Interview with EL VAMPIRO Box Set Producer Abraham Castillo Flores

After the massive success of the Indicator Mexico Macabre box set, comes the highly anticipated El Vampiro: Two Bloodsucking Tales from Mexico set. The El Vampiro: Two Bloodsucking Tales from Mexico box set features the iconic and beloved classic that kicked off Mexico’s Golden Age of Horror, the 1957 El Vampiro and its sequel, the 1958 The Vampire’s Coffin. El Vampiro follows Marta (Ariadna Welter), a young woman who returns to her ancestral home, only to discover the disturbing tales of vampires plaguing the village and her family. In The Vampire’s Coffin, the vampire Count Lavud (Germán Robles) pursues Marta at any cost.   

Box set Producer Abraham Castillo Flores is a film curator and film historian known for his extensive knowledge of Mexican genre cinema, most notably horror. He has presented Mexican horror cinema internationally, including the 2022 Academy Museum series Mexican Maleficarum which highlighted the iconic classics of Mexican gothic horror cinema. Castillo Flores shares with us the reaction to Mexico Macabre, how fellow box set producer Nora Mehenni brought the words of the Vampiro to life, connecting Latino culture to the vampire myth, and why these films are so significant. 

What was the reaction to the previous box set, the Mexico Macabre?

Castillo Flores: Mexico Macabre was, I’m very happy to say, a success. They are no longer available because they ran out of them. So that’s a very good sign of its success. And it ended up in quite a few best-of-the-year lists. I am very, very proud of that. I think we did really good work.  But I also found that people were indeed very interested and curious to see what Mexican cinema could offer, especially the horror genre from the 20th century. That there’s hunger for more. So, I’m very excited by that.

Even though the box is sold out, Indicator put them out as single discs, so now you can find each of the movies with all the special features. The only thing that is not available anymore, unfortunately, is all of them together with the booklet. But we are very happy to push forward with this second box set from the Alameda Films vault.

What inspired the feature highlighting both the lives and careers of the ladies of El Vampiro?

Castillo Flores: In one of the special features, it’s me talking at length about the story of Carmen Montejo, Alicia Montoya, and Ariadna Welter, the ladies of El Vampiro.  We thought it was important to share their stories. First of all, each of these three ladies left an important imprint in Mexican film history. Remembering their film work and legacy is important.  Plus, Carmen Montejo plays the first Mexican female vampire in Mexican cinema history. She’s important just because of that. And on top of that she has a remarkable life story, which has not been talked about enough in the English-speaking dimension.

At Filmoteca UNAM, one of the key film archives here in Mexico, they have a beautiful bronze bust of Carmen Montejo. When you go there to do research, she’s there in the corner next to a red sofa, looking at you. So, I’ve gone a lot to that archive, and I would watch her and sometimes it felt as [if] she was looking back. I asked Antonia Rojas, head of the Centro de Documentacion at Filmoteca UNAM, about the bust of Carmen. She told me the amazing story of how it came to be.

It all clicked; it was evident, “It’s ridiculous to work in the Vampiro box set and not include Carmen´s life story, which includes the tale of her bust at Filmoteca.” I shared all of this with Nora Mehenni, the amazing co-producer of this box set at Indicator.  She heard Carmen´s story, saw her images and films, and she was totally convinced. Then it all became a question on how to include that life story into the framework of the special features.

We were thrilled to have been able to chat with some very special people. You start interviewing them and you get access to marvelous tales and amazing anecdotes that need to be recorded. For example: Claudia Salazar Arenas and Rosa Salazar Arenas, daughters of actor/producer/director Abel Salazar, shared illuminating and candid tales of his father who was an elegant and dashing, force-of-nature type individual within the Mexican film industry.

Elisa Lozano, a superb curator and film historian, delved into the life and work of Gunther Gerzso, the production designer for the two films in the box set, who managed to craft through his lifetime a prolific output in two different activities: film production designer and abstract painter.

Juan Ramón Obón, the son of the writer of the films, Ramón Obón. He had wild and epic stories about his father and the film industry of his time that I had never heard or read. I was very excited because this man’s also a screenwriter. He’s an entertainment lawyer, so he also has very particular vision of what show business is, and what it takes to bring stories to life.

Conversations with all these incredible individuals were a particularly illuminating experience for me. So, to be able to share these conversations today with all those who acquire the box set brings me immense delight.

You had an interview with Roberto Coria about the vampire myth and Mexican horror. How important is that connection?

Castillo Flores: Roberto Coria is not only a very dear friend, but he’s one of the most important horror specialists in Mexico. His work has particularly focused on vampires within the literary and cinema dimensions. But on top of that, he was a good friend of Germán Robles, the very actor who played Count Lavud in El Vampiro. I knew he had great anecdotes to share about Germán Robles and insightful views about vampiric fiction and lore. Many horror films had been done in Mexico before El Vampiro but its roaring success unleashed a frenzy in Mexican horror film production that shaped national cinema legends that are still active today.

El Vampiro has audio commentary from Robles himself. How did that happen? 

Castillo Flores: That particular commentary is the brainchild of Daniel Birman Ripstein, who released the movie on home video here in Mexico, and said, “Germán Robles is still with us. We gotta get a commentary.” And so Mr. Birman Ripstein organized the recording of the commentary. He is a man of vision. And this edition, I think, if I’m not mistaken, came out in 2007 in DVD. So, when we were preparing the materials and checking over things last year at the offices of Alameda, and we’re checking the materials. Mr. Birman Ripstein suddenly said, “We have this asset.” Everyone was like, “Woah!”

You have to imagine, normally, audio commentaries are never in Spanish, because they’re audio commentaries, plus all the extra work that entails. On that note, I have to say, also [a] mega loud applause for Nora Mehenni, who along with everything else that the box set entailed, supervised all the subtitling for that commentary. It was like a work of love because she was the first one who said, “We need to have Count Lavud´s voice.” She literally made Count Lavud talk in English. So that´s where that commentary came from.

What is your favorite scene in El Vampiro?

Castillo Flores: I have quite a few. Okay, let’s concentrate on two moments. There’s a moment when Carmen Montero, the female vampire walks through the hallways of Los Sicomoros after Count Lavud leaves. And there’s like a pushing in her and there’s the fog and she just gives out a devilish stare. It’s one of those moments where it’s the sound, it’s the music, it’s where the camera goes, the set, the actors — everything just goes in and shows you. Uncut cinema magic. It’s still thrilling to me. Like, I tell you about it, and I get excited. I’m like, “Yes, that’s Mexican horror cinema.” I still scream when I see it on cinema. I get very excited about it.

Also, there’s the moment when Tia Teresa [Alicia Montoya] is strangling Tia Eloisa [Carmen Montejo]. The rage that she emotes is SO intense, I feel we could write a book on it. Because she’s like the Catholic saintly woman that was going crazy because no one believed her about the vampire. And then, when she faces her sister, who has now turned into a vampire, she’s strangling her with this homicidal rage. She loses it. She is focusing her homicidal rage on her sister who is still young because she turned into a vampire. And the audience loves her for it.

But: You cannot kill a vampire by strangling. You can’t. You should drive a stake through the heart. She doesn’t. It breaks the mythos. But it’s so raw, in that moment that you’re like, okay, she strangled the vampire. So, I love that even when there’s jumping film logic, it’s so emotional and raw that you kind of don’t question it. At least not immediately.

This movie has so much passion all around it, and you can find it in so many places. It left a deep imprint that we can still talk about doing things passionately, like the strangling or the sets, the way they characters talk, and of course the fangs of the vampire. This was something that director Fernando Mendez said, “Un Vampiro cachondo [the horny vampire]”. That was very much the thing he had. The central thing of, I’m gonna eat you up with my eyes and I want to drink your blood. I want to take your land. It’s voracious and it’s the 1950s. But there’s an innuendo and a deep sexual undertone. I really think that’s part of what also made the movie special.

And for The Vampire’s Coffin, what’s your favorite scene in that movie?

Castillo Flores: There’s a gorgeous episode inside a living room. Enrique [Abel Salazar] is so nervous because he wants to talk to Marta about the vampire, and the vampire is outside, and he’s hypnotizing her. And they cut back and forth to that. And then they do these shots with the chandelier and the vampire´s medallion and then his eyes. They go back and forth, and they’re super intense.

And I love that moment, those moments of intensity for the characters. Marta is losing control of herself. She has been taken over by the mind of Lavud. She wants to say something, but the vampire is now in control. Enrique and Marta are in love, but then there is a vampire right in the middle. To me, it becomes a very sensual and romantic gothic thing. I find it very intoxicating.

Why do you feel it’s important to preserve and release these two films?

Castillo Flores: This film has the credit of being a pillar in Mexican cinema, not only because it’s the most known outside of Mexico City and Mexico as a country. It was like the one that spearheaded Mexican horror cinema to international audiences.

You mentioned before that this [movie] was one year before the Dracula by Hammer. Christopher Lee mentions that he had seen this film. He saw what Germán Robles did before he became Dracula. So, yes, there is an influence. We should remember, this is only the third film in the world to feature vampires with fangs. The first one was Nosferatu in 1922 and the second one, Dracula in Istanbul in 1953. Bela Lugosi‘s vampire never showed pointy fangs.

You know, some American academics consider El Vampiro as the bridge between the Universal and Hammer. So, you know, it’s huge, and a lot of specialized press at the time took notice. One of the beautiful things that we did for this booklet of El Vampiro is to feature the mentions in different journals or cinema magazines about El Vampiro in the late 1950s. It was beautiful to find, read, and now reproduce all those reactions for today´s audiences to discover.  Count Lavud, the Mexican Vampire is actually played by a Spanish actor.  It is even mentioned that the Lavud vampires come originally from Hungary.  The Eastern European past and Dracula are acknowledged.

But we have to remember that vampire bat is an actual species that is indigenous to Latin America. Vampires are from South America. And the first stories of blood-sucking creatures went back to Europe via the chronicles for the conquistadores and Alexander von Humboldt. Little by little these chronicles cross-pollinated with Eastern European folklore. So, all those stories, concepts, and beliefs had already mixed and spread around when Bram Stoker dipped into that folklore and came up with his own version of the mythos for Dracula. So once again, the stories of far lands went there, came back, got repurposed and thrown out, and then the Mexicans came and we gave their own version of the story once again.

And I think that’s why it’s important that these films reach new audiences and generate a new chapter in their life cycle through the years. The films are now 67 years old and they are in their prime. Well, one of the advantages of vampirism.

When you watch the Blu-ray, the stories behind the filmmaking and cast and crew from this film, you have to remember we are actually resurrecting the tales of all of these folks who are now gone. We are remembering and celebrating the legacy of a very particular film industry. People should remember not everything is Hollywood. I don’t say this in a bad way, but there’s film industries from all over the world who have different heroes, villains, and have their own mythologies. And I think it’s exciting that people get a taste of what that was like through boxsets like this.

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El Vampiro: Two Bloodsucking Tales from Mexico is now available from Indicator and other online retailers: https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/products/el-vampiro-two-bloodsucking-tales-from-mexico-le

To follow Abraham Castillo Flores on Instagram, visit: https://www.instagram.com/aullidos_panteoneros/