A local film restoration buff has partnered with a collector of “trashy, cult, and forgotten Mexican movies” to bring a special exhibit to The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana this week.

The two young men with a passion for old movies — Michael Aguirre and Armando Hernandez — teamed up to recreate an experience once fairly common in Santa Ana’s downtown: catching a Mexican movie on the big screen.

The free exhibit in the cinema’s lobby — which runs until Friday, Sept. 2 — features a collection of vintage Mexican movie posters and lobby cards, smaller versions of posters that once were common in theaters.

And on Friday, the final day of the exhibit, the Frida will show “Ladrones de Tumbas,” or “Grave Robbers,” a 1989 Mexican horror movie in Spanish with English subtitles. It will be preceded by a bevy of trailers featuring more old Mexican movies.

“The idea is to recreate the experience of seeing the film when it first came out,” said Logan Crow, the executive director of the Frida.

“Ladrones de Tumbas” was chosen by Hernandez, a Mexican movie aficionado who runs a website called TRASH-MEX where he writes about Mexican films from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

“Some of the movies I review are considered trashy. Some of the movies were discarded. But they were more like hidden gems,” said Hernandez, 31, of Pomona.

A retail worker at a Walmart in Chino Hills, Hernandez has been collecting old Mexican movies, posters, and lobby cards as well as running his website for about a decade. To him, it’s about nostalgia and family, bringing back memories of watching the films as a child.

IF YOU GO

“TRASH-MEX” and “SEE IT ON 16MM” are presenting “Ladrones de Tumbas,” or “Grave Robbers,” at 8 p.m. at The Frida Cinema, 305 E 4th St., on Friday, Sept. 2.

The event, which closes a week-long free exhibit of old Mexican movie posters and lobby cards, begins at 6 p.m. with a DJ spinning Mexican music on vinyl records. Admission is $15 per person.

“Once I started writing about them, more and more people were messaging me, saying how they remembered the movies. Sometimes, even the family of people in the movie (wrote in),” Hernandez said.

Aguirre, 34, is a Fullerton resident and social worker who specializes in collecting 16mm films and old projectors, bringing them to movie houses across California under his “SEE IT ON 16MM” company.

Old film is special, offering a distinct warmth, he said.

“It’s similar to the difference between music you can stream on YouTube and Spotify or music you hear on a record where it’s kinda flawed. It pops and hisses, but there’s a charm to it not being perfect. Records are like that. So is 16mm film,” Aguirre said.

Aguirre began bringing his films, and the projector to screen them, to the Frida, the only place to catch those films, in December. The first showing was the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“This is how films used to be experienced,” Crow, of the Frida, said. “To keep that piece of history alive is a huge part of our mission. A lot of folks have never seen a film in print.”

Aguirre is working on his master’s degree in film restoration, focusing on archival and special collections. He began collecting in earnest after his first purchase some eight years ago. That first movie was “Night of the Living Dead.”

“It cost me $700, and I bought it with the intention of hopefully one day screening it. But I didn’t even have a machine to screen it,” he said.

Fast forward to the present, and Aguirre has “a lot of projectors.” The “babies” of that collection are two projectors once owned by artist and film director Andy Warhol. They spent years crated up at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles until they were recently gifted to him. Aguirre recently lent those Warhol projectors to the Lumiere Music Hall theater in Beverly Hills.

As for the Mexican exhibit and movie, Aguirre said: “It’s bringing a part of Santa Ana history to a new generation that didn’t grow up with theaters playing these movies.”

Santa Ana was once home to several movie houses that played Spanish-language films. Perhaps the most popular was the Yost, now a live entertainment and special event venue.

The “Grave Robbers” movie playing Friday was restored and will be presented digitally, marking the U.S. theatrical premiere of this version, Aguirre said. But the bulk of his showings involve movies on film.

Aguirre and Hernandez said it is important for community members to have access to these old movies, both for those who remember them and for the younger generations who have never experienced them.

“I’m grateful there are still places that are willing to embrace stuff like this,” Aguirre said. “Not a lot like this exists in Orange County.”

As for what’s next, Aguirre plans to show “Night of the Living Dead” on a tour from San Diego to San Francisco, with stops at the Lumiere in Beverly Hills on Oct. 14, the Frida in Santa Ana on Oct. 20, and the Art Theatre in Long Beach on Oct. 28, he said.

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