Swamp of the Lost Souls (1957)

Original title: El pantano de las ánimas

Warning: major spoilers for a film that’s going to be older than most people reading this ahead!

The Mexican equivalent of the Old West. Don Mendoza, one of the local Big Men, has died of what is apparently cholera. Thanks to practical good sense, the local graveyard is quite a bit of swamp travel away from town; less great is that the area is supposed to be haunted by the souls of the wicked dead. There’s certainly curious stuff happening: Mendoza’s body disappears between his wife and his suddenly returning stepson wanting a lookaloo at the corpse; and when grandson galops off to fetch his cowboy detective buddy Gastón (Gastón Santos) to explain that particular weirdness, he is ambushed and dies in his friend’s arms. And once Gastón makes his way to his new case, various people are attacked or killed by a gill man style swamp monster.

It is clear early on that there’s a very human kind of conspiracy involved too. Please don’t tell me the supernatural is only faked to scare away superstitious villagers and riding detectives?

As indeed, alas, turns out to be the case in Rafael Baledón’s ranchero horror mystery Swamp of the Lost Souls. The Scooby Doo before there was Scooby Doo-ness of the whole affair is made a bit more disappointing by the fact that Baledón certainly wasn’t a filmmaker opposed to the supernatural as well as by the fact that there are quite a few Mexican movies that mix ranchero (the Mexican parallel genre to the US western) with enthusiastically portrayed supernatural shenanigans.

On the plus side, this does explain the shoddiness of the gill man costume rather nicely. The film’s not a complete loss for us more horror minded viewers anyway, for particularly the film’s first half has a couple of choice scenes of Mexican gothic. The burial sequence is done very well indeed (and by daylight to boot!), really getting an audience into a properly swampy mood, as are the first two or so swamp monster attacks. I’m also rather fond of the high-strung gothic melodrama surrounding the deceased’s wife Doña María (Sara Cabrera) and her rather handy in a pulp adventure lady’s maid Carmela (Lupe Carriles). The good lady does after all try to hide her blindness with the help of a lot of handwringing and contrived plans while still doing a good bit of snooping, all things Carmela is very helpful in doing while throwing a lot of dramatically meaningful glances her boss lady can’t even see.

The ranchero business is very much in the classic white hat against black hat style, with a pretty man dressed up ridiculously making a not terribly interesting hero (as is the tradition with this style of western) but still going through the mandatory bar fights, shoot-outs and chases with enough verve to make them interesting. The mystery elements for their part are enhanced by their minor pulp supervillain vibe, with bad guys that not only concoct plans including a fake gill man but also communicate via hidden portable telegraphs and really like to tie you up and explain their plans to you. There’s also a scene in which the – otherwise perfectly boring – romantic female lead’s horse does a Lassie to fetch Gastón like any good anipal would.

All of which makes it rather difficult for me to dislike Swamp of the Lost Souls, however much I despise Scooby Doo endings, and however creaky some of the film is. Baledón’s way of adding all of his disparate genres and ideas up is just too damn fun to complain about.