La Tia Alejandra

Thanks for quick shipping. Movie was ok. Too bad it is only in Spanish. At least it had subtitles though.

I was surprised by the violence, nudity and dark quality of this Mexican horror film. It was scary and quite disturbing at times. I would not reccomend it as a stellar film but it is worth the watch.

An enigmatic aunt comes to stay with her estranged extended family....and well, all hell breaks loose! Not a single frame wasted in this creepy tale that builds to a searing climax and an ending that leaves a thought-provoking question mark. Great acting and thoughtful, quiet direction make this one of my list of favorite thrillers.

Arturo Ripstein, who also made The Castle of Purity, directed this film, which tells us of the black magic - or maybe not - within the titular aunt Alejandra (Isabela Corona, who started her career as a diva of the screen in the 30's) causing chaos just by existing.Alejandra arrives to stay in the house of Lucia, Rudolfo and their three children. A bitter older woman given to mood swings, the children eventually begin to torment her, by which point she reveals her witch nature (if you'll pardon the pun).She finds ways to get back at each of them, choking out her nephew through sorcery and setting the house ablaze when one of the children burns her face. This is a film that presents magic as a fact of life - and in some cultures it is - and those who believe that we have aged out of the occult in modern times must pay the price.As the great conspiracy writer James Shelby Downard once said, "Never allow anyone the luxury of assuming that because the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly devoid of mystery, so thoroughly flat-footed, sterile and infantile, so burdened with the illusory gloss of "baseball-hot dogs-apple-pie-and-Chevrolet" that it is somehow outside the psycho-sexual domain."Except in Mexico. And yeah, Brujeria is real.

Upon my first viewing I wasn't all that impressed with AUNT ALEJANDRA but after giving it a second shot I really found it to be a tense supernatural thriller worth owning. Is Aunt Alejandra really a bruja practicing black magic or is she an innocent old woman falling victim to a grieving family's misfortune? The first time around I felt this was a bit too tame, bordering on a made-for-TV supernatural thriller from the Seventies, but this grows on you and though it comes off ambiguous, it answers questions that may develop during the course of the film. The finale was so powerhouse I knew I had to add it to my collection of Mexican horror cinema. LA TIA ALEJANDRA (AUNT ALEJANDRA) is a keeper.