La marque de la mort

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.