Presented in Hypno-Scope!!!
To Heighten the Horror, Thrill Your Senses, Kill Your Brain!!!
…Well, I suppose that’s one way to make a sequel.
Recall that the Aztec Mummy trilogy (calm down, there will be further sequels) was conceived as a single, gigantic (by Mexican standards) movie. This didn’t hurt The Aztec Mummy too egregiously. But to wrest the maximum amount of motion picture for the minimum effort, director Rafael Portillo formed Part Two, The Curse of the Aztec Mummy, with 25% recycled footage. Now The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, with two whole movies preceding it, stretches that filthy practice even further. Nearly 50% of this movie is recycled!
Literally the entire first half of this 64 minute film is a recapitulation of what’s come before. In a most inelegant framework, ostensible series hero Dr. Almada (Ramón Gay) invites a duo of his associates over for a friendly exposition session. As if directed primarily towards us, the audience, he begs patience before the new stuff starts, for he has a story to tell. Oh boy! It is one sloppy construction, sitting three men (and a woman) before a table and having one listlessly narrate former set pieces, some of which I’m now seeing for the third time in as many days!
How does a sequel come about to employ this trick?! There are a number of potential explanations…
1. The extensive saga of the Aztec Mummy is so complex, we’d be genuinely confused at this stage without generous time spent getting everyone up to speed.
2. Owing to Mexico’s relative cinematic isolation (as evidenced by their 1957 habit of aping solely movies Hollywood made in 1931), it’s possibly they seriously believed this was the way all sequels were done.
3. It’s a cheap ploy to save money.
Bingo!
In three movies, totaling 210 minutes, there are only 165 minutes of footage (estimation). I can’t say that I feel too kindly about this. Trusting you yourself can recall what’s come before (or can at least find out somewhere someplace online – possibly this blog – or simply don’t care), I shan’t attempt an in-depth recap of Almeda’s in-depth recap. For what it’s worth, here’s how the movie bides its time:
4th minute: Flashback to the series-opening lecture on past lives. “Years ago.”
6th minute: Flashback to the Aztec mummification.
9th minute: Almeda’s hypnosis of Flor (Rosa Arenas).
10th minute: Almeda’s group discovers the tomb of the mummy Popoca
16th minute: Almeda’s group returns to the tomb, does the same thing.
20th minute: They reach the tomb yet again, resolving Part One.
Pausing (as the film is wont to do) for new footage of Almeda relating all this – like the visits with Verbal in The Usual Suspects, only without dramatic interest – Almeda makes the awkward verbal pirouettes necessary to make the seamless transition between Part One and Part Two.
23rd minute: The entire climax of Curse is barreled through heedlessly, edited into shreds in order to eliminate all that film’s evidence of luchadores, so as not to confuse matters more.
Then new footage starts up, in the 27th minute. Let actual discussion of The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy commence – or rather The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot, a title I prefer, since it accidentally suggests Aztecs and humans are two separate classes. An actual discussion of The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy addresses the falsely created impression of a crossover (there is no Human Robot franchise to speak of). However, we’re too far into the running time to do so now.
Rather, Almeda’s narrated flashbacks continue, even though the footage now is brand new. This highlights the noted inelegance of the whole construct, that even now we’ll be well into the 47th minute by the time Almeda finally shuts up, and lets some actual plot take hold. Something tells me they should’ve done another pass or two at the screenplay.
Anyway, even as it is, let’s count this as the film’s proper start. And for all that effort in getting here, the situation is no different than ever: The evil mad scientist called the Bat (Luis Aceves Castañeda, the series’ best element) seeks to obtain certain artifacts from the Aztec mummy in order to find the Aztec treasure. Almeda & Co. wishes to prevent this. It’s a sequel, you know.
Therefore, the Bat starts out by again putting Flor into a trance, so that she might pinpoint Popoca’s latest hangout spot. This time (simply to save effort, time, etc.), the Bat merely has to drive up to Flor’s house, and speak towards the front door! Flor, who’s sound asleep mind you, thus wanders out under his power – it’s just that easy! There is later suggestion this is post-hypnotic suggestion. Quoth Almeda: “It’s logical.” I love how easily their whatever-babble patches up the plot holes the crew was aware of.
Flor knows, for no reason, that Popoca is in “the ancient cemetery.” Indeed, there he snoozes, clutching his artifacts. Discovering this, the Bat lets Flor go and…does nothing. Again let us examine the Bat’s motives. He needs to translate something that “devilish mummy” possesses, to go find a treasure to get the funds to further his research. I imagine it’s like Doc Ock – yeah, the Bat is making a miniature sun in Manhattan. Now it all makes sense!
The only way the Bat can think of to translate these objects is to steal them from the mummy. Doing so will arouse the mummy’s ancient dire wrath, and the Bat will die. Therefore, because no other notion occurs to him, the Bat vows to first defeat the mummy. To that end he sets about creating, well…well, the climax reveals it, as does the title, but we’ll leave it be for now.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of Almeda’s bloody exposition to get through still. Back in the unclear past, he spies mud on Flor’s slippers, and suspects the obvious – An affair! No…wait…that the Bat temporarily kidnapped her again for the fourth time or so. Following his own line of reasoning, which does not involve hypnosis (because the series has perhaps finally grown bored of that conceit), Almeda discovers the same graveyard, and discovers the same mummy-housing mausoleum. And…does nothing. Instead, Almeda just pays the restful mummy an occasional visit, to ensure the Bat has done nothing.
Then…five years pass. Really?! Yet still we remain in Almeda’s flashback, because that’s how sloppy this thing is. And flashback Almeda learns in the newspaper of the local university’s stolen cadaver. Obvious signs of the Bat, who’s been inactive lo this past half decade. Furthermore, a whole pile of lead has just been delivered, and isn’t it just like the Bat to freely give out his secret hideout’s address to local businesses? Naturally, those businesses then happily give this info to Almeda. Everyone is a perfect little cog.
And only now do we enter the present time. Almeda explains the reason he invited several of his associates over, and told them these heaping, steaming reels worth of exposition: He (Almeda) is going alone (that is, sans policemen, for arbitrary reasons) to bust up the Bat’s secret lab. He simply needs these two men to phone the police, should he not return by a certain time. Of course, Flor could just as easily accomplish this except, A) there’d be no value in expositing to her stuff she already knows, and B) this is one of those movies that posits women are incompetent. Seeing how Flor eventually bungles the task Almeda gave other people, it’s a reasonable assumption on Almeda’s part.
So Almeda heads over to the Bat’s lair and – to no one’s surprise – he is captured instantly. So much for that then.
It having been five years since we’ve spent time with the Bat, he feels the same compulsion Almeda recently expunged, and treats Almeda to his expository recap. Thankfully, it’s shorter, and with no flashbacks – just Castañeda bugging his eyes out and acting rather like Coffin Joe mixed with your average sub-Frankenstein Dr. Frankenstein.
It takes the Bat a good long while to get to his point – naturally. He monologues about discovering a new realm of science – justification for the five year gap, I suppose. Dr. Almeda, himself a scientist, gets the usual anti-science screed each and every one of these B-movies boasts: “Then that means that you [the Bat] defy all the limits that were put down by God.” Buh?!?! By discovering a…something?! At least let the man finish, Almeda, before jumping to reductive conclusions!
So the Bat digs his own ethical grave as he droolingly spouts his Bela Lugosi-esque nonsense: “I tortured many animals – with pleasure – to find the answers to man’s existence.” And this grand “answer to man’s existence” turns out to be…a robot! Betcha didn’t see that one coming!
Let’s see that again!
But this is no mere robot. It’s a human robot – a robot shell with a rich, gooey, delicious human center. Sure, why the hell not, it isn’t like the other incidental Aztec Mummy details aren’t insane. Plus, it means they don’t have to hide the obvious stuntman inside that gloriously chintzy robot costume – I really do love that robot design.
(Mind you the robot doesn’t even appear until minute 54 of 64. While we have seen the mummy before, we haven’t seen it move – ignoring flashbacks – so this movie is a long way from satisfying its titular claim.)
That satisfaction, that title fight, is comin’ right up. For the Bat has designed this earth-shattering new technology – one with which he, if sane, could become a legitimate entrepreneur, or by his own admission enslave all of mankind – this wonderful new machine the Bat has created solely to kill the Aztec mummy. So he can then have Almeda translate the same thing Almeda translated last time, to be 1/20th of the way towards discovering the Aztec treasure…so that then the Bat can get the funding he needs to realize his true scientific desire, which is never outright stated. Okay then.
So be it, the (human) robot fights the (Aztec) mummy. As these sort of things go, it’s more Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus than Alien vs. Predator. That is, the matchup is profoundly disappointing, and this is coming after days of realizing old B-movies always renege on their promises. With but three minutes of running time left, the battle begins. One minute and a half later (being generous) it ends, with Popoca easily the victor. That danged robot’s useless, T-Rex arms never even did anything! Though Popoca, true to his compulsion, limits himself to the old shoulder tap attack, which somehow does the trick.
At least this time Popoca unequivocally kills the Bat (and friend), ensuring at least this particular Bat-based arc is good and done. Though there will be a sequel.
Even at this stage, it’s amazing how useful footage from these films has proven. Ignoring the in-series recycling, Aztec Mummy imagery has (illegally?) found its way into a few of Jerry Warren’s U.S. B-sagas – Attack of the Mayan Mummy, Face of the Screaming Werewolf, The Wild World of Batwoman. These movies do not count for the official series – thank Quetzalcoatl, for I don’t know how many more times I could’ve weathered that exact same sacrifice scene – but so be it. Producer Guillermo Calderón would do well enough on his own.
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