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3 - Alucardas and Alucardos: Vampiric Obsessions, Gothic and Mexican Cult Horror Cinema
- Edited by Justin D. Edwards, University of Surrey, Johan Höglund, Linnaeus University
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- Book:
- B-Movie Gothic
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 06 May 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2018, pp 50-63
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Summary
There is a pivotal scene in the Mexican film Alucardos, retrato de un vampiro [Alucardos, Portrait of a Vampire] (2010), directed by Ulises Guzmán, where the main themes of this narrative of dark obsessions with a cult horror film converge. Manuel and Eduardo, the protagonists, are fans of Juan López Moctezuma's film Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas [Alucarda, Daughter of Darkness] (1977), where a young girl is possessed by a demon and terrorises a convent with her vampiric cravings. The young men study medicine and are granted access to the mental institution where the famous director is being treated. They are convinced by López Moctezuma to help him escape from his room, and they hide him in their home for a while. López Moctezuma suffers from depression and from Alzheimer’s, and eventually becomes confused and scared in Manuel's and Eduardo's place. The protagonists decide to help the old man recover his memory and drive him to one of the filming locations of his vampire film: a real forest and park in the outskirts of Mexico City called Desierto de los Leones. Eduardo leads López Moctezuma along several footpaths in the forest. The montage sequence shows a series of images about the filming of the original Alucarda interspersed with the final, completed scenes of this same film. A cross-cutting in Guzman's film also displays a medium close-up shot of Manuel putting on make-up and dressing up as Alucarda inside the car. Once he is ready, Manuel approaches López Moctezuma and Eduardo. The two young men are convinced that López Moctezuma has come back to reality: stepping into one of the filming locations and seeing his vampiric creation represented by Manuel have allowed López Moctezuma to remember his identity and to recover his personality traits from the past.
This sequence confirms the aim of Guzman's film. The obsession the two protagonists harbour towards the vampire Alucarda rules their lives up to the point when Manuel obtains full gratification in using his body as a vessel to re-create López Moctezuma's character. When Manuel dresses up as Alucarda and faces the old director, his fantasy of becoming Alucarda is finally realised. This scene not only contains themes of fanaticism, idealisation and representation; it also demonstrates that Alucardos rescues other motifs explored in López Moctezuma's film.
9 - Cross-border Implications: Transnational Haunting, Gender and the Persistent Look of The Eye
- Edited by Gary Bettinson, Lancaster University, Daniel Martin, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
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- Book:
- Hong Kong Horror Cinema
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 28 April 2021
- Print publication:
- 23 January 2018, pp 149-164
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Summary
The calligraphy lesson in the Pang Brothers’ The Eye (2002) presents a haunting that differs significantly from the other spectral encounters in the film. While protagonist Wong Kar Mun is concentrating on following her teacher's instructions, she suddenly hears a female voice asking her why she has taken her seat. Mun is scared and looks back at the old teacher to see if he has also noticed the haunting voice. She turns around and the reverse shot reveals a pale woman floating on the other side of the room. Once again, she demands to know why Mun is sitting on her chair before charging towards her and suddenly dissolving before Mun's perplexed and horrified countenance. Unlike the rest of the spectres in this film, this ghost is heard before it is seen. By focusing first on the aural qualities of the haunting, this scene gains significance: Mun realises she can also hear supernatural voices, thus making her encounter much more frightening. Since the source of the voice is off-screen, the haunting possesses an acousmatic quality. In Michel Chion's terms, this heightens the immaterial and invisible quality of this ghost, rendering it ubiquitous (Chion 1999: 24–5), yet unheard and unseen but for Mun. The scene is thus unusual because the haunting is never presented this way again throughout the rest of the film. Instead of further experimenting with different cinematic techniques to portray a spectral apparition, The Eye, as the title suggests, solely uses vision to identify ghosts. Also, once the spectre has been visually perceived, its ubiquity changes to a deictic configuration: the ghost is standing there before it comes at Mun here.
The success of the Pang Brothers’ film prompted two sequels, The Eye 2 (2004) and The Eye 10 (also known as The Eye Infinity and occasionally as The Eye 3, 2005), in which the directors once again explore other terrifying forms of seeing ghosts: the second film focuses on a depressed pregnant woman, and the third instalment follows a group of friends playing several traditional Thai games that claim to allow people to see spectres.