Horror film series at Olimpo

In the spirit of the season, the Olimpo Cultural Center will offer a free series of classic horror movies Oct. 31 to Nov. 5…

MERIDA – Horror films in Mexico have had a different development from what happened in Europe and the United States, where the first approaches to this genre were through the adaptation of great classics of literature, such as “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”.

One of the films of this genre in Mexico’s nascent industry was “La Llorona”, directed by Ramón Peón in 1933, recalls Valerie Amador Hurtado, deputy director of cultural innovation and responsible for the cinema programming of the Olimpo Cultural Center of Merida.

“The Mexican horror-film industry has its greatest period in the 1950s and 1960s in the hands of fighters, a genre 100% Mexican, and based much of their stories on mystery, terror and science fiction,” she added.

In these productions, fighters like “El Santo” and “Blue Demon” faced up to monsters and evil personalities who made a mixture of action and horror films, as in the legendary film “El Santo against the Vampire Women” (1962), by Alfonso Corona Blake.

In the early 1990s, the new generation of filmmakers began to propose other types of horror stories. “This is the case of Guillermo del Toro and ‘Cronos’, a cult and internationally successful film that led him to become one of the best directors of the horror and fantasy genre in the last 20 years,” she says.

Among the most representative of Mexican cinema, Amador Hurtado mentions “Cronos”, “The stone book” (1969, directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada), “Alucarda” (1978, Juan López Moctezuma), “Holy blood” (1989, Alejandro Jodorowsky ), and “El espinazo del diablo” (2001, Guillermo del Toro, co-production with Spain).

“Cronos” and “Holy Blood” will be screened in the Film Cycle from Tuesday Oct. 31 to Sunday Nov. 5 in the Olimpo audiovisual room with free admission.

Schedule:

• Tuesday October 31^st, “Night of the Living Dead” (5 p.m.) and “Rosemary’s Baby” (8 p.m.)
• Wednesday November 1^st, “Santa Sangre” (2 p.m.), “The Exorcist” (5 p.m.) and “The Omen” (8 p.m.)
• Thursday November 2^nd, “Cronos” (2 p.m.), “Halloween” (5 p.m.) and “The Shining” (8 p.m.)
• Friday November 3^rd, “The Hills Have Eyes” (5 p.m.) and “Poltergeist” (8 p.m.)
• Saturday November 4^th, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (5 p.m.) and “The Ring” (8 p.m.)
• Sunday November 5^th, “The Others” (5 p.m.) and “The Conjuring” (8 p.m.)

Source: www.yucatan.com.mx