La momie aztèque contre le robot

Yet another K. Gordon Murray import from Mexico aimed mainly at kids, but actually fun for anyone who fancies humanoid robots controlled by mad scientists, or ambulatory mummies. It entertains on about the same level as those old movie serials. Great black and white photography, nice ominous atmosphere. All the actors offer sincere performances, but deserving of special honourable mention is Luis Aceves Castaneda as the gleefully wicked Dr. Krupp; rarely has an actor enjoyed a mad scientist role so much! The English dubbing is another matter, but if you enjoy old-fashioned mummy/musty crypt horror films, you could do worse.

This film has two of the most devious characters ever to enter Mexican cinema: Dr. Krupp,who is as evil as he is fat, and his hapless sidekick Bruno. Dr. Krupp IS actually quite the evil genius. During a flashback in the film, we find that he is clever enough to disguise himself as pro wrestling bad guy The Bat(who would ever suspect a mad scientist could be a pro wrestler?!? It's pure genius!!)and escapes the Aztec Mummy and his own snake pit trap(He was probably very happy that built that secret escape and had his keys with him). And Bruno is one of the few VERY loyal sidekicks I've ever seen in any film. The guy puts up with being punched by the Aztec Mummy, having acid thrown into his face and becoming deformed, and tolerating a boss who thinks he's a wrestler. Besides in the dubbed version, Bruno delivers the classic line "You devil! You devil!" better than anyone!

... although the more surreal aspects of this movie might slip by them. I can imagine a theater full of Mexican kids forty years ago just loving this stuff. The production level is on a par with the lesser Saturday Matinée serials of the 40s and 50s, and much of the film is footage from an earlier Aztec mummy film used as flashback, but what the hell. My favorite scene: the villain and two henchmen are stopped in a cemetery by the night watchman who holds them at gunpoint --- and proceeds to stand there doing nothing while one of the goons, in plain sight, calmly walks around behind him and conks him cold with a blackjack. The mind reels! Later on the poor chump gets fried by the radioactive clampers of the titular robot and runs screaming into the night, smoke pouring from the blanket draped over his shoulders, while the camera holds on him for an impossibly long time. A grungy black and white acid trip of a movie.

It's hard not to laugh at this movie. It's hard not to laugh knowing that somewhere, someone sat down and thought that having a robot fight a mummy would make for a good picture. And it might have been if the two title characters combined for more than 5 min of screen time. Unfortunately, most of the film consists of flashback scenes and some scientist's encounters with "The Bat". The robot, built out of sturdy cardboard and headlights, isn't even introduced till the movie is practically over and their monumental confrontation (the premise the movie is supposedly centered around) lasts about 30 sec.

I have a lot of questions for this movie. Why is the bad guy referred to as "The Bat"? Why does the mummy sound like a gorilla? Why did the robot need to have a human head? Why was there an endless Aztec dance scene? Why?

Got this DVD because I remembered watching these flicks as a kid on late night spookfests in the 60s. Usually I fell asleep, now I know why. Pretty slow moving and lacking in action. Generally a rehash of the 1st two Aztec Mummy films with a little addition of the Robot creation. Looks like a really poor interpretation of a Universal monster compilation. The sequences pulled from the original AZTEC MUMMY look pretty good though. This one is kind of what a 12 yr old kid with a super 8 camera might try to do, with a little help from mom and dad who know nothing about making a movie. And they probably would think it was good, too. One redeeming quality, lots of eerie night shots for mood.