The Book of Stone (1969)

People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

From what I had read about "El libro de piedra", I thought it was a forgotten or neglected masterpiece, but I was very disappointed when the word "Fin" appeared (at last!) on the screen. Though not a long film it seemed an endless exercise on slow tempo, miscasting, and very silly dialogue, from a story that seems to take quite a lot from Jack Clayton's "The Innocents", from a Henry James story. Marga López plays the new governess of Silvia (Lucy Buj), a girl who is under the influence of the spirit of Hugo, an Austrian child, whose statue stands on a pedestal in the forest surrounding the villa of her widower father (Joaquín Cordero, stiffer than Hugo's statue). Silvia refers to Hugo as a secret friend, and her young stepmother (Norma Lazareno, sporting a different hair-do for every scene) is uncertain if the little girl has seen the boy, but everybody else looks the other way: her father believes Silvia is crazy, and the servants think she is evil. To tell the truth, there are few evidences that something wrong is going on (which means that there are almost no supernatural scenes). Then Silvia mentions the magic words "black magic", and actions to solve the mystery are taken by the governess and the girl's godfather (Aldo Monti, as an artist who seems out of a fashion show, and who wears white trousers while painting). During most of the film, López is the unifying element, and —although her acting style may be called "old school"— she plays a character one is willing to follow. In the second half, she receives good support from Monti, who also brings a much-needed sense of humor to the story, while it becomes unnerving to listen to Cordero's frequent and ignorant complaints about his daughter, or to watch Lazareno abusing the child. I am an admirer of Mexican horror films, but I prefer when the acting is over the top, the stories flirt with grand guignol, and the budgets are smaller. Give me "El vampiro", "El espejo de la bruja", or "Misterios de ultratumba", and I will be happier than with these stories of terrified petty bourgeois characters.

Growing up in Milwaukee in the early 80s meant one Spanish channels for my parents and every Friday night was our family night. Unlike your typical family night our idea of family night meant making popcorn and jumping into bed with mom to watch "Noche de pelicula". During Halloween they showed many scary movies and this one along with "Hasta el viento tiene miedo" are engraved in my mind like GEMS in a pile of dirt. This movie is a MUST SEE! I would put this and the before named movie up their with "The Exorcist" and "The Amityville Horror" just for its raw FEAR. Many new horror movies are based on visual effects to produce fear where these classics use plain atmosphere to create a natural fear.

I saw this movie when I was 9 years old. To this day I don't understand how they allowed children into the movie theatre in Mexico to watch this type of movie. I still remember bits and pieces of it and they all come together to recreate the nightmares I had after watching this movie. Without giving away the ending, the movie is about a rich man who moves into a huge old mansion in the middle of the country with his new young wife and the daughter he had with his first wife. Along with them comes a woman who plays the role of nanny and governess for the young girl. In the enormous backyard, which is mostly covered with weeds and bordered by the woods, the young girls discovers a grave guarded over by the statue of an angel that holds open a huge stone book in his arms. Sometime in the first part of the movie, the young girls confesses to her nanny that she has found a secret playmate, a young boy, but nobody pays attention to her until very mysterious things start to happen and tragedy strikes the new household. I only wish that someday the Mexican Institute of Film would help recover and releases to the general public this and other gems of the Mexican cinema.

This might be the best of the few Mexican horror films. The story revolves about a statue of a boy which is found in the forest near the main character´s house. Legend says that the statue is not really what it seems to be. As with most horror films prior to the 70,s, this movie lacks gore or flashy fx but compensates it with solid acting from most part of the cast and a very creepy and uneasy atmosphere that leaves you looking twice over your shoulder or looking more carefully at the shadows in the corners even after repeated viewings.