The Wrestling Women, No. 4 - Las mujeres panteras (1967)

Well, Las mujeres panteras opens with a ceremonial paganistic underground ritual concerning panther-worshipping ‘60s ultra-babes, making it automatically a better film than Las lobas del ring.

And it sticks with that exploitative angle throughout, the proper phantasmagoric extremes to offset the interchangeable wrestling scenes of lucha libre cinema.

In fact, there’s little point for establishing sequel context within the larger Wrestling Women series, because what this is is simply a delivery system for whatever pulpy lunacy the Mexicans could come up with, so away we go. It solely behooves me to address the recasting of the lead character, Ms. Venus…or maybe not, considering she is renamed, from Loreta to Gloria…Though she was named Gloria originally, before the cast and crew got confused as started calling her one letter off from actress Lorena Velásquez. Well, with Velásquez vanished, enter Ariadna Welter, lookin’ not quite as buxom or comely (really, the one reason a female lucha series exists at all). Not that Velásquez was ever noteworthy enough for her star power to be predicated upon anything more than the strength of her hairspray, creating that bouffant mane. So be it, returning Anglo costar Elizabeth Campbell (as Golden Rubi) is, for me, the more enticing feminine option, what with her Amazonian ways and atomic-strength brazier (it was just becoming the 1950s, evidently, in 1967 Mexico).

Plus, series masterminds Guillermo Calderón y René Cardona hedge their bets, cheesecake-wise, by focusing upon a demonic cult comprised seemingly entirely of underwear models (and this one really lucky older dude…plus the interchangeable fedora-clad goons whenever a fight scene breaks out…consistency and logic have no place in lucha libres). These titular panther-women open their film up on a wonderful note, worshipping their almighty world destroyer Eloim with the sort of verve one associates with Manos – only vaguely halfway barely almost semi-competent.


Because every decent Mexican horror movie I’ve seen so far is a rip-off of a much older Hollywood product, this one takes on Cat People. In fact, it plays as you’d imagine Cat People would from that title alone – not the subtle, eerily elegant exploration of psychosexual repression as in Val Lewton’s final masterpiece, but what his studio masterminds had in (master)mind when feeding him that contextless title in the first place. Wooo, I am so hopped-up on coffee right now!! Namely, Las mujeres panteras takes Cat People into the heady realm of…well, I’m running out of synonyms for “pulpy, ridiculous craziness.”

Meanwhile…wrestling match! It’s a truism of the luchadore movement that wrestling matches make up at least 40% of a film – such an expected regularity, there is no more to say about these, really. Which is why a heady horror story is so welcome. A match reintroduces us to Gloria and Golden (or should I call her Rubi?), a formulaic lucha standard. This reminds us how awesomely undefeatable our protagonists are, before they’re soon thrust out of the sane world of professional Mexican wrestling into terror and crime fighting and whatnot.


Today’s random justification for embroiling Gloria and Golden (okay, G&G) in insanity? Their boyfriend’s uncle is a victim of the Panther Society. (…Hmm, Panther Society, 1960s, counter-cultural, clad all in black…A more socially clever horror film – i.e. something by George Romero – could’ve done something with that!) It’s always a sister, or an uncle, or a cousin or niece or mother-in-law-twice-removed, as each sequel necessitates a new family member to jumpstart silliness – though given how prodigious Mexican families are, this isn’t too hard to credit.

Now, about G&G’s boyfriends…They’ve had paramours in each entry, each time a duo of detectives of, charitably, variable competence and intelligence. Both are usually comic relief (in order to not undermine the chicas, but still maintain essential B-movie gender inequality in some subtle way). Beginning in Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape (which remains one of the coolest, craziest titles in ages), one of these doofs was played by Chucho Salinas – a profoundly unfunny Mexican “comedian,” many steps regressed from the cricket-clad Bumblebee Man-inspiring Chapulín Colorado.

Chucho’s been thankfully MIA ever since Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy, but his type remains consistent – a consistency which doesn’t seem to extend to the cop duo’s identity at any given time, who enjoy such a loosey-goosey anti-continuity it’s not worth tracking. Replacing Chucho’s functional role now (as Leocadio) is Manuel “El Loco” Valdés, given to pratfalls so eye-buggingly abstract, it’s on a merely intellectual, archeological level that I understand this to be komedy. I mean, “El Loco?” The actor’s name?! It seems each B Mexican movie identifies a designated buffoon, who behaves wholly out of sync with the other characters’ temperaments (i.e. acting wildly terrified of everything, in a manner 1940s Hollywood movies reserved for black actors).


But then again, all lucha characters are equally archetypal, like stock figures out of a Middle Ages pilgrimage story. We got the evil woman, the dumbass, the innocent child, the moral wrestler, the professor, etc. Combined with the narrative shorthand which states masks may be worn publically and professionally and while sleeping any time a character’s identity isn’t worth knowing, one gets a good sense of Mexico’s storytelling conventions. It’s like how most early luchadores seem to have names derived from lotería (The Boot, the Hand, The Moon, The Bird, The Drunk).

It’s kinda fun, in a mentally deficient sort of way, though it’s hard to credit the characters are unable to identify Torgo (Yolanda Montes “Tongolele” – not sure what that nickname’s all about), the Queen of the Panther Women. I mean, the gal roams the streets in an Eartha Kitt Catwoman suit, with a Rogue-like streak of white hair and other such obvious evil telltale signs. Well, if the pre-literate children watching can immediately ID her as the villainess, it works, and we accept (by these films’ artificial rules) that the in-film characters cannot.


Oh right, seems I roundabout referenced the “Batman” TV show there with Eartha Kitt. That comparison extends to a lot of these films’ tone, though they’re largely without the intentional kitsch komedy of that Adam West saga. The plentiful fight sequences are staged much like the ones Batman would have against the Penguin’s minions, Burgess Meredith quacking on the sidelines the whole time. Every time (and I mean in every lucha epic in existence), characters duke it out in a barrel-filled warehouse lair, the same Churubusco set they’ve never even had to redress. We only lack the comic booky visual sound effects to complete the effect – eh, that and vibrant Technicolor, as these things are depressingly black and white (which does benefit the horror feel).

Actually, Las lobas del ring as a huge exception, I kinda really love the texture of these movies, their uniquely Mexican concept of horror and superheroism and whatnot. The panteras dwell in a mausoleum in a creepy cemetery (the same mausoleum Popoca called lair in The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot) – this graveyard is so wonderfully Mexican, with a Day of the Dead vibe that just permeates the movie…that is, when it’s not stalling in some antiseptic stagebound apartment set, like all of Las lobas, screw that movie! Plot doesn’t matter, which is just as well seeing as I’m watching these things in Spanish now. Going off of those which have been dubbed, things’d be pretty strangely convoluted anyway, so it’s just as well to simply bask in the strangeness, when suddenly a mummy arises out of a coffin without lead-in and holy schnikeys this is nuts!


From what I can gather about the plot (beyond the general luchadore formula about fights interspersed with wrestling interspersed with unnecessary belly dancing sequences), the Panther Women seek to CONQUER THE WORLD…by killing one single little girl. Apparently, they need to kill all of the Santa family (not that Santa, just some normal folks), and this girl is the last one. Yup, it’s the Halloween IV – VI thing. Like Michael Myers’ anti-Strode policy, the Panther Women are profoundly unable to harm the girl, even while their mummy shoulder-slaps dozens of police officers to death along the way. And because the girl just barely escapes each time, thanks be to G&G, well, it is determined that in order to kill the girl, first they must kill G&G.


Really, this is to allow for what seems to be a commonized luchadore element – somewhere nearing the climax, in order to maintain the wrestling milieu, the villains enter certain masked henchmen in the ring to take out the heroes. Yes, masked mystery applicants with no experience and no background checks are let to face the nation’s champions. This is a regular thing, and with repetition, one accepts it just as a necessary scene, and basks in the whateverness of it all. So it is here, two masked chicas (now called Las Sombras) attempting to maul G&G on national Mexican TV with their cat claws. It’s all so weirdly specific, so very committed to a form of zaniness other cultures would never even consider!


Now…about the franchise. It’s called Wrestling Women, and amongst lucha libre cinema, these flicks distinguish themselves by that gender. Therefore, it’s something of a niche notion, and doesn’t engender endless sequels in the same way as the mainstream Santo series does. Hence it takes a couple of years between entries, in a production environment where several sequels could be made in a single year. This also limits the potential longevity of the series.

Guillermo Calderón seems aware of this fact, sensing his flagship series’ shortening lifespan (just one sequel to go after this), and takes steps to alleviate this. So Las mujeres panteras, rather surprisingly, features a masked male luchadore – the expected common element of this subgenre, so far unseen in Wrestling Women. El Ángel is your standard masked man fighter (that’s even the name the luchadore in The Curse of the Aztec Mummy boasted) – a crime fighter given complete access to the Crime Lab and cooperating most casually with the police. It’d be like a movie nowadays where Morgan Freeman’s world-weary captain seeks aid from Kobe Bryant!


El Ángel (actor unknown, to preserve the public appearance of anonymity so many luchadores thrive upon – and unlike G&G, it’s likely this guy is a real wrestler) is a boringly commonplace type. What’s more, his sub-Batman routine takes away from time we could spend in G&G’s exquisite feminine graces. Stripped of much of their superheroic antics, the gals are reduced to just looking pretty – quite a reversion for a series which started (oh-so-ostensibly) as equal opportunity idiocy. It seems kind of useless to saddle a Wrestling Women flick with something you could find anywhere (circa then), but methinks there is an explanation…

It’s all about Calderón. This series is not long for the ring. In a pre-bout bout of doubt, producer Calderón attempts sowing the seeds for a spinoff, an Ángel franchise which would never actually materialize. Not that Ángel movies would’ve distinguished themselves whatsoever in the competitive luchadore movie market, what with Santo and Blue Demon and cronies all enjoying the king’s share of attention. What might guarantee some success would be landing a notable wrestler. I am unaware of any fighter historically known in the ring as El Ángel (though I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was one) – eh, could be Calderón was trying to form another non-wrestler wrestler series, which simply doesn’t work when not otherwise peddling T&A. So, no, there’s nothing all that valuable about El Ángel.

But that’s all minor pondering in light of Las mujeres panteras’ greater welcome sins against logic. And while Calderón still cannot deliver a “mummy vs. wrestling women” fight that lasts over three seconds (anticlimaxes are the name of his game), there’s just too much strangeness around the edges to be wholly upset. Hell, the mere set decoration in the panteras’ clubhouse is worth mentioning, for no reason except to end this on a note of oddity. Dried stuffed iguanas, gourd husks, voodoo figurines, assorted discarded luchadore masks, flames emerging randomly from wherever, a snake-filled coffin just because, some Aztec stuff, all and more combined into a heady mixture of whatever!

*******************************************************************************

Then there’s the series’ final entry, Wrestling Women vs. the Robot (1969). The video self-destructed on me halfway through, so it doesn’t warrant its own posting, but we are beholden to consider it.

Any doubts about the series’ growing uselessness are silenced by vs. the Robot – pretty much a concentrated combo rehash of The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot and Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape (and those two titles have more entertainment value in them than the whole of this latter Robot riot). The Wrestling Women formula is well cemented: Take one B-movie style random villain prone to monologuing, intersperse with wrestling matches and desultory exposition in someone’s apartment. The lone change is the villain type, and we’re repeating mad scientist now…worse, he even has Carfax, neither a vehicle history report nor a “Dracula” setting, but an ersatz Gomar, The Aztec Ape’s Aztec ape.


He also has a robot!...Which looks like one of Pizza the Hutt’s companions from Spaceballs, so basically the robot is a silvery spray-painted dude with a taste for 1930s gangster fedoras. His torso is seemingly made from a keg, with a Videodrome-esque VCR slot so the mad doc can upload, er, people’s stolen brains. Yes, even the brain burglary story is aped from Aztec Ape.


This aping extends to G&G themselves, but not those G&G. The entire cast is new today, and in light of that we get wholly new characters – Gaby and Gemma (Regina Torné y Malú Reyes). Boy, the Wrestling Women franchise is really stretching its luck with this one, again inserting two non-wrestler actresses into the mix, now when the series can no longer coast on mere tight outfits, gams and big hair. It’s no wonder this was the last of the bunch, and no amount of brand new color cinematography – so washed out and pale it makes 1969 Mexico look like the worst of 1959 Italy – can make this loopiness novel again.

Overall, what a strange series! Granted, lucha film was staggeringly popular during that time, but this is a uniquely formulaic, bastardized variation on that format, and simultaneously mired in the long-outdated tropes of old Hollywood. There is joy in Wrestling Women – B-movie spectacle for fans of both cheese and cheesecake. Plus, the proportions are all so off from the more famous exploitation genres, making every triumph and mistake seem genuine. As a historical window into a time and a place, these movies are invaluable.

The Aztec Mummy and The Wrestling Women, Nos. 4 and 2 - Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)

It’s crossover time!, betwixt the Wrestling Women (a franchise so strong, it hasn’t even had a sequel yet) and The Aztec Mummy (which has had sequels, but only because they were made before Part One was released). Meaning this is the first naturally occurring sequel in either enterprise.

Given producer Guillermo Calderón’s track record, one doesn’t exactly expect elegance from this effort. So as crossovers go, this one follows the Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man format – namely, that it’s not so much a combination of film series as it is a mere sequel to one, with a little bit of the other tossed in at the end. Only much worse, naturally, than the old Universal example, because that’s Mexico’s cinematic prerogative. And since Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy is, for 80% of its existence, a mere Wrestling Women movie, let’s just treat it at that, and dive right in.


The first order of business is determining just how the Wrestling Women can have more adventures. How Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi (Lorena Velásquez and Elizabeth Campbell), two mere professional wrestlers, continue to have adventures dropped right in their lap. By having an adventure dropped right into their lap! A tormented archeologist, fleeing the mob (as archeologists do), directly seeks out Gloria and Golden for help. (Wrestlers: Mexico’s superheroes!)

(Sorry, I forgot…Gloria Venus, though the same character, is now officially renamed Loreta Venus, for absolutely no reason whatsoever!)

Why not just go to the police?! Well, A) in this universe they are as useless as the boar’s proverbial teats and B) the police are right there next to the Wrestling Women anyway! That’s right, it really is a sequel, with the Women’s purposeless police paramours (Armando Silvestre and Chucho Salinas) returning. They exist solely to support a 1960s Mexican’s idea of comic relief, in a movie which is damnably hilarious without help. All they do is fall down and say stupid things. Since it’s remarkably difficult to say amusing things about bad comedy, I now take my leave of the cops.

Back to the archeologist. He dies. Turns out those Wrestling Women weren’t much help after all.

Ah, but here comes a second archeologist, himself bearing plot. Dr. Tracy, he is, and he’s played by Victor Velásquez, presumably the lead actress’ father, or relation of another sort, or Velásquez is simply a common last name. Whatever it is, Dr. Tracy tells of a recently discovered codex, leading directly to that most Mexican of McGuffins, Aztec treasure™. The codex has now been split into several pieces, simply because that’s what is done in these sorts of stories. And now villains, specifically in the form of the Black Dragon Gang, seek it.

Now…everyone’s motives are the same – to obtain the treasure for their own material gain (and that goes for the Wrestling Women as well, who have now teamed up with Tracy) – so you can’t fault one party over another. That is to say, the villain is arbitrary. Except the Black Dragon Gang is doing it evilly. They’re killing archeologists, while the Wrestling Women are killing…Black Dragons. How is this okay?! Well, the Black Dragons are Japanese, see, therefore…Oh, I don’t like where this is going.


Let’s look into this. The Red Dragon himself (actor unknown, thanks to the vagaries of the English dubbing process) is your standard Fu Manchu affair, a white guy (in this case, Hispanic) made to look like an outdated Asian stereotype thanks to squinted eyes and other yellowface. I’ve seen this sort of thing before – yeah, in movies from the ‘30s. But this is Mexico circa 1964, which really oughtn’t to be trafficking in such pointless racism. This is just more proof that Mexican movies were helplessly indebted to aping archaic Hollywood schlock, and not their famous schlock like Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane, but Monogram-style Z-grade exploitation. Only now, many decades removed, the initial “Yellow Peril” offense Fu Manchu intended is lost, leaving only a blind, unquestioning copycat mentality, repeating old movies for no reason.

Dr. Tracy, to keep the Red Dragons from getting their hands on the various codex pieces, determines to portion out the pieces over time to a different member of the Wrestling Women gang. This doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense, frankly, so let’s just sum up the next 30 minutes as simply as possible:

Fights!

The Wrestling Women and Red Dragons repeatedly come to blows, each sequence, regardless of context, playing out the same way. The same way I imagine all luchadore epics play out, with fighting phrased in the specific idiom of Mexican wrestling. Mostly, people hurl themselves bodily at each other, and occasionally employ holds. It gets a little repetitive, and that’s not counting the separate moments where Gloria and Golden wrestle in the ring.


The one point of interest is Red Dragon’s (that’s the Red Dragons’ leader’s name, so hello there needless confusion) favorite tactics. It’s all a bunch of arbitrary pseudo-scientific hooey, which is totally in keeping from the team that brought us Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape. For one thing, Red Dragon has a television – a magical television – with total omniscience. Wherever the Wrestling Women go, his TV sees ‘em (with perfect audio and everything!). Forget the loony notion he’s got little cameras everywhere, for most likely Red Dragon has somehow realized he’s a fictional character, and tapped into the actual movie footage, ala Spaceballs. This is some Funny Games shit!

Red Dragon’s other technique involves that old exploitation sawhorse: damsels in distress. Welcome, back, cinematic Mexican misogyny, we knew you wouldn’t be gone long! But that’s the challenge of a Wrestling Women flick, that the Wrestling Women cannot be treated like vapid, inane damsels, yet we still want vapid, inane damsels, because that’s the only story type René Cardona et al know. Therefore we’ve a new female character, Chela (María Eugenia San Martin), a new buddy of the Wrestling Women, a living and breathing plot complication. She becomes Red Dragon’s prisoner, then later his slave, via a combination of screwy misconceptions of chemistry and radio waves and psychiatry and about five other branches of science.

So, as I said, the movie just devolves into fight after fight. It’s going nowhere, which Red Dragon at least is wholly aware of (more evidence he’s aware of his own fictionality). Thus he proposes a compromise, that all bad blood between the Red Dragons and Wrestling Women be solved in the ring. Wrestling Women vs. Red Dragon’s two judo chopping twin daughters. Mostly, this is an excuse to wedge in a proper wrestling scene. Whomever wins gets all the codices. And amazingly, this isn’t a sneaky double-cross on Red Dragon’s part, not because the Mexicans doubt the slimy underhanded deviousness of the Japanese (you’d think WWII was still going on!), but because they’re so dismissive of the race they doubt even this degree of competence. Lovely!

Friday night. The National Wrestling Arena. Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi, our vivacious and comely heroines –


- versus these two dour, unnamed Japanese “women.”


Note the subtle cinematic trick by which we’re made to cheer on one group over another.

The following fight is a legitimate unexpurgated ten minutes of pure wrestling. This is no doubt the central highlight of a luchadore movie, possibly in an earlier era where wrestling on television wasn’t yet a thing (excepting Red Dragon’s television). A single, listless master shot from overhead covers all the ringside action, with occasional completely necessary cuts to the other characters watching from the sidelines. Considering the lead actresses were cast for their buxom hourglass forms and not their wrestling skills (as evidenced by the stocky real female wrestlers they regularly slap around), this deathless match isn’t even proper, though it is improvised, and therefore an awkward, stilted, crazy, hilarious thing. But remember, down there it’s a real sport!

The match ends with the Wrestling Women victorious, because this is one of those franchises where the protagonists are always successful, at all times, like a peplum. (Suspense? What’s that?) True to his word, Red Dragon gives them the pieces of codex he’d stolen from all those pre-murdered archeologists, and his notorious gang of ethnic caricatures retires for good.

And…switch!


It’s a new movie now, essentially, as we enter the Aztec Mummy phrase of things, an Aztec Mummy plot told over the course of a mere half hour and change – which proves to be a much more sustainable running time for this exact same story than any of the proper Aztec Mummies.

By that series, we start with human protagonists (here the Wrestling Women) learning of Aztec treasure™, and the whole history around it. Thoroughly eschewing the former forgotten memories, the translated codex reveals this. The tale, same as ever, about forbidden love in Aztec times between a princess and a warrior. We know this one, she’s Xochitl and he’s Popoca – Hold up! Nope, he ain’t Popoca! The mummy-to-be male lover is called Tezomoc. He’s a new character!

So…how is this a sequel to those Popoca mummy movies, when other generic Aztec and Mayan mummy movies (sadly, never an Olmec mummy) aren’t? Well, it’s all about producer Guillermo Calderón. If he’s delivering mummies, it’s technically an Aztec Mummy. Sure, whatever.


Name changes like this, to titular undead, are part and parcel with movies of this quality; it’s possible Calderón simply forgot what Popoca was called. Except Tezomoc is functionally different than Popoca – who was, recall, a mere shambler and a shoulder-slapper. Tezomoc is oh so much more dangerous, a nagual (Aztec sorcerer), able to shapeshift himself into a bat, a spider, whatever rubbery “scary” prop they already had lying around the studio. In other words, vampirism and mummification are intentionally confused for the hell of it. (In all this, it’s heartening to know Popoca’s story really did conclude in The Aztec Mummy vs. the Human Robot, and he’s still chilling out in that mausoleum to this day.)

Now we’re an official Aztec Mummy movie that just happens to involve the Wrestling Women, things fall out as predictably as the Red Dragon section, but according to different rules. The Wrestling Women find Tezomoc’s tomb, steal away the breastplate which reveals the location of the thing which reveals the location of the thing which reveals the location of the Aztec treasure™. Tezomoc stalks them back home, kills whomever, the Wrestling Women return the breastplate, the end.

As always, there are lapses of illogic which warrant at least some examination. Tezomoc kills people, something all these Aztec mummies seem very fond of. Specifically, he kills all the Red Dragons, never mind they’re now genuinely disinterested in the whole story, now that it’s moved them by. Still, they were the “bad guys,” so I guess for no reason they deserved it. It wasn’t gruesome, anyway. They merely see Tezomoc, shot their prop guns to no effect, and he nears them. The end. We don’t even get shoulder-slapping, the usual ceremonial indicator that a death has occurred.


Oh, and Chela, now freed of the Red Dragons’ grasp (that is, in the stages well before their deaths-by-mummy), becomes a new damsel. Tezomoc’s damsel. Not because he, the mummy, has any specific need to sacrifice her, but it’s just what Aztec mummies do, and it gives the Wrestling Women someone to save at the end, even if we’re still a decade away from movies allowing all three women smooch as an ending.

And there’s some randomly humorous dialogue wedged in the proceedings as well. Most of it is in response to Tezomoc’s shapeshifting:

“Look, it’s a vampire now!”

“He’s a mummy again.”

Well, Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy served its purpose…I guess. It solidified The Wrestling Women as a franchise unto itself, with several more sequels to follow. The Aztec Mummy, meanwhile, ends at this stage, not that it was ever really moving to begin with. And interesting that they needed to do a crossover (even if we never really get the glorious “wrestlers fighting mummies” nonsense promised) to justify further movies about spandex-clad vixens. You’d think that sort of franchise could perpetuate itself.

The Aztec Mummy, No. 3 - The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (1957)

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.

The Aztec Mummy, No. 2 - The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957)

One fact about this series which was barely pertinent to The Aztec Mummy now becomes inescapable: The Aztec Mummy trilogy was conceived all at once, and filmed as a single movie – in one month! Therefore The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (released later that same year) is an inarguably inferior film, merely quantitatively. Consider…

The Aztec Mummy is a perfectly functional rip-off of Universal’s The Mummy, told in the lurching, static idiom of an Ed Wood movie – in Spanish. But at least it’s identifiable as a complete movie, at feature length.

The Curse of the Aztec Mummy is only 2/3rds the length of the original. That’s a mere 63 minutes now…and around 25% of that is recycled footage from The Aztec Mummy.

On top of all that, The Curse of the Aztec Mummy epitomizes the “sequel as repetition” school. In Part One, an Aztec tomb was discovered, artifacts were stolen, and (surprise surprise) an Aztec mummy rose to retrieve them, and possibly kill a dude for fun. Here in Part Two…an Aztec tomb is discovered, artifacts stolen, you get the drill – by the same characters.


At least the villainous criminal mastermind known only as the Bat (Luis Aceves Catañeda) has an actual function this time, as now it’s his mania which fuels the activity surrounding Aztec mummy Popoca. And since the Bat was unmasked at the end of the last one – by both Popo and popo – and revealed as Dr. Krupp (dum dum dum!), he is functionally different now. Given a face – plus hammy, expressive eyes and a Satan beard – the Bat completely changes his temperament. Channeling a Bond villain’s worst neuroses ahead of schedule, the Bat runs an underworld gang of interchangeable Mexican mooks, casually cultivates something called a death chamber, and – he – never – stops – monologuing! Seriously, this Bat gentleman feels whatever need to filter the entire story through his own mouth, and when the story isn’t enough to sustain his time, he simply loops back around and starts again.

It must be said that this time out, I saw the movie dubbed into English – sadly removing a no-doubt insane vocal performance from Catañeda, but whichever voice actor they got could’ve been better served by a Speak ‘n’ Spell, so the entertainment value’s still pretty high. Credit K. Gordon Murray, a U.S. film distributor with the special distinction of being in the rarified Phil Tucker, Hal P. Warren circle without even ever making his own crappy movies. Rather, Murray snatched up other countries’ dreck (often Germanic kid flicks like Santa's Enchanted Villag and Rumpelstiltskin and The Living Coffin), dubbed ‘em and made ‘em his own. And at least this unintentionally comic approach makes the recycled footage somewhat new.

Anyway, the Bat was arrested at the end of the last film, so first order of business is rescuing him from his prison transport bus, much like Vin Diesel at the start of Fast Five. So the Bat’s chief minions, the Bear and the Lilac (I love these goofy names, and what they say about Mexican mid-century pop culture), direct a henchman-heavy assault. Cue the singularly most uninvolving shootout I’ve yet to encounter: Cops and robbers each lift up their (obviously prop) guns, then stand perfectly still and…don’t fire. Hell, even the sound effects (possibly Murray’s) underwhelm in the extreme, sounding exactly like pop guns.

It’s all so unimpressive, and my attention seriously wanes, when suddenly –


Holy shit, was that a luchadore?!

Indeed, El Ángel (Crox Alvarado) just drives on up in his mid-range coupe and runs right into the gunfight…bare handed. Ooh, he’s gonna win! Indeed, the awesome powers of Mexican wrestling overcome the Bat’s buffoons for a good long while, until the baddies have the good sense to switch from guns to fists, at which point they gain the upper hand, and knock out El Ángel. We’ll learn time and again that El Ángel is a profoundly incompetent luchadore superhero, easily beaten up and saved by children and whatnot, which seems not some attempted comic reversal of the usual El Santo idolatry, but a product of the sheer Mexican incompetence of director Rafael Portillo.

Character incompetence rules the roost. With El Ángel immobile, the goons are about to kill him, just as they’ve done to around a dozen police officers just now, when…the Bat says he has a better (read: worse) idea. In one of the dumbest death traps outside of Diamonds are Forever, he just tells ‘em to drive off – because El Ángel is asleep under the car’s wheels. Except… El Ángel awakes, completely unaware of his predicament, and rises as they drive off. So neither party handled that situation with too much aplomb. Get used to this.

Now…about luchadores. This is a gigantic separate genre in Mexican cinema, and one I’ll have to visit at some stage, thanks to the interbreeding of franchises that is El Santo, Mil Mascaras and Blue Demon. In fact, Mil Mascaras would eventually appear in Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy, which is thankfully not a part of this Aztec Mummy franchise, for how convoluted that would make things.


Just accept for now that lucha movies were enormously popular in Mexico – I believe they were even before the Spanish conquistadors arrived. As such…it’s still odd for a luchadore to just appear out of the blue (demon) in The Curse of the Aztec Mummy, to then rise alongside the Bat as this entry’s main character. Odd since The Aztec Mummy, whatever its flaws of cheapness, is incontestably a horror movie, and a relatively serious one at that. This is full-on comic book pulp nonsense here…that’d have huge implications in Mexican B-cinema, as it seems at some point every wrestling star would have to battle mummies. Weird, the sort of influence a movie like this can have.

For what it’s worth, the recurring Aztec Mummy characters have a deeply hard time grasping the concept of El Ángel the luchadore – essentially, he’s Superman, only mortal (just as the Bat unintentionally spawns from movies which inspired Batman). He wears a mask to preserve his identity (he also sleeps in it, et cetera, which begs the question). He randomly drives around in his jalopy and fights crime. Why this all inspires a multi-minute exposition break is beyond me, except this is clearly S.O.P. for these Aztec Mummy movies. And most laughably, El Ángel gifts young Bobby (née Pepe) a two-way wristwatch communication device, ala Dick Tracy – which is hilarious since A) our cell phones are eons beyond this now, and B) this is such a Junior G-Man cereal box prize bit of nonsensical juvenilia, which’d’ve been anachronistic anywhere but Mexico in 1957, truly showing this franchise up as the fever dream of a mescaline-crazed producer (Guillermo Calderón). This series is nuts!

Now, when El Ángel isn’t expositing, the Bat is. He narrates to his politely assembled goons the whole plot of The Aztec Mummy – how a vacant gal named Flor (Rosa Arenas) visited a past life as an Aztec, revealing the location of an Aztec ruin and the treasure therein. Also mummy. Cue an extended needless flashback to The Aztec Mummy’s sacrifice/mummification/King Kong-rip-off sequence, still getting their peso’s worth from that routine. And now the Bat intends to rob this same Aztec tomb.


The Bat’s motivations shouldn’t be too complicated, especially since the bizarre moral universe of the Aztec Mummy series simply dictates that tomb robbing is “bad,” full stop. Hence his villainy. But still, let’s try to run through the whole of the Bat’s mad genius reasoning underlying his intended stone temple piloting:

• The Bat wants to experiment. Repeated dialogue (only now in English) indicates he really just wants to graft things to things, and hence to rule the world. Okay then.

• The Bat needs to fund his experiments, because “things” don’t come cheap.

• To do so, the Bat needs to acquire Aztec treasure™, because somehow that’s the only way for a madman to get money. And that’s with many dozen henchmen under his belt, mind you.

• Directions to the Aztec treasure™ are written upon an Aztec breastplate and bracelet, and it’s these which lie in the sought after tomb. Hence first the Bat must find the tomb.

• Ignoring the fact that in Part One the Bat was at the tomb, he’s apparently forgotten where it is. Therefore he must kidnap Flor and hypnotize her just as Dr. Almeda once did, only now it’s added on that Flor is suddenly immune to hypnosis…unless the Bat has “a drug” (no greater specification than that, because these movies are damnably unscientific). Really, this is all an excuse to recycle Part One’s reincarnation nonsense, something the filmmakers were clearly enamored of.

• And then, once the Bat has the breastplate and bracelet, he must kidnap Dr. Almeda (Ramón Gay) to translate it for him.

• To ensure Almeda’s cooperation (do note the English translation can never get “Almeda” straight, calling him in turn Alamanda, Alandan, Almeda and Alamor), the Bat must kidnap more of Almeda’s family, you know, to torture.

• At some stage, all this also necessitates the acquisition of many, many poisonous snakes.

Wait…what is this movie about?!


Naturally, this is a damned lot of random, arbitrary nonsense to pile on, all of it needed to retell the same mummy tale as before, and to allow a luchadore story to be grafted onto it, like one of the Bat’s unseen experiments. Along with selective ignorance of the natural world, this story demands a fantastic degree of amnesia for nearly every character. Among other things, the Bat is damn well aware of Popoca’s (the mummy’s) threat, yet does nothing about this.

I mean, at the very least you could translate the mummy’s items without removing them from the tomb – because it’s only once you’ve stolen that Popo is on your tail (heh heh!). Or you could always just take a picture of the artifacts, translate them at your leisure, and that’d be that. Oh well…


Let’s assume by now in the movie the Bat has retrieved the breastplate and bracelet, and returned to his evil lair. Meanwhile, he’s already captured El Ángel several times, and El Ángel has escaped several times. And the Bat has freely handed out his lair’s address to Almeda’s entire extended family, all a part of his “brilliant” plan. Yet he’s still surprised when these characters burst into his lair to stop him, except…except these good guys, knowing for days where the Bat resides, never alerted the cops. Really, everyone is functioning according to some strange, unstated B-movie code of honor, working overtime to keep the villainous Bat a menace until the formulaic climax, logic be cursed.

Following this curious Mexican anti-logic, every time the Bat captures El Ángel, he refuses to unmask him. He doesn’t merely refuse it, he orally justifies carrying the idiot ball. Because El Ángel will no longer be a problem; just toss him in that death trap unguarded, then let’s all leave, and assume it’s done. MORONS!

So the Bat has no one to blame but himself once Popoca finally makes his delayed entrance in the movie’s final few minutes. What was that about B-movies just barely delivering upon their titular promises? Surely with the costume already built (for Part One), they could’ve done slightly more with the series-justifying Aztec mummy than this!

As it is, Popoca is exposed to brightly lit sets, highlighting how rubbery his decaying, jerky-fresh flesh actually is. He don’t look too good, he don’t. Oh, and a horror movie? Eh, Popoca is now the hero. With the Bat 1/3rd into his evil, evil, evil treasure-stealing scheme, it’s up to brave Popoca to keep Aztec gold randomly, purposely hidden…by killing a dozen men! It’s staged like a Mexican wrestling match. Popoca lightly taps goons on the shoulders, and they die from the sheer force of it. There are at least two nicely gruesome fates in here: Acid eats one guy’s face away, and another fellow tumbles into the Bat’s snake vat (psst – it was the Bat).


Popoca retrieves his beloved breastplate and bracelet, or something, and wanders off. With no logical justification, Dr. Almeda hypothesizes Popoca shall now wander to someplace new, instead of back to his old beloved pyramid. I think Almeda sees the pre-filmed sequel on the horizon.

Well, that was inept. The Aztec Mummy baseline isn’t great, yet The Curse of the Aztec Mummy is made worse by being a second movie made when they barely had the resources for one. The film’s editing scheme really highlights their financially friendly recycling. It’s like with Ed Wood: You get one shot of a car driving, so it becomes reusable forever. Just add a night tint, or reverse the image. So action bits featured in Part One return in new contexts – I swear the same cop dies two or three times throughout.

Actually, there is one particularly curious example of this phenomenon – where Part One uses footage from Part Two! The Aztec Mummy opens with the Bat escaping prison, just as its sequel does – and it’s the same footage, but only used as an entire sequence in Part Two. So what’s it doing in the original? Creating a plot hole, mostly, for there’s no reason for this stuff to appear when it does otherwise.

Boy, with things folding in on themselves in this way, I’m excited to see what the trilogy’s final entry can offer!

The Aztec Mummy, No. 1 - The Aztec Mummy (1957)

Are you ready to spend a week discussing Aztec mummies and other ridiculous Mexican exploitation nonsense? I sure as hell am!

Mexican cinema…I don’t know a whole lot about its intimate history. Though I do seem to know that the late 1950s saw certain Mexican filmmakers embracing horror, and that’s “horror” as in 1930s Universal style. Vampires, werewolves, Frankensteins, gill-men…mummies. All this in an era where U.S. horror has “evolved” to concern gigantic irradiated insects and whatnot: The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them!, The Giant Claw, The Blob, roughly 200 other movies.

The Mexicans, however, like Ed Wood, had little evident use for this trend. Who knows if they were unaware of what was going on up north (unlikely), or if their younger film industry was content to mimic more outdated filmic forms. With their musicals, detective fiction, and pulpy, serial-style matinees, Mexican movies of the 1950s were like Hollywood movies from two decades prior. Horror-wise, certainly no film called El Vampiro comes about unless you’re just starting to dabble in blood-sucking.

And so Mexico’s premier horror franchise of that era – and that’d be The Aztec Mummy, if you hadn’t gathered – borrows quite liberally from an old Universal stalwart, namely The Mummy (1932). But with a difference! Producer Guillermo Calderón knew Mexican audiences weren’t wholly enamored of this trend of imperialist horror inheritance – Hollywood desired gothic tales, themselves taken from largely Anglo-European myths. (Never mind The Mummy is Egyptian, it’s filtered through the distinct phobias of Britain.) Given a certain strand of Mexican culture, a sort of raza/Chicano interest in pre-conquest Americas, there’re plenty of indigenous bogeymen to choose from…even mixing in Mexico’s unique Catholic influence, ya got Dia de los Muertos, El Cucuy, la Llorona. Forget the chupacabra, for Mexico’s goats remained unsucked at that stage.

Surely certain productions contemporary with The Aztec Mummy built on this unique tradition, such as The Curse of the Llorona [link not found]. So it is with Calderón’s franchise, adding on a veneer of Aztec culture to create the impression, at least, of distinction from the Karloff model. The Aztec Mummy isn’t completely divorced from its obvious inspiration, for the story and structure are still hugely indebted to the old Egyptologist tale of reincarnation, mummification and past lives. Still, the mere addition of New World Aztec cacao flavoring sets a Mexican precedent.


The resulting films are remarkably cheap by most standards; indeed, they are genuine “MST3K” fodder. In this sense, even a high end studio-based Mexican effort feels not like even the minor U.S. studio efforts of that time; rather, The Aztec Mummy’s soul mates are Ed Wood, Coleman Francis, Phil Tucker. Herein lies much of the films’ charm nowadays, divorced from concern over Chicano heritage and whatever.

Surely cheapness was a driving principle for Calderón, who saw the potential in exploiting the Aztecs, and went about ensuring a franchise immediately. One Aztec Mummy would be easy enough to make, but under the assumption it would be popular, wouldn’t it be simpler to manufacture the sequels ahead of time as well? Therefore The Aztec Mummy was conceived as a trilogy, for purely business concerns, in imitation of certain cost-cutting measures already in place – measures the Mexicans borrowed from Hollywood’s old, defunct studio system, retaining cast and crew for multiple features to streamline the process. Roger Corman would be proud. And while the three initial Aztec Mummies were filmed like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga – three movies created as one single super-ultra-mega-movie – their one-month production turnaround, and shared 1957 release date, betrays their bargain basement qualities.


Enough setup. What of the first Aztec Mummy? – And mind you I watched this in the original Spanish, with no more translation than my own dormant, casual knowledge of the language. Well, let’s say the language barrier wasn’t a huge problem. Not that the movie is terribly visual – far from it, it’s static and stage bound and full of awkward, awkward blocking (much like Lugosi’s Dracula, actually) – but that’s the glory of B-movie dialogue written in the 1950s, from whatever country. Recall The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, with lines like “Not something I can see or touch or feel, but something I can’t quite see or touch or feel or put my finger on.” This movie is filled full with redundant redundancies of redundant dialogue, aided by characters absolutely enamored with explaining and re-explaining the plot twice per scene. Frankly, it’d make for a great Spanish learner aid, far better than those damned “Destinos” videos they had us watch in high school!

Setting the stage, The Aztec Mummy opens (following an expository voiceover narration, which is standard for all ‘50s sci-fi/horror/garbage) at a lecture, a meeting of Mexico’s mightiest intelligentsia. Dr. Eduardo Almada (Ramón Gay) exposits on end about – and this is partly guess work on my part (thank God for cognates) – past life regression and reincarnation and other such stuff that indicates we’re in a mummy movie. This scene, like every one in The Aztec Mummy, wears out its welcome well before it’s over, likely because director Rafael Portillo desperately wanted to stretch the final peso out of his sets – hence repeated dialogue ad nauseum, in favor of that dread screenwriter challenge of additional dialogue. Well, one way or another it’s a 90 minute long movie.


The university types disbelieving Almeda’s claims, he promises a demonstration – and each stage, from their request to his response to every further inching towards the actual demonstration, is an opportunity to reiterate the story as it stands, which isn’t very far yet. We’re nearly a good twenty minutes into The Aztec Mummy once Almeda has finally put his fiancée Flor (Rosa Arenas) into a trance – complete with a spinning hypnosis disc, natch, because this is one of those sorts of movies. Realism, or even convincing technobabble, is never even considered – just as well, for the film was evidently intended for sugar-crazed Mexican children rampaging throughout the theaters on their way to a cincianera, or something.

Meanwhile – oh right, I nearly forgot! The Bat has escaped (or rather, El Murcielago)!...Say what?! The Bat (Luis Aceves Castañeda) is the villainous mad scientist we just couldn’t go a B-movie without – not that mummy movies need mad science, but when you’re ladling on the clichés heedlessly, well… The Bat, for what it’s worth (we learn this from the come-and-go omniscient narrator, because no actual character was interested in a multi-minute exposition session re: The Bat), likes to experiment. Specifically, he likes to graft random animal and human parts onto other random animals and humans – SCIENCE! I dunno what his mini-Mengele purpose is, though it’s likely I just couldn’t parse that info out.

The Bat is my favorite character. He wears a black luchadore-style mask, for no one’s benefit except ours, so that his identity can be a “surprise” at the end. Given no mightier motive, the Bat merely skulks around the edges of Almeda’s story, a random villain to account for the mightily delayed commencement of mummy mayhem. All in all, he seems like the baddie from 1930’s The Bat Whispers – that being one of the movies to inspire Batman himself – as if taken in a totally different direction, in a weird amalgam of 1930s pulp and Mexican wrestling. Also, the Bat occasionally contacts goons for no reason.


Frankly, the Bat serves no evident function in this movie. By film’s end, the police arrest him for doing “bad” things (apparently simply going around in a black mask and a cape is a crime). Then they unmask him – gasp!, it’s Dr. Krupp, someone who was never previously identified by name. But keep in mind, this is a trilogy, and all this is likely to play out later on. …Oh, and a further example of the film’s odd, plot hole-ignorant mentality: The movie opens with the Bat escaping police custody – wearing his mask. In fact, they never bothered unmasking him until The Aztec Mummy’s most dramatically “appropriate” moment. Goes to show how strangely theatrical and arbitrary this thing is!

Meanwhile, Flor enters a trance – the only emotion Rosa Arenas is capable of portraying. She tells of her past life in Tenochtitlan, as the Aztec princess Ankh-es-en-amon – no, wait, excuse me, Xochitl! She enjoys forbidden (for whatever reason) love with mummy-to-be Imhot- no, Popoca. We don’t even see Popoca, mind you (all the better to preserve the “surprise,” I guess, when his mummy is finally revealed in the final 15 minutes), so it’s up to various expository sources to tell us of Xochitl’s love affair – all while we simply veg out to stock footage of ancient Mexican pyramids.

Then the duo, Xoxo and Popo, are sacrificed to the Aztecs’ heathen gods – here I’m not sure what attitude the filmmakers hold in regards to their supposed ancestors, especially in regards to their heart-ripping, head-removing sacrificial ways. I just don’t. It makes sense for an ostensible horror show to play the mummification process for maximum squirm points, but…there’s some evidence that the Aztecs are to be respected, perhaps one reason for the Bat’s more Euro-tinged villainy.


Okay, so, sacrifice…As with all scenes, this is many minutes longer than it ought to be, somehow reverting into a full-on King Kong dance routine. I suppose someone hired traditional folk dance extras, and had to get their peso’s worth.

Anyway, Flor awakes from her flashback and…exposits. She tells Almeda (who then grows the urge to tell the same info to others, then et cetera) about a lost Aztec ruin, and a fabulous breastplate and bracelet therein. And wouldn’t you know it, this undiscovered ruin is within easy driving distance! How great. Actually, cars instantly drive out to the site (in a shot perfectly mirrored by similar ones in Plan 9 From Outer Space), as the massive complex of skyscraper-sized pyramids proves less isolated than most of Mexico’s touristy Aztec/Mayan sites. Pretty hard to accept this all. A shame too that it’s so readily accessible, as it eliminates the possibility for a good, Indiana Jones-style cliffhanger trek.


But we gotta get to the next major set piece – entering one pyramid’s obvious opening, then wandering from catacomb to catacomb. Each new tomb necessitates another exposition session, almost as if – hey, the set guys made several tomb rooms, let’s use each one at length! It’s a chance to dwell upon the notion of a mummy’s curse and – You know how these mummy movies go, I suppose, an assumption The Aztec Mummy does not share. It really is the Cliff Notes version of Karloff’s Mummy, it is.

Summarizing the rest of the picture (something I could’ve done at this stage totally as a guess): The travelers shall steal certain relics – the aforementioned breastplate and bracelet, not that the props department makes them look like such – and head back home, at which point the titular Aztec mummy shall rise, retrieve said amulets, kill a dude or two, the end. There’s an outside possibility they’ll play up the reincarnated love storyline of Flor/Xochitl, only…they just ignore that one. After spending those 12 minutes in an Aztec flashback setting up precisely this story…though Popoca (the mummy) still collects Flor up in his arms at some stage, because it’s not a classical monster movie without an unconscious chick in the beast’s arms.


The plotting becomes pretty awkward at this stage, as they have to make do with action, not just explanation. Having squandered so much of the film on the premise, Portillo’s posse pusses out on what we all came to see – though it’s a truism about B-grade cinema that the poster’s promise usually occupies, at best, but a few minutes of screen time. Just enough to satisfy an undemanding, stoned viewer, because why deliver anything beyond the bare minimum? Otherwise, what’s left for the sequel?


As it is, Popoca the Aztec mummy is reasonably effective. He looks nothing like the old toilet paper-clad Egyptian model; Popoca looks like anthropomorphized bacon, crossed with certain hippies I’ve known in New Mexico. Kept appropriately in the dark, he remains creepy, and the makeup’s shortcomings aren’t terribly obvious. I wholly expect the sequels to mess this one up.

Naturally, Mexican mummies are a potent source of terror. Not that there are specifically Aztec mummies – this is a stretched effort to Egyptify a local culture, to accommodate an old Hollywood pastiche. Surely I hope the Mexicans, of all people, are aware that the Peruvian Incan mummies are not their mummies. Still…there are Mexican mummies…dating from most ancient antiquity: 1833! The Guanajuato mummies are the fucking creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in person, certain Beverly Hills examples of plastic surgery aside, and they seem to be the visual inspiration for Popoca.

As an example of these mummies’ genuine, soul-sapping terror, witness their effective use in Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu remake – I swear, this scene may just well be the most unsettling single moment in any film!


Meanwhile, The Aztec Mummy is a fun-loving bit of monsterism, and has no evident desire to disturb. So its mummy simply does the old Frankenstein routine – Woman asleep, monster creeps in, takes her away. That’s mostly it, really! Toss in but one death – the mummy lightly slaps some old guy’s shoulders, he falls over, is pronounced dead. This is so derivative of the old Universal idiom, without an understanding of its effectiveness, and without (I gather) the same Hays limitations dictating death-by-slapping. Pretty doofy stuff.

So The Aztec Mummy isn’t very good, in the grand scheme of world cinema. No surprise there, and frankly it was never aiming for the Criterion Collection to begin with. This is a cheapo programmer, devised (with its sequels) just as a business ploy. That being what it is, the imitation of Universal makes sense – it’s what sold. The addition of Aztec trappings, those genuine elements which distinguish The Aztec Mummy – they’re what sold too. It’s that minimal promise of the new with the old which serves sequels so well, and it’s a mentality which encompasses The Aztec Mummy to its very core. Whatever else is of note– the stilted, barely adequate form of scrapped-together Z-cinema this is – well, that is all purely unintentional. Like so much of 1950s filmdom – when independent, non-studio entities were just getting into the biz – our enjoyment now is ironic…a weird legacy to be sure.