Maya 1989

Tagline-Twilight is the fracture between the worlds.

At the beginning of the movie, a voice over explains the curse of the evil Mayan king Ze Bul Bai as the reddish sun sets against the dark semi-lit sky. It is stated that the word zei bul bai means devil and that he was the most evil of all human beings but even so he was protected by the god of death. The legend in the story had it that ze bul bai attempted to vanquish the Kotua tribe but failed, and upon his failure he escaped into the darkness of the night at twilight. In the movie, twilight represents a fracture between the two disjunct worlds of life and death. However, the king swore to return one day to seek revenge on the Kotuas by tearing off the chests of each and every member of the tribe.

It is apparent that the curse of ze bul bai hangs heavy upon the lives of the Kotuas as they live in perpetual fear of his return and the doom that would follow, resulting in widespread bloodshed and destruction of the established order of the residents in the rural Mexican village in which the story is set. In the first scene itself, a young boy asks his grandfather about the time when ze bul bai would come back for his bloodthirsty revenge. The grandfather responds by saying that it was certain to happen at some future date when ze bul bai would cross over from the land of the death to which he had earlier escaped.

In the next scene, the protagonist Lisa Slivak’s father Solomon is shown tensed as he writes a letter to a person named Franseco stating that he has surrendered without any help from him and that he is unable to wait further. He also reveals that he has managed to cross the border between the two worlds that both had been researching on and that he is bound a certain destiny from which there is no return.  Then he leaves on a journey to a mysterious mountain where he is attacked by a wild haired and white eyed girl who transforms into a wolf and injures his arm. He is led into the center of the mountain wilderness from where he ascends a pyramid and is then murdered by an unseen assailant with an axe.

Lisa arrives to receive the body of her father and is shocked to see mysterious incisions all over the body that nobody is able or willing to explain. She soon realizes that though her father had few friends and acquaintances, everyone in the village is harbouring a terrifying secret that they seem to accept as part of their fate and are unwilling to even discuss. For instance, it is shown that the village residents celebrate a festival of death in which a young kotua member is offered for sacrifice atop the same pyramid in which Solomon met his death as a manner of appeasement to the god of death who keeps the spirit of ze bul bai at bay. Also, when Lisa breaks into the mortuary one night and sees other victims with similar incisions on their bodies as her father’s body had, she is told by the doctor that the deaths are part of a ritual and refuses to offer any credible explanation for the deaths. It is surprising for Lisa to notice that even in the face of gruesome and inexplicable deaths, the residents appear unflustered and nonchalant until she realizes the extent to which the place and its people are seeped in superstitions and the deaths surrounding them are perceived to be part of a curse that has been firmly ensconced in belief through each passing generation. Lisa also discovers Solomon’s manuscript among his papers which describes how ze bul bai’s curse spreads across the village like a curse, a fear that has been passed on from one generation to the other and that it is a way of understanding the evil in each person’s soul.

Lisa befriends an American expatriate Peter who was close to her father and attempts to unravel the mystery behind her father’s death and they soon become witness to a slew of murders that bear signs of a supernatural destructive power. The story of Maya is paper thin but it is the tense atmosphere, the settings and the particularly gory and inventive deaths that makes the film a real teat for horror fans. There are no comedic interludes or light moments to distract from the heavy sense of doom and helplessness that each of the characters experience in the small village where the action has been set. The bizarreness of the film’s monotone is amplified by the dark lighting (with blue hues which imposes a gloomy atmosphere) as well as the sweaty sex scenes between a few of the characters (main and fringe) that pepper the narrative without any apparent connection to the main theme. The main character is also a grungy looking and sweaty expatriate, a sea diver by occupation, who has shifted to Mexico for a better life but ends up living in a dirty hellhole, always in debt to locals for drinks or food, but he does benefit from some sheet crumpling with a Mexican woman. The latter is targeted by a pair of obnoxious American teenagers who attempt to rape her but are instead done in by the supernatural force which is unleashed by the wrath of the Mayan King ze bul bai. At first therefore it seems that the persons who receive such gruesome deaths have done some wrongs (eg-on the protagonist’s girlfriend) but later it becomes apparent that the mysterious force strikes at random and even takes innocent lives, such as Solomon’s live in partner Maria who is literally hanged by sharp metal hooks or the Mexican girl whose head is repeatedly bashed against the bath tub till her nose splits in two parts.

Later in the movie, Peter discloses that the fracture between the worlds or the border between the world of living and that of the dead is based on the Mayan belief that there existed a world between humans and their reflected image. The local shaman interpreted the distinction as meaning that there were two ways of looking at one’s image, one being the superficial and straight manner, and the other that allowed a person to travel beyond the reflected image to cross the boundary between the life and death.

Peter tells Lisa that he, Fransesco and her father experimented with mirrors in an attempt to cross over the line between life and death which represented an alternative reality and although he and Franseco withdrew in fear, her father pushed on and once he managed to cross the line, he encountered death. After his girlfriend’s death, Peter is all eager to leave Mexico but at Lisa’s insistence he draws out Franseco (who is the shaman and also the doctor of the community who was Solomon’s friend and confidante) and persuades him to repeat the experiment and thwart the curse over the land. They succeed at great cost for Franseco who loses his life, with the result that the sacrifice on the pyramid is stopped and thereafter Peter and Lisa try to leave Mexico, presumably to the US. At the airport however as Lisa fumbles in her bag for tickets, her glasses drop to the floor and a small girl picks it up and runs away. Peter follows her and at the last scene where the frame freezes it is shown that it is the same ungodly girl who was the harbinger of Solomon’s death. The fate of Peter and Lisa thus remains unclear but it is obvious that the curse has not been lifted as supposed and thus it would seem that all Kotuas are still exposed to horrible deaths by king ze bul bai’s curse.

The music of Maya is ominous throughout the movie and the ominousness is reiterated by the motifs of stiff and menacing porcelain figures of Mayan kings and warriors and the mirror which supposedly brought out the darkness in persons and also acted as the interface between the world of life and death from which the curse of ze bul bai emanates.

At one level the film also serves to illustrate the rural ignorance and reliance of superstitions which besets the village folk and makes it easier for them to digest the vengeance of the king. It is for this reason that they appear to celebrate the festival of death on a full moon night atop ze bul bai’s pyramid, in which a young boy from the Kotua tribe is offered for sacrifice in order to appease the god of death who keeps the his spirit at bay. The village people are not much affected by the violent deaths because they see it as part of a recurring ritual associated with the King which culminates with a sacrifice on the celebrations.

For me, the intersection between myth and reality, superstition and terrifying vulnerability of the villagers through the workings of a curse feared by them was most interesting as also was the notion that the mirror was an artifice of evil which represented a contradistinction between the superficial image and the dark side of humans, as also between life and death itself.

Marcello Avellone is a virtually unknown director from Italy whose directing credits include only Maya and another horror film Specters (Spettri, 1987) but with Maya, he shows his flair for constructing horror that lingers on long after its run time and persists in creating unease in the viewer’s mind. It was released on DVD by Dragon Films but is now out of print and the only copies available are those created by collectors for fans of “lost” cults. (check Cult Action DVD and Revok websites). An earlier VHS tape has hardcoded Japanese subtitles on the print but is still watchable.