Las luchadoras contra la momia [The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy]

The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy

Original title: Las luchadoras contra la momia     

Directed by: Rene Cardona

Mexico, 1964

Horror/Lucha libre

After the success of crime busting Luchadoras Gloria Venus [Mexploitation royalty, Lorena Velázquez] and Golden Rubí [Elizabeth Campbell] in Las luchadoras contra el medico asesino (Doctor of Doom) 1963, the dynamic duo where bought back for anther great collaboration between René Cardona and Alfredo Salazar (with co-writer Guillermo Calderón too); The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy a charming piece of Mexploitation!

Just as most of the movies in the Lucha libre/horror/crime/sci-fi niche, there’s an opening initial attack. It’s often the introduction of the mad scientist or the fiendish foe or just one in a string of strange murders… The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy starts with the dumping of a male body as a car swooshes’ by, ditching the lifeless corpse on the road without slowing down. A fast edit later and exposition through newspaper headline, to bring us up to speed, Doctor Van Dyne has a dagger rammed into his heart by the fiendish Fu-Manchu look-a-like, Black Dragon [Ramón Bugarini]! 

Time to introduce our leading ladies, the Golden Girls of the ring, Gloria Venus and Golden Rubí. I really love this opening fight because Lorena Velázquez and Elizabeth Campbell are fab. I love how Velázquez character Gloria Venus is in such torment as Rubí is struggling with her unfair opponent, but at the same time – in her state of frustration tossing herself against the ropes – Gloria Venus is such a fair fighter that she won’t take to the same unjust tricks and get in there. She simply waits for Rubí to get out of trouble and make the by the book, tag-slap- handover before taking part in the action.  That’s how you write a stern and fair Luchadora character! And it’s always great to see Campbell wrestle opponents, as she was always a good foot taller than all her adversaries.

Black Dragon is searching for a secret codex, unfortunately split into several parts, that has been discovered in a pre-camber of an ancient Aztec tomb recently opened nearby by a team of archaeologists… Black Dragon’s method has been to assassinate the archaeologists, one by on, in his search for the one with the secret codec to open the ancient tomb. Inside the tomb, a suit of armour awaits. A suit of armour, which allows the bearer to conquer the world – as magic ancient armours always do.

Setting up the scenario, Dr. Miguel Sorva [Julío de Meriche] lurks around Gloria Venus and Golden Rubí’s dressing room after the initial wrestling bout. They notice him, confront him, and just as they are about to whoop his ass for being a kinky peeping tom, he explains that he’s really there to talk to Gloria Venus fiancée Detective Rios [Armando Silvestre]. Just as he's finished explaining the backstory of Black Dragon and the threat he poses to the team of archaeologists, he’s shot in the neck with a deadly arrow laced with deadly poison. 

With no time to waste, the foursome (now with comedic reliever Chucho Gomez [Chucho Salinas] back as Rios colleague detective) pay a visit to Professor Luis Trelles [Victor Velázquez, also the father of Lorena Velázquez], who explains further the mystery and secret of the codec pieces and introduces Charla, [María Eugenia San Martín], daughter of one of the murdered archaeologists. Professor Luis asks the luchadoras and detectives to each take part of the codex as to keep them safe. Rubí and Venus accept, as this would give them a great opportunity to expose and defeat Black Dragon and his gang of Hench men. Detective Rios wraps it all up with the smart and cunning plan that they all live together until the mystery is solved. Locked and loaded, let’s go!

 Charla is kidnapped by Black Dragon’s goons, taken to his lair, hypnotized, and programmed to be his ears and eyes in the house that they all live in, perhaps completely unnecessary as he also has cameras hidden in the house, from which he observes them secretly upon a large monitor in his hidden lair. If you where wondering where the “mad professor/surgeon” scenario was, well here you go. Albeit a blood free operation, Black Dragon operates on Charla whilst his band of misfits look on and applaud his work. He sends her back to the apartment with an assignment of injecting Professor Trelles with a drug that will have him expose the location of the final pieces to the codex. This results in a great scene where she first stabs the Professor and then is interrupted by Rubí and Venus! Slam down!

Becoming fed-up with Rubí and Venus constant interference Black Dragon proposes his female fighters to take out Rubí and Gloria Venus in a bout of strength in the ring. "We’ll tear them to pieces in three minutes!", say the sisters of martial arts. The plot, now something of a cat-and-mouse race against the clock to find where Professor Trelles has hidden the pieces before Black Dragon get’s them… but remember, he’s got Chala hypnotized and hidden cameras in the apartment, comes to a spectacular Mexican standoff (no pun intended) for the codex pieces… the solution, a very gentlemanlike agreement where Black Dragon’s judo experts are to take on the Luchadoras Rubí and Venus in a fierce battle at the Arena Nacíonal! The winning team of combatants get’s to take all the pieces of the Codex! I know, it’s somewhat ridiculous – especially as the women talk tactics in their changing room - but at the same time a great way to get the opponents into the wrestling ring. Don’t forget that initial bout, where I discussed Gloria Venus sense of sportsmanship, because nothing could have prepared them for the unjust fight that Black Dragon’s martial arts ladies have in store for them.

We’re half way though, and still we haven’t seen Black Dragon’s female fighters beat the living daylights out of Rios and Chucho. Black Dragon still has to layout his delicate plan to swipe the armour from under the good-guys noses, and the climactic trip to the excavation site and entering of the burial chamber, and the realization of the curse… the curse which see’s the Aztec Mummy walk once again!

All right, in all honesty, Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy does have a kind of cheap matinée tone to it. (But don't they all, and would you want it any other way?) It takes some time to establish stuff before reaching the second half - where the Luchadoras take on the, Judo experts from the orient, in a lengthy all-stakes-on-one-card match which goes on for a whopping ten minutes! So despite the somewhat slow build-up, there is a reward coming. The second half also see’s a spectacular backstory of Aztec ritual, mixing stock footage and materials shot for the film, in an amazing segment that explains the Aztec armour, the curse of the Mummy. Mexican Boris Karloff, Gerardo Zepeda, has a decent amount of scenes where he actually get’s to portray the Aztec sorcerer Tezomoc as a living human and not disguised as one of the many brute, disfigured thugs or monster’s characters he portrayed in many of the Mexican shockers he starred in. But not to worry, if you read this far, then you already know who’s behind the hideous Aztec mummy mask.

Then there’s the final act. An act that makes up for any dubious thoughts about the movie up to here, because the last act has a wonderful string of twists – I’m not kidding, you will never see this coming! There’s also the Mummy who can shape-shift into a bat, bringing a Universal horror like vibe to the piece, and the delightful cheesy, cheap archaeology-action-mystery climax in the vein of  “Indiana Jones” complete with curses, creaking tombstones, cobwebs, skeletons, monsters and screaming protagonists!

La mujer murciélago [The Batwoman]

The Batwoman

Original title: La mujer murciélago

Directed by: Rene Cardona

Mexico, 1968

Lucha Libre/Horror/Sci-Fi, 80min

Many where the collaborations between Rene Cardona and producer, screenwriter, actor Alfredo Salazar, and many a great film did their many collaborations birth, movies that make up the cream of the crop of Mexican genre!

A passion for mixing and meshing luchadores and luchadoras against any monster conceivable, Salazar’s story for The Batwoman basically reuses the same plot as he’d used several times before (and would again)  - a mad scientist playing God, which becomes the enticing incident for our protagonists to get involved. Mexican lucha libre flicks had in the last couple of years been inspired by James Bond spy escapades and the success of William Dozier’s Batman TV series. Salazar had already proven that he had quite a talent for penning movies that featured strong female protagonists, Las luchadoras contra el medico asesino (Doctor of Doom) 1963, Las luchadoras contra la momia (Wrestling Woman vs. the Aztec Mummy) 1964, La mujer murciélago and later La horripilante  bestia humana (Night of the Bloody Apes) 1969 – all directed by Cardona Snr. All movies have in common that they lead is a strong female character, wrestling takes place both inside and outside of the ring, and villainous scientists with a fiendish plan to take over the world!  Oh and none of the women take any crap from any man.

Batwoman’s alter ego is rich society chick Gloria. Gloria’s secret is that she moonlights as a masked luchadora in the ring, but is also a renowned secret agent who hides her identify behind the mask of Batwoman. None other than the gorgeous Maura Monti plays Batwoman. Monti, another one of those fantastic women who made something of a micro career in Mexican movies, similar to that on Elizabeth Campbell, starred in more than thirty films before retiring when her husband asked her to. So even though she had a short and intensive career, the movies she left behind are great pieces of work.

A string of mysterious murders, leaving strong hefty athletes of Acapulco washed up on the shores, have the police left clueless. Detective Tony Roca [Cardona regular Armando Silvestre] has noted a series of similar crimes in Macao and Hong-Kong. Special agent FBI Mario Robles [Héctor Godoy] is also on the case and has brought in a secret weapon: Batwoman! [Monti] Swanky jazz flows over the soundtrack and a lengthy introduction to Batwoman is given showing her in various sport and physical activities such as horseback riding, and free diving, before she’s into the ring for a few shots of her fighting skills. Making a show stopping entrance only suitable of a secret agent, Batwoman parachutes into town in full outfit, cape, mask, and bikini…

With Batwoman presented, it is time to introduce the antagonists. On a boat called Reptilicus, Mad Surgeon Dr. Williams [Roberto Cañeda – certainly no stranger to playing mad scientists in Mexican genre pieces] complete with loony assistant called Igor, is busy at work trying to create a hideous Fish-Man hybrid! Failing miserably again, he sends out his minions to kidnap yet another athlete – because you kind of know that Dr. Williams is the murdering maniac responsible for all those dead athletes washing up on the shore. Tricking a wrestler known only as “Swedish” [Manuel Cappelito] out on a fishing trip, he’s kidnapped and strapped tightly to Dr. Williams operating table. Triumph at last – although we never see any of the operation, we do get to see the dodgy fish-man swimming along the ocean floor on a monitor as Dr. Williams laughs sardonically and proclaims his experiment a success!

Gloria  - Batwoman to you and me - meets up with Tony Roca and Mario Robles who quite clumsily bring us up to speed – as if you didn’t get what you’d seen in the last ten minutes – and after realizing that they have come to a stand still, as prime suspect Dr. Williams, refuses to let them enter his boat, Batwoman has to don the mask and sneak onto the aquatic laboratory! Sneaking around the place, she just about discovers Dr. Williams’s secret lab and sees what she think might be a Fish-Man hybrid before she’s discovered. Is the end nigh? No my friends this is merely the end of act one, as Batwoman grabs a jug of acid and splashes it across Dr. Williams face and makes her escape as he, bleeding and in pain from his melting face, commands his men to catch her at any cost, she will be his piece de resistance – Fish Woman!

As far as the art of storytelling goes, The Batwoman is something of a delightful mess. It’s terribly straightforward and there’s never really any mystery, as we know from the start whom the villain is, and what his fiendish plan is. But at the end of the day, it’s not really the depth of the story you are here for – albeit extremely psychotronic indeed – you are here for the wild ride, the amazing fish-man experiments, the fiendish villains, the car chases, the quirky surf rock soundtrack and for Maura Monti!

Halfway in, Fish-Man finally makes his appearance, and it’s almost a cheap kaiju feeling to his presence, but by gosh does the action pick up, Fish-man fighting Batwoman underwater is fascinating and certainly rings Creature from the Black Lagoon. He may not have received the credit he was due, but Alfonso Bárcenas Fish-Man is rad, and without any doubt the centrepiece of the movie, along side Monti’s swanky Batwoman that is!

As the climax approaches, Roca, Robles and Batwoman all find themselves captured by Dr. Williams who seems to be getting away with his plan of using Batwoman to create a better Fish-human hybrid, and you’ll never guess who comes to the rescue...

The Batwoman is a butt-kicking funfest filled with some really fantastic moments of Salazar/Cardona madness. Swinging surf music, swirly scene transitions, speedy car chases, underwater action and loads of cheesy fights! Although I’m not sure that it’s Monti in the Batwoman suit during the actual Luchadora sequences, as body shape somewhat changes! Monti totally rocks the as the suave, sexy, tongue in cheek, ass whipping Batwoman, and she most certainly is one of Salazar’s strong female characters, although one odd detail closes the movie. A last minute gag, perhaps included to assure the male audience that they still had the upper hand, a sign that Batwoman has her weakness too… In the vein of classic horror, going for one last shock, Salazar and Cardona go for one last kick as Gloria (Batwoman out of suit) leisurely stands at a bar taking in a drink with the two leading men as they celebrate their victory (as in the male detectives, not Batwoman’s as they still don’t know Gloria is Batwoman) and suddenly Gloria belts out a high pitched scream queen scream at something off screen… you may think it’s Fish-Man coming for one last attack, but you are wrong. It’s a mouse. Contradicting everything that Salazar has built up with the strong female character, Gloria is in that last scene, reduced to nothing but a stereotypical woman, weak, needing the help of strong men, and terrified of mice.  I chose to read it as Gloria staying in character, sticking to the façade of her alternative persona, keeping the men in the dark, that underneath all that hair, makeup and chic designer dresses, she is THE BATWOMAN!

The Batwoman is top-notch Mexican psychotronica! A must for fans of hot chicks kicking ass, rubber-suited monster men and lucha libre! All hail Alfredo Salazar and Rene Cardona and the cinematic legacy they left behind for fans of wild and crazy cinema. Viva!

Night of the Bloody Apes

Night of the Bloody Apes

Original title: La horripilante bestia humana

Directed by: Rene Cardona

Mexico, 1969

Horror/Lucadora, 83min.

If there ever were a cure for the blues, it would have to be cheap Mexican exploitation flicks. With origins stretching back as far as the thirties when the set’s of Tod Browning’s Dracula where used at night time to shoot a Spanish language version of the same production for the Latino market, and the booming in the mid fifties during a time of Political uncertainty. Crises within the Mexican film industry led to the production of loads of low-budget films at minimal costs, which required filmmakers to be more creative than they had needed be before.

It’s from those times of low budget, cheap production, and exploitation tricks that screenwriters and directors like Ramón Obón, Rafael Baledón, brothers Alfredo and Abel Salazar, René Cardona, Chano Urueta, Miguel M. Delgado, Alfredo B. Crevenna and the great Fernando Méndez came to their full exploitative potential. Méndez stunning El Vampiro (The Vampire) 1957 became something of a surprise smash hit generating a huge demand for native genre fare. Although El Vampiro didn’t reach English-speaking soil until the late sixties when K. Gordon Murray took it under his production and dubbed it into an English language version – like a multitude of Mexican films he Americanized under the same time period.  Despite this, it’s told that Christopher Lee states that the Méndez El Vampiro was seen by the forces at Hammer studios and left an important impression on them, which also highly influenced the genesis of the glossy gothic style of Hammer horrors that exploded upon the world with the 1958 classic Horror of Dracula.

Back to the Mexico, Gothic horrors and Mexican folklore themed films soon gave way to another favoured pastime, Wrestling. Televised Luchador matches where suddenly deemed vulgar and banned by the government as to “protect underage viewers”. A great move, as they simply moved into the cinemas and showcased their exploits there instead – hence many Luchador Movies being bookended with lead characters wrestling bouts. After a few films of fighting each other, the Gothic horror and Mexican folk lore seeped back in and Luchador greats such as Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras started taking on Aztec mummies, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfmen and even a couple of encounters with Martian invaders.

Within this niche also came the Luchadora, the Female Wrestler. A sexier, cooler sub-niche, where legend Loretta Velázquez and her character “Gloria Venus” was the undefeated queen of Mexican exploitation cinema. And if there was a king of the genre it was undoubtedly writer, actor, director René Cardona! Personally responsible for a good half dozen or more Luchadoras films, Cardona probably did more for the Mexican female action hero than any other director with his successful string of Luchadoras films, including the initial Las luchadoras vs. el médecino asesino (Doctor of Doom) 1962, cult favourite La Mujer Muriciélago (Bat Woman), 1967 and La horripilante bestia human (Night of the Bloody Apes) 1969, which even ended up on the infamous British Video Nasties list of prosecuted titles.

Seemingly two parallel stories set the stage for this sinister gem of Mexican exploitation cinema. One path follows Lieutenant Arturo Martinez [Armando Silvestre] and his Luchadora girlfriend Lucy Ossorio [Norma Lazareno who also starred in Cardona’s splendid Superviventes de los Andes (Survive) 1976 with legend Hugo Stiglitz], and her story of nursing a bad conscious after tossing her opponent Elena Gomez [Noelia Noel] out of the wrestling ring and putting her in hospital in a serious condition. If nothing else, it brings some neat girl fight scenes to the movie and Lazareno sports a spiffy red cat/devil outfit with mask and all. The other path follows renown, but heavily frustrated Professor Krallman [José Elías Moreno, who starred as The Ogre in Roberto Rodriguez Caperucita y Pulgacito contra los monstros (Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood) 1962] as he conducts depraved experiments on primates in a desperate attempt to cure his son’s deadly disease.

Transplanting the heart of a gorilla he and his henchman have stolen from a zoo – showcased through wonderful gorilla suits and authentic gory surgery footage, which most likely is the only reason the movie ended up on the Video Nasties list, Professor Krallman and assistant Goyo [Carlos Lòpez Moctezuma] operate on his son Julio [Agustin Martinez Solares] but despite the ape heart transplant being a success, Julio soon transforms into a grotesquely apelike beast, another hideous monster makeup face job for the former professional wrestler Gerardo Zepeda! Breaking out of the Professors secret basement laboratory, which for some reason has a penthouse window, the beast escapes into the night, stalks his prey and strikes in bloody sexual frenzy!

Called to the scene of the brutal murder, Lt. Arturo finds himself facing one of the most bizarre cases of his career. This is where the two paths come into one main narrative. Arturo is on the case and is racing against time to stop the beast man form committing further crimes! Things get worse when Professor Krallman – who incidentally performed the life saving brain surgery on Elena after Lucy chucked her out of the ring during the opening fight - kidnaps the still lethargic Elena from hospital with the intention of removing the gorilla heart and putting hers into the body of the beast as to save him from the transmutation which turns him into the manic ape beast. Cue more real gory stock footage, and Oh do I love scenes of medical mumbo jumbo blurted out to give the illusion of being authentic, and Night of the Bloody Apes delivers it en masse.

I love how the Cardona’s, yes both Father and son René Cardona Jr., (who went on to enjoy a great career as a exploitation filmmaker himself) as they co-wrote the script to this one, create such delightful empathy for both sides of the piece whilst they set this one up. Basically it’s a remake of  Cardona's earlier film Doctor of Doom, which also starring Armando Silvestre and Gerardo Zepeda in similar roles they hold in Night of the Bloody Apes.

Even though it's wasted, empathy for Lazareno's Lucy Ossorio is created as she's a fighter, but a fighter with a heart, who has terrible remorse when putting her opponent in hospital. She struggles with the following fights as the guilt is heavy to carry, and Silvestre does his best to console her and keep her fighting spirits up. Unfortunately it really leads to nothing, but acts more as a semi sub plot to weave in Silvestre and Moreno's characters.

Krallman is a delightful character, a cocktail of doing wrong for the cause of good.  He’s a saver of lives – as the brain surgeon of Elena, but also a mad professor, a constant evil in Mexican horror cinema – who conducts vile tests in his secret home laboratory, taking innocent lives for scientific experiments. But the complexity of his deeds and their reason is an exciting one. We can judge him for the crimes he commits, but we can also respect the reasons why he committed them… It’s a classic case of doing wrong for good, or dimension, as I’d say in storytelling terms. Interestingly enough even the beast has some basic emotions beyond hate and lust. It shows empathy for its creator/father when Krallman falls and bashes himself unconscious. He even picks him up and gently places him on his bed! Awww, the Monster man loves his dad!

Being made in the midst of the degeneration of Mexican exploitation cinemas Golden age, it’s pretty fair to say that the movie more or less runs on routine. Although plenty of cheap effects, throat ripping, decapitating and a surprising amount of nudity as the Beast rapes and mutilates his way through the night, not to mention the immense amount of times Lt. Martinez calls Lucy, only to catch her standing or leaving the shower! She must easily be the most squeaky clean Luchadora ever; keep this movie a splendid late entry into the genre and sub niche. Where the previous Luchadora films had focused on the female characters, Night of the Bloody Apes focuses more on the Professor and his qualms with playing god – there’s a Prometheus story in there if there ever was one, and the movies climax definitely nods it’s head at Whale’s infamous censored moment from Frankenstein 1931 - instead of the Wrestling which acts more as a lure to pull audiences in, and before you know it Lazareno’s Lucy Ossorio is reduced to nothing more but eye candy and has no real part of the movies climactic last act.

Finally released in the most intact shape to date on DVD, complete with stock footage, and either the original Spanish language or the pretty fun “word for word like” English dub, René Cardona’s La horripilante bestia humana, is back from the land of the censors in all it’s glory thanks to UK’s Nucleus Films.