Phantom of the Monastery [dir. Fernando de Fuentes]

I love me a good old-fashioned haunted house mystery movie, and the most entertaining and re-watchable ones are not necessarily the most innovative or skillfully made. Sometimes a (ha!) creaky Old Dark House tale is just what is needed to scratch a certain itch.

Having previously seen some immensely well-crafted Mexican scare movies like The Black Pit of Dr. M and The Book of Stone (discussed HERE), I had high expectations from 1934's Phantom of the Monastery (PotM), which can be regarded as a precursor to those films. In the fairly simple storyline, a trio - consisting of a married couple and their best friend - gets lost while tramping around in the hills. They are directed by a mysterious native to a supposedly derelict monastery. To their surprise, when they near the place they find the lamps lit and are invited in by the monks in their hooded black robes.

It is revealed that the wife (Marta Roel) and best friend (Enrique Del Campo) are having an affair, the woman just about ready to call it quits with her husband (Carlos Villatoro). Over the frugal communal dinner at a long table, the head monk tells the story of one of their own members that was repenting for the sin of adultery. His sense of shame was so great that even after death, his body kept returning from the grave to continue his ritual of self-torment. Is it a true story or merely a cautionary tale told by the head monk to dissuade these newcomers from their own sin? In the course of the night, they will learn this and other things.

The Gothic element is strong for PotM with the setting and the narrative style. Large portions of the film are set inside the monastery (apparently an actual one, as per the video essay included on the blu-ray disc from Powerhouse/Indicator). This movie came out a couple of years after the first few of Universal's trademark  horror films made a splash across the world. One can certainly see the elements of inspiration from those classics, and it certainly some of the strengths and weaknesses of those films.

Like I suggested before, atmosphere rather than plot and characters, is what primarily drives the film. Within the confines of the monastery, director-editor Fernando de Fuentes attempts to create a tense, trapped air. The acting is on the theatrical side, like in Dracula, with exaggerated reaction close-ups. But unlike the mostly static presentation of Tod Browning's film, there are some cool tracking shots (DoP Ross Fisher), even if the camera jerks around a little. The rooms and corridors are a little too well-lit to generate the optimal night-time "lamps and torches" aura. This might have possibly been to ensure visibility under less than optimal theatrical screenings in Mexico (Josef Wirsching's lighting for the 1949 Indian classic ghost story Mahal has been rumored to have been compromised by similar considerations).

Of course, we also have to take into account PotM's age. It was a decade later that Val Lewton unleashed his RKO cycle of shadowy terror gems and nearly 25 years when master visualist Mario Bava demonstrated to the world the perfect tango of  light and shadow in his directorial debut The Mask of Satan. This is idle speculation, but I wonder how wonderful it would have been if Bava had been entrusted with a remake of this picture; I have no doubt the theme and setting would have greatly appealed to his sensibilities.

All things considered, PotM is not quite amazing (it's certainly no Vampyr), but still a wholly serviceable and reasonably atmospheric gothic mystery that should appeal to vintage horror fans. I hope that other Mexican horror masterpieces, including those made by Carlos Taboada and Fernando Mendez, become more widely available.

A few words on the blu-ray release from Powerhouse/Indicator:

The transfer is sourced from a recent 4K restoration involving the UCLA Film Archive and the World Cinema Project. It possibly looks the best it has since the original release. That said, keep your expectations tempered for a nearly 90 year old film that was probably not stored in optimal conditions. During the opening credits, the cast is shown in moving montages which look pretty shoddy. Once the actual film starts, things perk up noticeably, and the image is generally quite good. But there are still several instances of density fluctuations, damage marks and hazy areas on the screen. The mono audio is thin and flat, and the score, while not distorted, lacks full body.

On-disc extras include a feature commentary from the ubiquitous Kim Newman joined by his good friend Stephen Jones, and a video essay (~18min) from Mexican film expert Abraham  Castillo Flores. Both traverse fairly similar territories, talking about the training of Spanish movie talent in Hollywood studios in the silent and early sound era, and how it birthed the Mexican film industry. They  discuss the specific qualities of the film, especially its cinematography. Flores discusses the director's other films including his political dramas. The Newman-Jones commentary is of course a more relaxed and wisecracking affair. Apart from drawing allusions to ghost stories in literary fiction, they compare the film with La Lorona (also released by Powerhouse) and how Phantom... is a more dedicated horror film. If there's one thing I missed in these extras, its an involved discussion of how these 30's horror films influenced the Mexican eerie film movement that gave us Taboada, and much later, a Guillermo Del Toro. Heck, in the golden days of DVD, I suspect Del Toro could have been commissioned to give a commentary for either of these films and would have probably done a more insightful job than Newman-Jones (no offence to them).

The booklet included in the Limited Edition has a short essay on the film and an archival reminiscence by script co-writer Juan Bustillo Oro, along with production and marketing reports and notes on the restoration. It's nice but not a great loss if you go for the standard edition.