Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Ploydsge just watch it!

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

morrison-dylan-fan Getting near the end of the IMDb Horror board's 2012 "Horror Challenge",I began to think about what films I would like to end the challenge on.Taking a look at some titles the a friend had kindly sent me,I was thrilled to discover,that I had been sent an uncut version of an exciting sounding Mexican Horror,that I had originally heard about in connection to a horribly cut "Elvira" DVD version of the film.Being thrilled about seeing the movie the way the it had originally intended to be seen,I decided that it was time to open the book of stone.The plot:Arriving to her employer's isolated,enclosed villa,Julia Septiem is greeted by her new boss Eugenio Ruvalcaba.Deciding to get any uncomfortable matters out of the way,Ruvalcaba decides to double check that Julia knows what her job could involve,due to Eugenio having recently decided not to send his daughter Silvia to school,thanks to her recently having shown some strange behaviour.Catching him by surprise,Septiem tells Ruvalcaba that she is all set to handle any trouble that comes her way.Looking around the villa's huge garden,Jullia quickly finds Silvia,who tells her that she is currently playing games with an imaginary friend called Hugo.Initially thinking that Silvia has created Hugo,due to her dad having recently got re- married to a woman called Marianna,Septiem quickly finds out that Silvia's "imaginary" friend Hugo,is not actually imaginary at all,but is in fact a statue,that has over looked the villa with a chilling smile for the last few hundred years.View on the filmConfiding 90% of the film's running time to the closed in,isolated mansion,writer/director Carlos Enrique Taboada uses the fleeting moments that the movie gets away from its "restricted" zone,to brilliantly punish any of the character's who leave his haunting,Gothic villa behind,and attempt to enter the "modern world".Keeping a divide between the Gothic and the "Modern" world,Taboada uses the character's attempts to break the villa's enclosed atmosphere,by pulling the Hugo statue out of their world,as a way to deliver a deliciously sharp,scorpion tail twist ending,that can proudly sit side by side with the best,most bleak twist endings of Rod Sterling's The Twilight Zone.Smarting using Julia Septiem's (played by the wonderful Marga Lopez) arrival to Ruvalcaba (played by a stern Joaquin Cordero) and Marianna's (played by a gorgeous Norma Lazareno) villa as an intelligent way to display Julia's chilling discoveries around the villa to be from the same point of view as the audience.Bravely staying away from taking the easy route out of making the film be a Haunted House movie,Taboada instead slowly builds up an unsettling,misty atmosphere to the film,with Catlos fantastic directing initially making Silvia's (perfectly played by Lucy Buj) friendship with "imaginearey friend" Hugo ,to be one on the outside view of Septiem and the audience , that originally looks like it is putting a smile on the lonely face of Silvia,but as Taboada delicately peels the shine off ,to revel the decayed root buried deep in the villa's foundation,that terrifyingly transform's Silvia's smile from one that's displays pure,Innocent joy,to be a smile that's cracking apart from the menacing smirk,hiding underneath.

stavrostsirlis OK,I went in with high hopes for this one ans I was mildly disappointed with it. First,I have to say that I watched on VHS and the picture/sound were not that good;I don't know even if this film has ever made it to DVD. The story is your typical Gothic supernatural horror,but not as great and eerie as the one that it often gets compared to,which is the British 'The Innocents' from 1961. It involves a little girl which seems to be having a strange relationship with a stone statue situated in the vast garden of her rich parent's suburban house. You know the typical ghost story; is she possessed,is it all in her mind and the viewer's,does the statue really have a life of its own? A couple genuine moments,but nothing that I/you haven't seen hundreds of times before,if you're a big fan of the genre. If you are interested in the director,watch his better film 'Even the Wind Is Scared'. I give this one, a 6 out of 10.

Edgar Soberon Torchia From what I had read about "El libro de piedra", I thought it was a forgotten or neglected masterpiece, but I was very disappointed when the word "Fin" appeared (at last!) on the screen. Though not a long film it seemed an endless exercise on slow tempo, miscasting, and very silly dialogue, from a story that seems to take quite a lot from Jack Clayton's "The Innocents", from a Henry James story. Marga López plays the new governess of Silvia (Lucy Buj), a girl who is under the influence of the spirit of Hugo, an Austrian child, whose statue stands on a pedestal in the forest surrounding the villa of her widower father (Joaquín Cordero, stiffer than Hugo's statue). Silvia refers to Hugo as a secret friend, and her young stepmother (Norma Lazareno, sporting a different hair-do for every scene) is uncertain if the little girl has seen the boy, but everybody else looks the other way: her father believes Silvia is crazy, and the servants think she is evil. To tell the truth, there are few evidences that something wrong is going on (which means that there are almost no supernatural scenes). Then Silvia mentions the magic words "black magic", and actions to solve the mystery are taken by the governess and the girl's godfather (Aldo Monti, as an artist who seems out of a fashion show, and who wears white trousers while painting). During most of the film, López is the unifying element, and —although her acting style may be called "old school"— she plays a character one is willing to follow. In the second half, she receives good support from Monti, who also brings a much-needed sense of humor to the story, while it becomes unnerving to listen to Cordero's frequent and ignorant complaints about his daughter, or to watch Lazareno abusing the child. I am an admirer of Mexican horror films, but I prefer when the acting is over the top, the stories flirt with grand guignol, and the budgets are smaller. Give me "El vampiro", "El espejo de la bruja", or "Misterios de ultratumba", and I will be happier than with these stories of terrified petty bourgeois characters.

insomniac_rod Extremely creepy and unsettling movie that relies it's Horror on Psychological Thriller, explanations towards an ancient evil curse, black magic, and the supposed appearance of a ghost boy named Hugo.This movie raises México's status on the genre and provides unforgettable scenes and dialogs that make the plot stronger on the scare factor."El Libro de Piedra" is a tale about a young girl named Silvia who has an obsession with a stone statue who she swears is alive and always comes to play with her, but at the same time teaches her black magic and more evil things.Silvia isn't by any means a mentally illed girl, on the other hand, she's very smart but somehow evil.The situation worries his father to the point that he hires a private teacher to take care of her education, moral behavior, and attitude. Soon after the new teacher arrives, strange things start to happen as Silvia's obsession with the statue grow to the point that mysterious deaths and situations related to black magic happen in her big impressive Gothic mansion.The movie is filled with creepy images, a dark atmosphere, ghostly settings and scary images. The atmosphere is created with intrepid camera angles, fog, and an excellent soundtrack. The production values are top class and truly give the movie an unique look.Carlos Enrique Taboada is a master of Horror and deserves more recognition. This is probably his most scary Horror movie.The plot behind the Hugo statue is creepy enough and deals with an ancient Austrain city that disappeared after World War II when Germany destroyed it. Hugo, son of an ancient evil Magician is trapped inside the stone statue waiting for his father to re-incarnate. He's evil but he's also good on the level that he's only a boy. Could he be a ghost? Join Slvia in this fantastic tale of Terror and Fantasy that will send shivers up your funny bone. You will scream in Terror when Hugo makes his appearance.Superb, solid, excellent performances by Marga López, Joaquin Cordero (always an excellent actor), Norma Lazareno (those breasts Mrs. Lazareno! my respects), Aldo Monti, and Lucy Buj as Silvia (a wicked performance).Direction is simply superb. I can't think of any other movie that relies everything on the Psychological factor. Taboada once again demonstrates why he's the master of Mexican Horror.Please get a copy of this movie, you won't regret.