The greatest movie ever!

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This so called horror film was cut many times to make other so called horror films that were brought to the U.S. by K.Gordon Murray , who translated a few low budget Mexican horror films , like some of the El Santo films and then sold them to the drive- in circuit in the 60s .The ''Angel'' who is the hero of this film , gets his arse kicked throughout the film . He never wins a fight and the mummy saves them all in the end , but its a real bad/good gem in my book .Between the bad dubbing , the bad acting and the bad make-up , there are more than a few laughs to make it a somewhat pleasurable waste of time , so give it a try if you've some time to kill , there are worse ways to waste time !!

This is the first film in a three part Mexican mummy series. As it's set in Mexico, the mummy is from the Aztec empire, but otherwise it's a typical reiteration of the Hollywood mummy films in many ways.Oddly, I saw the final film in this series first and in light of that I was very surprised when I saw THE AZTEC MUMMY (LA MOMIA AZTECA). That's because unlike the third film, this one wasn't horrible! This makes sense, as by the third, the mummy was now battling Dr. Krupp's evil robot--one that looked like it was lifted off an old Flash Gordon serial! Here, despite the addition of the stupid and pointless villain (Krupp--as "The Bat"), the rest of the film is not half bad (or half good for that matter).In many ways, the film is like a combination of the Boris Karloff MUMMY, the serial THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL and BRIDE AND THE BEAST (a film written by the "great" Ed Wood, Jr.). Like THE MUMMY, the main story idea of a man falling in love with the princess and being cursed to being buried with her as a mummy. Like CAPTAIN MARVEL, inexplicably there is a masked idiot (why the mask and why the silly getup?!) who leads a gang of thugs in an effort to steal and do naughty things. And, like BRIDE AND THE BEAST, a woman is hypnotized--only to reveal that she is reincarnated from an amazing past life. Considering that this film came out one year before BRIDE, you wonder if Wood saw this Mexican film and just "borrowed" from it.As far as the technical merits go, it's an okay time passer but it sure has its flaws. Fortunately for the movie makers, however, they had access to Aztec pyramids near Mexico City. Unfortunately, they had no idea how to light these indoor scenes and as a result they are very dark and difficult to see (oops). Also, while the Aztec ceremonial scenes look pretty good, the music really, really is ear-splitting and annoying. I suggest using your DVD's fast-forward button after you feel you are about to scream! The mummy itself looks okay, but you sure aren't about to assume the costume was designed by a special effects master. As for the dialog and acting, it was fair to middling. The worst of the actors was the lady (Flora) as she was very wooden. Pinacate's part was also poorly written, as he apparently was meant as comic relief but just came off as a cowardly idiot. The rest were decent but that is all.Overall, not at all a terrible film but unfortunately not super-exciting either. While the story is less goofy than THE AZTEC MUMMY VERSUS THE HUMAN MONSTER, it also has few laughs. A decent time-passer.

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.

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!!