Saturday, December 11, 2021

Los Demonios De La Manzanilla De La Paz.

 A sleazy gang have arrived in a small regional town and naturally they cause chaos amongst the citizens with robbery, rape, stabbings, shootings and raw castrations. This sleazy gang are called “Los Demonios” and they live up to that name because they are true demons walking amongst the Earth. Or demons walking amongst La Manzanilla De La Paz, Jalisco to be exact. 2 cops played by Pedro Infante Jr & Alvaro Almada go after this gang, but both men end up injured (Alvaro appears to actually be injured) and thus they recruit a drunken & lovesick “Capitan Santos” to go after Los Demonios instead. One of the Demonios ends up captured & held up in jail, but of course the rest of the gang come through to get him out & with lots of fight in them! They even manage to find the pregnant wife of one of the cops’ and threaten to kill her in front of him!


Noche De Justicia ("Night Of Justice") is movie that for whatever reason lacks one hero. We first meet 2 cops, then one cop, then 2 other cops whom have a huge shootout with the Demonios. All the cops are working together, but it’s done so fucking incoherently. That’s honestly the weirdest part of the movie along with its obvious bad acting and characters who feel out of this world. The Demonios truly feel out of this world with their unique traits—The leading Demonio is always looking evil with his giant demented smile & tiny eyes, then there’s the dark-haired lady Demonio with a nagging-sounding voice- there’s also an indigenous hippie-looking demonio who looks like he doesn’t belong there and then there’s one guy who is always smoking weed and wearing a Mr. Bill t-shirt. Was the shirt intended to be a funny quirk for this character? Probably not. But maybe it’s a sort of metaphor of all the Demonio victims since they all do say “nooooo” before dying. Literally. 


I also can’t forget to mention the random musical scenes in the movie and it’s all ranchera songs about romance & loss. Drunkenly done of course. There is one song about Los Demonios and it is by far the crudest thing ever put together because it’s just a Casio keyboard & an accordion playing while some random guy sings about “Capitan Santos” going after Los Demonios. The song is played while the cop is driving and the Demonios are sitting around getting high & laughing. It’s such a weird fucking scene, but so funny too. 


Noche De Justicia top-bills Pedro Infante Jr despite his minor appearances in the movie and the other top-billed actor is “Alvaro Almada” who I’m assuming is an Almada brother but under a different name. I want to believe this is actually “Horacio” since he has been in plenty of films beforehand, but then there’s another brother named “Ricardo” that could also be “Alvaro” as well. Whoever he may be—he is an Almada but one who barely appears in the movie and when he does he is literally just in crutches throughout the whole time. Apparently from fighting Demonios alongside Pedro Infante Jr’s character. The funny thing about this though is that Alvaro actually looks injured, so it’s obvious they just worked around that for the movie's sake. 


Nocha De Justicia is an oddly fun & wild experience. It is also cheap as fuck, but its cheapness is very much appealing. And despite it being so damn cheap, you can see there was plenty of effort put into the movie and those are the kinds of movies I admire dearly. Cheap or not—if there’s effort put into it then it’s gonna be a good watch for sure and sure enough Noche De Justicia is a good watch. Director & actor Julio Aldama Jr did a splendid job bringing his vision of a crazy gang movie to life despite whatever setbacks & budget he had.