Something Weird released this compilation tape containing condensed versions of old Mexican monster movies from the ‘60s. It works as a nice sampler and/or sizzle reel for both fans of Mexican horror and the uninitiated alike. If you’re not in the mood for Halloween after watching it, you’re probably beyond help.
The first mini-feature is The Rider of the Skulls. A masked cowboy hero rides around the west doing battle with a wooly looking werewolf (who seems to be in league with a witch), a vampire (who wears a Lucha Libre mask), and a headless horseman. This one looks like a blast and frankly, the world needs more werewolf westerns if you ask me.
In The Return of the Monster, a Frankenstein-style monster escapes from a mad scientist’s lab (much to the delight of a comic relief talking skeleton) and goes around terrorizing the countryside. After he kidnaps a crying toddler, “The Scarlet Fox” (he looks like a Zorro knockoff) comes to the rescue. Cut-rate lap dissolve transformation scenes reveal the monster is actually a were-Frankenstein! This might be a cinema first!
One of the few movies I had seen prior to watching Mexican Monsters on the March was Ship of Monsters. If you’ve never seen it, what are you waiting for? The monsters are awesome (some of the costumes were later reused in El Santo and Aztec Mummy movies) and Lorena Velazquez is simply stunning, especially once she turns into a vampire!
Another one I saw previously was Adventure at the Center of the Earth. It wasn’t great, but they do show some of the best parts of the film. Among the highlights are bats attacking a spelunker dangling over a lava pit and the shots of furry batmen flying around. One of them even offers the sexy leading lady a rat to eat.
Next up is one of the granddaddies of Mexican horror, The Brainiac. A monster emerges from a comet and runs around sucking people’s brains out using its long tongue. His reign of terror is brought to an end when some dudes with flamethrowers get the drop on the monster and light his ass up. It’s as awesome as it sounds!
That’s followed by Dr. Satan. I’ve seen this one too, but it wasn’t so hot. Fortunately, the editors knew the best stuff to highlight, like the scenes of the eponymous villain consorting with the winged devil in a foggy graveyard.
Scenes from Madness from Terror play out next. There’s one terrific moment where a dude melts that looks like it might’ve been the inspiration for Toht’s death in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This sequence has it all, mad scientist labs, zombies, grave robbing, and a part where a guy is running around with a skeleton for a body. This one is going on my watchlist pronto.
Then we have Museum of Horror, which looks to be a South of the Border version of House of Wax. That is to say, it looks spectacular. It’s all about a guy with a hideously scarred face who gets his kicks from jumping out of the bushes, abducting damsels in distress, and taking them back to his lair where he dumps vats of boiling hot wax on their face.
Up next is another “Scarlet Fox” movie, Scarlet Fox in the Hanged Man’s Revenge (which also goes by the infinitely cooler alternate title, Zorro vs. the Teenage Monster). In this one, the Zorro-inspired character fights a monster (who may or may not be the same one from Return of the Monster, I can’t be sure) who is busy terrorizing the countryside and kidnapping women.
The final condensed horror show is The She-Wolf. A werewolf woman rises from her tomb (pretty much nude) and takes to ripping and clawing into the menfolk who are unlucky enough to stumble into her path. The slow-motion shots of the she-wolf leaping through the air are badass and the suggested nudity is rather tantalizing for the time. The gore is rather juicy too, and the transformation scenes look great. I’m gonna check this one out as soon as I can.
While I consider myself a fan of old Mexican horror movies, even I hadn’t heard of most of these. There are no subtitles, but it doesn’t really matter since the clips are mostly centered around “the good stuff”. Besides, the dialogue isn’t really necessary since the sounds of women screaming and werewolves snarling are pretty much universal anyway.
That said… at over two hours long, I’m inclined to believe they could’ve trimmed this down even more. They really didn’t need to keep in all the credits sequences either. Just having the title card at the beginning of each sequence would’ve sufficed. (The long opening crawl to Adventure could’ve been cut out entirely.) That’s a minor quibble though as I definitely discovered some new films to add to my watch pile, and honestly… that’s what these compilations are all about!
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