CURANDERO: DAWN OF THE DEMON (2005 - Spanish)

Studio:       Dimension Films
Director:    Eduardo Andres Rodriguez Gonzalez
Writer:       Robert Rodriguez
Producer:  Luz Maria Rojas
Stars:     Carlos Gallardo, Gizeht Galatea, Gabriel Pingarron, Jose Carlos Ruiz

Review Score:

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Summary:

A federal agent enlists a Mexican shaman to help bring down the leader of a satanic drug-trafficking cult. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Federal agent Magdalena Garcia watches the interrogation of Roberto Lopez, a cult member associated with Castaneda, the powerful leader of a satanic drug-trafficking cult that practices Palo Mayombe. He is responsible for a large number of murders and disappearances throughout Mexico City. Castaneda is captured by police and countless skeletons are discovered on his property.

Curandero Carlos Gutierrez visits newspaper vendor Oscar. Rival curandero Alex Munos is also at the kiosk. Carlos confronts Alex about his questionable ethics. When Carlos returns home, he is greeted by Magdalena, who is looking for Carlos’ father. Carlos tells her that his father died, but he invites her inside. She tells Carlos that when she was ill as a child, Carlos’ father performed purification rituals on her. Carlos recalls seeing her levitate during that purification when he was a boy. Carlos offers to help Magdalena when he discovers she is considering contacting Alex for his curandero expertise.

Magdalena takes Carlos to Mexico City. Castaneda escaped from custody in a bloody massacre and the police will not go back into their building until it is purified. Carlos talks to Lopez. Lopez writes that Castaneda got into his cell and cut out his tongue, preventing him from speaking. Carlos believes that curses are usually in a person’s head. Believing he is cursed, the police chief asks for a purification, as he has not left his desk in two days. Carlos rubs an egg over the man, but then switches it with another egg from his pocket. Carlos cracks the clean egg in a glass and says that the man was never cursed. Although he has a vision in Castaneda’s cell, Carlos simply dumps a bucket of human remains on the outside steps and announces that the building has been cleansed. Magdalena pulls a ring out of the refuse from the bucket. She tells Carlos that it is a Mithraic initiation ring and the only practitioner she knows is Don Chi Chi.

Magdalena and Carlos visit Don Chi Chi at the cemetery. He gives them the address of a moneyman associated with Castaneda. Magdalena takes Carlos to another location for purification. Inside, Carlos has more visions and finds bodies hanging on the ceiling. A book of names is found inside that includes Don Chi Chi’s name. They return to the cemetery and find Don Chi Chi murdered.

Magdalena pressures Lopez for more information. She handcuffs him inside her car and Lopez directs her to a wealthy drug lord named Blascoe. While Magdalena interviews Blascoe, Carlos meets Blascoe’s organ donor, Javier Gonzalez. Javier is under a one-year contract to give up an organ if Blascoe falls ill. Lopez is missing when Magdalena and Carlos return to the car. Shortly thereafter, they are ambushed and are involved in a long firefight between cultists and law enforcers. Carlos has more visions during the gun battle. Afterwards, Carlos decides he wants off the case.

At the police station, Magdalena works on securing a travel ticket for Carlos while Carlos is left alone. Castaneda enters and has a conversation with Carlos, although no one else can see Castaneda’s presence. His taunting inspires Carlos to change his mind and continue tracking the occultist.

At a bar, Alex proposes teaming with Carlos. Carlos refuses. Magdalena takes Carlos to a steak restaurant. His visions continue while she eats. Officer Gomez arrives and tells them that they have been summoned back to the station. Carlos has another vision and realizes that Gomez is one of Castaneda’s men. Carlos has the same ability as Castaneda to become unseen and he uses it to escape the restaurant with Magdalena. Castaneda later kills Gomez for not capturing Magdalena.

Hiding in a hotel, Magdalena asks Carlos for a purification. Her egg ends up exploding in blood and she forces Carlos from her room. Later, Carlos dreams of her purification from childhood and runs back to her room to find that Magdalena has been kidnapped. Carlos does more research and realizes that Castaneda needs Magdalena to become immortal. In another dream, Carlos receives directions to find his father, who is not actually dead, but merely in hiding. Carlos’ father teaches him to read his visions and then the two of them put Alex in a trance to find Castaneda’s minions. Alex has been responsible for protecting Magdalena until Castaneda was ready. Alex leads them to Magdalena, who turns into a demon and attacks Alex. Castaneda’s men shoot down Carlos Sr. Before he dies, the elder Carlos uses a necklace to return Magdalena to human form. Before Alex dies, Carlos forces him to reveal Castaneda’s location.

Castaneda appears at Blascoe’s and uses his magic to kill everyone. Carlos follows Castaneda there but is forced to leave Magdalena’s unconscious body in a hallway. Carlos finds Castaneda in an underground lair where Magdalena has returned to demon form. Carlos appeals to her humanity and she bites Castaneda. Carlos is about to slice Castaneda’s throat when the police storm in and stop him.

Later, Carlos uses the same magic that Castaneda used earlier to invisibly enter the occult leader’s cell. Carlos then kills Castaneda in the same way that Castaneda murdered a jailer when he escaped, by hanging him upside-down after being gutted. Carlos escapes undetected and visits Magdalena in the hospital. He then revisits Oscar and has a vision of the newspaper vendor as an angel. Lastly, Carlos uses his ability to tell a young boy how to prevent a future tragedy.

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Review:

A curandero is an Hispanic spiritual healer, a sort of cross between a shaman and an exorcist.  Believers employ curanderos to purify people or places thought to be cursed, and the curandero usually employs some combination of herbs and ritualistic practices.

In the film of the same name, Don Carlos Gutierrez is one such curandero whose belief in the mystic side of perceived curses is skeptical, to say the least.  Carlos has a more practical ideology that curses are, more often than not, a manifestation of the mind and not a genuine materialization of evil spirits.  Regardless, Carlos has an honest desire to cure people of their afflictions, whether it is in their heads or not.  By rubbing an egg over a person’s body and muttering a few choice words, Carlos will happily tell people what they want to hear in order for them to believe they have been purified.

As tends to be the case when a man of faith smirks and winks in the face of demonology (Father Karras in “The Exorcist” or Reverend Cotton Marcus in “The Last Exorcism,” for example), Carlos has his convictions challenged after a federal agent employs him in a manhunt for the elusive leader of a satanic drug-trafficking cult.  The notorious Castaneda and his devoted followers are responsible for dozens of grisly murders throughout Mexico City, and Castaneda demonstrates abilities that prove his power extends past the physical world.

“Curandero” is the General Zod of horror movies, having tumbled in a Miramax-Lionsgate Phantom Zone for eight years between its 2005 production and 2013 DVD debut.  Studios are not in the habit of sitting on cash-printing goldmines for the better part of a decade, so a date gap this wide is often a sign of trouble.  Fitting it is then, for such a prejudicial assumption to undergo a journey of change akin to the movie’s namesake character.  Initial doubts are replaced with the revelation that there is a little more to this than a seasoned skeptic might believe.

“Curandero” does shuffle together two decks of cards, however.  One deck is crisp-cornered and freshly coated in wax.  The other is more dog-eared and well worn.  It makes for an overall mix somewhere in between freshly engaging and passively routine.

Carlos Gallardo, familiar as the original “El Mariachi” in Robert Rodriguez’s 1992 breakout film, inhabits the curandero on a full circle journey of personal redemption and revelation.  It is a fully formed portrait, as opposed to the one painted for his nemesis.  The ruthless Castaneda is less developed beyond a singular note of evil.  Physically imposing, the character looks terrifying with a shaved head and bulbous fur coat.  Though his menace is undercut some by a penchant for maniacal laughter, the kind of stomach jiggling guffawing expected of a Hanna-Barbera villain, but not of an occult-empowered druglord.  Power and immortality lose some luster too, when their acquisition requires days spent with little more than conducting massacres or performing rituals in subterranean caverns.

The pace is required to be slow, as the story of the curandero’s journey is about both literal and figurative exploration.  Most of the curandero’s time is preoccupied with following clues and interviewing leads.  Director Eduardo Rodriguez may have felt constrained by that restrictive speed of plot advancement, so he injects doses of momentum with quick cut montages when Carlos experiences visions of gruesomeness.  They work as ways to show gory horrors without reveling in the bloody imagery, though their sudden appearances can be jarring and overused.  There are also scenes where “Curandero” steps out of its procedural shoes to flirt with gangland-style action.  Several bullet-riddled firefights break the slow tempo, although they are of questionable necessity given the true themes of the film.

The visual look draws from that same mixed bag.  The cinematography elects for a high contrast lighting style that soaks the Mexican landscapes in a bright golden bloom, but at the expense of sacrificing detail to depthless blacks.

The hero’s journey is a well-traveled narrative, and the deliberately unhurried pace will turn off some, although “Curandero” finds redeeming uniqueness in its setting and mythology.  For all the familiar tropes of a hunter chasing his quarry, “Curandero” compensates with interesting slices of Mexican folklore.  Everyone has seen an exorcist purify the afflicted with a bible and holy water, but not with an egg or by tossing a blood bucket of human remains.  And who knew that druglords contract organ donor surrogates to follow them around and give up their lives instantaneously should the need arise?

There are rough edges and some predictability, but “Curandero” still makes for an interesting entry in the realm of exorcist-centric films.  If nothing else, its mark is made by the Spanish-specific elements.  And its locations make for an atypical setting that keeps the visuals interesting.  When they are not lost in black murk, that is.

Review Score:  65

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