I don’t think I could say I had ever seen a Mexican horror movie until now. Oh, that’s right, Guillermo del Toro is Mexican. Let me restate myself: I have never seen a Mexican, horror, B- Movie. You all know we review garbage most of the time, and the fun thing is when you find something enjoyable (sometimes even playing around in the garbage can be enjoyable). Vacations of Terror was not an example of this, but it was pure B-Horror sludge.

I didn’t know how popular the theme of witch burning is for older horror movies. I don’t see much of it today. Well, the story opens on a witch being burned in Mexico, and of course she blabs something like, "I’ll be back, and you all will surely pay." I was looking forward for her to come back with mighty demonic powers and slaughter the ancestors of the ones that killed her. Nothing like that happens. You don’t ever see the witch at all again. Her evil spirit is locked inside a doll that was thrown into a well, and there it waits for some little girl to pick it up and together destroy things.

Fernando has just inherited the vacation home where all the witch activities occurred. He brings his family there (wife and 3 kids) plus his niece, Paulina, and her boyfriend Julio. Julio is a whacky guy. He is in a rock band and is into the occult. The twin boys are lame ass retards. Their sister Gaby finds the doll and opens up the door to relentless witch attacks. Things from eggs breaking, lights being turned on and off to psychic attacks. Gaby’s mother, who was pregnant gets real sick and has to leave. The way you can see the doll is working her spell is simple: she moves her eyes to the side. It’s an ugly doll really, very creepy.

Paulina and Julio are left to take care of the kids. The twins seem to be in sync with Gaby and the witch doll, but you can’t really tell cause of their emotionless performance throughout. The plate throwing and furniture moving scene comes and Paulina thinks she is going nuts. She’s thrown at least twice across the room and Julio is flung into a mirror and gets swallowed up in it. The effects are pure crap, but kind of charming on occasion. Finally Paulina manages to get her hands on the doll and toss it into the fireplace.

As with all climactic, stereotype endings the house goes up in flames. The place caving in and the difficult escape was kind of ok. But one of the twins is trapped in a room upstairs and our odd hero Julio, goes in after him. Now with the fiery planks of wood and the floor full of fire you’d think it be impossible to reach the child. Not for Julio. The cool looking but unrealistic set has him dodge and climb and jump his way through, almost as in a video game. Julio challenged the flaming house and won. He also rescued the brat.

This movie was crap ok. I would have loved to see this with a friend to shift the pain between us but I sat through this puppy alone. I’m thinking this movie may have been made for television because it's lame and poorly constructed. I really just wanted to see what was going to happen. The witch never showed up, there was no real menace. Watching this movie was like walking through a Halloween spook house. You want to get scared but you don’t because you know it’s all fake and in 3 hours you’ll be sitting at home drinking tea and getting ready for bed. No nightmares.

- Jorge Antonio Lopez