Thursday, October 31, 2024

Brownsville Terror.

1985 was a significant year in time with so many life-altering moments, memorable music being released, new products being introduced & of course many films being released that would be admired & remembered for years to come. 


1985 introduced us to the favorable drink Cherry Coke and then “New Coke” made its debut and it didn’t last for very long because it fucking sucked. Also in 1985, singer Whitney Houston releases her debut album with much appraisal and her most popular song from the album “Saving My Love For You” was on the Billboard Hot 100 list for a week (at number 1). The iconic video game Super Mario Bros by Nintendo also made its debut in 1985 and everyone either had the game or wanted it badly. A big change in home entertainment happened because of this one video game. 


In regard to films in 1985, films such as Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Invasion USA, Demons & Silver Bullet graced the big screens. In Mexican cinema, Mexican films were now in “decline”, the quality of said films weren’t good enough anymore, but those making them didn’t give up and particularly the Galindo filmmaking dynasty were still actively working on making them. After finishing up film school in UCLA, director Ruben Galindo Jr was contracted by his father to make a horror film in the vein of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and this leads to one of the most admired Mexican horror films of the 1980’s being made—Cementerio Del Terror ("Cemetery of Terror")



Cementerio Del Terror begins with several medical students planning their Halloween night festivities which consists of bringing their girlfriends to an abandoned house that’s said to be haunted. Without having the hassle of being turned away, the guys make up a story to their girls by saying that the party is going to have many famous people attending. 


Now at the abandoned house & with much disappointment/annoyance by their girlfriends—one of the guys “Jorge” (Servando Manzetti) comes across a satanic book with the title “Devlon” on it. Wanting to do something unusually fun for Halloween—Jorge decides on bringing a dead body back to life with the satanic book, and so him & his friends go steal a body from the city morgue and the body they steal just happens to be of an individual named Devlon whom happens to have been a Satan-worshipping serial killer. 


At the cemetery near the house, Jorge recites from the satanic book and thinking that nothing really happened, Devlon has indeed returned to life and he is now going to unleash true horror & carnage to everyone around. Devlon brutally kills all the young party goers in the house that belongs to him and he also unleashes a hoard of zombies to terrorize a group of kids who are taking a stroll through the cemetery. The only person who can stop Devlon is Dr. Cardan (Hugo Stiglitz), who races his way to find Devlon and to rid of him once & for all. 



Cementerio Del Terror is a horror film that will wow you all the way through since it’s not only full of great slasher & zombie visuals, but it also has a very fun story to easily follow through since it’s a simple Halloween gone-wrong type of story. Cementerio can also be compared to any of the Halloween films since Dr. Cardan is very much a Dr. Loomis type of character whose sole intention is to rid of the evil entity he has studied. Dr. Cardan also never shuts the fuck up about Devlon through out the entire duration, as Dr. Loomis does with Michael Myers. Speaking of Michael MyersDevlon is somewhat like him, but he just doesn’t wear a mask and has evil satanic powers. His weapon of choice? His hands. No knives at all, except for an old hatchet that ends up in Andres Garcia Jr’s face. The rest of the kills in the film are all done by Devlon’s hands—he truly slices & dices hard with them! Lots of blood splattering of course. 


Aside from the slasher stuff, Cementerio Del Terror being called Cementerio Del Terror also features zombies rising from their graves and these zombies may look corny & basic, but they still make a grand ol’ scary impression to the audience. The zombies are for me the best part of the film since they’re so fun to look at and they somewhat resemble the zombies from Thriller as well. The zombie aspect of Cementerio is truly the cherry on top. 


Cementerio Del Terror was shot in Brownsville, Texas and I was able visit the city recently and managed to track down 2 big locations of the film: the house & the cemetery. The Devlon house is located on 441 E Washington St and it said to be a medical office building now (an unusually quiet one) and the actual cemetery from the film is not too far from the house and it is dubbed “Old City Cemetery” because it is known as the oldest burial grounds of the city. Most graves dating back before the 20th century. Both locations of the film remain around still and seeing them in person was extraordinary to me. 


Cementerio Del Terror was a film I first saw on tv during Halloween time when I was 11 years old and the first time I saw it I was truly glued to my tv screen. Cementerio is an entertaining horror film all the way through and while there’s a very limited selection of 1980’s Mexican horror films, this is one to see for sure and one that will stick to you for a long time because it is both a great slasher film and an unusually fun zombie film as well.