Embrujada (1969) Online

I always enjoy watching obscure horror, but its a pursuit of many ups and downs. Embrujada definitely counts as a down, much as I wanted to appreciate it. For the most part it operates as melodrama spiked by minor horror elements, revving up the pace in the last 10 minutes or so but still failing to deliver much excitement. I would not be at all surprised if its plot were based on a fairy tale, its heroine obsessed with bearing a child to the point of madness and visited by the beastly spirit Pombero, with bad repercussions for those around her. Its a sad cautionary tale about the danger of pursuing what one can not have and the ills that come of breaching customs, rigidly traditional and pretty predictable. I don't necessarily mind this sort of story-telling, it speaks of tradition and confers a sense of place and time that can be of a good deal of interest to an outsider like me, but this one moves far too slowly (a bore at just under 80 minutes, could have been over in around 65 without much loss) and lacks much in the way of event. No gore (just some red smears) and little in the way of spookiness or violence, its a thin brew with little to offer horror lovers, fans of South American melodrama may find some small nostalgic spark but even this is kinda doubtful. On the plus side, our heroine is played by a ample breasted beauty by the name of Isabel Sarli who appears topless on several occasions, the locations are attractive and nicely shot (conveying a certain exotic atmosphere) and the actors generally do their best with the material, with Sarli imbuing her clichéd and slightly irritating character with some humanity and Victor Bo solid and roughly likable as her lover. The general commitment on display stops this one from being a complete dead loss and there are one or two jolts, as well as cool beast man make-up for the Pombero, but on the whole this isn't interesting or exciting enough to recommend and its lack of excitement makes the more questionable aspects (stereotyped roles, odd decisions, hint of racism) of the tale stick out the sorer. You could do a lot worse, but this is still skippable, only the most dedicated of obscurity enthusiasts need apply.

A sadistic ranch owner marries a Guarani Indian girl (even though he's having an affair with his foreman) only to learn "you can take a girl out of the jungle but you can't take the jungle out of the girl" when he can't give her the blond baby she so desperately craves. She runs off to a whorehouse to find a man who can but her husband reclaims her and she begins an affair with a handsome blond ranch-hand. She also gets raped by the Amazon demon Pombero while swimming nude so it looks like she's finally gonna have her baby after all

***spoiler***...but not before she's possessed by the demon and kills her husband, her lover, and some other guy she tries to screw in the jungle. WTF?? ***end spoiler***

If Russ Meyer and Jess Franco had collaborated on a low-budget jungle horror flick, it might look something like Armando Bo's batsh!t crazy tale of supernatural sex on passion plantation with buxom, raven-haired Isabel Sarli standing in for Edy Williams. In her birthday suit half the time, "Miss Argentina 1955" was also married to the director and together they made a series of psychotronic softcore "porn" that earned her the title "Ambassador Of Popular Culture" in 2012 with the country's president saying, "Isabel Sarli is considered a true representative of the national culture, as much for her acting skills in films as for being considered a popular icon of her day and an emblematic figure of Argentine cinema." Wow. She's also a favorite of John Waters and anyone who's seen one of her movies can see why. I loved it, cheap special effects and all. 10/10 in demented entertainment!