Vacation of Terror (1989) — Triskaidekafiles

VACATION OF TERROR

WRITER: Rene Cardona III, Santiago Galinda, Carlos Valdemar

DIRECTOR: Rene Cardona III

STARRING: Pedro Fernandez as Julio
Julio Aleman as Fernando
Gabriela Hassel as Paulna
Nuria Bages as Lorena
Gianella Hassel Kus as Gaby

QUICK CUT: A family, and friend, travel to their new summer home, and discover it is in need of a little fixing up.

THE MORGUE

Julio - A young man who has a lot of interests, and seems a bit aimless. Very much a jack of all trades. But he seems like a nice guy, and cares bout his friends.

Paulina - Julio’s girlfriend, protective of her cousins, and pokes her boyfriend to do something with his life.

Fernando - An important, well off man, and Paulina’s uncle. He’s your typical father figure.

Gaby - Fernando’s daughter. She’s constantly being bothered by her brothers, and just wants to play ith her dolls.

Vaccinations of Terror, RFK’s health care plan.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! It is June, and that means summer is technically here, and it is time to start planning your vacation! Your vacation of...TERROR! I had originally planned to do the next Subspecies movie here, but things happened. More on that later, though, so let's make a run for the border and go to Mexico.

The movie kicks off, in Spanish, in the past, with a witch about to be burned at the stake. She calls to Beelzebub for help, but the leader of the men who have captured her, tells her she has no power here, and taps her magic doll with an equally magic talisman.

She screams in pain, and her pyre is lit, so commence with more screaming. This will be the only death in the entire movie.

The people throw her belongings down into a well, so Samara will have toys to play with. All the while, she just keeps screaming. Geeze lady, keep it down!

We jump to the present where this story is being told as one of the many legends of the talisman to a young man named Julio, who is hanging out with me down at the schoolyard.

Julio really likes the talisman, now in the hands of a guy he’s talking to, and offers 20,000 pesos for it, but Nick ain't selling. But he WILL trade it for Julio's Walkman. And y'know, back in the day, that was a pretty expensive trade.

We then jump to meet Fernando and his family; a wife, twin sons, a daughter, and niece. The niece is also dating Julio. Fernando has just inherited a home in the country, and he decides to take the family there for the weekend, and has Paulina invite Julio along.

So, everyone gets packed up and they head to the summer home in the morning. It's a run down house that hasn't been lived in for awhile, so there's a lot of fixing up to do, and oh look, a well! To cut to the chase, the house is built where the start of the movie happened.

We spend a lot of time getting settled in, getting to know the family, and take stock of the situation. The kids keep things interesting with their mischief, including climbing the strangely whispering tree, where one of the twins gets stuck. Fortunately, Fernandad is there to catch Pablito as he falls.

That night, things start getting weird, but it's just brushed off as an old house. Although, shattering eggs that are then magically restored can't exactly be handwaved with "Oh you know how these old houses are!"

Julio finally arrives after getting lost thanks to Fernando Magellan's bad map drawing skills. Everyone gathers around the kitchen table, and has something to eat.

After a few more bits of odd things happening, everyone heads to bed, and Gaby has some nightmares.

The next day, while the adults are trying to cut down the dangerous tree, the kids are goofing around, and Gaby falls down the well.

Gaby ends up finding all the stuff the locals tossed down there however long ago the start of the movie was. Including Satan's dolly.

Fernandad makes his way down to help his daughter, and she keeps the doll, taking it out of the well. I'm sure this won't have any consequences at all.

While the women are making lunch, Gaby comes to hang out with her new doll. Her mom finds it weird and disgusting and tells her to get rid of it.

The doll takes offense at this, and causes mom to collapse to the floor like she just insulted the Midwich Cuckoos.

Mom's stomach gurgles, which is bad, since she's pregnant. Dad gets concerned, and rushes her to the hospital.

Julio and Paulina stay behind to look after the kids, and we mill about a bit more. Gaby plays with her doll, while the boys are led about by Julio on a treasure hunt.

But the doll doesn't like Julio, probably because she can sense the talisman he has, and he collapses to the ground.

The doctors aren't sure what's wrong with the mom, but she seems mostly fine. They're going to keep her for observation, and Fernando will eventually make the long journey to the final act.

Back at home sweet hacienda, Gaby introduces her devil doll to the rest of her toys and stuffed animals. This does not go well, as Dolly gets jealous, and wrecks everything off camera.

This causes smoke to come billowing out of her bedroom door, and the provisional adults come rushing up, and find the carnage. Naturally, Gaby says the doll did it, and no one believes her.

Paulina and Julio head down to the kitchen to get a late night snack, and when she opens the fridge, it's filled with rotten food, green goo, snakes, and mice.

The fridge at any average house in the town of Nilbog.

Naturally, when Julio takes a look, everything is fine. After their bite to eat, they start making out, and the doll continues to make mischief.

While they're making out, the walls start to bleed, and again, only Paulina sees it. Next, the lights start flickering, so they gather the children downstairs in case they get scared.

Julio ducks outside to check the fuse box, and Pau heads into the closet to grab some blankets to help everyone stay warm. The door suddenly slams shut behind her, and oops, more mice and snakes.

Finally the door opens and she escapes. Having done this dance a few times, she looks back into the closet, and yep, everything is once again back to normal.

Out of frustration, she sends the children back to their room, and tells them to stay there. The doll continues to do stupid things, and makes all the boys' toys dance around like we're in Pod People

The boys are totally onboard the evil shenanigans and they leave the room against Pau's wishes. The doll starts rearranging the furniture to torment their cosuin some more.

Gaby declares on behalf of her toy that Julio must die, so the doll sends his truck to chase him around the yard. And also much screaming and weird camera angles ensue in the house while we multitask and torment Paulina.

Soon, the truck stops chasing Julio, presumably because of the talisman hanging from the rearview mirror.

Julio gets in the truck, and smashes it into the wall of the house to save the day, or lower property values.

The doll starts displaying mighty mind powers, making things explode, and fly around the room. Particularly, knives into Julio's extremities. The doll is particularly interested in taking out Julio, because of the talisman.

Paulina grabs a picture of baby Jesus and the virgin Mary to try and stop the devil doll, but the toy just makes it shatter and burst into flames. But hey, I give points for something I haven't seen before.

Julio tries to approach with the talisman, and more things blow up, more things fly around, including Julio. Eventually, flinging him into, and trapping him in a large mirror.

I hate when the mirror gets all fogged up.

Meanwhile, Fernandad is driving home, and boy, if he thought the house was a fixer upper before...

The doll targets Paulina next, but doesn't want to kill her yet, so just nicks and slices her a bit. The doll then has the boys play with their cars, and uses them as a kind of simulacrum to connect with dad's car and try and make it crash.

Gaby goes to burn the car at the doll's behest, but this distraction has allowed Paulina to grab the talisman unnoticed.

She bum rushes the child, shoves her to the ground, and grabs the doll. She slaps the talisman against it, and then tosses it into the fire, thus saving the day.

I am in league with Satan! This is a brisk day in Hell, to me!

Julio is spat out of the mirror realm, dad continues his driving uninterrupted by backseat demons, and we're pretty much done here.

There's a bit of extra drama with one of the twins being left behind in the burning house, but Julio saves him. That is one way to endear yourself to your girlfriend's guardian.

We get one last little tag of the usual variety; the house has somehow been fixed up despite all the damage, and another family is being shown the place by a realtor. And oh no! Their little girl finds a doll! THE END!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Really good for a lesser known Mexican movie from the late 80s, if I’m being honest.

Audio: Solid audio.

Sound Bite: “So, the worm did not die” Dolly possessed Gaby when Julio isn’t run over by his truck.

Body Count: Welp.

1 - A witch is burned at the stake about four minutes in

Best Corpse: C’mon.

Blood Type - D-: I know that grade is kinda surprising, but hear me out. There IS some blood coming from the tree. And when Julio gets knifed a few times, and a few other places. We get some bruises. And the practical effects besides that are well executed. The scene of all the chaos flying and exploding is wild, and the gag of Julio flying is really good. And a few extra points for fire. I am but a simple creature.

Sex Appeal: Nada. A bit of fondling and heavy petting is as far as this movie goes.

Drink Up! Every time the doll gets shifty eyes.

Movie Review: I actually, probably surprisingly, really enjoyed this. Yes, no one die, outside of the bruja at the start of the movie. There’s no real blood to speak of. It’s not particularly scary, but it still has a mild tension to it, and the characters are fairly likable. I just had a good time with it. It’s cute, charming, and quaint. I’m not gonna hold it up as some lost classic, but it’s worth your time for a simple, comfortable horror movie. If not for it being Spanish language, I’d recommend it as a starter horror movie for the kids. The movie does what it does, more skillfully than some lower budget indie movies today. Three out of five toy cars.

Entertainment Value: Pretty much comes entirely from the likable cast. Julio is charming and fun in his jack of all trades, listless wanderer ways. He’s great with the kids, and has chemistry with Paulina. Who is also a solid actress, and carries a lot of the movie. Even the kids aren’t annoying, and give decent performances, and they feel like real kids, being mischievous. Besides that, the best thing about the movie is the chaotic set piece of the third act. The movie is slow at times, but they saved the good stuff for the end. It’s not gonna blow you away, it’s not bad enough to laugh at, but again, a solid good time. Two out of five evil dolls.