(This article originally appeared in Dave's essential MEXICAN FILM BULLETIN)
The so-called "classic" Hollywood monsters--Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, the Wolfman--are all linked to Europe, either overtly (a literary source) or indirectly (origin, setting, characters). This is not too surprising, given the cultural background of the USA. Internationally, at least in the Western world, the same pattern predominates. You really have to go to China, Indonesia, and Japan to find a significant number of fantasy films which break the Dracula-Frankenstein-Wolfman mold.
Many Mexican fantasy films follow this "Eurocentric" Hollywood model, with local re-tooling, of course. Ladrón de cadáveres (1956) and El Vampiro (1957), two of the most famous Mexican horror movies, are clearly based on the Hollywood model--borrowing motifs from various Hollywood films-- although they are set in Mexico. However, a significant sub-set of Mexican movies utilizes legends, folklore, history and specifically "local" images, concepts, themes, and motifs. Numerically, the number of such films is not large, but they probably constitute a greater percentage of Mexican fantasy films than Hollywood fantasy films based on American legends or folktales.
These "local" horror movies are interesting on several levels. Why do they exist? After all, making variations on Hollywood fantasy films didn't require a lot of intellectual effort and Mexican filmgoers were clearly familiar with the traditional Hollywood monsters, helping presell the movies. But a local "hook" is also useful as an exploitation tool to sell the pictures to Mexican audiences, and legends and folklore are "free" story ideas, a concept which is hard for any movie producer to resist.
However, many of these films contain a rather mixed message about indigenous people in Mexico. The Aztecs, Mayans, etc., are --simultaneously--portrayed as advanced civilizations to be proud of and blood-thirsty pagans to be ashamed of. Witchcraft and black magic in contemporary settings is often linked with indios, suggesting indigenous people are still at heart superstitious and perhaps sinister, dangerous or untrustworthy.
Mexicans are certainly proud of the high level of civilization achieved by the Aztecs and Mayans, and Mexican literature and popular culture--including movies--tends to depict the Spanish conquistadores in a less than favorable light. But at the same time, the Conquest is given credit for bringing Christianity to Mexico, thereby converting the "heathen." The bloody sacrifices of the pre-Conquest indigenous civilizations always make good cinema.
Xiu practices heart-removal surgery Furthermore, pride in the "noble Aztecs" does not necessarily translate into equivalent respect for indios in contemporary Mexico. Although, to be fair, the issue is not wholly racial--since the majority of Mexicans have some indigenous blood--but instead is a complex mix of racial, social, and economic factors.
Mexican fantasy films with "indigenous" themes reflect this complex attitude--almost without exception, the "monsters" are indios and the heroes (and victims) are whites.
Don't Cry for Me, Llorona
La Llorona (the Crying Woman) is one of the best-known characters from Mexican folklore. The story of this ghost varies: in most tales, she is a woman who lost her child or children, and now wanders through the night, wailing and searching for them. Some versions claim the woman killed her children, while in others her children were taken away from her.
One of the earliest Mexican fantasy films, La Llorona (1933), actually depicts both types of stories. In one flashback, La Llorona is the spirit of "La Malinche," the indigenous woman who served as interpreter for Hernan Cortés and had a child by him, a child who is subsequently taken away from her by the conquistador. Another flashback identifies La Llorona as the ghost of Ana Xicoténcatl, a mestiza during the colonial era, whose lover, nobleman Rodrigo, refuses to marry her or recognize their child as his legitimate offspring. La Malinche goes mad and commits suicide, while Ana Xicoténcatl kills her own child, then commits suicide. The main plot of the film (with a contemporary setting) deals with the curse which threatens a four-year-old boy--the would-be assassin turns out to be a house servant apparently possessed by La Llorona. The racial connection is less overt in this section, although Mexican servants are traditionally (or stereotypically) portrayed as indias.
The film makes a point of showing the Llorona murders-suicide being committed with an obsidian-blade knife, and there are numerous lingering shots of an "Aztec" ring on the hand of the mysterious killer (in the contemporary scenes) to emphasize the indigenous link with the crimes and curse.
Over the next several decades, La Llorona would make sporadic cameo appearances in Mexican cinema as a sort of all-purpose boogie-man (or boogie-woman, to be more exact), but it was not until 1959's La Llorona that another film would focus on this character. This time, the colonial-era "origin" of La Llorona and her translation to the present day is more linear: in 1560, the mestiza Luisa del Carmen (María Elena Marqués) is spurned by her Spanish lover Nuño, who decides to marry someone of his own race and social class. Luisa stabs her two children to death and is hung for her crimes. However, she periodically reappears to murder the first-born children of Nuño's descendants. In 1959, a married couple hires Carmen Asiul ("Luisa" spelled backwards) to care for their toddler. Once again there is the linkage indigenous person = servant, and once again the servant has murderous designs on the white child of her employer's family (but apparently has an attack of conscience and fails to kill the toddler). La Llorona's colonial-era section includes an interesting scene in which the distraught Carmen runs into the street and blunders into the midst of a group of "Aztec" street performers. As they circle around her, dancing and playing their instruments, Carmen becomes increasingly disoriented (and promptly goes home, seizes an Aztec dagger, and slays her offspring).
The next major appearance of La Llorona in Mexican cinema was 1974's La venganza de la Llorona, but this version identifies La Llorona as the white doña Eugenia Esparza, who in 1658 made a deal with the Devil to punish her unfaithful lover, then poisoned her three children and committed suicide. The racial aspects of the two earlier films are not present here, and in fact the monster is hardly identifiable as La Llorona at all, acting more like a mummy or zombie as she murders her lover's descendants. Las Lloronas (2004) also largely dispenses with an indigenous connection, with one source referring to the multiple female protagonists as members of a family of "gypsies or something of the sort."
Curiously, La Llorona also made a cameo appearance in Leyendas macabras de la colonia. This is a real grab-bag of a movie, featuring time travel, masked wrestlers, the Inquisition, cameo appearances by La Llorona and by El Monje Loco (The Mad Monk, a radio and comic book horror host), but the chief villain is the mestiza witch Luisa, who sacrifices Spanish noblemen in order to avenge the death of her mother at the hands of the Inquisition, "in the name of a god we don't recognize," Luisa says.Her mother--a decrepit, skull-faced mummy--comes back to "life" to commit the murders, and Luisa is also aided by some rather pudgy "Aztec" warriors.
Mummies Galore
While not based on specific legends or folktales, a number of other Mexican films contain indigenous themes and motifs. Certainly the most well-known are the "Aztec Mummy" movies. The initial 1957 trilogy and 1964's Las luchadoras contra la momia (Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy) are actually exceptions to the general tone of Mexican fantasy films with indigenous themes, since the mummies are more sinned-against than sinning.
The Aztec mummies Popoca (in the first three films) and Temozoc (in the 1964 picture) are "monsters" but not necessarily "villains"--the mummies are primarily interested in protecting ancient treasures from (the Euro-named) "Dr.Krupp" and a gang of villainous Asian stereotypes (in the "Luchadoras" entry), respectively. One could, without too much imagination, read these pictures as allegories about the need to protect Mexico's historic heritage and national resources from foreign exploitation, thus casting the mummy in a rather favorable light.
Nonetheless, these movies do feature the usual depictions of the Aztecs as a highly evolved society which nonetheless practices barbaric acts such as human sacrifice. In the first picture, La momia azteca, the titular creature is held at bay at one point by a crucifix, an example of Christian vs. pagan imagery (this occurs once again in Cazador de demonios, discussed below).
La cabeza viviente, while it has some similarities to the Aztec Mummy movies, is more "traditional," that is to say, more like Hollywood Mummy films. This film begins with a pre-Conquest sequence of human sacrifice, of course. There are actually two "monsters" in the film, the "living" head of Aztec warrior Acatl and his sidekick, ambulatory mummy Xiu. They systematically wipe out the archeologists who opened their tomb. Since the archeologists are Mexicans (not foreigners) and are not really plundering the tombs (just doing scientific research), the murders are much less "justified" than those in the Aztec Mummy movies and the "mummies" (as they are referred to in the film, although they don't resemble Mexican or Egyptian mummies) are the primary villains this time.
Santo en la venganza de la momia (1970) contains an interesting mix of ideas. There is the requisite flashback to pre-Conquest times, showing the "origin" of the mummy (called Nonoc here). Once again, the mummy seems to be protecting an ancient treasure from whites who would exploit it (although he also kills an indigenous person working with the interlopers). However, in a twist ending, the "mummy" is revealed to be a white member of the expedition who was hoping to eliminate his partners and keep the treasure for himself.
[It is worthwhile to note that the other major mummy series--featuring the Momias de Guanajuato--does not follow this same theme, since these particular mummies are supposedly the reanimated remains of whites or mestizos, generally from the 18th or 19th centuries, and aren't guarding any sort of archeological treasure.]
The three-film "El Látigo" series of the 1970s only featured mummies in the final entry (El Látigo contra las momias asesinas), but the first two movies also played the "indigenous" card. In El Látigo, the Dios Tigre (Tiger God) is behind a series of murders designed to obtain the key to the location of a secret treasure. Despite the apparent indigenous nature of the Dios Tigre, he is ultimately revealed to be another greedy white man posing as an indio. One odd aspect of this picture--shot in Guatemala--are the shots of pre-Conquest pyramids (suggesting Mayans) coexisting with indigenous people who dress and act like Plains Indians of the Southwestern USA! El Látigo contra Satanás is more of the same, as various indigenous-looking "devil riders" and a Satanic sect turn out to be controlled by a white mastermind.
El Látigo contra las momias asesinas is more interesting. The killer mummies of the title are demonic creatures--who resemble the bandaged Egyptian mummies of Hollywood cinema rather than the decayed Aztec mummies familiar to Mexican movie-goers--summoned by a Mayan witch doctor. The suggestion that an indigenous brujo has a direct link with the Devil (presumably the Devil of Christianity) is yet another example of "demonizing" the natives. The brujo actually conjures up one main mummy, who uses a horde of hooded men to kill "those who mix their blood with others that are not of our race," i.e., the Mayan wife of a Spanish plantation owner and their two daughters. The plot then jumps a century or so, and the head mummy now has some mummy assistants who wreak havoc on the descendants of the original family until El Látigo steps in.
Revenge of the Dispossessed
El signo de la muerte has as its central thesis a plot to banish whites and return Mexico to its pre-Conquest glory. Remembered today (erroneously) as a Cantinflas vehicle, the movie actually resembles Hollywood thrillers of the 1930s such as Mystery of the Wax Museum and Dr. X, right down to the crusading and feuding male and female reporters.
The plot concerns a museum curator (Carlos Orellana) who believes the ritual sacrifice of 4 women will restore the Aztec race to supremacy. The film contains a number of ritual execution scenes, including one that features a bare-breasted victim and flowing blood, both out of the ordinary for a 1939 film!
As discussed earlier, an anti-white bias is also at least part of the reason for the actions of the villains in Leyendas macabras de la colonia and El Látigo vs. las momias asesinas. This is actually rather unusual, since Mexican cinema is generally sympathetic to indigenous people, particularly when the plots aren't taking place in the current time, or when mistreatment of indios can be blamed on foreigners. La máscara de jade [The Jade Mask, 1962] tries to have it both ways: archeologists working on a project are threatened by Margal, a fanatic adherent of an Aztec god, and various scientists are killed by a man in a jade mask. However, Margal and the killer (an archeologist and not an indigenous person) are revealed to be in league with a French scientist who wants to steal a hidden Aztec treasure. So, it isn't the oppressed indigenous people who are the villains after all, but rather some unscrupulous whites seeking to despoil Mexico of its historical riches.
Indigenous Creatures
In Cazador de demonios (Demon Hunter--1983), a contemporary werewolf movie, the werewolf--actually, more like a were-bear-- is Tobías, an indigenous brujo who can convert himself into a nahual, an animal spirit. After being murdered, he returns from the dead as a bestial creature. Cazador de demonios sets up a conflict between indigenous brujo witchcraft and the Christian (specifically Catholic) faith.
Tobías is first seen when he appears at the bedside of a woman in labor. The midwives try to drive him off by giving the "evil eye" sign and muttering prayers, but Tobiás shoves them aside and sacrifices a chicken over the agonizing woman. Her husband shows up with a real (white) doctor and ejects Tobías, and later murders the brujo when the child is born dead. Tobías appears threatening and grotesque (although frankly, it seems he may actually be trying to help the woman in childbirth), and when in animal form he tends to kill just about anybody who crosses his path, not just the man who murdered him. At the climax, the doctor uses a silver dagger-crucifix to vanquish the werewolf. In a nicely understated bit, a cross is superimposed over the dagger for a few frames.
A direct-to-video production, Alarido del terror (Howl of Terror, 1991), deals with a folkloric creature called a chaneque; in a plot somewhat inspired by Poltergeist, a little girl is pulled into another dimension by the creature and has to be rescued. El monstruo de los volcanes (1962) made up its own folkloric monster, the "Lord of the Volcanoes," a large, white, furry creature who lives inside one of the two famous volcanoes outside Mexico City. The indigenous connection comes from "Dr. Moctezuma" (Andrés Soler), a "descendant" of the Aztec emperor. The doctor possesses a gold amulet which shows the location of a hidden treasure; the fuzzy monster isn't interested in the gold (some crooks are, however) but rather wants Dr. Moctezuma's daughter (Ana Bertha Lepe) to join him in his cave kingdom forever.
It is somewhat to surprising to note that there are relatively few "bad" brujos and brujas in Mexican cinema. In many cases, these characters--not all of whom are clearly indigenous people, either--are not depicted as having true supernatural powers--instead, they use herbs, charms, and other such things to achieve their ends or at least convince their "clients" of success. Even when a bruja or brujo is shown to be capable of performing magic, this is often humorous, benign, or even beneficial (La marca del Zorrillo, La sombra del Murciélago, Hermelinda linda, Pancho el sancho), although there certainly are some bad ones (El regreso del monstruo, for example).
Conclusions
What do these films signify? Certainly not all Mexican fantasy films contain such clear-cut racial overtones--to be fair, there are even genre pictures containing positive figures of indigenous people, and Mexican movies which more closely imitate Hollywood productions often contain few or no references of the type discussed here. Therefore, it would not be fair to suggest there is universal demonization of indigenous people in Mexican popular culture or even just in horror movies. As I mentioned earlier, the films with indigenous "monsters" often contain mixed messages. What can be said is that these movies do reflect the ambivalent feelings about the clash between Mexico's indigenous heritage and the Conquest, and the still uncertain status of indigenous people in Mexican society today.
copyright © 2001 by David Wilt, all rights reserved
