(Streamed via Canela TV)
If you’re unfamiliar with Capulina, he was an extremely popular but painfully unfunny (at least to me) Mexican comedian. The only other Capulina comedy I’ve seen was Santo vs. Capulina, and that was only because I am a die-hard El Santo completist. Naturally, the only reason I watched Capulina vs. the Monsters was for the monsters. I’m a sucker for shoddy South of the Border monster movies, even if they do star annoying comedians.
A mad scientist uses the brain of a dim-witted newsstand attendant (Capulina) to revive Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man. Predictably, they break out of the lab and chase Capulina all over town. Eventually, Capulina bands together with a bunch of kids to thwart the doctor’s plan.
The first twenty minutes or so did not inspire hope. These monster-less passages rely heavily on Capulina’s awful slapstick shtick (which requires him to make silly faces, run around in fast-motion like Benny Hill, and… uh… that’s about it) and have zero laughs. Thankfully, once the monsters show up, things improve considerably. While their interactions with Capulina aren’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, they are at least somewhat amusing. One fun touch is that garlic has no effect on Dracula, but all the monsters pass out after Capulina eats a bunch of onions and breathes on them. There’s also an odd scene where Capulina gets into an inexplicable pillow fight with the titans of terror. The best non-monster scene happens when Capulina mistakes some dwarf criminals wearing Halloween masks for Trick-or-Treaters. I can’t say “hilarity ensues”, but I think I did crack a smile.
The monster make-up and costumes are terrible, which only makes the whole thing even more enjoyable. The Mummy is the worst. If you thought the Mummy from Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy was bad, wait till you get a load of this guy. He looks like he’s wearing a repurposed El Santo mask and baggy white pajamas. However, I dug the scene where Dracula completely unwraps him in order to tie up Capulina and then uses all of his bandages to lower him from a second story window. Say what you will about this movie, but it has a naked mummy in it, something that possibly might be a cinema first.
One missed opportunity though: There’s a scene where the Mummy fights the Wolf Man, and he bites him on the neck. According to accepted monster lore, shouldn’t the Mummy now turn into a werewolf? If anything could’ve pushed this flick into *** territory, it would’ve been a Were-Mummy! Sadly, it was not meant to be.
It also helps that the mad scientist’s assistant Mephistophela (Irlanda Mora) is foxy as all get out. Wearing a slinky skintight red jumpsuit, she struts around the mad doctor lab looking hot to trot. One thing’s for sure: Capulina’s idiotic mugging is certainly easier to take whenever she’s on screen.
As fun as the middle section of the film is, things get pretty dire as it enters the homestretch. The finale is especially weak as the monsters are dispatched by Capulina incessantly chanting about his love for chocolate donuts. (I think, or perhaps my Spanish was rusty). The demise of the mad scientist is also WTF as he is electrocuted and turned into a turkey!?! Oh well, at least when Mephistophela loses her job as a mad scientist’s assistant, she bounces right back, and gets a job as a nanny where she gets to wear sexy nanny outfits. That’s about as happy of an ending as you can get with something like this.
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