Alejandro Flores

This documentary examines ayahuasca shamanism near Iquitos (a metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon), and the tourism it has attracted. The filmmakers talk with two ayahuasqueros, Percy Garcia and Ron Wheelock, as well as ayuahuasca tourists and local people connected with the ayahuasca industry.

A house by the sea has stood vacant for many years, after misfortune befell several owners, which an artist painting the house explains to a passergy. A cross-editing of principal material from two Chilean films, LA CASA ESTA VACIA and LA DAMA DE LA MUERTE, with the addition of new American-made footage, to create a single story.

This beautiful, atmospheric Chilean movie (made by an Argentinian director) was unfortunately "cannibalized" by Jerry Warren, who kept about a third of the original footage, together with another third of "La dama de la muerte" (another superb Chilean movie of the same period, made by Argentinian director Carlos Hugo Christensen), then added his own senseless "additional sequences" with John Carradine and Katherine Victor, the final result being the atrocious CURSE OF THE STONE HAND.