Vacations of Terror

Vacaciones de terror – English translation: “Vacations of Terror” – is a 1989 Mexican horror film directed by René Cardona III (who also appears as Al Coster) from a screenplay by Carlos Valdemar, based on a story Cardona co-wrote with producer Santiago Galindo.

René Cardona III is the son of veteran Mexican filmmakers René Cardona (Night of the Bloody Apes; Invasion of Death) and René Cardona Jr (Night of a 1000 Cats; Guyana: Crime of the Century; Beaks: The Movie). Clearly, a taste for cinematic schlock runs in the family. Meanwhile, Vacaciones de terror presumably made muchos pesos because a sequel was made in 1991.

Cast:

Pedro Fernández, Julio Alemán, Gabriela Hassel, Nuria Bages, Carlos East.

Plot:

An evil witch gets burned at the stake, but not before vowing to return and get her revenge.

A hundred years later, a family arrive to spend their vacation at a summer home located in the same immediate countryside area where the witch was killed.

Trouble ensues when little girl daughter Gaby finds an ugly doll that’s possessed by the lethal spirit of the malevolent witch…

Reviews:

” … doesn’t do much other than unleash a bag of hoary and outdated haunted house tricks onto the audience. The only thing they seem to have left out from your typical 1930s old dark house flick was eyes on a painting moving but they more than make up for that with a hundred odd close-up shots of the doll’s eyes shifting from left to right.” The Bloody Pit of Horror

Filming locations:

Mexico City; Valle de Bravo, Estado de México

Trailer:

IMDb | Related: Burn, Witch, Burn! Witchfinders on the Screen – article by David Flint

We are grateful for the plot summary by Woodanders and to Mierdoteca Nacional for bringing this film to our attention.