MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: MEXICO MACABRE: FOUR SINISTER TALES FROM THE ALAMEDA FILMS VAULT (1959

MEXICO MACABRE: FOUR SINISTER TALES FROM THE ALAMEDA FILMS VAULT (1959–1963)

BLACK PIT OF DR. M (Fernando Méndez, 1959)

THE WITCH’S MIRROR (Chano Urueta, 1961)

THE BRAINIAC (Chano Urueta, 1962)

THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN (Rafael Baledón, 1963)

Indicator celebrate four macabre titles from the vaults of one of Mexico’s best-known film companies, the legendary Alameda Films, offer eerie Mexican tales for lovers of South-of-the-Border horror and fantasy. This extras-laden set includes Fernando Méndez’s Black Pit of Dr. M (Misterios de ultratumba), Chano Urueta’s The Witch’s Mirror (El espejo de la bruja) and The Brainiac (El barón del terror), plus Rafael Baledón’s The Curse of the Crying Woman (La maldición de la Llorona). This premium set a strictly limited (to 6000), individually numbered Blu-ray box set, which includes plenty of new extras, including four new audio commentaries, original Spanish and rare English-language dub tracks, new featurettes and interviews, trailers, a set of art cards and a fully illustrated 100-page book. This edition also marks the worldwide Blu-ray debut of all four films.

BLACK PIT OF DR. M (1959)

aka Misterios de ultratumba

Label: Indicator

Region Code: Region-Free

Duration: 81 Minutes 27 Seconds

Audio: Spanish PCM 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)

Director: Fernando Méndez

Cast: Gaston Santos, Rafael Bertrand, Mapita Cortes, Carlos Ancira, Caroline Barrett, Luis Aragon

In the atmospheric afterlife shocker Black Pit of Dr. M (1959) Dr. Mazali (Rafael Bertrand, Isle of the Snake People) operates a hospital for the mentally deranged, at the start of the film his peer Dr. Jacinto Aldama (Antonio Raxel, The Vampire's Coffin) lays on his death bed. Mazali at his bed side whispers in Aldama's ear not to forget the deal they made, that refusal to follow through will result in eternal damnation. Apparently the two doctors made an agreement that if one should predecease the other that the other would reveal the mysteries of death from beyond the grave. Later Mazali holds a séance where he makes contact with Aldama's spirit, who warns him that he will uphold the agreement, and that in 90-days he will reveal the secrets of death to the doctor, but warns that this knowledge comes with a great, which the curious doc accepts without even inquiring what that penalty would be, but he will surely find out. Aldama's spirit keeps pretty busy in the afterlife, working behind-the-scenes to ensure that the 90-day prophecy is fulfilled, tot hat end making contact with pretty Patricia (Mapita Cortés), Aldama's estranged daughter, so that she pays a visit to the asylum. Mazali has feelings for her, but it's his charismatic assistant Eduardo (Gaston Santos, The Living Coffin) who steals her heart, which plays heavily into the outcome of the film.

Meanwhile, at the asylum a murderously insane gypsy (Carolina Barret, Santo vs, the Head Hunters) is temporarily called by a music box during one of her treatments, but when the music box unexpectedly stops, with a little ghostly influence perhaps, she erupts in a violent rage and throws acid into the face of orderly Elmer (Carlos Ancira, Santo in The Vengeance of the Mummy). During his recovery Elmer's face is bandaged up, and when they are eventually removed his disfigured face is revealed in the mirror, he is horrified by the monster he has become, and he flees in a rage. However, he secretly returning a few days later to revenge-murder the mad gypsy who disfigured him, but in a spirit-influenced turn of events it is Dr. Mazali who is fingered for the murder, seemingly set-up my Aldama's ghost to take the fall and potentially end up in the hangman's noose, all part of his plan to reveal the mysteries of death to his curious cohort. The way this is pans out is quite delightful, Mazali's desire to die and be reborn is granted, but is delightfully twisted, The flick looks terrific with some stylish and atmospheric lensing with fog-shrouded set pieces, and the melted skin make-up effects of poor Elmer are impressive for the time, this tale of men of science dabbling in the occult still thrills with it's Gothic eeriness and supernatural mystery.

Special Features:
- High Definition remaster
- Original Spanish mono soundtrack
-Audio commentary with film programmer, curator and Mexican horror cinema expert, Abraham Castillo Flores (2023)
- Preserving a Legacy (2023( (19:19): Daniel Birman Ripstein discusses the history of Mexico’s celebrated Alameda Films, and reflects on his relationship with his grandfather, the legendary producer and company founder Alfredo Ripstein, who also made a vital contribution to the preservation of Mexican cinema heritage
- Black Pit of Dr Méndez (2023) (26:02): Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro, academic and author of Fernando Méndez, 1908–1966, discusses the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker
-Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer (3:07)
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved English translation subtitles
- World premiere on Blu-ray

THE WITCH’S MIRROR (1961)

aka El espejo de la bruja

Label: Indicator

Region Code: Region-Free

Duration: 75 Minutes 34 Seconds

Audio: Spanish or English-Dub PCM 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)

Director: Chano Urueta

Cast: Rosita Arenas, Armando Calvo, Isabela Corona, Dina de Marco, Carlos Nieto

When Elena (Dina de Marco, Los secretos del sexo débil) is poisoned at the hands of her doctor husband, Eduardo (Armando Calvo, Satanik), her witchy godmother Sara (Isabela Corona) sets about helping her enact her revenge from beyond the grave by communing with the Devil through a magic mirror. Conveniently Sara is Eduardo's housekeeper, and when he brings home his new bride blushing Deborah (Rosita Arenas, The Aztec Mummy) she uses that bedeviled magic mirror to commune with her goddaughters spirit, teaming-up to drive the newlyweds mad.

Deborah is sort of an innocent, she's not aware that her new husband murdered his previous wife, but Elena sure makes her miserable just the same. The ghost of Elena appears in a mirror one night sending the Deborah into a fright, while Eduardo throw a oil lamp into the refection, setting the his new wife on fire, her face and hands horribly burned. With his new bride disfigured and her face wrapped in a thick covering of wraps to hide her hideous face Eduardo, a doctor by trade, sets about using the skin of freshly dead young women to perform a series of skin grafts aimed at renewing Deborah to her former state of beauty. This adds a Eyes without a Face macabre mad science element to the film with Edaurdo teaming-up with his assistant Gustavo (Carlos Nieto, Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein) to steal corpses from the local cemetery to procure freshly dead skin grafts. During one of these late night graverobbing excursions Eduardo discovers that a young female pianist who was recently buried was misdiagnosed, she's not dead at all, which delights him to no end that he's uncovered a live specimen from which he can transplant her hands onto his wife, but which horrifies Gustavo.

The apparition of Elena is not through with her ex or his new wife though, setting in motion a revenge that proves to be quite twisted! This one has some terrific Gothic charms, the cast is wonderful, and the special effects while occasionally ropey do the job. The mirror effects are well-done, the burned visage of Deborah has a lot if gruesome texture to it, and the mad science elements offer a walk-in cooler full of mutilated cadavers, and the amputation of the pianist's hands which leave bloody stumps is pretty rough stuff for the early 60s. Elena's ghost inhabits and haunts the transplanted hands, and when she feels the time is right she makes the newly transplanted hands fall off poor Deb, and then they run around with a pair of scissors, ultimately delivering a fatal blow to Eduardo. I was not expecting this vengeful haunter to turn into a disembodied hand horror, but it goes there, mashing up this Gothic haunter with a dose of mad science, and disembodied hand horror to terrific effect.

Special Features:

- Original Spanish mono soundtrack
- Alternative English mono soundtrack
- Audio commentary with film historian and Mexican cinema specialist David Wilt (2023)
- Rosita Arenas at Mexico Maleficarum (2022) (13:08): the celebrated actor in conversation with film programmer, curator, and resurrector of twentieth-century Mexican horror cinema, Abraham Castillo Flores, filmed at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in October 2022
- Mondo Macabro: ‘Mexican Horror Movies’ (2001) (24:34): episode of Pete Tombs and Andy Starke’s fondly remembered British television series, providing an overview of Mexican genre cinema from the 1950s to the 1970s
-Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer (3;29)
-Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
- New and improved English translation subtitles for the Spanish soundtrack
- New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

THE BRAINIAC (1962)

aka El barón del terror

Label: Indicator

Region Code: Region-Free

Duration: 77 Minutes 6 Seconds

Audio: Spanish or English-Dub PCM 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Chano Urueta

Cast: Abel Salazar, Rubén Rojo, Rosa María Gallardo, Germán Robles, René Cardona

In the schlockiest of the film's on this set The Brainiac (1962) a satanic devil worshipper Baron Vitelius (Abel Salazar, The Curse of the Crying Woman) is about to be burned at the stake by the Inquisition in the year 1661, as he's about to go up in flames he notices a comet in the sky and make the proclamation that he will return when the celestial object makes it's cyclical return, at which point he will have his revenge on the Inquisitors descendants. It takes a while, but three hundred years later in 1961 the comets returns, and so to does Baron Vitelius, dropped from the sky as a papier-mâché fragment of the comet which lands with a thud and transforms into a goblin-looking creature with a bulbous rubber head and hands with tubular claw hands. The rubber-headed beast encounters a curious man who witnessed the meteor strike and came looking, he kills the man by sucking out his brains with his forked-tong proboscis from the back of his neck, then transforms into his human self, stealing the victim's sweet threads for his own.

The Baron takes no time easily establishing himself a well-to-do local and a benefactor of the local astrology community, and conveniently a lot of astrologers and those around them seem to be the direct descendants of the Inquisitors who sentenced him to death. The Baron arranges to meets with the ancestors of those who burned him at the stake, meeting them he turns back into the brain-sucking Brainiac creature and attacks them, sucking their brains out. The Brainiac has the power to hypnotize it's victims, which allows the Baron the opportunity to molest a couple of the victim's wives and daughters in front of the intended victims prior to killing them, which adds another layer of perverse weirdness to the proceedings. Star Salazar was also a producer on the film, it sort of feels like he just wanted to takeout with pretty women and wrote this part into it.

The design of the Brainiac creature is pretty bizarre and cheaply made, a head and hand monster design, the rubber mask seemingly inflating/deflating as the actor inside breathed, it's pretty hokey at times, as are the hose-fingered claws, but the brain-sucking forked-tongue hanging from it's face is an unnerving sight, especially when it makes a slurping sound whole enjoying brain-smoothies. The film is pretty shoddy in the special effects department, we get quite a few clumsily executed dissolves and rear-projection backdrops, and the shots of the comet careening through the sky looks like an effect made by third graders for a school plays, it's pretty silly and the budget was clearly anemic, but this outrageous bit of schlock is still dang entertaining, and the finale which involves the cops coming tot he rescue with a pair of flamethrowers strapped to their backs is just perfection. The scenes of the Baron in human form sneaking off to a locked chest and popping it open to revel a chalice full of human brains which he eats with a spoon like it's a sundae always makes me giggle! One of the most bizarre scenes features the Brainiac moving away from his mesmeric brain-sucking for one victim, whom he ties by his ankles to the shower nozzle in the bathtub, drowning him in running water. It's a weird shift, and somehow unnerving. This is the most Sam Katzman-esque (The Creature with the Atom Brain) cheapie of the four Mexican terrors on this set, it's pretty silly and lacks the stylish qualities of the other three but I was quite entertained by it in a z-grade sort of way.

Special Features:

- Original Spanish mono soundtrack
- Alternative English mono soundtrack
- Audio commentary and brain nibbling with publisher of From Parts Unknown and screenwriter of Los campeones de la Lucha Libre, Keith J Rainville (2023)
- ¡Qué viva Chano! (2023) (23:01): academic, author and film scholar Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro discusses the upbringing and unique path of avant-garde, multi-talented iconoclast Chano Urueta
- Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer (3:46)
- Image Galleries: Rare Fotovela contemporary to the film release, with new accompanying English translation, and promotional and publicity material (0:36)
- New and improved English translation subtitles for the Spanish soundtrack
-New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN (1963)

aka La Maldicion de la Llorona

Label: Indicator

Region Code: Region-Free

Duration: 80 Minutes 9 Seconds

Audio: Spanish or English-Dub PCM 1.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)

Director: Rafael Baledón

Cast: Rosa Arenas, Abel Salazar, Rita Macedo, Carlos Lopez Montezuma

The atmospheric and oftentimes surreal Gothic flick Curse of the Crying Woman (1963) opens on a fog-shrouded night as a carriage is transporting a trio of people through a particularly creepy stretch of woods, said to be haunted. The carriage comes to an unexpected stop when it nears eyeless woman with three mammoth Great Dane and a creepy man on the side of the road. The driver is killed when the man throws a a dagger into his chest, the passengers inside are dispatched by strangling, attack by the giant dogs, and the young woman is crushed by the wheels of the carriage. It's a potent set-up that brought to mind the Maria Bava's Black Sunday as well as Dracula with it's intense and heavy black and white atmosphere. We then meet young Amelia (Rosa Arenas, The Witches Mirror) and her new husband Jaime (Abel Salazar, The Brainiac) who have come to visit her Aunt Selma (Rita Macedo, Spiritism) after being summoned. It turns out that Selma is the creepy lady from the prologue (but she has eyes now), and themurderous man is her servant Juan (Carlos Lopez Montezuma), and they're obviously up to no good. Right from the start Amelia senses something is off at the creepy cobwebbed old house and wants to leave, but before she can get away Selma reveals to her that they are descendants of a great and powerful witch, whose rat-gnawed remains are kept in a dungeon at the mansion, and that in just a few short hours they will both inherit awesome dark powers and immortality.

it's a spooky and atmospheric flick that channels several classic Gothic classics and filters into it the Mexican folkloric tale of The Llorona to great effect. The special effects don't always hold up, but we get some great pulpy old school movie magic by way of mirror tricks, some dissolves, and the make-up effects that create the eerie look of the eyeless Llorona. Aunt Selma's eyeless Llorona incarnation is also a bit on vampiric side, she has no refection in mirrors and in one scene she transforms from a flying bat into the eyeless terror, and also quite skilled in the practice of voodoo, at one point creating a wax effigy of Jaime which she uses to enthrall him.

Down in Selma secret dungeon there's a rotting corpse of their witchy ancestor with a spear driven through it's chest, meanwhile up in the belfry her supposedly dead husband is rotting away in a cell, driven mad by what could only be unimaginable horrors, and as the hour of resurrection draws near the cobwebbed old mansion turns into a pretty exciting place - the corpse in the dungeon begins to reanimate, Selma's tortured husband escapes his cell, and Jaime tries to free his wife of her ancestral curse, while the creaky old castle mansion crumbles all around them. This is a highly entertaining slice of Mexican Gothic, chock full of ancestral curses, witchery, cobwebs galore, plus it's pretty stylishly shot, creating the appropriate mood and atmosphere needed to propel the witchy story.

Special Features:

- Alternative English mono soundtrack
- Audio commentary with academic and Latin American horror specialist, Valeria Villegas Lindvall, also known as Morena de Fuego (2023)
- The Daughters of La Llorona (2023( (25:36): actor, producer and singer Julissa de Llano Macedo and author Cecilia Fuentes Macedo remember the peculiar relationship they had with their mother, Mexican screen icon Rita Macedo
- Daydreams and Nightmares (2023) (17:43): academic, author and film scholar Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro discusses the prolific career of actor-writer-producer-director Rafael Baledón
- Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer (4:12)
- Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
-New and improved English translation subtitles for the Spanish soundtrack
-New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Limited edition exclusive 100-page book with new essays by José Luis Ortega Torres, David Wilt and Abraham Castillo Flores, an archival essay by Andrew Syder and Dolores Tierney, an obituary of Abel Salazar, and film credits
- Limited edition exclusive set of five art cards
- Limited edition box set of 6,000 numbered units for the UK and US

Audio/Video: All four film arrives on region-free Blu-ray from indicator Series in 1080p HD, three of the films are presented in 1.33:1 fullscreen with only Brainiac presented in 1.85:1 widescreen. This is an appreciable upgrade over the Casa Negra DVD edition, which were terrific SD releases for their time, with deeper blacks, superior grayscale, and sharper visuals throughout. The contrast looks terrific and fine detail brings out the texturing of the images, including highlighting some of poorly aged special effects work, but looking remarkable just the same.

Three of the film comes with both uncompressed Spanish or English-Dub PCM 1.0 Mono with optional English subtitles, only Black Pit of Dr. M having on PCM Spanish. Spanish track is they way to go, the performances are vastly superior, there's more depth to them, as where the English dubs are not the best, but if you're Spanish-speaking adverse they are serviceable. Composer Gustavo César Carrión (Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein) does the score on all four films, each fil getting serviceably moody and pulpy scores that sound pretty good here.

Extras on Black Pit of Dr. M include an new Audio Commentary with film programmer, curator and Mexican horror cinema expert, Abraham Castillo Flores (2023); the 20-min Preserving a Legacy (2023) with Daniel Birman Ripstein who discusses the history of Mexico’s celebrated Alameda Films, and reflects on his relationship with his grandfather, the legendary producer and company founder Alfredo Ripstein, who also made a vital contribution to the preservation of Mexican cinema heritage; the 26-min Black Pit of Dr Méndez (2023) with Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro, academic and author of Fernando Méndez, 1908–1966, discusses the life and career of the pioneering filmmaker, 3-min Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer, an an Image gallery: Promotional and Publicity Material.

Extras for The Witches Mirror include an Audio Commentary with film historian and Mexican cinema specialist David Wilt (2023); the 13-min Rosita Arenas at Mexico Maleficarum (2022) the celebrated actor in conversation with film programmer, curator, and resurrector of twentieth-century Mexican horror cinema, Abraham Castillo Flores, filmed at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in October 2022, the 25-min Mondo Macabro: ‘Mexican Horror Movies’ (2001) (24:34): episode of Pete Tombs and Andy Starke’s fondly remembered British television series, providing an overview of Mexican genre cinema from the 1950s to the 1970s; the 3-min Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer, plus

Image Gallery: Promotional and Publicity Material.

Extras for the brain-sucking Brainiac come by way of a new

Audio Commentary and brain nibbling with publisher of From Parts Unknown and screenwriter of Los campeones de la Lucha Libre, Keith J Rainville (2023), the 23-min ¡Qué viva Chano! (2023) (23:01) with academic, author and film scholar Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro discusses the upbringing and unique path of avant-garde, multi-talented iconoclast Chano Urueta, the 4-min Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer, as well as Image Galleries of Promotional and Publicity Material, plus the Rare Fotovela novella.

Last up, certainly not least, the extras for The Curse of the Crying Woman include a new Audio commentary with academic and Latin American horror specialist, Valeria Villegas Lindvall, also known as Morena de Fuego (2023)m, the 26-min The Daughters of La Llorona (2023): actor, producer and singer Julissa de Llano Macedo and author Cecilia Fuentes Macedo remember the peculiar relationship they had with their mother, Mexican screen icon Rita Macedo. This extras was easily my favorite on the set as they discuss their at times strained relationship with their mother and Rita's weirder post-life relationship with her mother, including some macabre keepsakes! The 18-min Daydreams and Nightmares (2023) : academic, author and film scholar Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro discusses the prolific career of actor-writer-producer-director Rafael Baledón; the 4-min Original Spanish-language Theatrical Trailer, and the Image gallery: Promotional and Publicity Material.

We were only sent the "check discs" without the benefit of packaging, artwork, book, etc., so no comment there except to say I have a few Indicator box sets and they are always high-quality premium editions and would expect no less with this set. I own the Casa Negra DVD editions of these and even though this set is pretty stupendous with the A/V and extras I will be hanging onto those as they have exclusive commentaries, galleries, radio spots and booklets not present on this new set.

Screenshots from the Indicator Blu-rays of The Brainiac and The Curse of the Crying Woman:

THE BRANIAC