The Curse of El Charro (2004)

24% of users liked it
(580 ratings)

The vengeful curse of a 19th Century Mexican land baron reaches through time to place the grip of death on a contemporary college student in director Rich Ragsdale's tale of a love most gruesome. It was a long time ago that wealthy land baron El Charro lusted after the most beautiful woman in the… More The vengeful curse of a 19th Century Mexican land baron reaches through time to place the grip of death on a contemporary college student in director Rich Ragsdale's tale of a love most gruesome. It was a long time ago that wealthy land baron El Charro lusted after the most beautiful woman in the land, but his motives were impure and the woman's firm rejection is simply more than his fragile psyche can take. Driven to psychosis by his unrequited love, the unhinged baron embarks on a brutal killing spree before placing a curse on the unattainable beauty's entire bloodline. Flash forward to modern times, and a young college girl begins to experience terrifying dreams of death. When she and her hard partying group of friends hit the road for a wild trip down to Mexico for a much-needed vacation, the discovery of El Charro's reanimated corpse leads the nightmare-plagued college student to realize that she is a direct descendent of the beauty who once spurned the determined land baron. Now the baron is back to claim the one love who refused to take his hand in life, and he isn't above dispatching a few of her closest friends in order to accomplish his nefarious goal. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 30 min.
Directed By: Rich Ragsdale
Written By: Ryan R. Johnson
Genres: Horror

In Theaters: Apr 3, 2005 Wide
On DVD: Oct 3, 2006

Critic Reviews

Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
A nonsensical supernatural horror film void of any direction and pure suspense...
Scott Weinberg, DVDTalk.com
You have to sit through a whole lot of migraine material to get to the goods.

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Christopher B

SPOILERS Did anyone else think that the movie was leading up to the roommate being involved somehow in the whole El Charro thing. Here's some suspicious things: 1. Forces lead to go on vacation with 2 people who despise her. That should be relaxing. 2. Takes her out to the… More
SPOILERS Did anyone else think that the movie was leading up to the roommate being involved somehow in the whole El Charro thing. Here's some suspicious things: 1. Forces lead to go on vacation with 2 people who despise her. That should be relaxing. 2. Takes her out to the desert where El Charro dwells. 3. Goes to her uncle's house with religious statues and altars all over the place. Totally normal, and of course the uncle is never seen (perhaps the religious items were taken from the director's home) 4. Shoves any type of pill down her good friend's throat, even going so far as to trust the evil goth girl, who spits on the ground she walks on, for sleeping pills 5. Low angle shot of roommate looking down at suffering friend smiling and saying "That's what friends are for." 6. Disappears completely for about a third of the final act (When she shows up again she was just showing some dude the house, for 115 hours!) 7. Suddenly changes from good girl to bar tramp, ready to get it on on the hood of a car in front of the house in a clearly lit area. Certainly she'd have to know everyone is dead to do that. 8. Killed off screen (for the life of me I couldn't understand why she was screaming since she was clearly hiding some nefarious, evil pact with the creature) Probably, to answer my own question, she was just a poorly conceived character like the rest of the cast (these people make the cast of The Squid and the Whale seem like Leave it to Beaver. What a bunch of you-know-what-holes). I think this is an example of a the main creative forces (if you wanna call em that) behind the project dumbing themselves down to work in such a shoddy genre. They sat on their pedestals and knew they were only making a lousy horror movie, so don't get worried about anything, those horror idiots will eat up anything. Well, I'll make an agreement, stay out of my genre, and I'll stay out of pretentious student films.