original production:

ESPIRITISMO

Cast: Nora Veryán (María/Mary Howard), José Luis Jimenez (as "Joseph L. Jimenez") (Luis Fernández/Louis Howard), Alicia Caro (as "Alice Caro") (Carmen/Amy), Jorge Mondragon (as "George Mondragon") (Guillermo/Harry), René Cardona Jr. (Rodolfo/Rudolph), Maria Eugenia San Martin, Miguel Manzano, Rita Macedo, Antonio Bravo (as "Anthony Bravo") (Carlos Paz y Fuentes/Dr. Charles Pierpoint), Beatriz Aguirre (Sister Estercita/Stella Jean), Carmelita González (Alicia/Mrs. Alice Lewis), Augusto Benedico (as "August Benedico") (priest, apparently does not appear in either version, cut at last minute), Guillermo Zetina (as "William Zetina") (Oromuz-Animán), Jorge Russek (as "George Russek") (Eduardo Aguirre/Larry Gray), María Eugenia San Martín (as "Mary Eugenia Saint Martin") (Aurora), Diana Ochoa (Elvira), Julissa Macedo (Rosario/Rosalie), Manuel Dondé and Victorio Blanco (spiritualists)

PLOT OUTLINE:
(From AFI): Granted three wishes, a mother asks that her dead son return to life. A severed hand moves as if attached to a body, ghosts appear, and a midnight seance is held.

GUEST SYNOPSIS:
by David Wilt
The elderly Luis Fernández enters a church to pray. A flashback begins: one evening, friends Luis, his wife María, Guillermo and his wife Carmen, and Elvira amuse themselves by using a ouija board. Elvira believes in spiritualism, and thinks she can communicate with her late husband. Most of the others are skeptical.

Rodolfo, the grown son of Luis and María, is engaged to marry Aurora. He is an airline pilot, but wants to start his own crop-dusting operation in the north, but needs money. Luis, after scrimping and saving, has finally managed to pay off the mortgage on their home, and has presented the deed to María. When Rodolfo asks for a loan to start his business, María--in a very unusual step for a Mexican film mother--is reluctant to re-mortgage the house. She suspects Aurora is behind Rodolfo's plans. However, Luis convinces her to give the money to their son. Things do not go well, however, and Rodolfo is unable to repay them promptly.

One day María sees her friend Carmen, and is surprised, because Carmen is supposed to be out of town. She's later shocked to learn that Carmen was out of town, and in fact died suddenly at the exact moment that María spoke to her! This inspires María to go to a spiritualists' meeting, accompanied by Luis. The leader of the group, Carlos, explains that spiritualism is definitely not devil-worship: the spiritualists revere all religions, especially Christianity (portraits of Jesus and other religious figures adorn the room). During the seance, medium Estercita allows Alicia to speak to her dead husband, and María hears from Carmen.

However, worrying about the possible loss of her home drives María to drastic measures. At another seance, she asks the devil for help. In a scene with some rather nice effects, Satan begins to manifest himself, but is banished when a glowing cross appears. Some time later, a mysterious man--who says he is called "Orimuz" or "Animán"--shows up and gives María small box which contains the answer to her request. María opens it and sees a human hand, which moves as if alive! Luis takes the hand and tosses it into the fireplace (but it crawls back out, unseen, and gets back into its box). Desperate, María asks the hand to solve her money problems.

Eduardo, a pilot who worked with Rodolfo, shows up. He says Rodolfo was in a hurry to return to the city and repay their money, but his plane crashed and he was killed. However, the insurance will save their home. María, tormented by guilt, asks the hand to bring her son back. In a nicely realized sequence, there is a quick cut to a graveyard, then the door to the room slowly opens...and a hideously burned and disfigured Rodolfo enters! María screams and faints, but Luis uses the hand's last wish to make his undead son vanish (the hand and the box disappear too). María is dead, her face aged incredibly in a few seconds. Luis has also suddenly grown much older. He goes to the church to receive spiritual comfort.

GUEST REVIEW:
by David Wilt
This is a very slow film, although not necessarily a boring one. However, the picture takes about two-thirds of its running time to set up the last part, which is basically a version of "The Monkey's Paw." That's a lot of padding, which is only occasionally interrupted by a seance and the appearance of a ghost, but not much else. On the positive side of the ledger, the last few minutes are fairly decent, and René Cardona Jr.'s makeup is appropriately grisly. Since I have only seen this in the dubbed version, I may be judging the film a bit harshly, but I don't think so: the plot and pacing are the same in Spanish or English, and while the Spanish-language version has to be a little more enjoyable--if only because one can hear the actors' real voices and not have to listen to the goofy voices assigned to them at Soundlab in Coral Gables, Florida--it probably isn't that much better.

Espiritismo is really two plots stitched together: spiritualist matters take up the first part of the movie, and the Satanic "Monkey's Paw"-inspired story supplies the horrific conclusion. It is interesting to note that the spiritualists are portrayed in a favorable manner, and not as charlatans or devil worshippers. Emilio García Riera suggests that someone, perhaps the film's producer Guillermo Calderón Stell, was actually a devotee of spiritualism and made the film as a sort of tribute. The film has no box-office names in the cast (or at least none who had been box-office for a decade or more): José Luis Jiménez played some character leads in a few 1940s films, but was generally typecast as a sympathetic supporting actor, while Nora Veryán was rarely even seen in major supporting roles. The three "new generation" performers--René Cardona Jr., María Eugenia San Martín, and Julissa "Macedo" (her mother was Rita Macedo but strictly speaking her name was Julissa de Llano, although she would shortly drop this as well)--are seen only briefly (in the dubbed version, Julissa is given an extremely annoying voice which, added to her unflattering hairstyle and makeup, give no evidence that she would soon become a popular performer).

While there are some atmospheric sequences--the seances, the arrival of Orimuz, and the resurrection of Rodolfo--the film is rather drab overall.

SYNOPSIS:
A man, Lewis, walks through a church, dejected. He relates a flashback of the terrible things that happened to him one year ago:

The noted psychic Elvira holds a seance for some people: Lewis, his wife Mary, their son Rudolph and his fiance, Aurora. The group expresses differing opinions as to whether occult practices are genuine, or indeed sacriligous.

Elvira agrees to be blindfolded in order to prove that she is not a fake. The Ouija board moves off her lap by itself. Elvira believes this is the spirit of her dead husband, sent to guide her.

Aurora reads her list of predictions, which in part says, "Because of you, Rudolph and I will never be married." She also reveals that certain folks present will be visited by Satan!

Later, Lewis and Mary celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary. Lewis gives Mary the deed to their house.

Their son Rudolph asks his parents for $4000, in order to start his own cropdusting business. He asks them to mortgage the house. The parents refuse, pleading that the house is too important to the family to be sacrificed. The mother relents, and they mortgage the house.

Months later, it is revealed that Lewis and Mary are about to lose the house, as Rudolphs' business has failed.

Mary visits her sister Amy, and confesses that she would sell her soul in order to find out how things are going to turn out. Amy tells Mary to stop feeling sorry for herself, and to have faith.

Rudolph promises his father that he'll get the money, and they won't lose the house. He also promises Aurora that they'll be married soon.

Mary goes to church, and finds Amy already there, apparantly in a trance. Amy tells Mary to have faith or all is lost, and then dissappears into thin air.

Mary returns home and tells Lewis of the incident. Lewis reluctantly informs Mary that he just received word that Amy died the day before, of a heart attack!

Weeks later, Mary informs Lewis that she has stopped going to church, and has been consulting a spiritualist. Lewis argues that Spiritsm is an evil mockery of her sacred Catholic faith, and that bringing back the dead was a sacrilege.

Mary attends a seance at an occult center, which includes a Mr. Charles Pierpont, the head of the center, his wife, and daughter Rosalie. Their medium is Stella Jean.

Pierpont leads the group into a room where they change into robes and annoint themselves with sacred oils. Pierpont explains the importance of the organized religions to their purpose.

Pierpont and the group discuss the intricacies of reincarnation, explaining that a soul's sins and burdens go with them from life to life, although they are free to work on them in their next manifestation.

Pierpont puts Stella Jean into a trance. She contacts the spirit of Henry, who is Alice's dead husband. His ghost materializes before them.

Stella Jean next contacts Amy, who is still traumatized about her sudden death. Another spirit materializes to help Amy through her post-death throes. Amy's spirit runs to the guardian angel, and they go off together to the spirit world.

Lewis is now convinced that spiritism works. At home, he and Mary attempt to contact spirits themselves through a Ouija board, but Mary reveals that she has given up on the good spirits, and is now seeking the lower entities for guidance!

The good spirits relate to Mary how foolish she is, but Mary continues to seek out the dark forces.

At the next group seance, Mary promises her soul to the devil if he will save her son's business from failure. Satan appears to accept the bargain, and freaks out the group. A key appears in Mary's hand. Pierpont calls for the benevolent spirits to send Satan away. Jesus Christ appears carrying a glowing cross, and Satan flees.

Pierpont admonishes Mary for her "indiscretion", and orders her to leave and never return to the group.

Later, at home, Mary answers the door while Lewis sleeps. A strange, dark man appears, carrying a package. He introduces himself as "Odis, or Odomin". He explains that the box is Pandora's Box, full of all the good and evil in the universe. If Mary uses the key she got at the seance, he can open the box and have all the power of the universe at her fingertips.

The dark man leaves. Lewis awakens, and Mary tells her story. Lewis doesn't believe her. Lewis takes the box for safe-keeping.

Rudolph receives a phone call from his partner Larry that his cropdusting business is in trouble. He takes a plane to see what's up.

Mary lies awake that night, thinking of what she should do. She decides to open Pandora's Box! Inside is a dismembered hand. Mary prays to the hand, and asks it for $8000. The hand comes to life and waves at her. The phone rings. Lewis enters, and watches in horror as the hand convulses, then dies. The phone continues to ring. Lewis throws the hand in the fireplace, but it crawls out of the flames. It crawls along the floor, hops up a table, and climbs back into its box! Lewis and Mary are in shock, and never answer the ringing phone.

The next day, two men come to see Mary and Lewis. They explain that Rudolph tried to call them last night, but no-one answered. Rudolph became so worried over his parents' safety, he hopped in his plane to see them, but died in a crash on the way! The men inform Lewis and Mary that they are entitled to an $8000 life insurance policy which Rudoph had taken out for them, in case of his death. The parents grieve unconsolably.

After Lewis claims his son's body, he and Mary become irreconcilly distanced from each other. Mary just sits by herself in a trance now, surrounded by candles, mourning her loss and pondering her great sin.

Out of despair, Mary removes the hand from Pandora's Box, and pleads for it to return her son to her. Soon, Mary and Lewis hear footsteps down the hall. A door opens; it is the bloody corpse of their son, Rudolph! Mary faints. Rudolph dissappears. Lewis goes to pick Mary up, but finds that she has turned into a decayed corpse! Lewis looks up at the cross of Christ, and starts to cry.

THE END

REVIEW:
Oh my, this is a good one. Murray's producer credit for this strange and beautiful film appears over an icon of Christ on the altar, so we feel we're in for something highly unusual, and indeed we are.

SPIRITISM is not a horror film as much as an occult fantasy, an overwrought, phantasmic melodrama depicting a gutwrenching, ultimately tragic battle between good and evil, played out by a philosophically-torn middle-class family. The entire film is steeped in Catholic theology in crisis, with overzealous arguments for faith in God battling with seductive reasonings to call on evil spirits for help.

The occult group is portrayed as thoughtful, intelligent scientists, trying like hell to convince a superstitious (i.e. Christian) world that contacting dead people is a perfectly wonderful thing! The only mishap occurs when one woman decides that help is help, and that the evil spirits will do just as well as the good ones.

The endless discussions between family members as to the vailidty of using occult practices to advance one's personal lot, in one way seems like harmless fun, but to the deeply religious Mexican culture of the time, may have seemed like high sacrilege.

The seance scenes are unbelievably odd, what with the medium's wacky schizo trances, the materialization of creepy ghost-like spirits, and the inapproapriate lullaby music on the soundtrack. There are fascinating and effective scenes of good and evil spirits doing battle in the semi-dark, as our robed mortals watch in terror. The materialization of Satan segment, in particular, has dynamic cutting which makes it pretty friggin' weird.

Most shocking however, is the appearance of the biblical Satan and Christ in a literal battle for souls. This naive but highly imaginative scene surely gives this film some kind of historical cinematic significance, and makes an indelible impact on the viewer.

And this most amazing film ends with a most amazing proclamation: "The incidents that we have just seen, could have been true, or false; lunacy, or witchcraft. There are many who are helplessly driven by a desire to explore forbidden phenomenon. If, with this picture, we are able to quealch that unhealthy curiosity in some, we will consider our job, well done!!!"

Indeed!

COMMENTS:
* (updated 02-14-06) Thanks to a terrific new book we just received, "Ghouls, Gimmicks and Gold" by Kevin Heffernan, (2004, Duke University Press), we have been able to update the U.S. television release date for this Murray horror title to 1965. The appendices to this study of the horror film in America, circa 1955-1968, include complete listings of syndication feature film packages from many distributors, including American International Television, who subleased the K. Gordon Murray film catalog under the title THRILLERS FROM ANOTHER WORLD. It seems that 1965 was the watershed year for genre film sold to television, with a veritable flood of titles released by both domestic and foreign distribs.

* (effective 05-01-03) After a very brief window of availability, this long-sought K. Gordon Murray title is once again out of print, due to international copyright issues. Used video tapes of this title may be found on online video dealers and auction sites. Stay tuned for further developments!

* This film is based on a short story called "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs, first published in Harper's Magazine, September 1902.

NOTABLE DIALOGUE: