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The Black Pit Of Dr. M
[Casa Negra]
1958; b&w
Directed by Fernando Mendez
Starring: Rafael Bertrand, Gaston Santos, Mapita Cortes, Carlos Ancira, Carolina Barret, Luis Aragon, Beatriz Aguirre, Antonio Raxel, Guillermo Alvarez Bianchi & Lupe Carriles
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The Black Pit Of Dr. M aspires to be a gothic horror / thriller flick in the classic Euro style of the late '50 and early '60s (a la Barbara Steele) but retains enough of it's native "Mexican-ness" to separate it from it's Euro counterparts. The sweeping grandeur of the castles and mansions where so much action in traditional gothic horror takes place is here replaced by a dingy, dusty and sprawling insane asylum. And while the elements of love, revenge and torment from beyond the grave are all there, the story tackles them in a different way and jumbles them up enough to make it relatively fresh. The plot revolves around two doctors at the asylum, both seeking to find out what lies beyond death and if it's possible to glimpse that and return to the living. When one of the two doctors conveniently dies, the other contacts him through a seance and finds out it is possible. But, as you might expect, there are grave consequences. The dead doctor relates that a chain of events will occur, culminating in exactly three months at an exactly specific time, that will lead to the living doctor's inevitable passage from the world of the living to the dead and then back to the living. 'Nuff said. As the time passes a world of other coincidences happen that bring together two other characters at the asylum. First, we have a young dancer. (Who turns out to be the long-lost daughter of the dead doctor.) A mysterious stranger visits her at the club where she works to give her a key and a weird message about delivering said key to the doctor at the asylum. Coincidentally, one of the club's regulars / her admirers shows up at the asylum on the same night the girl happens to be delivering the key. (He's the asylum's newest doctor.) The key is a sign from the dead doctor and, once the girl finds out that the man who gave her the key was her dead father's ghost, she inexplicablydecides to stick around a while and learn to become a nurse. While this subplot is developing, we also see a crazy woman throw acid in the face of an orderly, disfiguring him horribly and, subsequently, driving him mad with revenge. Some time later, the acid throwing woman manages to break out of her cell and ends up being stabbed by the disfigured guy but dying in the arms of the doctor. Since the rest of the hospital (and the police etc.) only sees the doctor with a dead woman in his arms, he's then tried for the crime and found guilty of murder. On the night of the doctor's execution, the disfigured orderly writes his confession and, as he's taking it to the authorities, drops dead. Then the paper in his hand blows away. I guess they bury them quick in ol' Mexico, because as soon as his corpse hits the ground, he's being lowered into the ground on a stretcher. (Perhaps he had something against coffins?) When the doctor is hung—while still proclaiming his innocence—the disfigured orderly rises from the grave in what's easily the best scene in the film. Only it's actually the doctor in the orderly's body. If that's not confusing enough, wait until you see the end of the movie. Black Pit Of Dr. M, despite it's flaws, is well-conceived and intended; definitely worth checking out.
—the Kommandant
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