“A journey that takes one man into the bowels of black magic in Mexico City” IMDB. (Lionsgate)
“Revolves around a Mexican faith healer, who is called upon to purify a police station and winds up in conflict with a ruthless killer named Casteneda.“
“Curandero: Dawn of the Demon is an action-packed horror flick that takes a couple on a horrifying journey through the deepest bowels of the Mexican underworld. When beautiful federal agent Magdalena calls upon the local curandero (Gallardo) for his services to purify a police station, the two of suddenly find themselves immersed in a satanic cult’s blood-thirsty battleground”
“Back in 2005, Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Machete) wrote a script for a supernatural thriller, called “Curandero: Dawn of the Demon.” The film was produced by Rodriguez as well as Dimension Films (Miramax), and premiered at the Screamfest Film Festival.
Since the festival, “Curandero” wasn’t released in theaters and wasn’t released on DVD. It was simply shelved. But now comes word Miramax and Lionsgate will release the movie on DVD and VOD on March 12th”
Nsala Malongo everyone on this day I wanted to talk about the movie Curandero which was banned from the screen because of its gory portrayal of demonic forces. Now I am a regular horror enthusiast because personally that calls to me. It has nothing to do with Palo or any other practice I may formulate in my day-to-day living. But it is something that I do. Now most horror stories have a bit of truth and yet a lot of fictional qualities which leads the viewer into wanting to see these types of movies. But I have a problem when movies like this are brought to the mainstream because the light shunned on our religious beliefs are quite distorted. I am not a conspiracy theorist and do not claim to be one. But I say similarities in the plausible ideas of characters. The factual interpretation of Adolfo Costanzo who was claimed to be a Palero by the National Media when in fact none of his ritual work had to do with Palo Mayombe with the exception of a steel cauldron with human remains in it. Castaneda in this story was held in a Police Station and had built a supposed nganga, All the supposed remains and implements were in a slop bucket in a corner and that was considered a nganga.
Honestly Adolfo Costanzo was a perpetrated fraud that utilized his supposed limited knowledge of our tradition to create a farce which made him a cult leader. Not a palero. Recently in a forum called the Pantheacon I was told by one of the consultants on the case of Matamoros killings that one of the requisites to being part of his cult was you had to have watched The believers 1987 Charlie sheen and know it detail for detail by hard. In the matamoros compound was found over 20 copies of this movie. Why was this never spoken about? Could it be it was bad business for MGM studios not to allow that since the murders were in close proximity of the film existence? Remember around this time the Matamoros was in Spring break on 1989 now you have Curandero out in march of 2013. Is it purely coincidence or is it more of that conspiracy craziness?
Well whatever it is we need to start posturing up for the Satanic Panic of the 1980′s revisited in 2013. If we do not stop this utter stupidity about our religions and beliefs we will just add fuel to an ever raging fire for someone to come and create an inferno of controversy and untruths. These depictional characters are not our lawyers and doctors, They are not are women and children, and definitely are not our priests and priestesses. Robert Rodriguez who is a latino should be ashamed of himself in looking at us and pondering the common criminal and Psuedo Religious types and should better inform himself about the everyday practices and differences between curanderos, spiritist, Paleros, Santeros, vodou practitioners and so forth. When will the general public stand up and stop being a silenced voice on these issues of our practice and beliefs? I wont stop advocating this stuff I am going to make my presence known even through little blogs like this. We need to start putting our feet forward and eliminate this type of bad media that is only killing our functionality and our spiritual beliefs. Instead of people out there trying to better the ideal of Palo you have people out there in the miniscule minds who are supposed religious people trying to bash each other and these pseudo palo groups who sell into the philosophy. I for one love the undivided attention they give me but honestly you need to focus on real issues of our religion and not all this blubbering like school girls. Also when we see the Modus operandi of all these little insignificant paleros we can see why palo does not have a true voice. Elders in our community and a lot of those supposed advocates need to talk about this and not hide behind a screen with fake profiles and trying to dent someone’s image. Use that energy to make a difference in your life and bring our religion up instead of squashing it down into the garbage compactor of lies and false truths. Advocacy and speaking out and creating a voice with intelligence is key. Not the rantings of some idiots online. focus and look at those movies and companies are hard-earned money goes too and wake up! Stop contributing to the problem and be part of the solution. Tata Musitu