What #MacabroXV Left Us: Horror, Mexican Style

By: Casandra Vicario

Macabro's Quinceañera would not have been complete without the presence of our godfather, Mexican cinema, and this time with a retrospective dedicated to a director who didn't exactly build his career within the genre but who made one of Mexican horror's national treasures — we're talking about Juan Bustillo Oro and his film "Dos Monjes."

But that wasn't the only thing Juan Bustillo Oro contributed to the genre; there are also films like "El Misterio del Rostro Pálido," "El Hombre sin Rostro," and "Asesino X." With that in mind, here are 10 facts about Juan Bustillo Oro, so you can get to know his work better and feel inspired to enjoy his most terrifying films. Here we go…

1.- Juan Bustillo Oro was born in June 1904, and although he studied law, it was ultimately film and theater that led him to change careers.

2.- In 1934, he made his debut in sound cinema with "Dos Monjes," which tells its story in two different ways, a dispute in which a woman is one of the causes of the conflict.

3.- "El Misterio del Rostro Pálido," from 1935, tells in two parts the story of a father and son, both scientists, who defy the laws of nature, and it is also considered this director's first horror film.

4.- Neither "Dos Monjes" nor "El Misterio del Rostro Pálido" became a box-office hit.

5.- He partnered with Jesús Grovas in 1937 and founded the production company "Oro Grovas," with which he made his most important cinematic successes, such as "En Tiempos de Don Porfirio," "Ahí está el detalle," and "El Ángel Negro," to name a few.

6.- In 1950, he ventured into the crime genre with "El Hombre sin Rostro," starring Arturo de Córdova, in which we follow the trail of a killer of women who can only be stopped by a detective with a dark past.

7.- In 1955, he gives us another gem of crime and macabre cinema, "El Asesino X," in which a man commits a murder in the United States but refuses to give his name and even refuses to defend himself, asking for the death penalty because, for some reason, he wants to escape this world.

8.- In 1980, he received an Ariel Award for his outstanding career, and in 1985, the "Salvador Toscano" medal.

9.- Theater 9 at the Cineteca Nacional bears his name.

10.- Juan Bustillo Oro is credited as a screenwriter on another pioneering film of the horror genre in our country, "El Fantasma de Convento."

On another note, a film that debuted on macabre screens for a bizarre and eclectic quinceañera waltz is "La Mujer Murciélago," screened in 35mm.

Directed by René Cardona and starring Mura Monti, it's a parody of the 1960s "Batman" series, in which a wealthy woman who is both a detective and a wrestler investigates the murders of the finest wrestlers in the Acapulco area.

La Mujer Murciélago premiered in Mexico in 1968 and in Australia in 1970, though it is also known in Austria, Spain, Greece, Italy, and the United States.