Guillermo Calderon Stell Movies

The Mexican western Duelo en el Dorado was lensed sometime in the late 1960s. Luis Aguilar and Emilio Fernandez (yes, the same Emilio Fernandez who shot and killed a critic who'd carped about one of the films he'd directed) play antagonists who spend the film's running time at each other's throats-literally. One is a white settler, the other a Native American. The bone of contention is a white orphan, whom the Indian wants to adopt into his tribe. Duel en el Dorado is quite violent, but at least has the saving grace of solid story values. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

La Horriplante Bestia Humana is a gory, misogynist exercise in rape, wrestling, and thoracic surgery from Mexico's premier father-son "Z"-movie team René Cardona and René Cardona Jr. Essentially a remake of the elder Cardona's Doctor of Doom, laced with more sex and violence for more tolerant European audiences, this sleazy exploiter stars José Moreno as a brilliant but misguided surgeon (aren't they always in movies like this?) who tries to save his ailing son (Armando Silvestre) by transplanting an ape's heart into his chest. As one would expect, the results are slightly off-kilter, creating a hairy gorilla-man with a wrestler's physique who loves nothing more than to rape women and rip men's faces off. The only one who can put a stop to this horrific rampage is -- naturally -- a masked female wrestler (looking scarier than the monster!) who goes to the mat to teach the ape-man the error of his ways. As if this premise -- loaded with opportunities for nudity and explicit (though crude) gore murders -- weren't exploitative enough, the flying Cardonas splice in actual open-heart surgery footage to fully illustrate the Moreno's handiwork. The crowning moment (for the English-dubbed version, anyway) arrives when the cynical police chief dismisses the notion that the attacks are perpetrated by an ape-man: "It is more likely that you have been watching on your television too many pictures of terror!" Since its American release as Night of the Bloody Apes, this chunk of Mexi-horror sleaze has undergone numerous title changes in its quest for total anonymity, including Gomar, the Human Gorilla and the charmingly honest Horror and Sex. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

While vacationing in Haiti, four innocents stumble onto a voodoo ceremony. The presiding witch doctor places a curse upon the unfortunate tourists. This curse is manifested in the form of four outsized voodoo dolls -- which turn out to be a quartet of malevolent midgets. In its native Mexico, The Curse of the Doll People was originally titled Muñecos Infernales. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide