La marca del muerto

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 begins in the 19th century with a man named "Dr. Malthus" (Fernando Casanova) stalking and then kidnapping a young woman coming home from church one night. After placing her unconscious body in his laboratory, he immediately begins to drain her blood so that it mixes with a secret concoction he has formulated prior to inserting the other end of the tube into his own body. Unfortunately for him, he is interrupted by the police and dragged off to jail to face the consequences of murdering six women prior to that. Not long afterward he is found guilty and hung. The scene then shifts to 70 years later with a young man by the name of "Dr. Gonzolo Malthus" (also played by Fernando Casanova) arriving to Mexico after spending 5 years studying in Europe and being eagerly greeted by his fiancé "Rosa" (Sonia Furio). After some conversation, he returns to his home which was once occupied by evil grandfather and upon venturing into the study finds a secret passage that leads to the same laboratory by the previous Dr. Malthus. He also finds some detailed notes which detail how to bring his dead grandfather back to life and extremely intrigued about the scientific possibilities he decides to ascertain whether these methods will actually work. So, after digging up his grandfather's corpse, he then kidnaps his fiancé's maid "Luisa" (Aurora Alvarado) in order to use her blood in this diabolical process. To that effect, although the experiment is indeed quite successful, what the young Dr. Malthus hasn't considered, however, is the fact that he has just reenergized a human monster with a thirst for blood that he is completely unable to control. Now, from what I understand, much of the stock footage of this film was later incorporated into a 1965 Americanized version known as "Creature of the Walking Dead" starring Rock Madison and Ann Wells. Having not seen that version at this time, I cannot comment on it. However, as far as this particular picture is concerned, I will just say that--for a low-budget horror movie complete with English subtitles--this one wasn't too bad. Admittedly, I didn't care for the rather annoying music played too often in order to generate suspense, but all things considered I found this film to be fairly watchable and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

K. Gordon Murray wasn't the only producer making a mess of Mexican movies: Jerry Warren was guilty of the same, his film Creature of the Walking Dead starting life as La marca del muerto by director Fernando Cortés. Enterprising Warren re-edited the film, added new footage, dubbed it into English and added clumsy exposition via narration.

Fernando Casanova plays Dr. Malthus, who discovers the laboratory and scientific notes that belonged to his grandfather, who was hanged for the abduction and murder of young women whose blood he used in experiments, his goal being eternal youth. Following the notes, Malthus proceeds to revive his dead grandfather, but a continuous supply of fresh blood is required to keep him alive...

I've no idea how good or bad the original Mexican movie was before Warren got his mitts on it (I suspect it wasn't great), but Creature of the Walking Dead is awful: the additional footage of random people gabbing about who knows what doesn't sit well with the original scenes, the editing is choppy, the pacing is slow and tedious, the narration is terrible, and there is repetitive use of the same few bars of music throughout the entire movie which proves extremely grating.

2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for the ridiculous equipment in the lab, which comprises of a big machine with lights and a large dial, a few bottles and tubes full of liquid, and a spinny thing.

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!

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.