Satanás de todos los horrores (1974)

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Director:

Julián Soler

Writers:

Edgar Allan Poe (story)
Alfredo Ruanova (screenplay)

Release Date:

4 April 1974 (Mexico)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Plot Keywords:

Mansion | Buried Alive | Madness | Based On Short Story | Skeleton

Cast

Enrique Lizalde	...	Roberto Ortiz
Enrique Rocha	...	Eric Gerard
Carlos López Moctezuma	...	Manuel
Illya Shanell	...	Isabel Gerard
Jesús Gómez	...	Cochero

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

México D.F., Mexico

Company:

Estudios América

Movie Connections:

Version of The House of Usher (1989)

The House of Usher never fell this low

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

OK, so it did fall even lower in the 1988 Harry Alan Towers stinker starring Oliver Reed (and in the very loose "Revenge in the House of Usher" by Jess Franco), but, still, this one is the pits. Who can resist a movie with a title like "Satan of All Horrors"? Well, you should, as the only horror to speak of is the movie itself.

The haunting beauty of Poe's superb tale is nowhere to be seen in this so-called adaptation that adds Satanism to the mix. The narrator of the story is here turned into Roberto Ortiz, played by the piece of wood Enrique Lizalde, a cum laude graduate from the Steven Seagal School of Facial Expressions, who travels by carriage to the house of Gerard to see his belle Isabel (the Madeleine Usher character) and find out why she left. This opening scene contains the only moments in the whole movie that feel somewhat haunting, in the otherworldly shots of the coach passing through a desert landscape, but too bad these shots are intercut with laughable flashbacks of the lovers set against a blue backlight. Once in the house, we meet "creepy" butler Manuel, who seems straight out of The Munsters, complete with the obligatory broomstick-up-his-rear look, and a tendency to telegraph the plot points to the main character via faux-cryptic dialogue (Manuel: "I can do nothing but follow orders... from him"; Roberto: "Do you mean Eric?"; Manuel: "I've only said I must serve... HIM"), and we also meet our Roderick, here Eric Gerard, who, like Roberto, comes from a honorable acting tradition, in this case the William Shatner Academy of Vocal Delivery. It turns out that Manuel is some kind of Satanist priest who is trying to summon the Prince of Darkness up in order to offer him Isabel for a spouse, so he removes the curse of the Gerard family. As the walls of the house crack (actually wobbly pieces of cardboard, in the best Ed Wood tradition), we discover, among other things, that Roberto, despite clearly being a Christian, ignores the fact that the Catholic Church believes in the existence of the Devil; that Isabel sleepwalks and suffers from catalepsy, thus telegraphing her final rise from the grave (which she does while totally awake!); that in Mexico coffins are made from vinyl cloth; and that Satan looks a lot like a guy in a cheap plastic Halloween mask, which is really puzzling if we consider that this movie shows lifelike Mission: Impossible masks on humans in what seems to be the 19th Century. All of this wrapped in the dreadful acting style of Latin American soap operas, and an atonal music score with theremin-like sounds which is unintentionally funny.

Scenes to look for:

-It suddenly gets dark and Roberto says "It's gotten dark, please light a candle", as if night usually arrives in 0.5 seconds.

-Roberto is taken to his bedroom by Manuel, and we see it's filled with cobwebs. Later, Manuel reappears and asks if Roberto demands anything (how about a little cleaning around, Manuel?).

-We see Manuel nailing Isabel's coffin (with shots of Isabel inside that reveal it's a bit open and light perfectly enters it), and later Roberto axes over the top of it, just to open it like there never were nails to begin with.

If you want to see a good adaptation of the story, my advice is to look for Jean Epstein's silent. Skip this one. 2/10.