Going to extremes with schemes.

El Violador Infernal screened at Festival De Trash-Mex and 2 people walked out within the first 12 minutes and near the end several others had walked out for “being too much to handle”. Some would say that makes this movie problematic, bad & offensive and maybe they’re right about that. However though, this movie was always meant to be “problematic”, “bad” & “offensive”. For walkouts to happen and to have people complaining about it 35 years after it first came out is absolutely glorious. This movie served its purpose and profited off that. 

Serial rapist Carlos “El Gato” (Noe Murayama) has been executed on the electric chair and at the moment his body becomes lifeless—Satan and her 2 allies appear. Satan brings El Gato back to life with a proposition—rape every woman & man he crosses path with and also kill them in exchange for immortality with all the riches & drugs he could have. Satan craves depravity & fornication and through El Gato she will get it, just as long as he carves “666” on the victims. El Gato gladly accepts the proposition and awakens to a new life filled with luxury & plenty of drugs on hand. It’s beautiful. El Gato then gets to work and begins with shooting up heroin with a young man (Arturo Masson) which he then stabs & rapes while he bleeds to death. El Gato then takes in most of his other victims from a beauty salon he frequents and goes after a neighbor as well. Can the police stop him? Anyone? Not at all. El Gato is immortal & even has supernatural powers that he uses to defend himself.

With a title like El Violador Infernal (translated as “Infernal Rapist”), then you should know damn well what you’re in for. This is a movie that lives up to its title and doesn’t sugarcoat it whatsoever. El Violador Infernal is an exploitation movie and every exploitation movie is meant to be offensive in some way. Violador takes its offensive levels up high in order to sell itself & in some peculiar way it also tries to show how cruel the world we live in can be. Are we to believe someone can be gullible enough to fall for someone like El Gato? Absolutely. Are we to believe that there are people whom believe in true evil & will commit brutal acts of depravity upon it? Absolutely. The world we lived in is not a good place at all. We just have to make the best of it and truly be careful of who we trust & where we go. Every single victim in this movie let their guard down and trusted too much, thus leading to their untimely demises. It's so ugly, but sadly the truth as well.

Aside from its peculiar moral lessons & obvious offensiveness—El Violador Infernal has high entertainment value with its dark humor & sexual remarks & actions (the consensual ones). All the actresses that appear in the movie are quite eye-catching and the one who truly caught my eye was Ana Luisa Peluffo as Satan. Satan here is beautiful and always wearing gaudy outfits. She’s also very seductive—solely by the words she speaks. She truly knows how to a hype a man up. And you know what makes El Violador Infernal standout & so good? Leading man Noe Murayama. Noe had always played antagonists throughout his acting career thus dubbing him “El Villano Del Cine Mexicano” (The Villain of Mexican Cinema) and here in El Violador Infernal he gives his most villainous performance ever. Noe didn’t just play a serial rapist named El Gato— he actually became El Gato (ironically a nickname that the director of the movie also had). Noe truly brought this ridiculous/evil & nasty character to life. His evil laughs here will forever be haunting.

I would like to think that the late director Damian Acosta Esparza & the late producer Ulises P. Aguirre would be proud that their nasty production from 1988 has been brought to light again and for it to still be shocking people as well. These 2 gentlemen knew what kind of movie they were making and they definitely succeeded at doing so.

El Violador Infernal is not for the hypocritical “extreme” movie-goer, the easily-offended, sensitive & impressionable. If you’re open-minded and crave an exploitation movie you haven’t seen yet—El Violador Infernal is the movie to see. You shall be not disappointed at all. Don’t let any wimp or narrow-minded fool make you think otherwise. 

Buy El Violador Infernal on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome 

Cover art by Robert Sammelin

By Hook or By Crook??

A chase into the night, an ice pick on hand, and then a fatal stab in the neck. The first of several murders committed by an unknown assailant who’s targeting certain women in a rather ritzy area in town. The ever so quirky detective Felipe Fierro (Rafael Inclan) is assigned to capture the killer and his gorgeous girlfriend Susana (Maribel Guardia) also lends a hand in finding the killer. With several clues, Felipe goes deep into the underbelly & the high class parts of the city searching for suspects and the few that he has rounded up are either petty criminals and a rich guy named Dario (Arsenio Campos) who seems to be good to be true.

A Garrote Limpio (peculiarly translated on VHS as "By Hook or By Crook") is a movie that was marketed as a sexy comedy with a murder angle to it, but truthfully the movie is a cop-comedy with a murder angle to it. While there are some scenes with colorful cabaret dancing (performed by Mexican vedette Princesa Yamal), Maribel Guardia wearing little bits of clothing and few off-colored jokes told—the movie still doesn’t qualify to be labeled “sexy” at all. If anything, we mostly just see quirky mischief ensuing in the same vein as any other cop-comedies from that era. And that murder angle to it? Definitely not a “slasher” as others want to make it out to be just because of the opening scene. The rest of the kills in the movie are mostly done off-screen & the ones that we are treated to see are not very brutal. Clearly this movie is more of a thriller/giallo—the kind where it takes its time to build up on kills & its motives for it. The killer’s identity & motives are rather obvious, but intriguing at least. 

It may sound like I’m knocking down A Garrote Limpio, but I’m really not. I’m just trying to explain what this movie is really about because for whatever reason this movie’s past reviews & descriptions make it out to be something that it’s not and that is honestly quite irritable..

A Garrote Limpio offers something just a tad different from the many kinds of movies that came out during this particular era (mid-1980's). While I enjoy sex comedies & slashers from this particular era—I do also enjoy slow burning-thrillers & silly little cop-comedies as well and for A Garrote Limpio to be those kinds of movies in one is fairly remarkable. What makes the movie even more remarkable is that it features a very favorable cast that get into their roles perfectly and especially the two leads. Rafael Inclan here plays a rather silly detective who can still remain serious to his job & his girlfriend who’s played by Maribel Guardia (ironically the 2 actors were really dating around this time) is also serious to her job and she is also very adoring to her man. She makes that very clear with her constant mushiness & sensuous bed tricks. 

A Garrote Limpio is no “sex comedy” nor is it a “slasher”, but an intriguing little cop-comedy/murder-thriller that is worthy of a look if found.