The Vampires of Coyoacán (1974)

Original title: Los vampiros de Coyoacán

Warning: there will be some third act spoilers!

A horrifying elderly luchador known as El Espectro (Nathanael León aka Franquestain) kills his opponents in the ring, despite moving as slow as an old man, um, zombie. Apparently, making a habit of this sort of thing is okay per Mexican law as of 1974 as long as it happens in the ring.

While the elderly threat is hanging in the background, lucha heroes Mil Máscaras (Mil Máscaras) and, alas, Superzan (Superzan) are called in by one Dr Thomas (Carlos López Moctezuma) to help him out with a little family problem: his daughter Nora (Sasha Montenegro) is suffering from a strange illness. How strange? The good doctor is utterly convinced she is being targeted by a vampire, who regularly visits her to slowly suck her dry. Mil and Superzan are easier convinced of the supernatural threat than the more sceptical El Santo or Blue Demon would have been, so they are soon staking out creepy mansions, watching a group of little people vampires carrying a coffin through the darkness and wrestling said little people vampires (because this is an Agrasánchez production), as well as hipster vampires. They are ably assisted by paranormal investigator Dr Wells (Germán Robles, cast as a vampire hunter instead of a vampire, probably to confuse us).

And what of El Espectro? He is obviously part of the vampire problem.

If you are into the joyfully cartoonish side of lucha cinema – or like me, into all of its sides, except the one featuring mostly filler or comedians whose shticks don’t translate – Arturo Martínez’ Vampires of Coyoacán is a rather wonderful experience. That is, unless you’re wrestles into submission by its beginning, which features a fifteen minutes lucha sequence with no importance to the film’s plot at all, shortly followed by another one, that at least kicks off the El Espectro subplot. Though it has to be said that the cut-able lucha sequence is dynamically choreographed enough not to put one to sleep, which isn’t always that way in Agrasánchez films.

Following that, it’s all acid rock driven joy: rubber bats, cheap but cheerful Mexican 70s gothic production design lit in all the colours of horror as instituted into law by Maestro Bava in Italy, shot by Martínez with surprising enthusiasm, borrowings from Dracula as well as from Doctor Mabuse, the usual luchadores versus vampires battles, little people that are indeed vampires this time around, luchadores versus younger more gothy/hipsterish vampires (who are even somewhat creepy) business. Whatever you can ask of this sort of thing, the film offers it in spades, all driven by a huge amount of pulpy energy that isn’t always a given at this developmental stage of the lucha genre.

It does of course help that Mil and his funky wardrobe are among the liveliest presences in lucha cinema – that man can dress as well as move – so much so even the dreaded Superzan doesn’t manage to annoy me.

From time to time, the film even makes clear that it is indeed a product of the more downbeat 70s, so you also get elements of a decidedly unhappy ending, where a young vampire woman first murders here father and then, realizing what she’s done, sets herself on fire and dies screaming. Which is quite the thing in a silly movie about luchadores fighting vampires.

The Big Muscle Tussle: Las Vampiras (1969)

aka The Vampire Girls

(This write-up is based on the original Mexican, Spanish language version of the film, which - as far as I've been told - differs considerably from the English language one.)

Throughout February, the members of M.O.S.S. have decided to bring some meat onto their exoskeletons by taking a look at film's most beefcake-y heroines and heroes. After the agents of M.O.S.S. have - among others - already descended into bloody pits of horror, examined the abs and pecs of Italian versions of Greek and biblical demi-gods, and put Dara Singh under a microscope, what better next point of investigation is there than a film featuring the most stylish Mexican luchador, the incredible Mil Mascaras?

Mil Mascaras (Mil Mascaras!), wrestler, pilot of small airplanes and masked fighter for good, makes, as is his habit when not fighting mummies, accidental contact with the world of the Weird. First, he nearly crashes into a driving car that lacks a driver, unless it was driven by the bats that fly from its window when Mil investigates. Then, a bit later, the African wrestling champion - subtly dubbed Black Man - Mil was supposed to fight disappears from his locked dressing room without his clothes, with a few bats fleeing the scene of the crime once Mil has broken down that pesky locked door.

While his manager/assistant/boyfriend (I dare you to watch the scene where Mil and the guy are driving around looking at each other with corny lovebird eyes and not think "boyfriend") and a frightfully incompetent cop (Dagoberto Rodriguez) mock and laugh even when the plot-relevant news show the cop insists on watching while sitting in Mil's living room shows a report about a downed plane from Transylvania that was left by a bunch of bats instead of a pilot and passengers, our hero knows what's up: the vampire threat has returned to Mexico, and if the police won't do anything, a luchador will.

Mil Mascaras is all too right with his analysis too. There are in fact vampires at large, or, to be more precise, vampire women dressed in leotards lead by Aura (Marta Romero) who are out to take revenge on humanity for all the killed male vampires, which, I have to say, is pretty good motivation. If they can get new male blood in the process - preferred is the blood of athletes, it seems - it's just icing on the cake.

The only male vampire left is Branus (John Carradine), a doddering old fart Aura keeps in a golden cage in her throne room, so it's understandable the vampirettes are seeking more pleasant male company.

After the audience has learned a bit about vampire politics, it's back to Mil, who - after some research that costs his secretary Alicia her life, but teaches us that vampires need a specific sort of blood and a fitting climate to survive, has found a graveyard once suspected of vampiric activity (it's one for atheists and evil-doers, you see, so there are no crosses there). There he meets roving reporter and wearer of felt hats Carlos Mayer (Pedro Armendariz Jr, for no good reason given higher placement in the credits than Mil). Carlos has come to the same conclusions as our hero, so they decide to unite their vampire-fighting powers. Their partnership doesn't start off too well, though, for the first thing they do is accidentally (well, kinda, for what did they expect would happen when they break down a wall with bat noises coming from behind?) freeing Veria (Maria Duval) the widow of Count Dracula himself from imprisonment.

Veria soon finds her way to the other vampires and starts a subplot about her and Aura fighting about control over vampiredom. Their big political difference: Veria wants to reinstate Branus (who, as will later be revealed, only fakes part of his dementia) as king of the vampires, while Aura really prefers to find someone a bit more attractive and less pompous. Someone, like, say, a certain masked wrestler, perhaps? He is a perfect specimen after all.

Among the multitude of Mexican masked wrestlers who have had screen adventures of varying quality and insanity, Mil Mascaras has always been my favourite, for he unites the (maybe dubious) charisma of his peers with a quite peerless dress sense. As the connoisseur of lucha cinema knows well, Mil takes his "thousand masks" moniker very seriously, and not only changes his mask regularly and to great effect (my personal favourite in the film at hand being the mask with a circle pattern - only a real hero can get away with literally painting a target on his face) but also has some incredible fashion to go with his masks. Mil's preference for things like torero jackets, glitter and blindingly intense colours either make him the dandy or the glam rocker of the lucha set; both are roles deserving admiration, and if I were in the habit of throwing underwear at beefcake-y guys, Mil would be the one I'd try to hit. Damn you, heterosexuality.

In other words, if one ever had any doubt that part of the appeal of musclemen like the heroes of our theme month is purely and simply sex, one Mil Mascaras movie will make things clear; if one ever had any doubt that muscleman can be stylish and cool, one Mil Mascaras movie will get rid of that, too.

For people less in love with lucha cinema and Mil Mascaras (barbarians, I call them), the big selling point of Las Vampiras will be the appearance of John Carradine, already right in the middle of his embarrassing phase. It's difficult to say much positive about anything the man did at that point of his career, but in Las Vampiras case, I can at least admit that he's putting so much misguided enthusiasm and scenery-chewing self-irony in, it's difficult not to approve. Carradine's interpretation (one might suspect self portrait) of the classic cape-wearing vampire as someone wavering between unruly senile wreck and dirty old man - with a whiff of the alcoholic, of course - has a somewhat disturbing effect. At times, it's brilliantly funny and fun, but in other moments, when the playing of being a senile wreck and Carradine actually being down and out become hard to distinguish, it turns into something I found difficult to watch without cringing, and that did disturb the sense of silly fun I got from the rest of the movie. In a very different film, I would assume Carradine's performance, and the whole gender set-up of the film to be consciously subversive of traditional gender roles as seen in horror movies, but really, who am I kidding here?

For this sort of consideration cannot stand up to the fact that this is first and foremost a classic lucha monster mash, just one where the producers could afford what was left of a former horror star to mug a bit for the camera.

Fortunately and of course, there's nothing at all wrong with Las Vampiras being what it is, especially since it's not just a lucha movie, but a lucha movie made by Filmica Vergara, a Mexican genre production house whose films always had especially low production values, but which also more often than not used these production values to achieve a mood of the bizarre, creating (probably accidentally) a form of cardboard surrealism that holds all of the promises the bare concept of something like lucha cinema makes, yet the genre itself not always fulfils.

So this just isn't a film where Mil Mascaras and some reporter guy have a big fight against beefy vampire slaves, but one where said vampire slaves are dressed up in (literally) red shirts and berets - for no discernible reason, yet to my great delight; a film where a big ritual to find out which of the two main vampire women are going to lead vampiredom from now on consists of a prolonged jazz dance number with a lot of wing-like arm-waving, followed by a torch duel; a film where half of the vampire women like to stand on pedestals, staring into the void, just waving their arms slowly up and down, up and down, whenever something exciting happens (now that I think about it, they are a lot like Harinam Singh's vampire women without the chairs they "fly" on); a film where the vampire king's coffin (all the coffins here look particularly comfy inside) can be recognized by the big fat golden (cardboard or wooden) bat sitting on it; a film where a masked wrestler shoots silver bullets at the fakest of fake bats. In short, a work of deep, ridiculous beauty.

I could now begin to complain about the problematic construction of the film's plot (like the way it wastes Maura Monti in a few scenes as Armendariz' girlfriend, whose only reason to exist is so that Carradine has somebody to kidnap and Armendariz somebody to kiss after the film's climax), the static direction of Federico Curiel (whose films often are shot this way, unless he had one of this creative weeks, which did happen from time to time), or the sometimes clever, sometimes jumpy and rough editing, but the film's technical flaws do nothing at all to ruin the sense of pure joy I get from Las Vampiras, so I won't.

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In short: Leyendas Macabras De La Colonia (1974)

Luchador Tinieblas has bought a cursed (and very ugly) painting from an antiques store, despite dire warnings from the owner - who probably shouldn't have paintings for sale he doesn't actually want to sell. When Tinieblas, his wrestling partner, the glorious Mil Mascaras, their buddy El Fantasma Blanco and two ladyfriends are celebrating a successful (and painfully long) match, the painting spews some magical fog and transports all five of them into the 16th Century.

There, they stumble into the conflict between a half-Aztec witch (Lorena Velasquez) who is trying to revive the mummy of her dead mother through lots and lots of human sacrifices, and the Inquisition. Well, mostly our heroes hide behind conveniently placed pillars and watch people in cheap costumes do nothing much of interest, or are imprisoned by the witch. From time to time, an organ playing guy with oatmeal pasted on his face recapitulates everything that happened just a second before he appeared while giggling a lot.

After some back and forth, Mil Mascaras and co are randomly sucked back into their time, only to have to fight some of the witch's Aztec warriors in their next ring fight, after which the film just stops.

Now, I know that it is important to go into the lucha movies churned out by Agrasanchez Productions with a positive attitude if one wants to derive any entertainment from them, but Leyendas Macabras might just be the film to drive even the most patient of positive thinkers into the strange and frightening realm of negativity.

It's not that I'm not used to the slap-dash production values of Agrasanchez films, or the way they seem to include more filler than actual movie or plot, or their typical air of just-not-giving-a-shit, but there's still a difference between their usual modus operandi of not even trying to produce something vaguely entertaining and this completely disinterested revue of barely connected scenes in that this one near magically manages to cause annoyance close to physical suffering in me.

Even Lorena Velazquez and Mil Mascaras, who were usually the sort of troopers elevating even the most bored of movies, just can't seemed to be arsed to do put any energy in at all; especially Velasquez looks in dire need of caffeine throughout the film.

It certainly doesn't improve the impression Leyendas Macabras makes that it starts out with the longest ring wrestling match I can remember to have seen in a lucha movie. Of course, in keeping with everything else, it's also an especially lackluster one (with some surprisingly unconvincing wrestling by Tinieblas) and thereby prepares the pitiable audience for the things to come. Not that there are many things to come.

The air of utter boredom and disinterest also manages to infect those elements of the movie that by all rights should be entertaining, like the random oatmeal-faced guy and the attacks of the mummy mummy. Not even the script's strange decision to cast Tinieblas as a comically womanizing jerk and Mil Mascaras as his straightman and have them bickering like the lucha version of an old married couple leads to as much hilarity as it should, coming as it does sandwiched between scenes of utter boredom and scenes in which characters without character explain the plot to each other or just right into the camera.

Well, at least Superzan's not in it.

Technorati-Tags: mexican movies,lucha,fantasy,mil mascaras,lorena velazquez,tinieblas,el fantasma blanco,arturo martinez,in short

El Robo De Las Momias De Guanajuato (1972)

The evil occultist Count Cagliostro (Tito Novaro, who also directed the film) and the mad scientist Dr. Raymond (I think that's his name) have finally enough of always getting beaten by masked wrestlers, so they decide to team up and combine mad science and the science of witchcraft in their quest for world domination. Disappointingly, they don't think of a fitting teamname for themselves - personally, I would have gone with "The Dynamic Duo - of EVIL".

First up on their agenda is mining an element "stronger" than Uranium that can only be found in a deserted silver mine. Unfortunately, mining radioactive ores isn't all that healthy and the scientist's hired midget help would probably just run off. What are two evil men to do? The obvious, of course, which is to say, use an Egyptian rite to revive some of the famous and much beloved mummies of Guanajuato and let them do the work!

They would probably even get away with this blatant case of mummy exploitation, if not for a shoeshine boy (Julio Cesar Agrasanchez, most definitely related to the producers) witnessing the mummy robbery. While the authorities don't believe a single word he tells them about walking mummies, his grown-up shoeshining hobo friend knows an expert in the mummy sciences - the most fashionable of all wrestlers, Mil Mascaras.

Mil seems to have left Blue Demon and the shadow of El Santo behind after the indignities he was subjected to during the first Momias de Guanajuato film, and is now hanging out with El Rayo de Jalisco (really bad at fighting midgets) and Blue Angel (not a lot better at fighting midgets). Apart from the lucha business, the three also seem to have some sort of fitness studio exclusively for women wearing exceedingly short skirts.

Three luchadores and their army of aerobic groupies should be enough to solve the mummy and evil mastermind problem for good.

El Robo De Las Momias De Guanajuato won't go down in the annals of lucha cinema as one of the most exciting examples of the genre. On the other hand, it is an Agrasanchez production, and compared to other products of this most slapdash of all Mexican cult movie production companies, this isn't too bad a film.

First and foremost, Superzan is nowhere to be seen, and while neither Blue Angel nor El Rayo are of much interest, or really doing anything, they certainly aren't lifesucking voids like he is (Darkseid take note). Mil Mascaras, for his part, is Mil Mascaras. In other words, the most perfect luchador ever to wear the most eyegouging fashion outside of Bollywood with utmost confidence.

I also approve of the interesting life the wrestlers seem to lead, with their short-skirted what-ever-they-may-bes always just one blink away from oiling their manly chests. It's the 70s, oh yes.

Tito Novaro is solid all around. His acting is a little too professional and not scenery-chewing enough for my tastes in this context, but he's not too bad. He also gets to ride around in a weird little coach that is lead around by an animated skeleton with a scythe. I don't know what that's all about, yet I can't help but approve (again!) and put a coach just like it on my Christmas wishlist.

As a director, Novaro doesn't do much, but that seems to be quite fitting in a film where nobody seems to be doing all that much, and when he/she/it is doing something, they are doing it quite slowly. So slowly even that there is no need for typical Agrasanchez filler in the form of badly integrated musical numbers recycled from other movies or bad comedy in the film. I'm not completely sure why, but I think that's a win.

What entertainment value the film has rests on the shoulders of the natural awesomeness of Mil Mascaras, the typically disarming matter-of-factness in which the silly plot is presented (none of Blue Demon's mummy skepticism here) and the weird little details that naturally happen in any film concerning luchadores, mad scientists, mad occultists, mummies, groupies and midgets.

As a fan of lucha cinema, that's more than enough for me, your mileage however, dear reader, may very well vary. In any case, we all can learn something from the film: mummies make for very slow miners and making them invincible with the help of your newly built reactor can lead to explosive problems.

 

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On WTF: Los Momias De Guanajuato (1972)

On WTF! See me ramble! See me get excited about just about everything, starting with undignified luchadores! See me talk lovingly about the director of the first Superzan film! See me use the made up term "pop & pulp cinema"!

 

Technorati-Tags: mexican movies,reviews,lucha,other places,blue demon,mil mascaras,federico curiel,horror,el santo

Los Campeones Justicieros (1971)

El Mano Negra (David Silva), evil mastermind and mad scientist, returns! Years ago, a team-up of Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, El Medico Asesino, Tinieblas and La Sombra Vengadora put an end to his evil plans. Now, freshly escaped from jail, the fiendish tea drinker sets out to take his revenge. He has everything one could need: a lab which looks a wee bit as if it was situated in his mother's cellar (which is perfectly fitting - the Miss Mexico gala seems to take place in her living room), three nameless and talentless wrestling goons, the named and talented wrestler Black Shadow, and an army of midgets dressed in some very fine (and also very red) cape ensembles. It's even better - El Mano Negra also has a plan: after his first attempts to kill his archenemies fail, he decides to kidnap the wrestlers' goddaughters (yes, each of them has one, and of course each of the goddaughters is a candidate for becoming Miss Mexico). This will provide him with a fine way to get his hands on our wrestling heroes and also with "volunteers" for his hibernation and mind control experiments.

 

People who are much more knowledgeable of the lucha film than me have not been kind to this film, so I approached it with a certain amount of trepidation. To my surprise, Los Campeones Justicieros turned out to possess some unexpected positive qualities that made it somewhat endearing (it is also possible that I made my green tea too strong again and was intoxicated while watching, but oh well):

• The budget of this film must have been absolutely lavish for an Agrasanchez production: 6 wrestlers (the goons don't count), 5 motorcycles, a boat, a plane, at least 3 or 4 cars (one stolen from James Bond's kid brother), plus a horde of midgets equals an immense budget. The poor Agrasanchez people didn't even have enough money left to put filler into the film (except for a long, long, long waterskiing sequence - but what would you do when you had A BOAT for your film?)!
  
• The action scenes are rather enthusiastic (especially when the lucha film you have seen before this one was the Dr. Zovek/Blue Demon team-up) - the Agrasanchez Little People ensemble was seldom this good at throwing themselves at masked wrestlers.
  
• There is some kind of plot that could even be said to move along at something amounting to a pace. Even more bizarre is the fact that the script contains one and a half surprises - which I won't spoil here, of course.
  
• And then there's the music - someone locked a mediocre hard bop ensemble up, promising not to let them out until they had produced a soundtrack for the mighty Los Campeones Justicieros. That worked out nicely. It's not only the first time something as good as mediocre can be found in an Agrasanchez film, the music itself is also a true test of one's love for the lucha genre. If you are willing to watch a film whose musical accompaniment has nothing whatsoever to do with the things you see on screen and seems to consist of more drum solos than the drum solo portion of a Grateful Dead show but with less jugglers and fire-eaters, just because said film features masked wrestlers, then you are one of the truly devoted.
  
• The film also answers one of the burning questions of our time: Does a luchador wear his mask in bed?
  
• Also, there are lots of midgets fighting against luchadores

Honestly, this is rather fun. Did I mention the midgets and the masked wrestlers!?

 

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