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Dec 5 08 8:57 PM
MISTERIOS DE ULTRATUMBA (Mexico, 1958), d. Fernando Méndez
[a.k.a. THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M] Wow... this thing is the real deal! MISTERIOS DE ULTRATUMBA is *NOT* one of those campy, demented K. Gordon Murray Mexican imports-- this is a serious, well-crafted masterpiece of black-and-white gothic movie-making. The art direction, lighting design, cinematography and editing are all top-o'-the-line for the genre, resulting in a well-done atmosphere of morbid moodiness and doom. And there isn't a masked wrestler or an Aztec mummy in sight. I'm sure I watched parts of the dubbed version of this on WPIX's "Chiller Theater" when I was a kid-- the scene of the dead guy clawing his way out of his grave tapped into some long-repressed scary memory of this movie --but this time I around I watched Casa Negra's 2006 DVD release. Apparently, the dubbed version is lost, so this is subtitled, but please don't let this stop you from watching this. Read the other comments upthread and you'll see that this one is totally worth the effort. (Interestingly, Frank Coleman's commentary raises questions about whether or not the English-dubbed version was the work of Murray, but one of the extras on the disc is the English-language shooting script which is plainly marked as the property of the UPRO-- wasn't that organization one of Murray's regulars?)
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