A black and white Mexican film that has
all the elements for a good horror film but in the end, it shies away from
hitting the accelerator. It begins with a line of monks walking in black
robes and skeleton masks trapping a man that they judge to be a betrayer
and put him in a guillotine with a hooded executioner ready for a slice.
That sort of scene is always good for a chill. Throw in zombies, dead people
buried in walls, a hand right out of the Addams Family, a headless rider
and a dead mother wailing at night. Even perhaps more frightening for some
may be that there are four songs from the two stars. The director is Chano
Urueta who helmed the terrific El Monstruo Resucitado a few years earlier,
so we know he can direct a good horror film. He sets it up here, but no go.
It is still a fairly entertaining film though. Some blurbs call it a Western.
It isn't. It takes place in 1956. But there is a shoot-out and horses.
Don Alvaro is told that there is a dead
body in the wall of his hacienda. Apparently, this was a custom of the area
to stop grave robbers. He goes to the head lawman Fernando (Jaime Fernandez)
and the female judge Margarita (Flor Silvestra) to inform them that he plans
to open up the wall and can they come as witnesses. Don Alvaro doesn't show
up for the cracking - or does he - they open the wall and there he is. Dead.
With no way to get in. In the meantime, a stranger named Reinalso (Luis Aguilar)
has shown up with his overweight sidekick and comedy relief Pascual (Pascual
Garcia Pena) and gotten himself thrown in jail for a barroom brawl. The Judge
takes one look at him and practically blows him a kiss.
A headless man begins showing up and causing
trouble for the Skull Society, a hand crawls out of a box and a drawer and
tries strangling people and the dead man comes back to life. But more importantly,
Luis Aguilar sings three songs and Flor Silvestra sings one. Luis was a popular
singer and Flora was huge - one of the all-time great Mexican singers. Some
of her songs are up on YouTube. There were three of these headless rider
films. Good enough to watch should they come my way. The only horror element
not explained is the hand. The hand is still wandering around it seems.
