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the audience applauded

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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.

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.

I swear this has to be the scariest movie I´ve ever seen in my entire life, and I´ve seen plenty, but the whole aura that is involved in the facts that surrounds the goth horror in El libro de piedra (The stone book), it´s real frightening. Maybe I should say that I watched the movie on TV when I was nine or ten, and of course left me full of chills the whole evening; and in days after. I couldn´t look at the curtains in my room at night, or to a rear view mirror. If you can see the movie sometime, you´ll understand what I'm talkin' about. The fact is that I catched again the film like four years ago; I haven't seen it in a long time, and it happened the same: I was so thrilled about the experience, that I got scared again like the very first time, and maybe even more because I was chillin' on anticipation for what I knew it was coming. And I was already on my late 20's. Director´s Taboada, as far as I know, it´s better known outside México for some of his horror movies. Hasta el viento tiene miedo (Even the wind's scared 1968) and Más negro que la noche (Blacker than the night 75-76), are some of his finest efforts in the horror ground. And I´ve seen those two -on tv also-, but it's El libro... the greatest of them all. Of course there are some flaws in the screenplay, in the acting and in direction matters, but on the other hand, it has some of the very best tricks to create fear without the effects that has been used and abused nowadays. This movie has the magic of the psychological tease that has inspired some of Guillermo del Toro works -just see the liquid footprints on El espinazo del diablo- and all around the ghost seeking revenge theme.Another high point of El libro... i'ts that the ending it's not your cliché finale. It's so powerful and unexpected, that instead of getting a feel of relief -you may know what I mean-, it leaves you more than shocked and horrified. Taboada was a master on this matters, and if you're ever able to check his other works, you may enjoy it as well. The first half of Hasta el viento tiene miedo it's brilliant too, and Más negro... it's good just as reference. But if you can, try another mexican horror movies like Ladrón de cadáveres (Thief of corpses), and El escapulario.

This might be the best of the few Mexican horror films. The story revolves about a statue of a boy which is found in the forest near the main character´s house. Legend says that the statue is not really what it seems to be. As with most horror films prior to the 70,s, this movie lacks gore or flashy fx but compensates it with solid acting from most part of the cast and a very creepy and uneasy atmosphere that leaves you looking twice over your shoulder or looking more carefully at the shadows in the corners even after repeated viewings.