La marca del muerto

A 100 year-old scientist stays alive by blood transfusions from unwilling young women until he's caught and executed, vowing his descendants will take revenge. Seventy years later, his great great grandson digs him up and brings him back to life and there's two nuts for the price of one until the old guy imprisons the young one and takes his place...

There's a church, a priest, a bible, and icons of Jesus on the cross amid all the appropriate trope such as graveyard crypts, laboratories, coffins, bats, and ageing in an instant but instead of the Universal horror films many of these Mexican movies resemble, this one's AIP all the way. Because the women don't die (they're just locked up to be used again and again), there's basically a zero body count until the end's just desserts but it could have been worse; I saw the original subtitled version and not schlockmeister Jerry Warren's dubbed abomination reconfigured for U.S. drive-in consumption. Leading man Fernando Casanova (great name) in a dual role looks like a cross between Desi Arnaz and Robert Wagner.

It's alright, I guess, but nothing to get excited about let alone recommend.

Puerto Rican Fernando Cortés belonged to a family of popular show business artists, including his wife Mapy Cortés and niece Mapita Cortés (who had a starring role in Fernando Méndez's "Misterios de ultratumba"). Cortés made his first attempt at horror (although in a comedy note) while directing Tin Tan in the funny "The Phantom of the Operetta", and then made this only straight horror movie. The plot concerns a mad scientist who was executed for the crimes he committed while trying to achieve immortality: he is brought back to life by a descendant, but the resurrected man has not learnt his lesson and goes back to his evil deeds. "La marca del muerto" is not as bad as some persons believe, thinking that those ugly re-edited and dubbed versions of foreign motion pictures, perpetrated by the likes of Jerry Warren or K. Gordon Murray, are the real deal. Well, no. For fans of the genre, this is worth a look.

Well.... For Starters... I must say... "IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE!" If You consider Yourself to be somewhat a movie historian...As I do... Seeing this Mexican Horror effort made 60 Years ago might pique Your interest! The emphasis is on MIGHT!!! ALL OTHERS NEED NOT APPLY!

The version that I saw was hit and miss in the subtitles department... I have heard there is also a dubbed version! Really no surprises here! Pretty much a by the numbers standard low budget (Or Maybe... NO Budget!?!?!?) horror flick... I have seen a good number of Mexican films from this genre over the years! Seems like there were quite a lot of them produced in the 50s, 60s and 70s! Most of the acting is most definitely over-the-top! And what isn't seemed rather amateurish... at least it did to me!

My very Best advice??? Just say...."YO PASO" on this one!!!

This film is basically a rehash of the Hammer Horror classic THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959; itself a remake of 1944's THE MAN IN HALF-MOON STREET!). Watching it in the wake of several (largely uneven) Italian Gothics, I would say that the contemporaneous Mexi-Horror cycle is rather more fun to sit through; for the record, I have two more of them – namely THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961) and THE LIVING HEAD (1963) – lined up for this week-end.

As usual, we have here a mad scientist obsessed by the quest for immortality, sacrificing any number of female lives along the way – until he is caught red-handed, tried, condemned, jailed and hanged for his crimes…and that is just the first 15 minutes of the film (which was re-edited for the U.S. by Jerry Warren and released three years later under the moniker CREATURE OF THE WALKING DEAD)! Anyway, we jump forward 70 years to the immediate future, i.e. 1962, and a dead-ringer relative for the notorious doctor (he even shares his name with him: how unsubtle can you get?!) stumbles upon his secret formula (actually, this is one of the unlikeliest scenes ever depicted, with the laboratory still filled with the rotting corpses of the long-past experiments!) – which he subsequently perfects thanks to the advances in technology (even allowing the unfortunate blood-donors to survive the ordeal this time around) and, rather than try it on himself, unearths his ancestor's body and revives him (the latter, then, rather fancies all the modern gizmos)!

Much of the running-time is devoted to the new medic's obligatory long-suffering fiancée (hilariously, he turns up for dinner at her house one night only to abduct the maid!). It comes as no surprise at all that the leading lady eventually ends up on a slab herself…especially when the old doctor (who reverts to the haggard look of his true age a fortnight after each transfusion) finds no more co-operation from his successor! However, before this happens, he locks him up in the lab and takes his place in the affections of his girl, even accepting her marriage proposal which his namesake had long been postponing (amusingly, when he goes out into the modern world, he addresses the butler with the first name that comes to mind, to the befuddlement of the latter, and then is almost made to soil his pants when he is nearly run over by a speeding car)!

Still, he cannot hide the mark of the hangman's noose (presumably what the title refers to) forever, and the plot slowly works its way to the expected fiery climax…which sees the two docs engaging in a one-on-one, the lovers re-united and fleeing for their lives, and the old man shouting at the top of his lungs that he cannot die. Incidentally, one of the more interesting things about this one is its religious element, with any number of crosses turning up throughout, the scientist somewhat perversely kidnapping his victims just as they exit the church, and also his defiance of God (while laughing in a priest's face) immediately prior to meeting the gallows pole!

While certainly atmospheric, entertaining and propelled by a dynamic score (which sounded oddly familiar), one is disappointed that the 'extra time' allowed the mad doctor involved is 'wasted' on replenishing the all-important concoction as opposed to thinking about what he intends doing for all eternity once he has attained his goal! Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, years ago I had jotted a plot line wherein a scientist devises a serum which obliterates sleep and, hungry for power and feeling invulnerable, he proceeds to become a criminal mastermind…and, when his wife stumbles upon the potion too, with all the time now on her hands, she naturally turns into a nymphomaniac!

Not the best movie I've seen but, hey, this is Jerry Warren we're talking about here. The title itself is kind of odd - "Creature of the Walking Dead". What does that mean? I like the original Mexican title better - "The Mark of the Dead". This one's about a mad scientist who stalks young women for their blood, which he needs to perpetuate his eternal youth. Not much going for it in that department, though the Mexican stalking scenes are a little creepy. But it's pure Jerry Warren when Katherine Victor holds a seance in the American part of the movie! Still, the editing wasn't too bad and if this toured the drive-in circuit then maybe no one noticed there wasn't much of a story.