Directed by René Cardona III
Written by René Cardona III and Santiago Galindo
Starring:
- Pedro Fernández as Julio
- Julio Alemán as Fernando
- Gabriela Hassel as Paulina
- Nuria Bages as Lorena
- Carlos East as the Inquisitor
- Gianella Hassel Kus as Gaby
Rating: 
Vacation of Terror wants to be The Amityville Horror by way of the evil doll subgenre, but ends up feeling like an extended commercial for inactivity. Nothing happens—literally. Written and produced by some of Mexico’s most entrenched entertainment dynasties, and directed by genre figure René Cardona III, the film had every reason to be a sharp, supernatural horror tale. Instead, it’s the polar opposite of thrilling. The plot—if we can call it that—follows Fernando (Julio Alemán), the pleasant patriarch of a wealthy Mexican family, who inherits a rural estate with a dark history: a witch was executed there and left a curse behind. Naturally, he brings along his wife, children, and teenage niece to spend their vacation in this cheerful house of horrors. It’s a promising setup, with its rustic, shadowy locations, but the film treats its own haunting with all the conviction of a bad soap opera. The actors visibly struggle to suspend disbelief, as if they, too, know the ghostly hijinks are ridiculous. Bad acting can sometimes elevate shoddy horror into the realm of camp. Here, it just sinks it. Gabriela Hassel, playing the niece, offers only aesthetic pleasure, while Pedro Fernández—her boyfriend and superstitious chatterbox—is all noise and no heroic presence, despite the script’s laughable attempts to make him one. The film is almost “cute” in its horror, with endless close-ups of a doll’s eyes twitching in a way that feels more recycled than creepy. Maybe they are reused shots. Regardless, the experience is more somnolent than scary. A horror movie with zero deaths? That’s not chilling—that’s a cinematic dare gone wrong.
