La maldición de la momia 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...

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.

This movie has some terrible acting and dialogue.They say some completely ridiculous things but I won't waste time repeating them. This is the story of a rich scientist who has a small daughter,no wife and a young boy who we eventually learn is his brother.An evil scientist kidnaps his girlfriend and daughter while the young boy and some gay guy get all weird. Plus there's a wrestler named Angel.Halfway through it becomes "The" Angel. There's a ton of silly fights.A cop gets shot and gently sets his gun down before he dies.A bad guy bumps into some bottles that don't break and starts screaming like it's killing him.There's plenty of silliness. Did I mention there's some stuff about a mummy too? At barely over an hour,this movie is worth your time.

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!