After having finished my notes for Luc Besson's Leon (1994-also reviewed) I decided to look at the Mexican Horror titles I've got waiting to be played. Having seen a number of his excellent 50's and 60's movies,I was thrilled to find a Horror by Chano Urueta from the 30's! This led to me signing death in.
View on the film:
As those film makers in the US were having to fight with the Hays Code, across the border co-writer/(with Jose Benavides hijo/ Francisco Elias/ Jose Martinez de la Vega and Salvador Novo) director Chano Urueta & his future regular cinematographer Victor Herrera were showing everyone how things are done when free of a Code in decades ahead of their time in startling set-pieces, stripping the sacrificial victims topless, and hanging onto long shadows surrounding the Klan-dressed baddie smearing another slot of the sign of death with blood.
Spreading out the stylish set-pieces, Urueta makes the limitations of equipment from the era visible, with what should be a buzzing newsroom uncovering the case, getting clipped by stilted, bulky wide and medium-shots. Bringing some light comedic sparks off the press from the slap-stick of Cantinflas, the writers follow Urueta in breaking what would be breaking Hays Code rules with menacing dialogue stating that all that sacrifices must be "virgins" for the sign of death.
View on the film:
As those film makers in the US were having to fight with the Hays Code, across the border co-writer/(with Jose Benavides hijo/ Francisco Elias/ Jose Martinez de la Vega and Salvador Novo) director Chano Urueta & his future regular cinematographer Victor Herrera were showing everyone how things are done when free of a Code in decades ahead of their time in startling set-pieces, stripping the sacrificial victims topless, and hanging onto long shadows surrounding the Klan-dressed baddie smearing another slot of the sign of death with blood.
Spreading out the stylish set-pieces, Urueta makes the limitations of equipment from the era visible, with what should be a buzzing newsroom uncovering the case, getting clipped by stilted, bulky wide and medium-shots. Bringing some light comedic sparks off the press from the slap-stick of Cantinflas, the writers follow Urueta in breaking what would be breaking Hays Code rules with menacing dialogue stating that all that sacrifices must be "virgins" for the sign of death.
