For years I've wanted to see this film, and finally got a hold of it today! I'll have to make a review of it soon for you all. For those who don't know, let me give you a rundown!
Peter Cushing as Professor Lawrence Van Helsing
This 1974 film by Hammer Studios is a mashup of Kung Fu plus horror! Sounds like my cup of tea! Prof. Van Helsing gives a lecture in China about Chinese Vampires, and is told by a student that it is true, and his village is plagued by the vile undead! Peter Cushing and the Seven Brothers (and one sister) do battle against Count Dracula and his lovely virgin fledgling vampiras!
This is the kind of stuff I crave! Mix matched genres, utter weirdness, vampires, British vampire slayers. What's not to love?
In other news, I was planning on having a review up for Arañas Infernales today, but it's turned into a hectic day trying to fix the car. All is well, I just ate up half the day trying to get that business taken care of. I'll try to get into it tonight though! I must see the spider aliens battle Blue Demon!
In other news, ill be watching Arañas Infernales tonight after work. I should have a review up sometime tomorrow. I'm also planning a give away within the next month for my new readers and to celebrate my new lucha blog.
Once again, El Vampiro y El Sexo is keeping the niche world of Mexican lucha movies in the current news. When I started this blog, I didn't even imagine that I'd really have any "news" to share since the bulk of these films were made in the '60s and '70s.
Hijo del Santo con su amigo Blue Demon Jr.
El Hijo del Santo is threatening to sue if this film I played at today's film festival. For those who don't know, El Hijo del Santo is the son of Santo, who carries in the luchador family business and wears his father's mask as well. He has even been in several films. El Hijo claims that the film would tarnish his father's image. Some are hoping that perhaps a financial agreement can be reached since this movie has been a myth for so many years. Also, what is also a key point, is that Santo does not appear in any of the sexy nudie vampira scenes, nor does he interact sexually or out of his upright and heroic character. I personally believe that the movie continues to keep Santo's image intact, but I also have only read about the film.
Well, I hope something gets settled soon, it's a shame to hold back a film that has been lost for so long. I do understand El Hijo's point to an extent, because Santo is much like Superman, an adult boy scout who uses his skills for the good of mankind. I'd even speculate a special DVD/blueray release of this movie would even rejuvenate the lucha film market, and even possibly put newer films in the works.
So, the biggest and newest news in the world of Santo and Mexican lucha cinema is that the fabled "El Vampiro y El Sexo" has been discovered. This film is actually an extended cut of El Tesoro de Dracula (1968) meant for overseas screenings. For a long time, many felt this edit may have been never truly made, and only promotional posters and stills were made. During a hunt through the vault for an upcoming documentary on producer Guillermo Calderon Stell (producer of many Santo films), Calderon's neice, Viviana García Bensé, found the reels of this legendary film.
Essentially, they added a bunch of nudie sexy extended scenes involving Dracula and his legion of sexy fledgling vampiras. This is actually somewhat shocking, considering Santo's films were for the most part generally wholesome. Many believe Santo may have never known about this extended oversees edition.
This film, along with several others hand selected by Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth director), will be shown at a film festival in the University of Guadalajara March 29th (tomorrow).
While I'm not exactly interested in the nudie extended stuff, I would be excited for a nicely made collector's dvd or blue ray, with documentaries, and voice commentary. That's a lot to ask for, considering many of Santo's movies are hard to find even with subtitles, or even outside the gray-market.
This is a nice, and straightforward documentary on Blue Demon. Unfortunately, it's only spanish, and no subtitles. But even if you're a monolingual lucha fan, I think you'll get the gist of the documentary:
For those that don't know, Blue Demon is my favorite luchador from the lucha films. I guess that could be considered blasphemy, but Santo reminds me of Superman. He's just too good, things come too easy for him, there's never that big of a struggle. I feel like the Demonio Azul has to fight a lot harder to suceed. Just look at Santo Contra Las Momias de Guanajuato for example. Mil Mascaras y Blue Demon spend the entire time trying to keep from calling in Santo's help. Then Santo finally arrives and cleans up with little trouble. Below, I uploaded a few pictures and illustrations of Blue Demon and Blue Demon Jr.
This first picture is a Blue Demon illustration I did a month ago:
A photo of Blue Demon with Santo:
This photo is of Blue Demon Jr. He's not the blood kin of Blue Demon, but he was trained by Blue to take up the mantle.
This is a new Blue Demon film that never was released, by this trailer, it looked pretty good. I have mixed feelings on the Mil Mascaras vs the Aztec Mummy movie that was made in 2007. This Blue Demon film looks a little more serious:
Lastly, I thought I'd show off the Blue Demon shirt design I made. It's based off a Blue Demon shirt I found online. It was nearly $30, and so instead I retooled the shirt design, then made my own shirt using stencils and spray paint. I also made a tutorial on how to make your own stencil shirts if you're interested. Just click the image and it will link you to the tutorial:
I just received Arañas Infernales(1966) in the mail from eBay. It's an early Blue Demon solo film, black and white. I'll post a review of my thoughts within the next few days.
Lastly, I also wanted to mention another project for this blog that I have in mind. Over the last few days, I've been pestering a good friend about this shiny new blog of mine, and he suggested I think about making a podcast. We once discussed doing a Zorro podcast (Zorro is another passion of mine, I have so many of the movies, serials, books, and other memorabilia), but now it seems that this might be a better subject matter. I tried doing some searches for lucha movie podcasts, and little came up. So, with that in mind, let me know what you think of the idea of a Blue Demon podcast. It probably would consist of a once a month podcast, in the style of Stuff You Missed In History Class. Each month, I'd discuss either a luchador, movie, comic, or something in the realm of this blog and dicuss for about 45 minutes.
So, to wrap up this entry, I'd like to leave you with this short 6 minute video-podcast I found from the George Eastman House: International Museum of Photography of Film. It's about a lucha-libre exhibition. There are some great pictures and clips: http://podcast.eastmanhouse.org/lucha-libre-masked-mexican-wrestlers/
This is the last documentary I'll post tonight. This is a documentary made at home by some film professor on Youtube. It's really interesting, and a tad slow. He lets a lot of the film clips do the talking for him. I really need to talk to this guy, and check out more of his work:
Episode 1 Part 1 "The Aztec Mummy"
Episode 1 Part 2 "More Aztec Mummies"
Mummies a la Mexicana: Episode 2 Part 1 "From Egypt to Mexico" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN8ZHQb7DXU&feature=fvwrel Not sure why, but this guy didn't allow embedding with the second episode part 1. So, just follow the link above.
Mummies a la Mexicana: Episode 2 Part 2 "Guanajuato to Guatemala"
Again, I must say, great documentary! Lastly, I leave you with this really amazingly great trailer for a double feature of The Vampire's Coffin and The Aztec Mummy:
A lot of people don't know this, but in the early hay-day of Universal Pictures, they would film movies with two casts. Day time would be the English speaking crew, and at night a Spanish speaking crew would come in and film the same movie, in Spanish! In the day, dubbing and subtitling wasn't really possible, so this was the next best thing. Unfortunately, many of these Spanish films haven't survived. But a great one did, Dracula 1931.
I'll let this video give you some more info on it. Sorry the host of this show is kind of an old douche who can't wear his hat correctly:
If you want to find this movie, it's available on the "Dracula: Legacy Collection" dvd box set. It even has a short interview with Lupita Tovar, Mina in the film. She was a real looker back in the day! Universal released a box set for Frankenstein, Mummy, Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Invisible Man as well. I have them all, they're good stuff. I've probably watched The Invisible Man and it's sequels a million times.
This is a really great, but short, documentary on Mexican horror movies. They start with the early movies, especially those redubbed for American markets by K Gordon Murray. They start with cues from Universal Picture's Horror, then they move to the Santo and other luchadores versus monsters movies, then lastly the darker movies of the '70s to the near present. As a side note, I still don't know why they called it "Mondo" Macabro... Maybe Macabro Mundo, or even El mundo del Macabro.
This is a documentary from 1987, about the works of Hammer, who made many great horror movies across the Atlantic. This is where we find the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing shine as vampires, hunters, doctors, madmen, and other awesome characters.
I feel I should share some documentaries I've found via YouTube for you all. To start, here's Universal Horror. A great documentary on Universal Picture's early horror movies. Did you know horror films are what saved Universal back in the day? They were near closure, but these movies sparked them new life and vigor like Frankenstein's monster.
Part 1 of 7
Part 2 of 7
Part 3 of 7
Part 4 of 7
Part 5 of 7
Part 6 of 7
Part 7 of 7
I'll be posting a couple more in the next few hours. There are some great finds on Youtube.
I've been in the mood to start a new blog for my ramblings related to old Mexican cinema, specifically lucha, and even Mexican comics. I'm an artist, comic enthusiast, movie collecting, Spanish Major. My art can be seen here http://nomadikk.deviantart.com/ and http://jesseacosta.net/. My main blog can be found here: http://jesseacosta.blogspot.com/.
I figured I'd separate some of my stuff, even though a lot will also overlap. Right now I'm on a Lucha movie scavenger hunt across the internet. I own a lot, but now it's getting difficult, and a little expensive. I'm planning on reviewing some of my favorites, and also trying to differentiate myself from the Lucha Diaries and Monstruos y Vampiros, both great resource blogs!
I'll get back to this blog shortly, I just wanted to start off with a simple entry to get things rolling. I'll leave you a pic to my latest acrylic painting, Frankenstein's Monster:
This sucker is 18" x 24" inches on canvas, and is for sale at my Etsy site: http://etsy.me/fJU00T. I'm also working on the Bride now. I was thinking of doing Henry Frankenstein as well, and turning this into a triptych, but I figured someone would end up buying maybe two paintings, and leaving me stuck with the Doctor... lame.
