The Living Coffin (1959)

Absolutely brilliant

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The most famous of the 1950s/1960s horror flicks came from the US, but Mexico also made a number of them. One example is "El grito de la muerte" ("The Living Coffin" in English). Fernando Méndez's movie has the feeling of the average Vincent Price movie while incorporating the story of La Llorona (the weeping woman). Like the average Vincent Price movie, "The Living Coffin" makes no pretense about what kind of a movie it is. It looks like the sort of movie that they probably had fun making. I suspect that many people in Mexico likely think that the makers tried too hard to make the sort of movie that the United States would have made - as opposed to a movie focusing on issues affecting most Mexicans - but isn't it OK to occasionally make a movie whose sole purpose is to entertain? All in all, a fun movie.

Horror and Westerns generally don't form a great cinematic match, but Fernando Mendez' "The Living Coffin" has a fairly good story and contains a handful of admirable ideas. The plot combines typical western bar fights and heroic cowboy characters with favorite Gothic horror subjects like the legend of the crying woman (processed much better in another contemporary Mexican feature entitled "The Curse of the Crying Woman), premature burial and local superstition. In a small town near a sinister swamp, the restless spirit of the "crying woman" supposedly haunts the remote mansion of an eminent family. She passed away nearly a year ago, but her cries in agony over the loss of her two children can often be heard in the swamp, and her remaining relatives (a sister and an attractive young niece) fear supernatural acts of vengeance. A knife in a clock protects the house, but when it gets removed the ghost emerges from the coffin. Luckily enough, the courageous cowboy Gaston and his unusually intelligent horse travel through the area, and they'll figure out whether there really are ghosts or just a fiendish conspiracy to steal the family's fortune. The sequences in the swamp as well as inside the mansion's catacombs are surprisingly atmospheric and there's a fair share of morbid scenery, like the tomb and crying lady's make-up. Unfortunately, however, there are approximately as many negative elements as there are positive ones, including the cowboy's totally redundant sidekick, whose job is provide an unnecessary comic relief as he always falls asleep and frequently gets hit on the head, and the utterly implausible capacities of Gaston's horse. The animal is actually the real hero here, because he saves his owner's life on several occasions, randomly discovers secret passageways and even defeats the enemies in a totally laughable finale. "The Living Coffin" is a worthwhile effort, but nowhere near as breathtaking and unforgettable as the aforementioned "Curse of the Crying Woman" and Fernando Mendez' other directorial masterpiece "The Black Pit of Dr. M".

Well, this is the fifth release I've seen from Casa Negra, and the other four were all excellent; those being The Curse of the Crying Woman, The Witch's Mirror, The Black Pit of Dr M and Brainiac...and while this film isn't terrible, it pales in comparison to those four as there isn't a great deal of imagination and the plot seems stretched out, despite the fact that the film only runs for seventy minutes! I was surprised to find that this film was directed by Fernando Méndez: the same director behind quite possibly the best of the Casa Negra releases so far, The Black Pit of Dr M. Perhaps he was running short on ideas by the time it came to making this film? Anyway, it won't surprise many people to find that the plot focuses on the Mexican legend of 'The Crying Woman'. We follow a Cowboy and his sidekick Crazy Wolf who comes across the mystery of the Crying Woman while investigating an attempted murder in an almost deserted Mexican town. The duo soon learns about the mystery behind The Crying Woman and attempts to get to the bottom of it.The film mixes elements from horror and westerns in more ways than just the fact that the central character is a cowboy. The bar room brawl is one of the action centrepieces, and is of course a staple of the western genre. The film features a decent atmosphere emanating from the nearby swamp, and this helps to implement the horror tones. Surprisingly, the film is shot in colour, although unsurprisingly, it looks very grainy and cheap. The plot can feel a bit dry at times as there isn't a lot of it, and the film never really capitalises on the 'Crying Woman' theme that made The Curse of the Crying Woman such a delight to watch. The acting ranges from over the top to completely unenthusiastic, and this gives the film more of a trashy feel. When the plot starts to unravel it does feel kind of disappointing, and while fans of Scooby Doo may be happy with how it all turns out, I reckon many people will feel a bit cheated. Overall, this film may be of interest to people who were impressed by other Casa Negra releases, but I certainly wouldn't recommend stating with this one!

The Living Coffin combines elements of the Mexican legend of "La Larrona" , Poe's Premature Burial , and oddly enough a Scooby Doo mystery. Cowboy and sidekick / comic relief Crazy Wolf are thrust into action against the ghost of a woman who wails over the loss of her children who drowned in Skeleton Swamp. Is the ghost a true Phantom, or are other more corporal desires at play ? The Living Coffin is a hard sell to recommend, as more often than not Gothic horror and cowboy westerns rarely mix well. Director Fernando Mendez is perhaps the premiere director of Mexican Gothic horror with The Black Pit of Dr.M and El Vampiro among others to his credit, so fans of his work might still want to check this out. I would also urge fans to support these smaller independent DVD companies so that we can continue to see these once very rare films.