The Curse of the Crying Woman

The Mexican gothic cycle was Universal horror reassembled from cobwebs and moonlight on a Churubusco soundstage, and this is the one to catch it at full strength. A young woman is summoned to her aunt's crumbling hacienda, where the aunt turns out to be scheming to resurrect a witch ancestor and needs the family bloodline to finish the job. Rafael Baledon drapes every set in more spiderweb than physics allows, throws in a rabid coach-driver and a body walled up alive, and shoots the lot in silver black-and-white the cheap sets do not deserve. It borrows the La Llorona legend for its title and almost nothing else, which is fine, because atmosphere is the entire product here. Gorgeous, daft, and thick enough to get lost in.