La momia azteca

The plot of this vintage Mexican horror film revolves around a scientist who develops a technique to help people recall their past lives.

Using his daughter as a guinea pig to test his hypothesis, he undertakes the procedure, and she recalls being an Aztec woman who get's sacrificed to the Gods, for having an illicit affair with a warrior.

Not only is she killed- wearing a golden bracelet and breastplate- he is sentenced to be buried alive alongside her, to protect the secrets that surround their ritual deaths.

In order to prove to his theory to his peers, the scientist follows his daughter's directions, to retrieve the golden breastplate, which he plans to use as evidence that his claims are sound.

But, upon doing so, he awakens the mummy sworn to protect it...and initiated it's curse.

A subplot, meanwhile, plays out alongside this, concerning a local villain named the bat, who follows the scientist's every move, with plans to use him to track down a lost Aztec treasure...so he can steal it.

But it plays out rather awkwardly...and seems almost unnecessary...other than to lengthen the runtime a bit.

That aside, it's a pretty decent film, with a message similar to that of The Vampire Bat, which clearly had an influence on this film.

Hence The Bat character as a representation of the Bat God of the Aztecs (itself derived from the Mayan God of the Popul Vuh).

The film conveys a very similar message- as does that film- spun together with the story about Tutankhamun's curse.

The most standout portion of this film, is definitely the great scenery.

Having been shot on location at temples in Mexico City.

And the mummy is pretty cool, as well..with a demeanour similar to that of the monsters from the Blind Dead series.

In the end, it's actually a pretty decent little film, even if it does repackage and repurpose previously established storylines.

And it would go on to spawn it's own trilogy...though...the latter films did not garner the same praise as this one did.

4 out of 10.

The horror and terror of the Aztec Mummy is shown in this classic Mexi-horror film! This is the first and most profound movie in the "Aztec Mummy" trilogy of the late 50s as we see the Mummy in all his bandaged and bulky horror.

The Mummy is the cursed spirit of a warrior named Popoca who was buried alive for loving a maiden and cursed to always protect her remains and the valuable bracelet and breastplate left with her that reveals the location of a vast cache of Aztec gold. Soon, the wounded warrior is awakened and sets off to find the stolen items and Flora, the reincarnation of his deceased love. But Flora's boyfriend, Dr. Almada who was responsible for bringing the Mummy to life is out to stop him and save his fiance. Almada also has the trouble of the nefarious Bat, a masked wreslter who also is a major player in the criminal underworld who seeks the Aztec treasure. Will Flora be saved? Can Almada overcome his foes? Will the Bat steal the treasure? Will poor Popoca find eternal rest?

Definately worth checking out and better than the two Aztec Mummy movies that followed!

I give it 7/10!

This Mexican version of The Mummy (1932) cant even compare to the original, its absurd, boring, dull and predictable. For being the first film in a series its not really all that memorable, the monster doesn't make an appearance until like an hour in, this movie is 80 minutes, this leaves us with about 20 minutes of the most boring mummy action I have seen (maybe Curse of Bigfoot has the worst) but otherwise its a fairly decent film with decent acting, decent camera work and its decently written.

The plot is really just the same thing as the Universal film, but with a few minor (and forced) changes, none of that made this any more interesting or attractive. My biggest problem is that it takes too long to get anywhere and becomes very tedious really fast.

Not too bad but its not good either.

Pretty damn good and without question the best of the Aztec Mummy series. Like all monster movies, you wish there was more of the namesake mummy. If the translations presented here are accurate (I speak some Spanish, but I'm not fluent) then the dialogue in this film comes across as more intellectual than the average low budget horror movie. The story of the Bat stealing the Aztec treasure is carried throughout all three films. The scenes with the Aztec ceremony and the hypnosis would definitely be considered "padding" within this plot line. That's the main problem with many horror films of the era is that they occasionally commit the cardinal sin of boredom. Regardless, overall the score is excellent and the mummy looks great so I would consider this an above average film.

In THE AZTEC MUMMY, we're introduced to Dr. Eduardo Almada (Ramon Gay) and his beautiful fiance, Flor (Rosita Arenas), who turns out to be the reincarnated girlfriend of the titular terror, Popoca (Angelo De Stefani).

Oh no!

The eeevil Dr. Krupp, aka: "The Bat" (Luis Aceves Castaneda) is up to no good. Along with his henchmen, Krupp attempts to abscond with Popoca's ancient golden breastplate, bracelet combo. This upsets Popoca to no end!

Hilarity ensues.

If you want to get into Mexican horror cinema, there's no better place to start than with this fine film. Though it suffers from a distinct dearth of action, it's still a lot of fun to watch...