Census Bloodbath: Knit One, Kill Two

Note: The only copy of this Mexican slasher that I could find was in unsubtitled Spanish, so take my review with a grain of salt.

Year:
1986
Director:
José Luis García Agraz

Cast:
Lorena Maza, Rodolfo de Anda, Bruno Rey
Run Time:
1 hour 19 minutes

Plot: In Yo te amo Catalina (I Love You Catalina), Catalina (Lorena Maza) is a schoolmarmish secretary by day and a vengeful murderer at night. She lives with her man-hating grandmother (Mercedes Pascual), who tells her tales of the men that led to her mother's death, so she dresses as her mother to prowl the streets and murder men with a knitting needle. Things get complicated when her boss (I think his name is Aquiles, in which case he is played by Rodolfo de Anda), who is also investigating the murder case, begins to woo her.

Analysis: I can't say I've encountered any great Mexican 1980s slashers just yet, but Yo te amo Catalina gets the closest. At the very least, it's one that plays most like an actual slasher movie, rather than a telenovela, a musical, a crime movie, or a Western. However its primary mode of psychosexual drama isn't all that interesting.

There's only so many times we can watch Aquiles make out with Catalina, only for her to freak out, start gently hyperventilating, refuse to have sex with him, and then go murder somebody. This movie takes the "slasher kills as a substitute for penetrative sex" theory and just sloshes it all over the screen without pretending there's actually a story involved.

The kills are OK, at least. The movie is a cheap regional production, so they didn't have much money for effects, but they managed to come up with some clever workarounds. While most of the kills are offscreen, we do see their aftermath, and they always find somewhere fun and fresh to stick that needle prop. The kills that are onscreen typically obscure what's happening in some way. Pillows are used twice to that end, at first effectively (Catalina holds a pillow up to a victims face and then stabs the needle through it, which adds a visceral smothering element to the kill that isn't just an obvious excuse to hide the gore effect) and then not so much (a guy who's about to be shot is just standing there holding a pillow in front of his stomach, which telegraphs what's going to happen so much that Western Union should have charged them).

The movie also benefits from being quietly weird in a lot of ways. Much of this stems from its depiction of Aquiles' life and personality. I don't know if his actions are meant to be heroic or to imply that he is just as much of a villain as Catalina, but every time he uses his gun, it's absolutely baffling. He basically never uses it in a cop movie setting, he is either letting Abuela play with it, shooting at a guy who annoys him while he's eating his sandwich, shooting a warning shot at his wife to force her to sign divorce papers so he can have sex with Catalina, and so on. Some of these moments are obvious comic beats and some are downright evil, but all of them are deeply odd.

We may only get brief glimpses of his home life, but I wish we got more, because they tend to involve two children playing, two women knitting while watching TV like zombies, and infinite kittens flopping around on every flat surface.

All in all, Yo te amo Catalina was entirely watchable thanks to the effort it brings to its kills and its commitment to layering in offbeat details, even though every beat of the actul plot is predictable to the point that I could have just watched it on mute. Well, everything is predictable minus the shockingly random epilogue that takes place 40 years later. I told you this movie was weird!

Killer: Catalina (Lorena Maza)

Final Girl: N/A

Best Kill: The final comeuppance of Aquiles is pretty neat. While he's (I assume) slowly talking his way through the case and putting the pieces together while in the bath, Catalina creeps up on him and goes to town with the needle. Bathtub suds are a much more dynamic effects-obfuscating device than pillows, it turns out.

Sign of the Times: "Lola" by The Kinks is playing throughout the entire opening murder sequence.

Scariest Moment: Catalina's window bursts open and her dead mother begins speaking to her through a framed photograph.

Weirdest Moment: Aquiles and Catalina have a whole conversation where neither of them point out the weird cat drawing behind him.

Champion Dialogue: N/A

Body Count: 11

1. Cabbie is stabbed through the back with a knitting needle.
2. Projectionist is stabbed in the eye with a knitting needle offscreen.
3. Coronel (Bruno Rey of Pánico en el bosque and Sabor a sangre), I think, is stabbed in the face with a knitting needle.
4. Ferris Wheel Guy is stabbed in the gut with a pin offscreen.
5. Shootout Guy #1 is shot by Aquiles.
6. Shootout Guy #2 is shot by Aquiles.
7. Street Man is stabbed in the neck with a knitting needle offscreen.
8. Tiny Gangster is killed with a knitting needle offscreen.
9. Newsie Cap Guy is shot in the pillow by Big Lug.
10. Big Lug falls off the roof.
11. Aquiles is stabbed in the chest repeatedly with a knitting needle.

TL;DR: Yo te amo Catalina is a half-decent cheapie slasher, but its plot is predictable even if you don't understand two-thirds of the dialogue.

Rating: 5/10