1961's "Spiritism" ("Espiritismo") was Benito Alazraki's low budget Mexican takeoff on W. W. Jacobs' 1902 classic "The Monkey's Paw" (he also directed "The Curse of the Doll People," El Santo's starring debut "Invasion of the Zombies," and the horror comedy "Frankestein the Vampire and Co."). Actually, that only plays into it during the final 15 minutes, as the exceedingly wordy exposition lasts over an hour while we watch the slow disintegration of a family due to financial hardships, the son insisting on mortgaging his mother's home for 20 years to help kick start his crop dusting business. As one might expect, everything comes a cropper when the liquidation fee rises from $2000 to $8000, poor Mamacita enduring a number of seances with like minded spiritualists, allowing for the sad story of a recently deceased friend who still hasn't come to grips with the afterlife. The final sitting finds her so distraught that she virtually conjures up Satan himself to solve all her worries, even granted a mysterious key before she leaves. It's not long before a stranger drops in unannounced with what he describes as 'Pandora's Box,' the one to which the key will fit, effectively tempting the mother to open up its contents at precisely midnight to reveal a severed hand (the equivalent of 'The Monkey's Paw') and the promise of $8000. Like Alazraki's "The Curse of the Doll People" the opening reels unspool with unceasing talk by comfortably seated characters, but while that film gets down to business during the second reel this promising entry never truly comes alive. Television's THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR did their version in 1965 in just under an hour, in which we never see the bloody results of the mother's wish, but what this film reveals is held back for the very end and not a long awaited moment sooner (thankfully in this instance the film does not shy away). Only the most patient of viewers may be rewarded but this one must admit defeat trying not to fall asleep. Making only her second screen appearance was teenage singer/actress Julissa, going on to be an unlikely leading lady for the legendary Boris Karloff in "Snake People," "Fear Chamber" and "House of Evil" (she debuted as a comely victim of her own mother, actress Rita Macedo, in 1961's "The Curse of the Crying Woman").
