Santo en el museo de cera (1963)

... aka: Argos contro le 7 maschere di cera (Argos vs. the 7 Wax Masks)
... aka: Samson in the Wax Museum
... aka: Santo Contra os Monstros do Museu de Cera (Santo vs. the Wax Museum Monsters)
... aka: Santo in the Wax Museum

Directed by:
Alfonso Corona Blake
Manuel San Fernando (U.S. version)

Strange things are underway at El Museo de Cera Dr. Karol (Dr. Karol's Wax Museum). And by strange things I mean most of the same things that had already gone down in such classics as Mystery of the Wax Museum (1932) and House of Wax (1953). A young couple arrive there just in time to take part in Dr. Karol's (Claudio Brook) informative tour. They see wax figures of actor Gary Cooper, Mexican revolutionary hero Francisco “Pancho” Villa, French serial killer and real life “Bluebeard” Henri Désiré Landru, Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and others. Joseph-Ignace Guillotine is also shown with what the doctor calls his most famous invention, which he adds he also became the first victim of. It's a good thing Dr. Karol has his other talents because he'd make for one lousy history teacher (Guillotine neither invented nor died by the guillotine). Dr. Karol notes that he has a “special process” to make his figures but, just like the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices, he ain't telling anyone. He will however show you what's cooking in his showroom...

Karol takes the tour group down a long flight of stairs into a dark cave where he keeps his all of his spookier star attractions. These include Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera, the Frankenstein monster, a werewolf “bitten by the Abominable Snowman in Tibet” and Quasimodo. The public isn't so interested in the historical figures and want more monsters... and who is Dr. Karol to let them down?

Photographer Susana Mendoza (Roxana Bellini) shows up asking to take pictures of the figures for a magazine article she and writer Ricardo Carbajal (Rubén Rojo), who also happens to be engaged to her sister Gloria (Norma Mora), are working on. Dr. Karol agrees but asks her to return later on to do the follow-up questions and take more photos. Susana does just that but when she arrives she's startled at the doctor's odd behavior and makes a quick exit. On her walk back home she's attacked and kidnapped by a facially-scarred man who was first seen snatching up a male in the same spot in the opening sequence. Gloria and Ricardo become concerned when Susana doesn't return home. After an old woman returns a camera she'd dropped in the park they know something is up and get in touch with the cops. The police chief (Jorge Mondragón) assigns Inspector Fernández (Víctor Velázquez) to the case, but I think we all know who's ultimately going to end up saving the day.

Considering Susana isn't the first person to disappear after visiting the wax museum, the Inspector goes to see Dr. Karol, who insists he's innocent. Karol even has his professor friend Armando Galván (José Luis Jiménez) call his good buddy Santo in to help. Santo's (of course!) busy wrestling, but he eventually shows up and becomes convinced that Dr. Karol is innocent once he thwarts an assassination attempt. A look into Karol's past reveals he was a concentration camp survivor and, after he relocated to the U.S. in 1950, survived a murder attempt when someone attempted to kill him with acid, hideously scarring his hands and body in the process. Maybe it's the same guy trying to kill him again? Well, actually, nope. It's all a carefully orchestrated plot by the doctor to cover his ass because he's up to the usual mad doctor things... Like dreaming of creating a world of physically deformed beings to reflect the anguish he feels inside.

In Karol's hidden underground lab he's working hard at creating some real "monsters" by disfiguring people one of his two faithful henchmen (Fernando Osés and “Leon Moreno” / Nathanael León) have kidnapped for him. For those who get in the way or threaten to expose him, a large smoking cauldron of acid wax awaits. As for all of the creations in his downstairs monster exhibit, they were once human and they're all actually still alive but kept in check with an injection that freezes them in place. He's holding Susana prisoner there in hopes of eventually turning her into (shades of Dr. Moreau) a “Panther Woman.” Oh yes, and Karol hasn't seemed to age over the years for some reason. Maybe he uses the freezing solution on his face. Maybe he invented Botox in his spare time. We're never really told.

I had a bit more fun with this one than I did with SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1962). It could have a little to do with the fact I was able to find a decent print in its original language with English subtitles, or it could have to do with me being a sucker for wax museum movies but either way I found this a bit more enjoyable. There's probably nothing here you haven't seen before but it's all good, clean, old-fashioned fun. Unlike with Vampire Women, which had several painfully long wrestling bouts interjected in, this one features three wrestling matches but at least this time they're shorter (2-3 minutes apiece instead of 10). In the strangest one, Santo wrestles a prissy Frenchman with powdered hair who prances around and is laughed at by the audience!

This is technically the eighth film featuring Santo and was released theatrically in Mexico City in the summer of 1963. Spain got the film a year later and it played theatrically in the U.S., too, as a Spanish-language-only release distributed by Azteca Films. In 1965, it was dubbed into English and sold with a package of other foreign films to TV by K. Gordon Murray and AIP-TV. A third Santo movie, Santo contra los zombies (1962), was also English dubbed and released to American TV under the new title Invasion of the Zombies. It was distributed by an obscure company called Television Entertainment, who also handled the U.S. release of the Mexican Neutron series.

★★1/2

Nove ospiti per un delitto (1977)

... aka: La morte viene dal passato (Death Comes from the Past)
... aka: Neun Gäste für den Tod (Nine Guests for Death)
... aka: Nine Guests for a Crime
... aka: Un urlo nella notte (A Scream in the Night)

Directed by:
Ferdinando Baldi

Here's yet another murder-mystery obviously inspired by a novel you may have heard of written by an author you may have heard of. The name Agatha Christie ring a bell? We'll just call this one Nine Little Indians. This actually has quite a bit in common with Mario Bava's earlier giallo / mystery 5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970). Both are set on an island in a swank house, involve a bunch of rich, backstabbing types, feature money as a primary driving force of the characters and feature a killer amongst them bumping everyone off. While not completely awful, 5 Dolls was one of the worst films Bava ever made. We'll see how this one fairs. Things open with a rather intriguing flashback as four guys (we only see their legs and feet) spy on a couple making love on the beach. The men then startle them, shoot the guy multiple times (including once in the face) and bury him alive in the sand. After they leave, the victim's hand emerges from the sand and his fingers twitch before a frame freeze, which could mean either he's just taken his last dying breath or perhaps he has somehow managed to survive the attack.

We then meet a group of nine people aboard a yacht who are heading to an uninhabited Mediterranean isle for a two week vacation. On the island, almost hidden among the rock cliffs, is a large stone vacation home owned by the old and filthy rich Uberto (Arthur Kennedy). Uberto's much younger trophy wife Giulia (Caroline Laurence), his sister Elisabetta (Dana Ghia) and three of his grown children plus their spouses are the “nine guests” of the title... and seemingly none of these people can stand one another!

Son Michele (Massimo Foschi) has a wife named Carla (“Flavia Fabiani” / Sofia Dionisio) and sums their relationship up best by confiding to Giulia that “Aside from being frigid, she's also stupid.” Michele and Guilia are actually lovers themselves; something both the father and wife seem to know about yet never mention. Youngest son Lorenzo (John Richardson) is saddled with a nasty piece of work named Greta (Rita Silva), who parades around naked and uses her husband's impotence against him by screwing pretty much anyone available and then flipping it all around on him because he's not a “real man.” Finally, daughter Patrizia (Loretta Persichetti) is a drunk, an all-around Debbie Downer and a shrill clairvoyant whose poor hubby Walter (Venantino Venantini) has to keep in line as she hysterically shrieks out comments like "Blood! Blood!" and “You can smell death in the air!” One of the biggest laughs in the film is her going on an intense rant about how she can hear seagulls on this bird-less island and how those are actually the souls of men who have died at sea and he just rolls his eyes and walks away.

The thoroughly unlikable characters gripe, scowl, screw around and plot against one another, little realizing that someone wearing a black diving suit has already killed the two sailors who brought them there, hidden their yacht and disabled their smaller boat, effectively stranding them. And then they start dying one by one... There's death by gunshot, stabbing, drowning, smothering with a pillow, strangulation, decapitation, being pushed off a cliff onto rocks, getting burned alive and, the bloodiest bit by far, being shot through the neck with a harpoon gun.

The best mystery movies keep you guessing, provide unforeseen plot twists that are plausible within the film's narrative and manage to undermine your expectations and surprise you by the end. This one does none of that. It's one of those movies where everyone potentially has a motive to kill (as is usually the case when an inheritance is involved) yet one possibility seems so obvious from so early on that you're positive that's not where they're going... until they do. Predictability ends up relegating this mostly to the travelogue category as this features some breathtaking scenery in Sardinia. Any time the action moved outside I found myself more interested in looking at the water and rocks than reading the subtitles.

This also has a decent amount of T&A with every actress (aside from the older aunt) doing at least one nude scene, sometimes multiple ones. I've seen comments from some reviewers noting that the male cast members are fairly well known yet the females aren't. I think that all boils down to this being shot at the tail end of the giallo cycle. Most of the actresses who'd made a name for themselves in the 60s and early 70s were now (gasp!) over the age of 30 and thus likely deemed “over the hill” for a film that insists on romantic pairings of men in their 40s with women in their 20s. I guess it at least makes some sense when shallow rich guys go for a young gold digger who only wants money, but seeing how the rich daughter picks for herself the oldest guy of the bunch, this is just another case of cinematic daddy complex.

Aside from working as associate producer / unit manager on Bava's excellent THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963) and directing the sleaze-fest TERROR EXPRESS (1980), this was the only time the director ever dabbled in the genre. His biggest success of all was the 3D western Comin' At Ya! (1981), which is often cited as the film that kick started a brief early 80s 3D craze. Baldi and his crew even got to make another 3D film; the adventure Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983), though that one flopped. I don't believe this was ever officially released in the U.S., though the German company Camera Obscura issued a DVD in 2014 with English subtitles.

★★