THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961) ***

It was kind of interesting to compare and contrast The World of the Vampires with the other Mexican Vampire movie I watched the other day, The Invasion of the Vampires.  Both manage to shake up the traditional vampire lore by making up their own weird rules, which is kind of ballsy and fun.  While the overall quality of Invasion was all over the place, it still managed to crank out a handful of striking and impressive visuals.  World, on the other hand, is more consistent in its approach and embraces the B-level production design (the familiar cobweb-strewn Churubusco Azteca Studios sets are trotted out yet again), which makes everything go down much smoother.

The evil Count Subotai (Guillermo Murray) rises from the grave and sacrifices a woman on his altar.  He then vows revenge on the Colman clan who originally killed him a hundred years ago.  He sets his sights on turning the latest Colman descendent, Leonor (Erna Martha Bauman, who was also in The Invasion of the Vampires) into a bloodsucker.  It’s then up to a scientist of music and the occult named Rudolph (Mauricio Garces) to stop the Count from putting the bite on her. 

Murray isn’t particularly great as the Count.  (He’s no German Robles, I’ll tell you that.)  He often looks perplexed and the giant cartoonish fangs they give him to wear don’t exactly help.  However, he looks at home playing weird skull-encrusted pianos and ordering around a bunch of zombies with Paper Mache faces, so he has that going for him.

The most fun aspect of The World of the Vampires is how it incorporates music into the vampire legend.  The character of Rudolph is a great twist on the typical Van Helsing character.  Music is his forte, and he’s perfected a theory of how the particular arrangement of musical notes can affect his surroundings.  There’s a great scene where he attends a dinner party and plays a song that could “wake the dead” that ends with the Count mysteriously appearing in the living room.  Conversely, when he plays a song that vampires hate, it drives the big-eared, wild-eyed vampire minions mad.  Who needs holy water when you can just tickle the ivories? 

Another departure from the usual vampire lore is the fact that when you are bitten by a vampire, you turn into… a werewolf?!?  One way that the vampires keep with tradition is the fact that they can be killed with a stake through the heart.  You would think that knowing this, the Count wouldn’t have installed a giant pit filled with sharp stakes at the bottom, right in the middle of his lair.  I mean it was only a matter of time before someone slipped and was impaled by them.  I don’t know what they’re smoking down there south of the Rio Grande, but it is of the high-grade available-only-with-photo-I.D. variety.

Whereas there were moments in Invasion that felt like a Mario Bava movie, World is content to evoke the look of an old Universal horror programmer.  (The scenes with the vampire’s brides are clearly cribbing from the 1931 version of Dracula.)  Even with the crummy masks, shitty half-assed werewolves, and silly bats, it proves to be more engaging and fun, despite not reaching the atmospheric heights of The Invasion of the Vampires.  One thing is for sure, The World of the Vampires isn’t your typical tired old retread.

THE INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES (1965) ** ½

A small town is plagued by a rash of unexplained murders.  An investigator of the supernatural named Dr. Ulysses (Rafael del Rio) arrives on the scene and asserts it is the work of Count Frankenhausen (Carlos Agosti), a bloodthirsty vampire.  It doesn’t take long before the good doctor falls for the virginal Brunhilda (Erna Martha Bauman).  Naturally, Brunhilda is the vampire’s next target and Dr. Ulysses sets out to watch her back and protect her neck. 

The Invasion of the Vampires is an interesting yet uneven South of the Border horror flick that suffers from a severe whiplash of quality.  There are moments here of pure cinematic beauty that are almost immediately undermined by an unyielding onslaught of boring exposition and soap opera theatrics.  Despite that, fans of Mexican horror movies are probably apt to ride out the rough passages in order to get to the good stuff. 

The episodic feel adds to the overall patchiness of the film.  Not even the humorously atrocious dubbing can save the interminable dialogue scenes.  These long, dull stretches will have your eyelids lowering in no time.  On the plus side, the vampire stuff is strong enough to almost singlehandedly save it.  The sequences where a vampire woman takes a stroll through the fog and walks into a lake would look at home in a Mario Bava picture.  If B movie cheesiness is more your taste, the hero’s fight with a giant bat will certainly fit the bill. 

If you manage to tough it out through the dull spots, you will be rewarded with a pretty neat twist ending, that I for one didn’t see coming.  Some purists may cry foul since it flies in the face of the traditionally accepted vampire lore.  For this horror movie junkie, it just looked so cool visually that I couldn’t help but go with it.  It’s not quite enough to save the flick, but it should be enough to leave a lingering impression on you long after you see it. 

OF CHICANA BLOOD (1974) ***

Maria is a rebellious Chicana teenager who emulates her American counterparts, much to her father’s chagrin.  His restaurant is failing, and his sons try to help in their own way.  Raul is going to college to become a doctor, although that won’t help matters here and now.  Meanwhile, brother Juan turns to a life of crime and gets mixed up with an American gang.  To make ends meet, Raul begins wrestling at night, but keeps things a secret because he knows his father would not approve.   

Of Chicana Blood obviously has a lot to say about racial equality and economic disparity, and its messages are just as timely today as when it was made.  Luckily, it isn’t too heavy handed or preachy as it often finds the right balance of drama and comedy.  I especially liked the family’s cantankerous godmother who sneaks out and paints anti-gringo graffiti.

I know I probably should’ve sworn off Hurricane Ramirez movies after the dreadful Hurricane Ramirez and the Black Nun, but this one is a marked improvement in every regard.  While humorous, it lacks the sitcom-style gags and plot predicaments that film had in favor of well-rounded characters and a genuine good-natured message.  (It helped I was able to watch this one with subtitles.)  The dramatic meat of the story is surprisingly rich, and the ending winds up being rather sad and depressing too.

At first, all this feels like it’s going to be another bait and switch because you don’t hear hide nor hair of Hurricane Ramirez for the first half of the movie.  Stick with it though, because there’s a reason for the slow build-up.  You see, Of Chicana Blood is actually… the origin story of Hurricane Ramirez!  That’s right, it’s Hurricane Ramirez Begins!

It’s really cool to see Hurricane getting his start, even if many of the wrestling scenes are kind of rote.  At least the final showdown between Hurricane and Golden Bull (who also happens to be Maria’s lout ex-boyfriend) has a little kick to it, thanks to the drama that has built up between the two opponents.  I also liked the one wrestler known as “The Mathematician” who has a bunch of numbers on his mask, although that’s really the extent of his gimmick. 

I’m always a little tougher on the Lucha Libre flicks that don’t have horror, sci-fi, or fantasy elements to begin with.  However, while it doles out its message earnestly, Of Chicana Blood does get kind of dull in places, especially when no one is wrestling.  Still, I’m surprised I liked it as much as I did, considering how inconsistent these later Hurricane Ramirez movies have been.  I also admired the stealthy way they took a seemingly innocent family drama and turned it into a Mexican wrestling origin movie.  This is easily the best Hurricane flick since the original. 

SON OF VHS DELIRIUM (2019) *** ½

Son of VHS Delirium is the third part in the Drive-In Delirium spin-off series that focuses solely on VHS trailers.  The very first image you see is a woman’s soapy butt, which is a sure sign of the quality to come.  That butt is part of a promo for an Australian company called Video Classics, which I’m not familiar with, but who are responsible for all the trailers and promos in the collection.  With a butt like that, the company deserves to be on the Forbes 500. 

This was on the same disc as Drive-In Delirium:  With a Vengeance as a bonus feature.  I may have been a little disappointed by the lack of horror titles on that installment, but this one more than makes up for it.  Here’s the complete rundown on the trailers included:  Beyond Evil, Superstition, Maniac, Evil Dead, Sweet Sixteen, Mutant, Vampyres (“WARNING:  This Film Contains Scenes That May Shock or Offend”), Torso, Amityville 3-D, The Dead Zone, Tattoo, and To Kill a Clown.  From there, things become sort of a hodgepodge with trailers for Fort Apache, The Bronx, The Bounty, Caged Heat, The Retrievers, Raw Force, Conan the Destroyer, Loving Couples, Splitz, Hollywood High, Gas Pump Girls, Hot T-Shirts, Gosh!, The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood, Charlotte’s Web (which feels really out of place, especially following a Happy Hooker movie, but oh well), Follow the Sun, Master of the Game, Flying High, The Keeper, and The Intruder Within.

It’s in the last half-hour the collection really gets into gear.  After a Video Classics promo (that includes clips from Flash Gordon and King Kong, among others) we get an awesome commercial for Movies at Midnight, which looks like an ad for a Playboy Channel type of deal.  Then there are tons of fun trailers for ‘70s skin flicks like Secrets of a Super Stud, Sweet Savage, The Yum Yum Girls, Girls at the Gynecologist (which has a great gimmick where the girls’ name and age flashes on screen), Mustang:  The House That Joe Built, Incoming Freshmen, French Nympho, Spermula, Flesh Gordon, Diary of a Space Virgin (AKA:  The Girl from Starship Venus), Fairy Tales, Fantasm (“Filmed in Hollywood by Australians!”), Fantasm Comes Again, and Love You (which is oddly enough, narrated by a W.C. Fields imitator).  

This is certainly the best of the VHS Delirium collections.  In fact, this is the first time in the Drive-In Delirium line where the bonus feature outshone the main attraction.  I for one can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeve next time around. 

DRIVE-IN DELIRIUM: WITH A VENGEANCE (2019) ***

Drive-In Delirium:  With a Vengeance is the fifth in the series of trailer compilations from Umbrella Entertainment.  The focus this time is on the action genre, although there are more than a few horror, sci-fi, and exploitation trailers sprinkled about.  While it still packs plenty of bang for your buck, I have to say it is my least favorite in the series so far.

Things kick off with a run of ‘70s Blaxploitation trailers (Shaft, Super Fly, Hammer) before branching off into trailers for the Dirty Harry and French Connection series.  Icons like Steve McQueen (Bullitt. Le Mans, The Getaway), Michael Caine (Get Carter, The Eagle Has Landed, The Italian Job), and Sylvester Stallone (Cobra and Lock Up) are well-represented.  I also enjoyed the trailers that were narrated by their directors (Sam Fuller’s Underworld, U.S.A. and Burt Reynolds’ Gator), a trend that should make a comeback.

After a short intermission that includes commercials for Kool-Aid (starring The Monkees) and KISS dolls, the second half begins with trailers for ‘60s adventures (Sword of Sherwood Forest, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Pirates of Blood River).  From there we get a taste of pulpy actioners (The Vengeance of She, The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, The Castle of Fu Manchu), Ninja flicks (Kill and Kill Again, Enter the Ninja, and Revenge of the Ninja), and a lot of Spaghetti westerns (including The Dollars Trilogy, a couple of Django movies, and Navajo Joe).  Finally, the collection concludes with a long run of Sci-Fi movies from the ‘70s (The Omega Man, The People That Time Forgot, Time After Time) and ‘80s (Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan, Dune, The Last Starfighter).

Just because I can’t quite rank this collection as high as some of the other installments in the Drive-In Delirium series, don’t think that there aren’t some great trailers here because there are some truly memorable ones.  It’s just that the valleys are more prevalent than the peaks.  I mean at nearly six-and-a-half hours, it’s a given the overall quality would be uneven.  Sure, many of the films featured probably aren’t considered your typical drive-in fare (Serpico, The Long Good Friday, Best Seller), but there are still enough sleazy thrills (Savage Streets, Naked Vengeance, Tenement) here to justify the title.

HURRICANE RAMIREZ AND THE BLACK NUN (1973) *

Remember the Black Nun, Hurricane Ramirez’s nemesis from The Son of Hurricane Ramirez?  You know, the one with the cool I Was a Teenage Frankenstein face and nun habit?  Well, despite the fact that this is called Hurricane Ramirez and the Black Nun, he ain’t in this one.  The nun in this one is a black nun.  Talk about a bait and switch. 

Come to think of it, the movie should really be called The Black Nun and Hurricane Ramirez because Hurricane doesn’t appear until an hour into the flick.  Until then, you are stuck with a lot of unfunny comedy shenanigans involving the nun trying to do good deeds.  The fact that I watched an un-subtitled version didn’t help matters.

Mostly, it’s about the nun getting into one predicament after another.  She gets a mute boy to help her reclaim some golden religious artifacts for the church without realizing a gang of shady characters are using the knickknacks to smuggle drugs.  Eventually, she gets in a heap of trouble with the gangsters who run the operation, and it’s up to Hurricane Ramirez to get her out of a tight jam.

This is probably the worst Lucha Libre movie I’ve ever seen, mostly because the non-wrestling scenes are often painful to sit through.  I mean, that first hour was so slow moving that I put it on 1.5 about halfway through and it still felt like it was moving like molasses going uphill.  Once Hurricane enters the picture, things improve, but only slightly.  There’s an OK Royal Rumble scene, but by the time Hurricane is squaring off in the ring while the nun is being kidnapped, I was fighting to stay awake.

I’m not sure if the original Black Nun character could’ve saved this mess, but he certainly couldn’t have hurt.  Heck, the Flying Nun would’ve been welcome.  I hate to say this, but after joyfully watching Lucha Libre movies over and over again for the past few months, this one might be the one that makes me swear off the genre for a while. 

BLOOD AND FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON (2019) *** ½

What better way to wash down thirty-two Al Adamson movies than with David Gregory’s documentary on the man, the myth, the legend that is Al Adamson?  Fans of the schlock director will already be familiar with some of the wild yarns that are spun about him, but it’s great to see so many of his cast and crew together in one place and dragging out the well-worn chestnuts yet again.  Find out how he broke into the business, made and remade (and remade) a flimsy crime thriller so it could eventually be resold as a horror movie, worked with up-and-coming cinematographers, worked with down-and-out actors, and even convinced Colonel Sanders to star in one of his movies. 

Guys like Sam Sherman are a wealth of knowledge not only about movies, but the business itself.  He had more than just a business partnership with Al, they were the best of friends.  His stories and memories are among the best in the whole movie.  We also get some great and insightful footage of Al himself from his last known interview.  He knew he wasn’t Hitchcock or anything, but he was damned proud of his work, especially given the time and budget constraints he was shooting under. 

In the last half-hour, the film goes from being a celebration of the man to a sort of true crime show as the details of his final days are chronicled.  Many state the fine points of his gruesome murder could make for its own horror movie, but I think that’s a little crass.  What happed to him was just plain terrible and sad.  Luckily for Al and his family, justice was served.

Throughout the documentary, it’s nice to see guys like Chris Poggiali and David Konow, who have encyclopedic knowledge of all things Adamson, being interviewed.  Speaking of encyclopedias, I can’t tell you how good it was to see The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film’s Michael J. Weldon being interviewed about Adamson.  Weldon is the number one reason why I do what I do.  I was lucky enough to be invited to lunch with him back in ’02 when I visited his store in Chincoteague, Virginia, and I have never forgotten his kindness and support.  I couldn’t think of a better note to end my two-month journey into the world of Al Adamson on than seeing him speaking about Adamson in such a scholarly manner.