La marque de la mort

This film begins in the 19th century with a man named "Dr. Malthus" (Fernando Casanova) stalking and then kidnapping a young woman coming home from church one night. After placing her unconscious body in his laboratory, he immediately begins to drain her blood so that it mixes with a secret concoction he has formulated prior to inserting the other end of the tube into his own body. Unfortunately for him, he is interrupted by the police and dragged off to jail to face the consequences of murdering six women prior to that. Not long afterward he is found guilty and hung. The scene then shifts to 70 years later with a young man by the name of "Dr. Gonzolo Malthus" (also played by Fernando Casanova) arriving to Mexico after spending 5 years studying in Europe and being eagerly greeted by his fiancé "Rosa" (Sonia Furio). After some conversation, he returns to his home which was once occupied by evil grandfather and upon venturing into the study finds a secret passage that leads to the same laboratory by the previous Dr. Malthus. He also finds some detailed notes which detail how to bring his dead grandfather back to life and extremely intrigued about the scientific possibilities he decides to ascertain whether these methods will actually work. So, after digging up his grandfather's corpse, he then kidnaps his fiancé's maid "Luisa" (Aurora Alvarado) in order to use her blood in this diabolical process. To that effect, although the experiment is indeed quite successful, what the young Dr. Malthus hasn't considered, however, is the fact that he has just reenergized a human monster with a thirst for blood that he is completely unable to control. Now, from what I understand, much of the stock footage of this film was later incorporated into a 1965 Americanized version known as "Creature of the Walking Dead" starring Rock Madison and Ann Wells. Having not seen that version at this time, I cannot comment on it. However, as far as this particular picture is concerned, I will just say that--for a low-budget horror movie complete with English subtitles--this one wasn't too bad. Admittedly, I didn't care for the rather annoying music played too often in order to generate suspense, but all things considered I found this film to be fairly watchable and I have rated it accordingly. Average.