Let’s take a trip back in time with a Mexican horror flick from the end of the 80s and its Halloween themed sequel!
VACATION OF TERROR (1989)
Atmosphere, creepy synth musical cues, fog machines, and an 80s vibe are the highlights of this goofy horror flick.
After she vows to get revenge, a witch is burned at the stake, and all her belongings are thrown into a well, including a doll.
In modern times, a man inherits a summer house and brings his family to check it out, including his niece and her boyfriend.
His young daughter falls down a well, where she finds a doll that seems to possess her…yet the little girl appears to be controlling the doll’s supernatural actions—you know, the usual creepy girl talking to her doll scenario. She even has the doll harm her pregnant mother.
The husband takes the mother to the hospital, leaving the kids alone. Then the daughter—this is about an evil little girl with a supernatural doll, it’s not a witch revenge flick—begins to terrorize the niece and boyfriend for the rest of the movie.
It’s scene after scene of the daughter whispering to her doll and then the doll’s eyes shifting to make paranormal shit happen around the house.
There’s even a toy car used like a voodoo doll to make an actual car go on fire.
Watch this one strictly for the 80s nostalgia.
VACATION OF TERROR 2 (1991)
Would you believe it’s a cheesy sequel that’s better than the first movie? Vacation of Terror 2 takes place on Halloween (landing it on the holiday horror page), downplays the stupid demon doll, brings in an actual demon, and is so deliciously sloppy it feels like 80s Euro horror. Also…it has nothing to do with a vacation.
The boyfriend from the first film is back. He meets a pop singer, and she invites him to …a Halloween birthday party?…for her little sister, who is in possession of the doll.
In the meantime, we get to see the pop singer perform for the party—a song that sounds totally like the Sinitta 1988 dance track “Cross My Broken Heart”, only in Spanish.
After the little sister cuts her finger and bleeds on the birthday cake, the doll eats some of the cake under a table then turns into an awesome yet totally standard looking demon.
The boyfriend from the first film, the pop singer, and her little sister end up alone at the birthday location (which just seems like a town square decorated for Halloween).
The little sister is supernaturally dragged away, and then the main guy and girl run around the streets trying to avoid a demon intent on killing them while they attempt to save the little sister.
It’s silly, it’s hokey, it’s a mess, and yet it’s so much better than the first film.
