The Aztec Mummy

Momia Azteca, La (1957)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mexican horror film about a scientist (Raymond Gay) who uses hypnosis to look into people's past lives. He experiments on his girlfriend and learns she was a sacrificed princess who was buried with a golden breastplate. The scientist decides to go looking for it and eventually runs into the title character as well as a master thief known as The Bat. Here's a good idea to all future filmmakers if you're going to make a movie called The Aztec Mummy. Make sure the mummy is in the picture for more than three minutes. Technically speaking this is a fairly well made film but one can't help but be letdown since the title character hardly gets any screen time.

When I first saw this I was 6 years old and it scared the hell out of me! Even though the trilogy ended a few months later (in 1958) I remember I was disappointed with the "human robot" ending of the Aztec mummy trilogy. I still think that this mummy could have been better exploited in films, but I guess that even for the producers it was such a discovery that when they realized what they had in hand, they had already blown it apart, with the lowest budgets and the retelling with minimum variations of the same story in parts 2 and 3 ("The Curse of the Aztec Mummy", and the awful "The Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot"). Maybe the reason is that its main writer, Alfredo Salazar (brother of producer-actor Abel Salazar, the man behind Fernando Méndez' 1957 classic "The Vampire") was marginally interested in horror films. Even if he also has to his credited the original script for Benito Alazraki's "Devil Doll Men" (1961), most of the movies Alfredo wrote were about wrestling stars, fighting the occasional monster. As frequent in Mexican horror films, there is also a mystery here: nobody seems to know the name of the little girl who played Dr. Almada's daughter.

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.

I didn't quite know what to expect from the "Aztec Mummy" trilogy, a typically wacky Mexican variant on a classic horror theme. This first entry proved quite a surprise: a highly entertaining confection which, apart from delving into ancient Aztec lore, also incorporates elements of science-fiction and gangster dramas into the fray!

The distinctive Aztec temples and (overstretced) rituals seen here provide an exotic alternative to the Egyptian examples we'd seen in previous Mummy movies. The background to the curse is still the same, however – a girl intended for sacrifice (played by Rosita Arenas, whose other Mexi-horror titles include starring roles in classics such as THE WITCH'S MIRROR [1960] and THE CURSE OF THE CRYING WOMAN [1961]) is caught in the arms of a warrior, for which he's condemned to be buried alive; centuries later, when his lover's tomb is desecrated, he awakens to eliminate those responsible.

The sci-fi trappings are put across with a good deal of persuasion (since they involve reincarnation, this section bears a striking resemblance to Roger Corman's contemporaneous THE UNDEAD [1957]), while the crime-lord involved is a masked figure referred to as "The Bat" (most probably inspired by the 1926 Roland West film of that name or its sound remake, THE BAT WHISPERS [1930]) – his presence is initially intriguing, but the ultimate revelation of his identity beggars belief. Among the secondary characters, then, are a cowardly medical student who acts as comedy relief and is quite amusing (even so, the very need for it betrays the fact that the Mexican horror film was still in its infancy at this point in time), and a kid – ostensibly the hero's (much) younger brother – who brings absolutely nothing to the table except that he's always being scolded by his elders for following them around!

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the film was considerably dissipated by the dire quality of the print included on BCI/Eclipse's 3-Disc Set. I didn't mind so much the softness of the image, the rather low audio or the occasional missing frame – but, then, I was intensely annoyed by scenes that were set in complete darkness where it was virtually impossible to tell what was going on. Considering that these include the exploration of the tomb, all the footage of the rampaging mummy and the climax, it felt like I only watched half a film…without even the benefit of getting a good look at the titular creature!!

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!