the audience applauded

Expected more

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Doctor Of Doom" has something for everyone: whodunit (just WHO is the mysterious masked mad doctor? The answer surprises - and cheats!), comedy (an almost "Abbott & Costello"-like duo of cops), camp (through the dubbing, as well as the straightfaced handling of the most outrageous plot points), monster film (with a man-gorilla hybrid), and of course lots of female pro wrestling (which may appear a bit crude, but still remains far superior to most of women's wrestling even in today's WWE; this is a must-see for fans of the sport in a more pure form). Lorena Velázquez (who actually bears a resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor!) and Elizabeth Campbell are two beautiful, sweet, strong, and eye-poppingly curvy heroines who are more often doing the rescuing than being in need of it; in that respect, "Doctor Of Doom" was ahead of its time. Good schlocky fun. **1/2 out of 4.

This film and WRESTLING WOMEN VERSUS THE AZTEC MUMMY (1964) are included on the same DVD. Interestingly, BOTH films share many of the same scenes as well as actors and it appears as if they basically created one movie and filmed a few extra scenes in order to make two movies! While cheap and crappy, it also made for many incomprehensible moments and a lot of repetition--particularly the wrestling scenes--which were identical.To many non-Mexicans, this film is about as weird and foreign as they get! Mexican wrestling films were immensely popular in the 1960s and 70s and they rarely, if ever, made any sense. However, in this film instead of a man wearing a 'lucha libre' mask everywhere they go (el Santo and many of the other good guys wore elaborate masks and guarded their identities), here we have a couple non-masked sexy ladies. While their wrestling skills are not always great, they were very curvaceous AND were crime fighters--just like Blue Demon, el Santo and the rest! As I said, I know that this seems very, very weird! In this installment, Lorena Velázquez and Elizabeth Campbell star as the lady wrestlers. They punch, flip and grapple their way to the bottom of a strange case--a crazy doctor who is trying to perform brain transplants on unsuspecting women!!! There is also a strange guy who is apparently part gorilla! Despite the strangeness of it all, I swear to you I am not making any of this up--it's all in the film and I am not on drugs nor have I had a severe head injury!! If you've seen any of the Mexican wrestling films, it's pretty much what you'd expect--no better nor worse. It's dumb, poorly acted, poorly written and stupid...but also rather funny in a kitschy sort of way. While you'd never assume this is a good film, it is fun for bad movie fans. All others beware!!!

I'm not sure about you, but I find there's something mildly fetishistic about masked wrestlers. But women without masks throwing grown men around the ring… Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Ape was the first in a series of six Wrestling Women or "Las Luchadoras" films, an attempt to feminize the almost entirely masculine world of masked wrestling movies. The first three team Mexican genre icon Lorena Velasquez with American cupcake Elizabeth Campbell, and two were successful enough to get the K. Gordon Murray treatment. Thus Las Luchadoras Contra el Medico Asesino becomes "Doctor Of Doom", and later in the 80s gets a bogus surf soundtrack and is re-dubbed "Rock And Roll Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Ape".Lorena Velasquez is Gloria Venus, a gorgeous almond-eyed wrestling dynamo who gets thrown around the ring then leaves it without a hair from her Elizabeth Taylor do out of place. She's teamed up with new partner The Golden Rubi, a red-haired firebrand from North of the Border, and from the moment they meet they become the best of friends. But not that good, if you know what I mean.Wrestling Women… opens with a series of murders attributed to a killer branded the Mad Doctor, who leaves his female victims completely brainless. The Doctor, who spends most of the film with his head in a pillowcase with eye-holes, is intent on perfecting brain transplants, and has even grafted a gorilla's brain into a man's body. The resulting monobrowed monster known as Gomar, a goofy-looking creature with arms covered in carpet fluff, is sent out to grab more women, and one happens to be wrestler Gloria Venus' sister Alice Fontaine (or Alicia Flores). As she dies on the table, the Mad Doctor decides he needs a more resilient female subject - physically strong, as well as intelligent, and with a profession. It's no stretch of the imagination who he picks – Lorena Velasquez, I'm looking at you! Aided by the Golden Rubi, the inspector and his diminutive assistant as well Alice's kindly boss Professor Wright (who's dubbed to sound like James Mason), Gloria sets out to seek revenge. After a few false endings the Doctor manages to escape the gauntlet, and successfully transplants the Ape's killer brain into the body of a female wrestler (complete with cries of "She's alive! She's alive!"). Adding a mask, she becomes "Vendetta", and the Mad Doctor, also in a ghoulish mask posing as her masked manager, challenges Gloria to a death match. The plan is to legally murder her in the ring, and so Gloria now needs to fight for her life! Aztec Ape is directed by masked wrestling specialist Rene Cardona Sr, who masterminded all six Wrestling Women films, and also directed Lorena Velasquez in Santo vs The Zombies and Santo vs The Vampire Women. Lorena was one of the few wrestling movie icons to NOT be a professional wrestler, and subsequently needed a body double for many of her ring sequences. And you can tell she's not a real wrestler - she's certainly more "leggy" than the other girls at the Wrestling Academy.Prepare yourself to be thrown kicking and screaming into the ring with Las Luchadoras in Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Ape.

Mexican horror movie about a mad doctor who's trying to transplant one womens brain into another womens head but with no success. The doctor did succeeded with having a gorilla's brain transplanted into his servants, Gomar, head turning him into a semi-human primate. But somehow when it came to women to women brain transplants in the four times that he tried it all the women died on the operating table.Coming up with the bright idea that the women that he's using in his experiment's are of low intelligence the doctor has his hoods together with a bullet-proof clad Gomar kidnap laboratory aid Alice, after taking out four Mexican cops. Alice also dies during the doctors transplant operation which convinces the mad doctor that what he needs is a woman of very strong body as well as mind, a woman wrestler. And who better to experiment on then the Woman's Wrestling Champion of Mexico herself, who just happens to be the dead Alice's sister, Gloria Venus.Lots of action with Gloria and her tag-team partner Golden Rubi taking on the mad doctor and his gang of thugs and having little trouble kicking their a**. In desperation the doctor, who after having his face burned with acid in a fight with the two girls, get the woman wrestler Vendatta and has Gomar's brain transplanted into her head! This hair brained idea on the doctors part gave Vendatta the strength of a bull-gorilla. Now the doctor will use her to get his revenge against both Gloria and Golden Rubi in the ring.Not at first knowing who she's fighting with Gloria get's the hell beat out of her by the zombie-like Vendatta with the mad doctor disguised as her manager giving her instructions, via his power of mental telepathy, at ringside. Golden Rubi spots one of the mad doctors henchmen in the stands watching the wrestling match and realizes, after almost twisting his arm off, that it's the mad doctor who's behind Vendatta and want's his super-woman to end Gloria's career in the ring.All hell breaks loose with both Golden Rubi and the ring referee joining in the fight with Vendatta as she and the disguised mad doctor make a run for it only to be trapped on a water tower where he and Vendatta have no where else to go but down and give themselves up to the awaiting police.The wrestling scenes which make up almost half of the movie "Doctor of Doom" are about the only thing that makes the film watchable. The suspense of who the mad doctor really is is almost non-existent. Since even someone brain dead, like most of those in the movie, could figure that one out almost as soon as they saw the mad doctor, minus his KKK-like hood, make his both grand and uneventful appearance in the movie.