THE MORBIDO CRYPT’S GUIDE TO MEXICAN FANTASY AND HORROR CINEMA | POSTPONED
THE MORBIDO CRYPT’S GUIDE TO MEXICAN FANTASY AND HORROR CINEMA | POSTPONED
Join us for a presentation of Mexican genre cinema guided by Mexico’s Morbido Film Festival head programmer, Abraham Castillo Flores. The presentation will be followed by a screening of iconic Mexican horror flicks.
SATURDAY, MARCH 28 | 7:00 PM
Join us for a presentation of Mexican genre cinema guided by Mexico’s Morbido Film Festival head programmer, Abraham Castillo Flores. Delving beyond luchadores, Abraham unearths Mexican vampires, ghosts and monsters that fomented a distinctive but barely acknowledged corner of our cinematic consciousness. The presentation will be followed by a screening of iconic Mexican horror flicks.
For decades, Mexican fantasy and horror cinema hid in the shadows, wearing a luchador mask, surviving budgets tainted by economic gloom, holding vampires with a nylon thread, receiving the scorn of nearsighted critics and consumption by audiences sunk into tongue-in-cheek appreciation.
But things have changed. Throughout the first 19 years of the 21st century there has been a clear rise in the quantity, quality and daringness found in Mexican horror and fantasy cinema. It is not by chance that today, in the midst of a horrifying reality, Mexican genre films enjoy popularity, freedom and sometimes, profitability. As if that were not enough, our beloved alpha genre warrior — Guillermo Del Toro — has been knighted by Hollywood.
Who would have thought that stories filled with wailing legends from our pre-Hispanic past, starved female vampires, Aztec mummies, monk ghosts, child practitioners of the dark arts and tropicalized sci-fi queens would become part of our cultural heritage?
We will revisit the origins of Mexican fantasy and horror cinema and examine its development through the 20th Century and the start of the 21st. In parallel, we will dissect national legends and traumas that have been continuously reinterpreted by our national filmmakers that stand as a reaction to the tragic reality that Mexico is now experiencing.
About the Presenter:
Abraham Castillo Flores has been Head Programmer at Mexico’s Morbido Fest since 2010, where he curates and presents exotic and outrageous films to audiences hungry for intense emotions. A Mexican offspring of the 1970s, Abraham is obsessed with the power and paradoxical beauty of genre stories imprinted onto celluloid and pixels. A graduate of The School of Visual Arts, NYC, Abraham has more than 20 years experience in the film industry and academia. Abraham currently lives in Mexico City where he dedicates his every breath to the promotion, restructuring, study and presentation of genre films.
