
like you know, quickly shot. You know, it's very few shots,
but it must have taken quite a quite a bit
to set up all of that and it works really well. No,
and especially when now that I've told you about the
time they had to shoot the films, like you also
see you know, film people professionals at their best working

(01:07:36):
on their you know, budget constrained, time constraint, but you know,
getting the job done. And when you see the movie
works really well. And going back to the skates thing
that you were saying, Erica, I think that's the beauty
of it. Did Alexandra do it or not? It works
both ways. No, she does have the powers that she
insists on the on because you can clearly see that

(01:07:59):
it's she's using a voice to summone him up when
the mother never called him. Yeah, and but she knows
she's going to fall at some point, so she's like
kind of pushing the stakes. No, she's the the table
is set.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
For Yes, well that that roller skate should have a
starring role in this because it's you know, she trips
on it and she becomes injured and is out for
two months and dresses and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Then at the end if you if you uh saw this,
but there's a few scenes before when there's a moment
where Lucia the mother is brooming the patio and she
finds the skate and she takes it. She takes it
and throws it next to the car. Yeah, like they
set up the skate is perfectly set up from the beginning,

(01:08:49):
you know that, you know, I mean, you don't notice it,
You're like, skate, but then when it cappins, you're like, fuck, yeah,
this kid has left the skates before.

Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
So I mean and purposely by seting with with the
mother beating Alexandra with it in bed with her pillow,
you know, just soaking up the blood from the wounds
very does. And it's like a minute long of her
just kind of moaning, like Joe Spinel for maniac or something.
Just just it's very unsettling that that murder scene.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
And I was sorry you were saying about the favorite moments.
I have to say that apart from apart from the
Mummy moment, that is my personal mega favorite. And then
the puppets start fucking fucking creepy when he's drinking. That's
the kind of thing you don't want to happen when
you're drinking or ring on the bench. You don't want

(01:09:40):
that to happen. No, that would make you go to
alcolicos Anonymous immediately. Yeah, but the ending, going back to
the third loving part that I had this movie, the
killing part is nasty, and then dragging the body. I
really like the fact that it's like, no, okay, I
killed it. That thing of like, now I have to
deal with the body. And you're thinking, why are she

(01:10:01):
taking it out? She's gonna fucking burn it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
Yeah, and it's the dummy too. That dummy looks real,
Like how she's dragging it down the stairs with the head.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yeah, I mean not so good. And and she even moans,
like she makes some voices before she like it appears
that she's still alive.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
Yeah, there's an internal she's like moaning helped me just internally,
you know, her lips are and I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Is she dead already? And she's still talking and she's
so cool. Like that's acting wise from then, but actually
like one of the loveliest moments because I think in
any other normal movie she would have freaked out. They
would have had the character freak out. But they they
she chose her. They told her, no, no, no, you
stay cool. You know you're doing your job. You have
to eliminate the witch. Just don't listen. That was nasty. Yeah,

(01:10:49):
I liked it, but I interrupted, Erica, you were going.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
To say something, Oh no, Yeah, I just I feel
like I shouldn't be on Alejandro's side. But like when
she gets thrown out, and this is like sleeping on
the sidewalk outside of the house, and and then Lucia
comes out and like brings her back in, Like I know,
I know, Alejandra is like she's doing some some fucked

(01:11:12):
up shit in the house.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
I mean, the children are dying, I know, but like
arguably their fault. So again, you don't know if this
is part of her plan, because obviously she wants the
husband and wife and some sort of separation or out
of the picture, So it is this all part of
her universal plan?

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Like yeah, it it's sad to watch.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
Her scene bad for the witch on the sidewalk. I'm sorry,
I don't know what that says about me, but I
felt bad for her. And then she gets burned alive,
like like legitimately, like not literally burned at the stake
like a witch's.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
But she's put on she's burned to death with tea
hot tea with hot.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
But like I love I love the scene too, like
after the fire is out, where she is putting the
ashes into the music box and then the music box
comes back to life. Like there's all these just again
understated supernatural elements, you know, going on like the birds
dying when she gets poisoned. I'm like, okay, so the

(01:12:12):
birds are her life force and like, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:15):
I love where she's burying the birds. There's a howling
of the wind going on that's just really well done,
really good sound design. But yeah, it's Yeah, there's a
lot where there's a lot of questions, and I love
how it's opened her interpretation. That's just that's just something
that's great about this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
I did. I went into the archives to look in
to see if the screenwriter had, you know, been asked
about this film. Him being such a sacred cow and
those tons of stuff. Yeah, But curiously enough, there's nothing.
He never talked about anything about the making of this movie.
And I have my personal theory. I'm thinking that you know,

(01:12:52):
you know, being such you know, he was a playwright,
he was a journalist, he was a screenwriter. He understood
probably horror tropes, and he understood that he had all
these things he could play with, but probably didn't want
to go into it. I do feel all the time
that both Leeksten and him don't like the horror genre,

(01:13:13):
but they're like playing with the stuff that they think
can work, which is probably why the film is so
so effective. Still, No, because the horror elements are there,
but they don't play that. They don't play it for
the full way, nor do they explain it. They keep
it in the mystery. Yeah, and going back to that
emotionally works like the dynamics of the characters make it work.

(01:13:36):
But also you could go on the supernatural explanation, going
back to that thing that you were saying, you feel
sorry for the Alexander when she's outside. It's a sad image,
it's a tragedy. It's hard not to react to that,
and they probably do it in purpose. No. Yeah, this
then is being known as you know, many people mentioned
that he's a saddist fucker. As a saddist director, he

(01:13:59):
makes all of his characters go through fucking hell. All
his stories are about human misery. I mean, he likes
the the end of the spectrum of human emotion and
you can see him on this really playing those cards. Well,
so your emotion goes to one side although you should
be in the other, and then getting conflicted. You can

(01:14:21):
see that there's a master working a plant emotionally speaking,
which is always good in the film.

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
Absolutely, that's all I have from my notes lance if
you have anything else, no.

Speaker 4 (01:14:34):
No, I just watching a movie like this makes me
want to dive into like Isabella Corona's filmography and more
of the cast. And you know, that's that's kind of
my goal for twenty twenty six. It's just to keep
watching because some of my favorite watches this year have
been Mexican horror.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
And I'm delighted to hear that. Yeah, I mean, I need,
we need to we need, we need to give you
more microphones.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
YEA half of this list for October was Mexican horn.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Yeah gets back.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
I mean a lot of it's really good for you,
like Erma Lendel and Chabello and Pepito versus the monsters
who has a great mummy and that by the way he.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Does he does absolutely, it's it's in, It's in, It's
in the show.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
Oh wonderful. Yeah, on the edge of the chair. So
many bangers that I just want to keep that going.
So this I was especially excited about this, this episode
with with Abraham on here.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
So it's a special movie, you know, because it I mean,
as I said, it goes against all of the usual
Mexican hord tropes or like dynamics. It still works, and
it has you know, it has the mummies, it has
you know, real life cadavers on screen, which is not
you know, usually you don't see that. They're not dummies,

(01:15:42):
they're not buppets. And then there's you know, for Erica,
there's like two really good child bends, like you know,
you know, it's it's bizarre that we get we don't
we don't. It's when we get things that we like
from from different sides. I thought it was it's one
of those that brings us together.

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
Yeah, it hits a lot of the sweet spots for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
So absolutely, last time Abraham was here, we put together
a list on letterbox of all the films that were
mentioned during this episode. I will do the same for
this episode because I know a lot got thrown out
and you know a lot of times listeners are listening
in their car and don't have time to write anything down.
So I'll put that list together. We'll link it in

(01:16:26):
show notes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
May I mentioned there's something just since you're doing that
when and I love that you do that. Yeah. Going
into the Witch Connection channel, Dueta who made the Witches
Mirror a few years earlier, he made a film called
The Witch. Make sure to include that one. That was
one of the ones we showed in a Mexico Maleticatum.

(01:16:47):
And it's really good and it's it's quite of a
stretch because it's not really like a horror film. It's
more like the noir and it has, you know, some
sci fi elements, but it's fantastic and it has one
of the best makeups in Mexican horse cinema from so yeah,
by channel with interesting. I mean, you can see this
man knew his stuff, you know, he did. He had

(01:17:09):
the Witch's Mayor, he had the Witch. Then he had
he made a film which is the one that where
Isabella Corona first worked, called Mayas, The Knight of the Mayas,
where Isabella plays a witch and there's like witchcraft involved
and everything. So he knew, he knew his stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
He definitely knew his stuff when he made that tongue
in the brain Yact.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
So absolutely, absolutely, I love it all.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
Right, before we get to double features, did you have
any other notes or stories or anything you wanted to
share about the film?

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Abraham, A little little detail that I found in the
short story where the where the Telejandra is based for
this last time. Remember the thing we were saying about
they burning the Lucia burning the witch. In the actual
short story, there's a thing that the Lucia mentions that
when she was burning the body, it kept twitching, it

(01:18:01):
kept moving, and she's and in the short story she says, Oh,
I thought I got scared at the beginning because I
thought she was still alive. But then I realized that sometimes,
you know, bodies do that, So then I was it's fine.
Then I didn't thought it was anything supernatural, just very bleas.
I like that, and I thought, what a really cool moment.
I would have loved it. They had included that one

(01:18:22):
of those little details from the short story.

Speaker 4 (01:18:24):
That I thought was very in the short story, does
the daughter show up at the end like it does
in the film like she does?

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
Okay, yes, yeah, because that's that's like the big moment.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
And know that's that's the cherry on top. No, totally,
it totally, yeah, brings it three sixty and it's like
the nightmare actually just started. You thought it ended, It
just started. Yeah, she's got the necklace.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
And yeah, yeah, I think so that could you know,
we said before, there's not really a direct answer about
like what's her motivation? But with Martita showing up at
the end, it's like, well, was that the goal all
along or did she just show up because you know,

(01:19:10):
Alejandra is dead and so that kind of forced that
to happen. So I think there's still a question even
though Martita does show up at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
So yeah, I'll leave it at that. For my money,
she transferred her to Martita. Yeah, and Lucia is fucked.
Oh yeah, that's what right?

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
Yeah, I think it's it's it's the exact same opening.
There's a music box, but in this case, Martita is
on Alejandra and her mother is the grandmother. That's you know,
the young the young daughter's going to inherit everything as
soon as as soon as she's done with.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
The mom exactly, and it comes back to her, yes,
which is you know, the old soul transferred strict that
still works so well.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
All right, Abraham, So you've thrown out a lot of
movies at us today, but we want you to throw
out at least, you know, one or two more. What
if you were screening Alexandra, what is a movie that
you think would pair really well with it? In double feature?

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
Okay, you know that I get crazy on that side.
So I prefer three, the more obvious one, the obvious
one that it's kind of like required, but that's like
the one on one option is, which is Mirror and Alexandra.
But I think that's like, you know, we need to
go beyond the one O one. I would suggest to

(01:20:29):
play pi Alejandra with a Spanish movie called La Vuela
The Grandmother twenty twenty, directed by Paco Plaza, the guy
who made Veroni. This movie is available on Netflix for
those of you who are listening and if you have
not watched that, and if you've had to care for
a for a for a family member that is getting

(01:20:52):
older and sick, it's gonna trigger everything nasty that you
feel really hard. But it's really good. It is really creepy,
and it's one of those few films that when I
was watching it, like I was like, this is too much.
Oh fuck, oh my god, no. And it gives you
the sense of like the otherworldly and that there's stuff

(01:21:13):
beyond you that you cannot control, and that black magic exists.
And I love it. So I think they would pay
really well. And the fact that they're Spanish speaking and
once it's Mexico and the other one Spain. I think
they would connect really well. Nice. And then on a
third we have because of course we have a third
choice for those of who would like something more contemporary,

(01:21:35):
but not that twenty twenties that far away. But I
think that the Alexandra and Weapons would work. Yeah, I
had that actually on my list. Get them now.

Speaker 4 (01:21:45):
I'm glad we have multiple things, but you're right, you
have the very creepy and gladys popping in and couse
an advoct on a family members and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
Yeah no, and kind of the moral of because you know,
I've been working on this not work. But every now
that I watched horror movies, I always tryed, okay, what
is the message? What is the movie telling me? You know?
And it made me think of both Weapons and Tlejandra
made me feel exactly the same thing I thought when
I saw the remake, is like you do not help

(01:22:14):
you when people ask you for help and then they
want to live in your house, you say no, you
do not open your doors. You know, you have to
like keep them away. Because both in them was to
and in the Weapons and in the the Alejandra shake
came it was just bad. You're trying to be nice
and you know, look, look for your fellow human, and

(01:22:39):
you're just opening the door for you know, the devil
to come into your door. Yeah, it does. Three movies
made me think the same thing. So I don't know,
as I would say, I don't know what that says
about me. But somebody says like, I'm gonna stay with you.
I'm like, I'm not so sure. I don't think so,
you know, so we got to ask like the witch doctor,

(01:22:59):
like thea to go over it, or like the dog,
at least the dog, you know how, Sometimes like in
horror movie. In many horror movies, there's a family that's
going to buy the house and the house is hunted,
and they don't ask the dog or the cat to
like check it out first because they are the ones
the first to know that there's something fucked up.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
Right, You need to listen to animals more absolutely, especially
for that type of thing. Now, adding on to that
about like not allowing, you know, accepting creepy family members
in your home. There is an episode from the anthology
television series Night Gallery from nineteen seventy one called Since
aunt Ada Came to Stay where it's a lot of

(01:23:41):
similarities here with Aunt Alexandra. You get a creepy ann
arrives who's a witch and she starts influencing the young
niece and the father's trying to convince his wife to
kick her out. I'm not going to select a short
TV episode though, but it's a pretty neat little short segment.
Say the name again since aunt Ada came to stay, Yeah,

(01:24:03):
a da, I think that's how you say your name.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
It's I think it's ad.

Speaker 4 (01:24:06):
Yeah, it's from the Night Gallery televisions.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
I don't know that one. I'm gonna look for that one.

Speaker 4 (01:24:12):
The witch looks great, she's i mean, effectively creepy. And
then we already mentioned Rosemary's Baby with the vies, with
the doctor being in on everything that that's just kind
of a very small element of on Andre. But I
went with another Mexican whoror one that I really love,
Poison for the.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Fairies from nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 4 (01:24:32):
Yes, yeah, with the yeah I've mentioned before, I think
Taba Wata has like the best movie titles ever with
you know, I don't have the translations right, it is right,
they're very Yeah, they're blacker than the Night.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Even the Wind is Afraid the Book of Stone. Just
great titles. And the beautiful thing that, since we're doing
mirrors and connection and connections through times and space, is
co writer of the Witch is Mirror. Oh that's right.
Oh wow, okay, I'd even put that connection. That's why
I'm picking this Okay, no, no, no, no, you picked

(01:25:05):
it up perfectly. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:25:07):
I mean, like with Poison for the Fairies, as follows,
you have these two young girls, one of one of them, Veronica,
is convincing enough that she is a witch of sorts,
and bad things obviously start happening to what she's accused,
which leads to a good old fashioned fire that's kind
of similar to what we witness and on Alejandra. But yeah,

(01:25:29):
I think they would team They would pair up well, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:25:32):
And in going back to similarities, they mentioned the same mummies,
the difference being remember that the Flavia takes Veronica to
the to the mummy place to watch the mummies. That's right.
The interesting part is that in Telejandra they had access
to the actual mummies. In the other film, in Poison
for the Fairies, they couldn't get the permit and they

(01:25:53):
had to make the mummies. They made up the mummies,
but they actually go to the same place. So the
mirror connection is is beautiful. Well, yeah, I better memory
than mine.

Speaker 4 (01:26:04):
You make my pick so much better, so much better,
well connection.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
I've been studying what I've been studying mommies. So I
am I am, should I say, very well versed into
the Mummy the Mummy universe at this point. That's great.
What about you, Erica?

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
I don't think mine has any mummies in it, but
so I'm already at a I'm already at a disadvantage here,
but mine is also a table lot of film. I
have been diving a lot into Henry James Turning of
the Screw adaptations for the book, and one of them
is The Book of Stone, which is nineteen sixty nine.

(01:26:47):
It's about Julia. She's a governess. She comes to work
for this bougie family. There's all these sort of like
weird things that start happening. So really sort of leaning
on the arrival of a new person do a home
where either weird things were happening before she arrived but
we weren't there to know that, or we maybe hear
about it. So I like the idea of like the

(01:27:08):
arrival of one person and then like all of a
sudden chaos.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Ensues and doctor Satan, Yes, Doctor Satan.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
Of course, I cannot forget Doctor Satan in our discussion today.
But I think, you know, Weapons was one of the
first ones that did come to mind when I was
thinking about it. And it's hard not to because of
you know, recency bias, of course, And I'm never, not, never,
rarely one to recommend a new horror movie because you know,

(01:27:39):
I think it's fine, but I know this one, Weapons
has a lot of fans, and so if you are
someone who saw that movie really loved it, Aunt Alexandra
is one that you would love as well.

Speaker 4 (01:27:54):
That's a great call, yeah, because there are a lot
of fans.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
Definitely, no no, and the social nice to see. There's
stories that keep that once you rework them, they can
be told over and over again. And it's one of
the beautiful things about you know, when you start deep
diving into you know, horor cinema of the ages and
you can retell these stories and just you start enriaching
the vocabulary and the lore and I mean that was

(01:28:19):
one of the beautiful things that Weapons did so in
such a beautiful way old story, brought new new images
and refreshed it of sorts, not told it differently, but
you know, we can even connect to a you know,
Mexican movie from nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
Yeah, absolutely, Abraham. We love you dearly and we're so
happy that you came back for that, for us to
talk about this movie. Tell our listeners where they can
follow you so that they can stay up to date
with all the wonderful things you're working on.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Thank you. You're also beloved on song. Horror has been
an ally and a and throughout you know, all my adventures,
and I'm so delighted to be back. I applaud what
you guys do and that you bring attention to unseen
cinema from all over the world, which is something that
not many people do in the US, and I think
definitely applaud you for that. And if you're still interested

(01:29:20):
in what I'm doing, Abraham Castillo Floors can be found
in the Instagram and Twitter and Blue Sky under the
name Auidos Panteoneos, which I know it's a mouthful, but
it's the actual translation is a graveyard house, but it's
a U l l I d os our hidos and

(01:29:45):
I'm sure I'll pop up really quickly on the search.
And now that artificial intelligence is fucking taking by storm,
so you don't have to type so fast, but just plugging,
do type, do right in hand every once in a while,
do not forget that our brains are powerful, and even
though it might take longer, it will taste better if

(01:30:05):
we do it, if we remember it, and if we
actually push ourselves to do things.

Speaker 3 (01:30:11):
Not everything is ai, Yes, I rarely anything should be.
And we'll put a link to where you all can
follow Abraham in our show notes in case you're not
somewhere where you can write.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
That down, if you can mention the sorry, if you
can also maybe mention the which is mayror in the
indicator page where they still sell the Blu Ray. But
I think that'll be good, absolutely if people are interested
in that, and hopefully they'll if they're curious in Mexican cinema,
they'll find quite a few titles.

Speaker 3 (01:30:40):
Is a box is a box that still available or
is it just individual titles?

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Now? Individuals a box? That box? It is sold out? Good,
happy to report it should be. Yes, Evapo is still available.
The vmpedo box It is still available, but you can
find h which is Mirror and all the other films
course of like your ownA inc and Black Pit of
that there and as a single Blue Rays.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
Okay, great, we'll do that for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
And also a big shout out to our friends from
Alameda Films who keep those films alive and they're masters
of restoring and championing their films and making sure that
their archive is it's great. By the way, since you
were telling me about all stuff that I worked on,
did you guys see the box set that Radiance pulled

(01:31:29):
out the box seat, Yes, with Simon of the Desert
Viien and Exterminating Angel. Those transfers are not four K transfers.
Those movies have never looked better and I was so
happy to work on that, on those special features. I
was just plugging down. So if you guys are interesteding,
you know the Mexican Jewels Ofel check those out. That

(01:31:51):
that was also very good release from Radios.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
Yes, absolutely, put that a link to that in show
notes as well. All right, if you're not following our
podcast already, we're at Unsung Horrors on Instagram. I'm at
hex Massacre on Instagram and Letterbox.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
I'm there as Elshiby.

Speaker 3 (01:32:10):
So we'll be back at the probably end of December
with our end of year wrap up episode. As usual,
we'll be going through our Letterbox stats, but we are
doing something a little different this year. No spoilers here,
but stay tuned for that end of your episode and
then after that we will be back in February to

(01:32:31):
our regularly scheduled individual episodes covering one film. Abraham, thank
you so much one more time, and everyone please make
sure you're following him for a light in the darkness
of Instagram.

Speaker 1 (01:32:45):
Yes, absolutely, thank both of you, Biva on some horrores,
Viva Erica and Lance Amazon and Wire of Cinema. And
your passion is so important.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
Okay, thank you Abraham.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Your passionate is on parallel and really looking forward to
sometimes we can see each other in person.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
Absolutely next time you're in Austin, or next time we're
in Mexico City, or.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
If you're traveling, let's do this fact. If we either
go across each other's national border, let us make sure
that we see each other.

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
Yes, agreed, love it a great big hawk.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
Thank you very much, and thank you everybody that you're
listening for this deep dive along two marvelous human beings
that love horror cinema and discovering the deep end of
the poor.

Speaker 5 (01:33:48):
Coltunities.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
A guys.

Speaker 6 (01:34:00):
MHM said a correct this was called SUSCUSI.

Speaker 5 (01:34:15):
He Jean.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
No no.

Speaker 5 (01:34:22):
John SAMs. This does vertas the Samas becall Canadian support.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
Can you just the.

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
Colors unit is simples?

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
Okay? Sounds p am. I a man.

Speaker 5 (01:35:53):
That the kettle, the cattle, the.

Speaker 6 (01:36:08):
Kettle, the kettles foremost das sin no michisles.

Speaker 7 (01:36:28):
Okay song, Hello and welcome to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys.
My name is Hunter.

Speaker 8 (01:36:42):
In this podcast, I'll be joined by a different guest
each week to discuss a classic Western movie or TV show.
I've been a fan of classic Westerns for as long
as I can remember, and in recent years they've become
very nostalgic for me. I love the aesthetic, the tropes,
and I love seeing different filmmakers takes on them at
their best. They're incredibly entertaining, watchable, and some of my
all time favorite movies are Westerns. We'll mostly focus on

(01:37:04):
Western movies made in Hollywood, but we'll also be covering
spaghetti Westerns and one thing I'm very excited to get
into our Western TV shows. I've got some amazing guests
coming on the show, film professors, historians, and podcasters and
Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys is part of the Someone's Favorite
Productions podcast network and many guests on the show will
be from other shows on the network.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Thank you for listening.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
To hear more shows from the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network,
please select the link in the description.

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