Honorable Mention
I’ve never penetrated too far into the bottomless quagmire which is Mexican horror films. There are a lot of them out there and I’ve only seen a few around the edges, mostly the ones other people have praised, or which are notable for some other reason.
And then there are a few I’ve watched for totally random reasons, like Swamp of the Lost Souls, which turned up in my recommended videos list on YouTube.
After all, who wouldn’t want to watch a Creature from the Black Lagoon copy from Mexico?
However, as you would expect from a Mexican Creature from the Black Lagoon copy, it ends up being something very different.
Or several things very different.
Now I will point out that I watched this one with a set of auto-translated auto subs, which were decidedly poor. Although they did seem more or less adequate.
Most of the time.
It all starts with a funeral, as a coffin arrives on a boat in the canal. Only they can’t have the funeral they want because the dead man died of a plague and they don’t want to spread it.
Instead, just two mourners, the Doctor and the dead man’s wife, go up the canal with the coffin to a cemetery which is conveniently accessible by water.
However, one of the family (the dead man’s son, I think) shows up at the last minute, as they are about to put him in the ground. He demands that they open the coffin for one last look.
It is empty.
So the young man turns detective and starts digging into the case. There’s some sort of criminal conspiracy going on, and, yes, there is that Gill Man lurking in the background, and even killing those unfortunates who strayed into its way in the swamp.
Well…they say “swamp,” and there is a bit of talk about how it’s called the Swamp of the Lost Souls, but what we see is that canal and a small wooded area. I suspect that those might have been the only trees anywhere near where they were shooting, but, I’ll admit it, I’m an old cynic.
Particularly when it comes to low budget film.
To be fair, though, there is a skull on a post marking the entrance to the swamp.
However, this isn’t just a detective story, this is specifically a cowboy detective story, not too far removed from all those low budget cowboy movies Hollywood made during the Thirties and Forties. It seems an odd touch when we see the people waiting for the funeral boat and there is a long line of cowboys in colorful outfits sitting on their horses, but the hero’s horse one-ups them a bit.
It does an impressive, horse-show performance, showing off a number of complex steps and even walking backwards.
But this seems very out of place: this is the sort of thing you only see at fancy horse shows and it’s hard to imagine your typical, hard-working cowboy doing the sort of intensive training this would take, particularly as none of it seems very practical. We do have one moment when the hero repeats that classic Yakima Canute stunt and leaps off a wall onto the back of the horse, but it is perhaps the only traditional cowboy movie trick we do see.
Although, to be fair, the hero does seem to spend a lot of his time leaping off walls.
The Gill Man only shows up now and then, until he gets a bigger part during the big finale. It’s not the best suit I’ve ever seen — it is largely just painted cloth — but the mask isn’t bad and the general effect is fairly good.
Better than most, actually.
It does seem a bit strange that El pantano de las ánimas is in color. Most of their horror films remained in black and white well into the Sixties, yet someone obviously felt that this film needed color.
I suspect that color may have been more common in Mexican cowboy movies.
But it still feels out of place in a film from the late-fifties.
Particularly when we’re talking about a genre film
As cowboy detective stories go, El pantano de las ánimas is more or less average — or perhaps slightly better.
As a science fiction film, however — or perhaps a supernatural thriller (and there are a few hints of that, even if you probably wouldn’t notice most of them if it weren’t for the name of that swamp) — it definitely falls flat. We see little of creature, and are never given an explanation of its origins.
So don’t expect much and you will probably be all right. It is a fun little film if you can accept it for what it is
And, yes, put up with the fact that it is a bit slow.
But then, where else are you going to get to see a prehistoric Gill Man [spoiler] sending a message by telegraph?
rivets on the poster 