User Reviews

A group of scientists enter a pyramid that has been explored many times and find a monster and a mummy without the use of a single pick-ax or stick of dynamite. They just walk until they find them. True, they had a psychic with them, but she seemed to be as lost as the rest. The mummy and monster are brought back to civilization, where the monster escapes and the mummy turns into a werewolf! Yes, it's another cobbled together mess from Uncle Jerry Warren. This time he slaps together bits of two Mexican monster films and spends about four dollars on some American actors doing some framing scenes. Not as hilarious as Attack of the Mayan Mummy, but it keeps you glued to the screen trying to follow the story. (Spoilers-How can you spoil something already gone bad?) An overweight mummy (a first!) is placed in a dry cleaning machine. When he comes out, he's wearing modern shoes, pants, belt and dress shirt. Oh, yes, and he's a werewolf on top of being an overweight mummy. The other monster, woman in his arms, knocks out two well built men who come upon him, without putting down the woman. Three men steal the mummy the night when it's about to be shown to the public. They drive away, followed by the police. The police catch up with the car, then takes the next off ramp, letting the bad guys get away. I'm surprised that they didn't have poor Lon Chaney (the overweight mummy) sitting in the back seat! A real mess. My rating: 2 out of 10. BAD.

Truly pathetic mess cobbled together by Jerry Warren of footage from a Mexican movie (La casa del terror) with scenes featuring Lon Chaney Jr. (who never speaks any dialogue; I'm not even sure he was the performer under the werewolf make-up in the many of the monster's attack scenes) into an incoherent narrative. Warren doesn't even try and I have contempt for him in this regard. We get the Chaney werewolf transformation and there are a few nasty attacks where the werewolf mauls victims, but that's it. There's something to do with a scientific expedition in The Great Pyramid at the North Yucatan Border (we are also assaulted—erm, I mean treated—to a tribal ceremony once performed by the civilization that once lived in this region of the world, and it goes on forever it seems). Two beings are discovered in the pyramid, a man (Chaney) who is afflicted with lycanthropy (he just turns whenever the film decides) and this zombie mummy from the past civilization I just mentioned. Both beings become associated with scientists who use a wax museum as a front, their laboratory hidden behind a wall that opens. There are two cops (Warren probably hired off the street for a few hours) on the lookout for dangerous fiends terrorizing whatever city this film is supposed to be set in. There are experiments using machinery with knobs and gyros that continue for minutes as the scientists look pleased at their progress (I'm not sure what they are doing exactly, but about five minutes in I gave up caring…) and one opening protracted sequence where a female test subject is put under hypnosis and recalls a past life as the Yucatan priestess, her story inspiring the pyramid expedition. I would like to see a dubbed or subtitled version of "La casa del terror" whose guts were extracted for this abomination just out of curiosity…maybe it might actually have a coherent storyline a bit easier to follow. Milking the iconic status of an actor who had fallen on such hard times he was stuck in low budget stinkers just to make ends meet and support his alcoholism, Warren knows no shame and can't even bother to honor Chaney with a decent use of the footage he took from elsewhere. This might be entertainment for those who cherish bad cinema, but I found this waste of time damn near impossible to get through without feeling pity for Chaney Jr. because you have to recognize a star's career was in the toilet. Thank goodness for Spider Baby, one last great movie for Chaney—I just wish this was his last film instead of that f'n Adamson picture.

Rule of thumb in the 1960's in making a schlocky horror film: visit local pre-school's and kindergarten's, collect various art supplies (paper mache, styrofoam, large pieces of cardboard and colored construction paper, popsicle sticks, etc.), and hire a faded actor like John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.). Pull together bits and pieces of short stories and expand with as many idiotic small details that you can think of. Mix all of these together and stir. Bake for an hour, and then send to a drive-in theater, and there you have it: a schlocky horror film along the lines of "Face of the Screaming Werewolf".

The faded star here is Chaney, running around, snarling, grabbing screaming women, then barely missing an elevator as a woman inside screams. Another ghoul throws a man off of the roof, but fortunately, there's an awning to catch him. The film starts off with a flashback to an Aztec temple sacrifice ceremony where one of the characters in the present day was once an Aztec princess. This sequence is where the paper mache and styrofoam come in handy, painted to look like bricks, and held together by jarred paste. The actors look nothing like what the Aztecs must have, and the sequence as a whole goes on far too long. Chaney is there for name only, and most of the intended frights only bring laughs. At only an hour, this won't make you feel that you've wasted too much time, and you'll find plenty to laugh at, not laugh with.

We've already discussed the lunacy of Jerry Warren and his movie The Wild World of Batwoman a while back. That's not the only bonkers movie that he'd ever make. Let's take this movie, which is really La Casa del Terror and La Momia Azteca mixed into a new movie, along with footage that Warren shot just for this new effort. You think Puffy invented the remix? Check in with Jerry.

Warren took his scissors to all of the comedy scenes of Tin-Tan from Casa del Terror, replacing them with the Lon Chaney Jr. footage from La Momia Azteca. This wasn't anything new for him, as he'd already released Attack of the Mayan Mummy the previous year, replacing most of that movie with newly filmed American footage. And he'd use footage from that movie to make this!

I have no idea what drive-in fans thought, thinking they'd probably seen this movie before because they totally had. They just didn't have IMDB to look it up.

A psychic named Ann Taylor - no relation to Ann Taylor or her Loft - goes back to her past life and leads a team of archaeologists to an Aztec pyramid with two mummified bodies, one being an Aztec warrior and the other a werewolf, who just so happens to be Lon Chaney Jr., who is white and not Mexico and no one ever brings that up.

The craziest thing then happens: the Aztec warrior escapes and kidnaps the psychic. They both get hit by a car and that's it. They're out of the movie, never to be seen again, because they're dead. We're only told this fact by a newspaper that spins on to the camera.

This is the Face of the Screaming Werewolf, after all. Not the Faces of the Screaming Warrior and the Aztec Mummy.

Meanwhile, Lon Chaney Jr. goes full lycan, kills the scientist who revived him and then is stopped by Tin-Tin, who shows up out of nowhere because he'd been edited out of the movie up until now. Yes, this nameless hero just shows up unannounced and murders the werewolf with a torch, just like he did in La Momia Azteca, but now without the benefit of a lick of context.

To top that all off, two cops then discuss how there was never a werewolf at all. Yes, somehow even in the world of a Jerry Warren film, the cops can watch the truth and distort it before your eyes.

Jerry Warren hatchet job took a Mexican comedy film where Lon Chaney played a werewolf for the last time and added scenes from Attack of the Aztec Mummy and new scenes. Mind numbingly boring thanks to Warren's tinkering (remember the Chaney footage was part of a comedy), the film involves using past life regression to find mummies in an Aztec pyramid, one of which is Chaney, the other is an Aztec mummy thats moving about. The Chaney mummy is revived and goes on the rampage because he's really a werewolf. Incredibly boring film is half over (This runs about an hour) before the mummies show up, and from there its nothing but disjointed scenes of the werewolf and Aztec mummy running about with little real dialog (most of it is either voice overs or clearly filmed later by other people footage of TV news reports). Unless you really need to see all of Chaney's films complete and in in all their cuts you should watch the trailer and move on.

Well, this was a fabulous as might be expected. A true mess featuring footage stitched together from two other movies, an Aztec Mummy movie and a werewolf movie. It starts with footage from the Aztec Mummy- loooooog, sloooooow footage. As the hardy band of adventurers eventually dodge all the flashbacks and enter the tomb, they cut in a shot of Lon Chaney in bad mummy makeup (his face is just done in white makeup). Then la momia azteca blunders in and is quickly overcome by a flashlight and a plywood sigil-thingy (the flashlight in the eyes caused him to scream and stagger back. Then a scientist throws the plywood sigil-thingy which knocks him over.) Fast cut to a press conference where they announce that two mummies were actually found (not shown). Here's where the werewolf movie footage kicks in. The scientists take the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing to a lab where they proceed to put him into what looks like a large pants press and then some sort of mummyfuge twirly tube thing. The result is the white makeup all falls off and behold—Lawrence Talbot! Then late that night he wakes up and goes to the window where he faces the moon and turns into the werewolf. His first victim is one of the scientists. The Mummy-Werewolf-Thing grabs the scientist from behind, and (from the evidence of a close-up of the victim's face after), apparently yanks his nose until it bleeds. Then just when you wonder how in the world anyone's nose will be safe from this unstoppable horror, the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing clutches his chest like he has bad heartburn and topples over. Later he wakes up and kills another scientist, this time while the scientist's colleague looks on without lifting a finger to help his friend. Once the victim is dead, the peeper overcomes the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing with the time-honored, all-purpose flashlight-in-the-eyes gambit. He locks the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing up and the plot sort of shambles back into the Aztec Mummy movie. Ole Popica hisself is now seen entering the house of the pretty broad from the Aztec Mummy movie. Apparently she has a cute little girl and apparently they gave the little girl a 3,000 year old solid gold Aztec breastplate to use as a teddy bear. Ole Popica carefully extracts the breastplate from the little girl without waking her, then stomps in to carry off the mother (no further sign of the breastplate). They walk right down the middle of a highway and get run over (not shown). Thus endeth the momia azteca portion of the show. Now back to the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing who is stalking around the city at night looking for noses to yank. Eventually, after climbing things and slinking around awhile, there is the big showdown scene. Once more, just when you thought no nose can escape the yanking horror of the Mummy-Werewolf-Thing, he clutches his chest and falls down, turning back into human form. At this point his clothes catch fire, and two policemen show up. The police stand around watching the guy burn up while making "ironic" comments like "All this fuss about a werewolf and turns out he's just a man." Just a man on fire and burning horribly right in front of your unyanked noses. One of the cops then looks at his watch and starts writing in a notepad. End of movie. Joy.