THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, metaphysical*

In CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY, the villainous Doctor Krupp darkly hinted at a great experiment in his plans, once he acquired the fabulous treasure guarded by Popoca the Mummy. And though the last of the Mummy films were released in the same year as the other two, supposed five years have passed since Krupp was thought to have perished at the moldy hands of his nemesis.

Aside from the fact that Almada and Flor were married during those five years, not much has changed. Even Almada's colleague Pinacate is still hanging around, though he remains in suit clothes and there's only one indirect reference to his short career as the costumed crimefighter The Angel. And Krupp's determination to get the Aztec treasure also remains unaltered. 

Because he controlled Flor with hypnosis in the second film, Krupp uses telepathy to summon the young woman from her home at night. Flor, being the reincarnation of Popoca's lost love Xochitl, retains a vague mental link to the mummy, and she's able to lead the villain and his henchmen to a contemporary mausoleum, where the mummy has hidden himself with his treasured breastplate. Yet Krupp can't acquire the object that will lead him to even greater wealth, because Popoca is immune to modern weapons and would simply slaughter any interlopers. (Krupp explains all this to a henchman who was scarred by acid at the end of CURSE, a rare example of a Mexican film showing strong continuity with a previous series-entry.)

Almada and Pinacate go looking for Flor and so Krupp captures all three. Appreciative of a new audience, the egotistical scientist explains that his great experiment is to create an army of cyborgs, Frankensteinian corpses encased in metal. But he must have found enough money to create a prototype, though it's only within the last few weeks that he completes the experiment with a stolen corpse. This "human robot," Krupp says, is mighty enough to destroy even a mystical dead man.

After demonstrating the robot's power to kill on a random innocent, Krupp sends the Robot to fight Popoca. Even allowing for the cheesy look of the Robot, it's a pretty blah fight. Not surprisingly the Mummy wins and keeps his treasure, Krupp's evil career ends and all the nice people go home unharmed. Of the three films in the series, CURSE is easily the most entertaining, though all three films have sequences in which they drag as much as a mummy's foot.