Number 32: The Aztec Mummy against The Humanoid Robot
(1958)
A nice horror/sci-fi from Mexico now. And from the title you
just know this is going to be good.
The Aztec Mummy
against The Humanoid Robot is actually the third in a trilogy of films
about an Aztec Mummy. The first film was Attack
of the Aztec Mummy followed by The
Curse of the Aztec Mummy. I also found a fourth film from Mexico called The Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy
but I don’t think it’s related and probably not as exciting as it sounds.
You might worry coming into the third film of a trilogy, you
won’t know what is going on. Fear not, TAMaTHR
has you covered with a recap of events from the first two movies. A
40-minute recap of the previous films to be precise.
There’s recycling footage but that takes the piss. It’s
useful to know all the background of what happened in the previous movies but
when that takes up two thirds of the movie, you can’t help but feel a little
short changed.
It presents a quandary for the reviewer too, do you review
the whole of the film or just the last twenty minutes?
Well I guess it’s a review of the whole trilogy really. The
story is that an ancient Aztec warrior fell in love with a Princess but was
discovered by the King. As punishment he was cursed to guard the King’s
treasures for all eternity.
A villain called ‘The Bat’ is out to get the treasure but he
can’t get past the mummy. This brings us to the last part of what is loosely
called a trilogy. It’s more like a bonus short.
The Bat steals a body and puts it inside a robot machine. The
robot suit is like one from Doctor Who. Classic Who, not the new one, where
monster costumes are made from cardboard boxes and toilet tubes. The mummy
isn’t much better, if a little more zombie like than mummified.
The Bat uses the humanoid robot to fight the mummy. Did I
say fight? I meant cuddle. All the promise of the title leads to is a big
hugging contest between a weird gargoyle monster and a cardboard robot.
The heroes (who, by the way, don’t appear to have any real
stake in the outcome) take the control away from the Bat. He gets arrested, the
cardboard man is destroyed and the Mummy goes back to guarding the treasure.
The acting and directing are competent enough if the
monsters are a little underwhelming. Going in, I had visions of Godzilla-esque monster battles between
two unstoppable titans. Instead, I got a three minute cuddlefest.
And there is no escaping that despite its claims, through cheap trickery, this film
is only 20 minutes long.
Number 31: Extra Terrestrial Visitors (1983)
Can you guess which blockbuster movie came out the year
before this one?
That’s not actually entirely fair as this Spanish movie
actually raises the question: what if E.T
had been a slasher movie? Something we have all wondered at some point in
our lives.
Alternatively known as The
Pod People, an alien spaceship crashes down in the woods and a young child
sneaks on board and steals an egg, which is rather like one of the pods from Alien but with no face grabbing action.
He takes it back to his house and an Alien hatches out from
it. It grows to child size pretty quickly and looks a lot like 80’s TV alien Alf. The boy names him ‘Trumpy’ because
of his long nose. That’s racist.
Meanwhile, a group of young adults go out on a trip to the
woods but there is an accident and they have to stay in the house where the boy
lives with his parents and is hiding the alien in his bedroom. They try to call
for help but wouldn’t you just know it, the phones don’t work.
Also meanwhile, there is another
Alf roaming the forest (the mother?) but isn’t nearly so friendly and goes
on a killing spree through the forest.
So rather than the cutesy E.T stuff you might have been expecting it becomes more like a Friday the 13th type affair.
That stuff is still there but it’s not the main focus.
Otherwise it’s fairly forgettable. The group of teens are
bland even by horror movie standards, apart from Rick who’s a real bar steward.
In true slasher fashion, they all get slowly killed off one by one until but a
few remain.
The boy who plays Tommy is really bad. Child actors are
generally quite bad anyway but he’s especially awful. There’s a scene towards
the end when Tommy essentially breaks up with Trumpy and the kindest thing I
can say is, I was very much aware I was watching a movie. I think he must have
been a relative of one of the crew as I refuse to believe they went through an
audition process and he was the best they could find.
I am running out of things to say about what was yet another
cynical attempt to cash in on another films major success. If E.T had never been made, this would
probably have been just another run of the mill slasher flick but because it
was such a success, I think the writer may have added those elements to the
formula at the last minute.
As a result, it fails as both a horror and as a childhood
fantasy movie.
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