A Maldição da Múmia Azteca

THE CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY picks up right where the first film left off. The demonic Dr. Krupp (Luis Aceves Castaneda) returns with a new plot to attain Popoca's (Angelo De Stefani) golden breastplate and bracelet set, and Popoca's not happy!

This time, Dr. Almeda and Flor (Ramon Gay and Rosita Arenas) are joined by a mysterious masked figure known as "The Angel", in their attempts to thwart Krupp.

This sequel is only a tad over an hour long, including several minutes of "flashback" footage from the first film. It is nice to see the entire cast return to their roles. The addition of a masked wrestler is novel, and boosts the cheeeze factor up a few notches...

This is an inferior first sequel to THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957), eschewing much of the atmosphere and metaphysics of the original for comic-strip antics and cliffhanger situations involving a masked avenger (whose identity is even more incredible than the revelation of the villain at the end of THE AZTEC MUMMY) and a private snake pit! Despite the title, the appearance of the mummy itself is almost an afterthought – since it's relegated only to the climax. Though barely over an hour in length, the film features extensive flashback footage from its predecessor and, similar to it, the scenes involving the mummy are extremely dark – the lighting during the finale changes drastically from one shot to the other – perhaps so as to conceal the rather poor make-up job! The comedy relief isn't very pronounced this time around (as it turns out, for plot purposes) – while the villain (incidentally, the scene depicting his escape from the clutches of the police at the beginning of the film utilizes footage from a gun battle featured in the first entry in the series!) here completely forsakes his "Bat" persona on his way to becoming the mad scientist in the next instalment...

In 1957 3 Aztec Mummy movies were filmed almost back to back to back.They were The Aztec Mummy, Curse Of The Aztec Mummy and Robot Vs The Aztec Mummy.The 1st one was bought by Jerry Warren and butchered horribly for US release as Attack Of The Mayan Mummy.K Gordon Murray bought the last two for US release.

A few minutes of The Aztec Mummy shows up in Curse Of The Aztec Mummy.Dr Krupp aka The Bat has been arrested.Dr Almada,Flor and his assistant Pincate feel safe.However a masked crimefighter in droopy drawers and a cape calling himself The Angel shows up to warn Dr Alamada that nobody is safe from The Bat.Sure enough when The Bat is being transported to prison his gang attacks.The Angel shows up and promptly gets his arse kicked.The Bat escapes.

Dr Krupp plots to steal the Aztec breastplate & bracelet from the tomb of Popoca.He gives us a lengthy flashback from The Aztec Mummy.Flor (Dr Almada's fiance) was hypnotized to reveal a past life.She was a hand maiden to one of the Aztec Gods.But she & Popoca did the wild thing and they were sentenced to death.

So Krupp kidnaps Flora and the doctor.The Angel shows up and once again gets his arse kicked.He and the doctor are prisoners as Krupp, his men and Flora search for the Aztec loot.They find Popoca and his is awfully sore at being roused.The gang escapes with the booty.

When they get back to the Bat's hideout yet another fight ensues.Guess what?The Angel gets his arse kicked again.He is unmasked to reveal his true identity ending his crimefighting days.Good thing too unless he liked getting beaten up every twenty minutes.

Krupp forces Almada to translate the symbols on the breastplate that leads to the treasure.But Popoca shows up ready to kill everybody in sight.

This is good for a laugh as it tries to inject a Santo like crimefighter into the Mummy sub genre.The Mummy isn't on screen much at all which is a sore point with me.However it is a bit of brainless fun.

Released in the U.S. as CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY in 1957, this movie seems to be made cheap and in a hurry. Hurry for it to be over is not a good compliment for a movie that only runs 65 minutes. When horror is done badly it becomes comedy. The evil Dr. Krupp(Luis A. Castaneda) also known as the desperate criminal The Bat continues his search for the breast plate and bracelet of an Ancient Aztec mummy. Dr. Almada (Ramon Gay) must protect his fiance Flor(Rosa Arenas)for she is a reincarnate of an ancient handmaiden that knows the location of the coveted treasure. Flor is kidnapped by the Bat's gang of hoodlums and coming to the rescue is a hooded, capped and haphazard fighter of crime The Angel(Crox Alvardo), who gets more ass whippings than a red headed step-child. So much for a hero. So much for horror that turns into laughable mystery. Stick to ice cold Mexican beer, a bowl of salsa and a dozen beef taquitos!

So, The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957), is the second installment of the Aztec Mummy trilogy and the third installment, Robot VS the Aztec Mummy (1958), was the one, that got the most attention and exposure in the U. S. In the 60 years since these came out, most of us saw the third installment and are now back-tracking to see the other two, that are available now. The third film is more of an edited down version of the first two movies, told through flashback, with some extra footage added in, to round out this confusing, lost, badly scripted, badly dubbed, trilogy. I had no idea Angel, the wrestler-guy was part of this. He's nowhere to be seen in Robot VS the Aztec Mummy (1958), so that was somewhat interesting and somewhat disturbing to find out. Why was he cut? Who knows?

Anyway, The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957), explains a lot about why certain things were omitted from the third film. The scenes with Angel are atrocious, right down to the fake machine guns, so fake, that they don't even flash or have smoke coming out of them. They are totally shaken by the actors to show the machine gun effect. Badly done machine gun sound effects are used too. Very elementary school. It's understandable why the wrestler-guy was taken out for the third film. I will say this, the fight scenes and action scenes with Angel, will remind you of the classic cliff-hangers, that Hollywood put out in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It had a nice feel for that. Probably the only thing that keeps this film from getting a 1 or a 2.

PMTM Grade: 2.8 (U) = 3 IMDB.