A poor young couple escape their small town in a rocket car and crash land in Mexico City, where they are mistaken for Martians. This Mexican 1956 musical comedy is thin on plot and substance, but charms with its good cast and sincerity. 6/10
All but forgotten, but immensely important for the birth of the luchador superhero genre, this 1954 romp following the exploits of “The Avenging Shadow” is a surprisingly good action film in the Republic serial vein. 6/10
A well-meaning goofball is injected with a serum that allows him to see future events. Suddenly there is no end of people wanting to take advantage of the kind-hearted tramp. This Mexican 1956 effort is a minor film for comedian Clavillazo. 4/10
Masked vigilante El Medico Asesino beats up bad guys with his wonderboy sidekick. The first wrestler superhero movie of Mexico, this 1954 release was intended as a serial. Despite its qualities, it’s too long and incoherent as a movie. 4/10
As enthusiastic as it is bewildering, this operatic Mexican 1953 medical horror film is a clunky passion project. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, it’s a mix between The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein and Mystery of the Wax Museum. 6/10
“Mexico’s Charlie Chaplin” Cantinflas shines as a research assistant in this SF romcom from 1948. Big Oil and authorities chase poor Cantinflas across the movie, believing he has his dead professor’s formula for turning water into oil. A talky and unnecessarily long, but sympathetic effort. 5/10
My very first zero-star review goes to a 1946 Mexican ”sci-fi comedy” starring a down and out Buster Keaton doing his best not to fall asleep on set. The script has three idiots landing a rocket in the middle of a Mexican city, thinking they are on the moon. That is the full plot. The best moments have Buster Keaton lifelessly repeating old gags from his silent era. The rest is a mess. Scifist rating: 0/10.
A brilliant plastic surgeon uses his skills to mutilate the faces of his wife and her lover in this 1940 Mexican horror melodrama. The premise is promising, but the film is slow to get going and gets stuck in melodrama mode. 4/10
This obscure Mexican medical horror from 1936 is a surprisingly well-made and entertaining mad scientist melodrama cut from a Hollywood template. While tame by today’s standards, its scenes with hack-off limbs and gore-filled trunks raised a few eyebrows back in the day. 6/10
Mexico’s first science fiction feature film is an intriguing curio that involves a team of scientists trying to capture the last image recorded in a dead person’s eyes. Highly derivative of US genre films, but competently made and quite entertaining. 5/10
scifist 2.0 