The Mexican Cinema of Darkness

Following the national and international upheaval and tragedy in 1968, Mexican “trash cinema” began to shift away from the masked wrester genre and towards darker, more explicit films, and disturbing visions of the modern world: films which can be called “avant-exploitation.” This work covers six of those films: El Topo, Mansion of Madness, Alucarda, Guyana, Crime of the Century, Birds of Prey, and Santa Sangre.

Independent scholar Doyle Greene is the author of several books and serves on the editorial board of Film Criticism. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Doyle Greene
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 215
Bibliographic Info: 17 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2007
pISBN: 978-0-7864-2999-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0220-2
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments       vii


Preface      1


Introduction      3

1. The Counterculture Cinema of Cruelty: El Topo (The Mole, 1969)      7

2. Madness and Modernity: La mansión de la locura (The Mansion of Madness, 1971)      46

3. The New Dark Ages: Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas (Alucarda, Daughter of Darkness, 1975)      68

4. The Filming of the Disaster: Guyana, el crimen del siglo (Guyana, Crime of the Century, 1979)      92

5. Lines of Flight, or Death from Above: Ataque de los pájaros (Attack of the Birds, 1986)      116

6. National Oedipus: Santa sangre (Holy Blood, 1988)      134

Conclusion      172

Filmography      175

Chapter Notes      179

Bibliography      195

Index      199