El vampiro

A young woman (Ariadna Welter) arrives at the isolated town of Negro Sierra at the same time as a wooden crate full of Hungarian soil and a happy-go-lucky salesman (co-producer Abel Salazar) after being summoned by her uncle to the sickbed of one of her aunts. Hitching a ride with the strange man who arrives to collect the crate, the pair arrive at her family's grand hacienda to find it in a state of disrepair and her aunt already apparently dead and buried. The woman's other aunt, however, seems unchanged since the girl's visit as a child and is strangely lacking a reflection…

El Vampiro was my first taste of Mexican horror, and for some reason I was expecting some low-budget, low-talent effort. While this flick from Fernando Mendez clearly doesn't have the kind of budget enjoyed by the contemporaneous Hammer films, it certainly is the work of a decent talent. Read most of the reviews on this page and you'll find one word that keeps popping up again and again: atmosphere. This film has got it to spare with good use of light and shadow - and lashings of misty smoke - giving it a real touch of class. The film doesn't exactly gallop along, but its never dull, and overcomes the drawback of a hero who initially seems irritating but actually ends up being quite likable.

The storyline follows pretty much the same template as the Hammer flicks: virginal heroine, in danger of seduction and/or death by suave but evil vampire, is saved by dashing, heroic type (even though the hero here has a touch of the comical about him). If you're not a fan of old horror films you're not likely to be impressed by this example of the genre: by today's standards it's very tame (even though it was rated 18 on the DVD), and unlikely to scare even a ten-year old.