La maldición de Nostradamus

The Curse of Nostradamus was the first of four films to be compiled from episodes of a Mexican serial by American producer K. Gordon Murray; I watched it because I am a horror movie completist, but I'm secretly hoping that I can't find the other three films - because this one is that bad!

Germán Robles plays vampire Ericson, the son of Nostradamus (or the son of the son of Nostradamus - it's not very clear which), who wants Professor Durán (Domingo Soler), esteemed debunker of superstitions, to help vindicate the name of his infamous ancestor. When Durán refuses, Ericson attempts to change the professor's mind by threatening to kill thirteen people; he could probably bore them to death by talking to them, but opts for more elaborate methods.

The film is slow, overly-talky, and shoddily edited, with terrible dubbing. Robles hams it up as the vampire, occasionally turning into a rubber bat on a string when confronted by a cross (or The Cross of Antioch, to be more precise); his loyal sidekick is that horror cliché, the drooling hunchback. In a slight deviation from the norm, the best way to kill the vampire is to shoot it with platinum bullets, which sounds expensive, especially the way that trigger-happy hero Tony (Julio Alemán) fires wildly at the bloodsucker.