Spiritism (1962)
1/2 (out of 4)
This Mexican-horror film is among the very worst I've seen. A mother decides to make a deal with the devil after her son gets into some financial hardships and her husband helps, which just comes back to haunted them because they might lose their home. This Mexican variation on The Monkey's Paw is one of the most confusing and boring films I've seen. Even in the American dubbed version you can't help but feel as if you're missing out on some sort of story or events that appear to be missing. The film starts off with a séance where nothing much happens but as the movie goes along you realize that what was happening in that opening sequence is actually more than anything else that follows. What really kills the film is how the story is constantly jumping around. It's as if the screenwriter really thought he had something deep to say about death but it just all comes across very childish and silly. There's one sequence where a woman is at one of the séances not realizing that she's already dead. Then we have the ending, which is beyond silly but I'll avoid spoiling it for anyone. It also doesn't help that the production was certainly very low-budget and this leads to some silly moments. There's one scene where a severed hand comes to life and we get a shot of it on the ground moving. It's easy to see that it's a full arm down there moving so the effect is just silly. There's even another make-up effect where a woman sees her "dead" self in a mirror and the effect is just laughable. The biggest problem with the film is just its lousy, unimaginative direction, which can be seen in the opening sequence where everything is a medium shot with two people in the frame. No matter how you look at it this film is among the worst of its kind with very little going for it.
