El día de los Albañiles 2 (1985)

Sequel to El día de los albañiles (1984). A 'vecindad film' starring Alfonzo Zayas and Angélica Chain.

A group of hookers wait for customers to drive up - including a prostitute in a red dress (Yirah Aparicio) who smokes a cigarette while she waits.

The hooker gets into a car with a john.

Further down the road, the driver gets violent. He pulls out a switchblade and cuts the straps to her dress.

The john pulls down her dress and starts groping her.

He then spreads open her legs and stabs her in the stomach.

We go from that dark encounter to a more lighthearted scene. Roberto (Alfonso Zayas) is hitting on a cook.

The lady puts tortillas on a conveyor belt which drop into a basket.

Their lovemaking is interrupted as the hot tortillas miss the basket and slap on to Roberto's bare ass.

Roberto is busted by his wife Beatriz (Angélica Chain) who naturally gets upset at catching him fooling around once again.

At the construction site we meet Juan Camaney (Luis de Alba) who is dating a punk rock girl.

Juan takes a break by the stairs which a pair of amazing legs strolls up. Juan becomes obsessed by this mysterious woman.

Roberto and Beatriz have patched things up and are in the payment line at the construction site. They are joined by their diminutive friend Tun Tun (José René Ruiz).

Fernando (Hugo Stiglitz) is the evil rich guy in charge of this construction operation. He spots Beatriz standing in line and requests a worker bring her to him.

He comes on to her, but Beatriz is faithful to Roberto and rejects his advances.

Juan is robbing a place when the resident returns home. He hides in the closet.

Juan can't believe his eyes. The owner is the myserious woman with the gorgeous legs. Even more surprising - she is the spitting image of Beatriz, except with red hair!

The woman hears something in the closet and Juan is almost caught. But she finds her cat in the closet and takes it into her arms.

The woman rolls around on her bed with the cat.

The Beatriz lookalike talks on the phone. Juan overhears her conversation and we learn that she is affiliated with the evil businessman Fernando.

Fernando flirts with Beatriz at the jobsite, and starts to actually make some headway. Roberto catches them in the act and gets upset, starting a fight with Fernando.

Beatriz' lookalike is actually a famous model. Juan continues to follow her around. After a modeling job and some shopping, the woman returns to her car and finds it unable to start. (Juan has sabotaged it.). He offers to give her a ride.

Thanks to Juan's perseverance and inexplicable animal magnetism, he is able to make his fantasy a reality and make love to her in his car.

We can perhaps forgive Beatriz' flirtations with Fernando considering Roberto is having sex with Leticia (Arlette Pacheco).

The next day, Juan shows Leticia his pet lizard.

Little does he realize, this is the last time any of them will see her alive.

That evening, Fernando beats her up. She puts up a good fight, but Fernando ultimately kills her.

Beatriz is still resisting Fernando's advances, but agrees to go with him to a club. There, she sees Roberto with another woman (the punk rock girl). When she confronts Roberto, he is rude to her and seems to have moved on.

Hurt and dejected, Beatriz is vulnerable and goes to bed with Fernando.

Meanwhile, Roberto (in full punk costume) is playing Twister with Beatriz' lookalike.

With the punk girl passed out in the corner, Roberto and Beatriz' lookalike start to fool around on the Twister mat.

Roberto and Juan find out about Leticia's death and suspect Fernando is behind it. They take part in a Mexican traditional practice - dressing up in traditional garb and being spun around on a pole high above a crowd.

According to plan, Roberto and Juan cut themselves loose at the precise moment to hurtle themselves through Fernando's apartment window. Once inside, they snoop around for clues. Roberto opens a closet door and is horrified by what he finds.

Leticia's dead body, wrapped in celophane, falls out of the closet.

Juan, Tun Tun and Roberto confront Fernando and his thugs. The police arrive in the nick of time.

Fernando is brought to justice. Beatriz and Roberto get back together. And finally Beatriz meets her twin. THE END

VZ6 SCORECARD

What always strikes me about these Mexican films is the juxtapositon of silly slapstick comedy alongside some extremely dark shit.  One minute Zayas is making goofy faces making love, and the next a dead body is falling out of a closet. I love cast of characters - the familiar faces you saw in so many of these movies.  A ton of fun, and I will never get tired of these classics.

Angélica Chain provides an outstanding FFN scene as she makes love to Fernando.  She's naked quite a bit in this film; this takes the cake.  

Arlette Pacheco went on to huge success on Mexican TV, starring in dozens of shows and appearing in literally hundreds upon hundreds of episodes - all the way to today. 

 ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 7/10