In short: Vacations of Terror (1989)

Original title: Vacaciones de terror

Architect Fernando (Julio Alemán) has inherited a house somewhere in the loneliest parts of the Mexican countryside from an aunt he never really knew. Because he’s a bit of a go-getter, he decides to pack up his family – wife Lorena (Nuria Bages), nearly grown-up daughter Paulina (Gabriela Hassel), the twins Jaimito and Pedrito (Carlos East Jr. and Ernesto East) and little Gaby (Gianella Hassel Kus) – for the weekend and just go there. Paulina’s boyfriend, the deeply stupid but supposedly very hot Julio (Pedro Fernández), is going to come too, just half a day later. Fernando has not checked the state of the house and its surroundings beforehand, so it’s a bit of an adventure trip. No electricity, and various death traps for kids (who are told not to play too close to the house to boot) are included.

When Gaby falls into a well, survives unhurt and brings out a doll she finds there, the dangers of horrible parenting are increased by a supernatural threat: for the well was the place where the Inquisition (like in many a Mexican horror film interpreted as the Forces of Good) murdered a witch. Said witch has of course sworn vengeance on…random families that happen to drop in.

Gaby’s new doll – super power: rolling its eyes – soon takes possession of the little children, causes mild telekinetic ruckus and some hallucinations. Fortunately, Julio just happens to have acquired a witch-repellent amulet.

The most likeable thing about René Cardona III’s Vacaciones de Terror is how much of a family project it is, with a production staff full of people who are the second or third generation working in Mexican genre cinema – the film’s dedication to René Cardona I is perfectly in keeping with this.

Of course, being a family affair doesn’t make a movie good, exactly. Vacaciones isn’t much of a highlight of 80s Mexican horror. The film suffers from a lack of tension, and often feels so harmless I started thinking this was really meant to be a kids movie that got a little too frightening for that market; some of the humour would suggest that as well. Part of the problem is that Cardona III isn’t a terribly subtle director, so he really has to fall back on a handful of special effects and some very few scenes where he is allowed to go loud, and otherwise tries to keep things together and on budget with the technical basics he can afford.

It’s not a terrible movie, but then, I’d probably have enjoyed it more if it had been objectively worse.

In short: Don’t Panic (1987)

Late teen Michael (Jon Michael Bischof) has just moved to Mexico City with his mother. Still, his birthday party is quite a large one, though mostly filled with kids he neither really knows nor likes, or virtual strangers like his instant crush Alex (Gabriela Hassel).

One of the local idiots, Tony (Juan Ignacio Aranda), brings an ouija board (as always, for reasons I’ll never understand, pronounced by everyone as “WeeGee”) to the festivities. Using it apparently awakens some kind of evil force, and so Michael soon has a whole load problems of the sort teenagers outside of horror movies usually miss out on: his eyes turn a merry red at times, and he has visions in which some of his class mates and acquaintances are stabbed to death with a dagger. It may or may not be some sort of mental connection to the supernatural killer – the film sure isn’t going to tell. Later on, there’s also a head made out of TV static making regular appearances, warning Michael who the next victim is going to be, and asking him to get them out of town. When he tries, he can add psychiatric attention to his problems.

Despite all the murder and mayhem around him, our hero still finds time and mind space to successfully romance Alex, of course.

Just having watched Rubén Galindo Jr.’s somewhat insane and most certainly insanely entertaining Grave Robbers some weeks ago, I was going into this earlier piece of Mexican 80s horror by the same director with particularly high hopes. Unfortunately, they weren’t really fulfilled, for where the Galindo’s next movie reaches some remarkable heights of individual, late 80s-tinged craziness, Don’t Panic is a rather less exciting mix of 80s horror cheese and variations (he said politely) on scenes from other, more popular horror movies of the decade. There’s rather a lot of the first two Nightmare on Elm Street movies in the film, but really, if you made a successful 80s teen horror movie, you’ll probably find elements cribbed from it, or at least played with in an obvious manner, in here, too.

Though, to be fair, there’s a certain amount of visual flair to the supernatural set pieces here that does stand Galindo Jr. in good stead, even if none of the ideas in the movie are actually his. Alas, the film does take its time getting there, frontloading the terrible teen romance and dire scenes of improbable teen interactions before the going gets good, so a viewer will have to keep awake by critiquing 80s fashion and counting very slowly to one thousand through the film’s first third or so.

But hey, we will always have Grave Robbers.