Cemetery of Terror (1985)

Country of Origin/Production: Mexico

 

 

 

 

 

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: A Halloween evening of fun is spoiled when a deranged satanic serial killer is resurrected by some dumb-ass kids.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I said I wasn’t going to do two zombie flicks this month but it was either this or Octaman.
• Hugo Stieglitz?! Everybody in the German army’s heard of Hugo Stiglitz.
• Nice vibes so far. Creepy atmospheric wind and animal howls.
• These credits could be a tad faster in my opinion. We’re going over 2:30 minutes here.
• Man asleep in his recliner and this film just did the wavy transition to highlight him dreaming. Haven’t seen that ol’ trope in a while.
• Cut to: an old book. Cut to: Slowly walking man shot from the thighs down. Cut to: Lady being pursued by slowly walking man. She has a bad ankle. Cops coming. Man has a very monster-like claw hand. 
• Lady can’t get a break with catching an elevator.
• She gets in the elevator and is immediately attacked by someone [my first guess is the same slowly moving man but c’mon, there’s no way he got in the elevator when they were on the same floor—that’s impossible].
• The cops hear her screaming and the one cop directs the others to go to the first floor and the 2 cops go up. Next shot the same cop who directed the other cops is now racing downstairs. Huh?! What fucking floor were they on?!
• So the cops arrive at the elevator before it even opens and once the doors slide open, the lady drops dead in front of them and then 2 of the cops start firing away at something never shown. The other cop hilariously just as a baton and making wincing faces. They shoot towards the camera at the monster/man/whatever for like 20 seconds before the original sleeping man jolts awake.
• Now it cuts to the sleeping man waking up AGAIN but this time in a bed. He’s a very sleepy dude.
• At the college/medical school 2 students are discussing party plans. Another friend runs over to them and also has party information. Something involving Olivia. 
• Now we are watching some lady in a bathing suit walk towards the lake. If this is Olivia, then I’d like to go to her party as well.
• Apparently this party is of the “Jet-set” variety.
• The sound quality and the ADR on this video is terrible.
• OK. If the principal actors are walking away and are now so far from the camera that we can barely see them, maybe that’s a sign you should make your cut/edit earlier.
• They are meeting this friend Michel on his boat to go water skiing but only the girls are dressed for this activity.
• He’s skiing on one ski!
• The sleeping man’s name is Dr. Cardan and he got his fashion from Mssrs. Crockett & Tubbs.

• Police chief called in Cardan to inform him that his old patient, Devlon has escaped the looney bin and it’s all Cardan’s fault.
• Devlon must’ve been the sloppy walking man from earlier and he’s dead. So…all’s well that ends well I always say.
• Cardan wants Devlon cremated because he’s a “demon” but the chief is going full Brian Dennehy’s Teasle and not believing a word from Cardan and says Devlon gets a normal burial.
• Meanwhile, the co-eds arrive at a spooky house that they assume the jet-set party will be at. The girls are skeptical though. Maybe it’s the fact that not one other living soul is here at this house.
• Another main character sporting an ascot or handkerchief around his neck. Weird.
• This is basically shaping up to be the Mexican version of Night of the Demons. However, this film predates Night of the Demons by 3 years.

• I always nit-pick the dumbest shit. Like, here in this scene, Dr. Cardan is at home and he picks up his end-table lamp and moves it to another table so he can write something down. Why did they film the scene like this? I mean, why not just have a desk in his house that already has adequate lighting for him to sit down at and do his work? it’s just weird behavior for something that is scripted or pre-planned.
• It looks as though he’s forging documents. Probably to get Devlon cremated. Or a way to get out of this movie deal.
• Apparently it’s Halloween. Not sure how the Halloween vibe is in Mexico. [checks notes…dammit this is filmed in Texas!]
• Hey! Pepsi Free!

• Yeah, Lena, what’s up your butt? Are you not having any fun at this Halloween party of six in a creepy dilapidated old mansion while you eat junk food and soda? How is this NOT putting you in the mood?!
• Olivia also is being a prude! What is up with these girls anyway?!
• Old dilapitated house is sure well lit.
• Something is bad in the attic because the music is getting scarier.
• Hahaha. As soon as I typed that in my notes the music became ethereal and choral like church music.
• I’m not sure if this is Jorge or Oscar but in the attic he finds that old creepy book from Cardan’s dream sequence.
• So is this going to be the Mexican Evil Dead now?
• Jorge closes the book and the cover just says DEVLON in Blackletter font.
• Absolutely riveting party boys.
• So earlier in the film the police chief mentioned that Devlon killed 17 people. Something like that must’ve made headline news right? But Jorge brings down the Devlon book and begins to show them and no one’s like, “Hey, Devlon? The deranged serial killer that killed 17 people? Don’t read that trash!” No one seems to know who Devlon is.
• So the three boys plan is to scare the girls so badly that they would have no choice but to fuck them for safety and comfort.
• So now the plan is to use the book to resurrect a dead body in the cemetery. They are seriously going to the morgue now to get a body. The lengths some men will go through just to get laid.

• We cut now to a young teenage boy looking annoyed in his kitchen and the frying pan behind him just exploded in flames. He gets even more annoyed as he calls his sister that the pan is on fire.
• The sister tells him that he can only trick or treat until 10:00. That seems more than fair.
• Tony meets up with his friends and none of them are dressed up for Halloween!
• One kid is wearing a (for a second time this month) a Michael Jackson jacket!
• Tony and his friends hitch-hike a ride and ask to be dropped off at the cemetery!
• At the morgue, the boys broke in and are cautiously searching around. Jorge tells the other dudes that this particular door is for the amphitheater. Amphitheater in a morgue? My interest is piqued.
• Did I miss the scene where Cardan and the chief met up again? Here the chief is driving them both, probably, to the morgue since the chief is questioning how Cardan got the judge to sign those documents since the judge is out of town. Police chief ain’t so bright me thinks.
• It’s been a half-hour and the only action we’ve seen is a lady getting killed in an elevator, cops shooting a suspect like 46 times, water skiing and a frying pan randomly catching fire. C’mon let’s goooooooooo!

• Are they looking for Devlon or is them finding his book and wanting to do this exercise all just coincidence?
• Nope. Oscar tells them to find the ugliest cadaver. So obviously they find the corpse of Charlie Kirk!
• Guess this morgue has no security cameras. But they do have an amphitheater.
• As Jorge is reciting the evil book’s spells he mentions that it is the 6th hour of the 6th day of the 6th month. So yeah, the film already established that it is Halloween and they are no way close to 6:00am.
• Klaatu Barada Nachos!
• These are the most irresponsible medical students I’ve ever seen in a film. After the girls protest that this ritual is sacrilege and making them uncomfortable they leave. Jorge asks what they should do with the body and they say leave it.

• Cardan is complaining that if he had Devlon’s black book he can end this nightmare forever. But the book was clearly just sitting in an empty room at the old Devlon mansion this whole time. Why didn’t Cardan just go there and get it if he’s that passionate about destroying Devlon’s evil demonic ways? And if the book was that important, why didn’t the police obtain it as evidence or whatever? Aye Carumba!
• Sure, let’s waste time watching the young kids at the cemetery gates light each candle they have for 2 minutes. Also, I might add, they are so far away from the placed camera. I literally had to squint and put my nose to the screen to see what they were doing. Just fucking cut that and move on. Dios Mío.
• As the police chief makes a stop at a payphone to call his wife back, Cardan steals the chief’s car and drives away. Chief yells after Cardan but then goes back to speaking to his wife. He then calls the station to have Pineda, a deputy, to pick him up. I’m pretty sure that Cardan and the chief were both heading to their cemetery already. What’s Cardan’s big fucking rush?!
• Welp, I guess that highly heinous ritual of trying to raise a corpse back to life in the driving rain must’ve worked because the girls are now all loosey-goosey back at the mansion.
• Are any of the clothing coming off or is this a heavy petting/dry hump only kinda party?

• Oscar left his girlfriend Mariana outside while he refreshed her drink and now he finds her on the lawn…DEAD!
• And he’s then slashed not once, but twice in the face and is in such a confused state he’s slowly processing that someone just attacked him and killed his girlfriend in the slowest way possible.
• Anyway, Devlon slashes him again so hard that his guts spill out. 
• Pedro is such an idiot that he doesn’t know that an antennae helps make a radio’s reception better. 
• Olivia goes outside to investigate what she thought was Oscar’s screams. She finds their dead bodies and runs back inside to tell Jorge. Jorge breaks 2 glass bottles as weapons and they both try to warn Pedro and Lena but they can’t hear a thing over the making out and loud music. Meanwhile the Breather is watching them in the house.
• Oh never mind, it’s just that cabron Devlon.

• Devlon ambushes Jorge and grabs him by the neck and somehow hangs him Bob-style on the wall rendering Jorge dead. Now I rewound there video like 4 times and I cannot tell you what he hung Jorge on, or impaled Jorge with to make him stick to the wall and killing him. I think there was a light fixture or sconce but the film never highlighted the thing that Devlon wanted to kill him by.
• In Devlon’s POV (more Halloween homaging) he stumbles around in the next room and Olivia ambushes him and stabs him in the abdomen with the broken bottle. But he manages to throw her across the room and then repeatedly grabs mounds of flesh from her abdomen with his tiny monster claws.
• The radio is on the fritz again, Lena says it must be because of the weather, so Pedro gets pissed and tells Lena that he’ll be right back and for her to fix him a drink. Is Pedro going to stop the storm or just going to take a leak?
• I find it funny that in this “old creepy mansion” actually has carpeted stairs.
• I was right, Pedro is taking a leak. However, for some unknown reason he’s pissing outside on a tree. When Lena looks out the open window to taunt him, he says the bathroom was full of bats.

• He then witnesses Lena getting attacked by Devlon and runs back inside and grabs a decorative ax from the wall. When he gets to Lena’s body, poltergeists start menacing him by opening and slamming doors, cabinets and drawers as well as try to drop a chandelier on Pedro’s head! I guess throw in the fact that Devlon has supernatural powers. Sure why not?
• Devlon takes charge of the ax Pedro had and splits Pedro’s skull en dos!
• I know the film features some scenes in a cemetery but really, most of the terror being had is at the mansion. This flick should be called Mansion of Terror if we’re being honest here.
• Hahahaha. The police chief is still on the phone with someone when Pineda arrives. Apparently his kids are missing but they are with the other kids at the cemetery. And they had permission to trick or treat (that we saw in an earlier scene I didn’t mention) so they aren’t exactly missing per se.
• Speaking of, we haven’t returned to see what those little rascals are doing since they arrived at the cemetery. I practically forgot about them.
• These kids were in no way going to trick or treat. They have no bags or anything to carry their candy. The only thing they have are some jack o’lanterns.
• The youngster’s plans were to go to the center of the cemetery, count to 100 and then run out of there. But once they counted to tres, one grave opened up and emitted huge flames scaring them all away immediately.
• Hahahaha. Tony’s sister is frantically trying to get information on his whereabouts with someone on the phone. She hangs up and starts to walk down the hall when she turns her head abruptly back towards the phone and just then it starts to ring. The actress obviously turned too soon and missed her cue.
• Quick recap of the past 10 minutes: the youngsters run all the way to the mansion, go in and find the dead bodies. Devlon spooks them and Tony grows a pair and goes back to get the ax that was in Pedro’s noggin. Devlon is being extra generous with giving these kids ample time to run downstairs and try to leave.
• Hahaha. I guess they didn’t notice Jorge hanging on the wall when they first came in. They noticed now.
• ¡No puedo creerlo! The front door is locked!
• Devlon corners them in one room but again gives them more than enough time to break the window and they all rush outside. He then proceeds to walk after them using the front door.
• Now there’s a small posse of the other kids parents meeting up with Tony’s sister and they drive off to find the kids.
• Meanwhile, I completely forgot about Dr. Cardan who is still driving all around town with the police siren and lights are on. He hasn’t been relevant to this story for over 20 minutes or more!
• He also kinda looks like Peter Jackson!

• Hahahahahaha. The police chief greets his wife and the other concerned parents for the kids at the station. After a moment, the deputy Pineda comes in with two random boys and the chief asks if these kids are anyone’s. How many kids are missing this evening?!
• Also, not for nothing but did they think to check the abandoned creepy mansion that used to be owned by the most notorious serial killer in town that just died attempting to escape the asylum he was being held at? The same maniac that his own doctor is hell-bent on trying to cremate and destroy the body?! Did you even think of checking that place out?!
• For some reason other than why the fuck not, the undead are rising from their graves at the cemetery while the kids are trying to flee. I don’t know why these very frightened kids are going back through the cemetery instead of going another way from the mansion.
• For about 5 minutes of non-stop pandemonium of kids running and screaming, the kids are clever enough to evade all the zombies trying to grab them but not clever enough to find an exit out.

• Cardan luckily drives past the cemetery and is able to save the kids. Oh wait. Now the car won’t start. Funny how that always happens.
• Zombies swarm the car but he and the kids get out in time. Because, well, zombies are useless sometimes.
• Somehow, a small but mighty tree fell on Cardan. He’s pinned down but gives one of the kids a ginormous crucifix to use as protection. Was he carrying this huge cross this whole time? And they are zombies, not vampires idiota!
• But this movie is lame so of course it works. Freakin’ Catholics.
• Bear in mind that almost every other headstone is a cross and the zombies have been moving around this cemetery for over 15 minutes so far with zero problem.
• The kids managed to free Cardan and he tells them the only way to destroy Devlon is by destroying his black book. The kids don’t even know who or what Devlon is. But Tony tells him he saw the book back in the mansion. Cardan is shocked that Devlon’s book was at the abandoned mansion that was previously owned by Devlon.
• Hey movie! ¿Dónde está Devlon? Where’d he go? This flick is hilariously bad at editing and pacing.
• Why are these kids dragging their feet on grabbing the black book. And instead of trying to take the book out of the house, why aren’t they burning it right there in the room? 
• Oh there’s Devlon! Glad you can make it. No, seriously, where were you this whole time?
• One of the girls was about to throw the book in the fire but Devlon used his Jedi Force grabbing powers and started to pull the girl towards him instead. Until Cardan shows up with his two crucifixes! One, the large handheld one and he gives that to one of the older girls to use to fend off the zombies. And he took one large headstone cross to use as a a crutch since the tree that fell on him broke his leg. 
• Now I’m no man of faith mind you but I never heard of a crucifix igniting with sparks and flame if it ever touched a zombie. But here we are. Now Cardan has a cross of fire to fight Devlon with.
• For one split second anyway since Devlon karate chops the flamed end of the cross apart from the rest. This just isn’t Cardan’s day. Dr. Loomis he ain’t. 
• Cardan is getting his ass handed to him while the rest of the kids try to break the girl who’s holding the black book to come out of her trance and to throw the book into the fire. After a while their screaming works and she is able to burn the book.
• While the book burns, Devlon ignites on fire as well as zombies who just lumber out of the front door of the house.
• Somehow the chief and Pineda get the notice that some kids are in the abandoned house. Well the film needs to wrap up somehow right?
• And so it’s morning now and outside the mansion is a crowd of people as well as emergency and police vehicles but we never see the kids get reunited with their folks. In fact, no one really interacts with the kids, they just get escorted out by police and put in vehicles to go get help or to go home. We never see Tony’s sister or the other parents ever again.
• Dr. Cardan takes the half-burned book back up to the room it originally was found and the camera reveals that he’s possessed by Devlon. Last we saw Devlon he was engulfed in flame and ran out off the mansion.

Final Thoughts: Wasn’t expecting much from this but in all honesty this did turn out to be a fun schlocky mess and I could watch it again (preferably more drunk on Pacificos and tequila with friends) but this is a very Arroz con Pollo of zombie flicks. Nothing new or exciting or really sensical. Devlon was the consummate boogie-man from coming back from the dead, controlling the dead, having telekinetic powers, master of the occult and all-around evil serial killer. He’s everything but yet as exciting as a bologna-filled burrito. 

How Mexican 🇲🇽 is it: Mexican director and cast sure but they filmed this in Texas but set it in Mexico. They celebrated Halloween when Día de los Muertos is more widely celebrated. Hardly any Mexican culture. Tariff rate: 10%

Score: 3 Big Jet-Set Parties (out of 10)