Mexican Horror Films: K. Gordon Murray Favorite?

[Scott]

K. Gordon Murray brought a bunch of fantastic films from Mexico in the 60's and had them dubbed in English and sold them to TV Horror programs. My favorite so far is SANTO VS THE VAMPIRE WOMEN.



Here's a website on K. Gordon Murray

http://www.kgordonmurray.com/index.html

Here's a company that is putting out Mexican Horror titles.

http://www.casanegraentertainment.com/index_en.html

[Shadow]

I've only seen a few of them, so I went with The Brainiac.

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

Voted The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy

Night of 1000 Cats is incredibly boring, and Curse of the Doll People is slow as all get out.  I have Brainiac, The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy, the two Santo movies, and Doctor of Doom, but haven't watched them yet.

[MonsterX]

The Brainiac!  One of the best bad monster movies ever made.  Casa Negra is doing a really good job so far with these dvds.  So far I got The Vampire/The Vampire's Coffin, (The first was good, haven't watched the second yet) and The Witches Mirror.   

[Scott]

All of the Mexican Horror films are very atmospheric in b/w and foggy castles. This is what makes them so enjoyable. Then if you mix in some pro wrestling with your vampires and other monsters you have something very unique. These are the ones that I have actually viewed and listed them from my favorite to least favorite:

1) Santo And The Vampire Women
2 )The Bloody Vampire
3) The Curse Of The Crying Woman
4) Doctor Of Doom
5) The Vampire's Coffin
6) The Brainiac
7) The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy (A must see)
8) Santo In The Wax Museum
9) Bring Me The Vampire (this one isn't good, boring comedy)

[Flangepart]

Santo Vs. the Vampire women.
Cause i happened to see it! Haven't had the chance to see amost of these films. That may explain why this and The Brainiac are the most voted on. Opertunity knocks, with a masked man at the luchadoor!

[Dennis]

 I had to go with Brainiac, I've also enjoyed the Santo films but The Brainiac is one that I find really fun.

[Yaddo 42]

Santo vs. The Vampire Women because it's the one I remember the most clearly. Used to love to catch these on USA's Commander USA's Groovy Movies on Saturday afternoons. Because of those movies I still think real life bats should come with strings attached to their backs. Just because the world would be more fun that way.

But the Santo movies were my favorites, because of the comic book like nature of them, and how everyone acted like it was normal to chat with a masked and shirtless man in a cape solving crimes and fighting the supernatural, driving a cool car, holding his own with scientists, all while maintaining a highly succesful wrestling career. No one ever says, "Say dude, what's with the mask? And you're a little sweaty after that match how about not standing so close."

They had a sense of fun that is hard to replicate now. Probably since a big part of the original Mexican audience were kids.

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

I was reading a book on Mexploitation cinema and it mentioned that wrestling was banned on TV in Mexico by the government there for many years in the 50's and 60's, thus films were the only way people could see it besides live, which is why it kept being written into movies and Luchadores starring in them.  Plus Santo is just awesome.

[Scott]

Interesting Mexican Pro Wrestling fact Tars Tarkas. Oh and by the way welcome to the board. I use to be a big Pro Wrestling fan in the 80's and still like the old timers and the dark ages of wrestling which is anything before Satallite TV.

I still catch a match or two on TV now and then.

[Yaddo 42]

Any reason given for the ban?

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

Something to do with the more militaristic government worried about their image back then (1950s-60s), so wrestling was banned in movies and TV, but the movie producers got around it by working the wrestling into the storyline (sometimes in the most ridiculous ways)  I don't know if any TV shows got around the ban.

[carabinero]

Hi there, I'm from Mexico, and one of the reasons that I know that Lucha Libre was banned in TV was that Broadcasting companies where pressured to do so by sponsors, parents associations  and the goverment, this to prevent kids for imitating wrestlers, because there where too many cases of accidents involving injured kids while doing luchadore's moves that they saw on TV. Of course the goverment was very restrictive back then, and had too much influence in the media.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Hi there, I'm from Mexico, and one of the reasons that I know that Lucha Libre was banned in TV was that Broadcasting companies where pressured to do so by sponsors, parents associations  and the goverment, this to prevent kids for imitating wrestlers, because there where too many cases of accidents involving injured kids while doing luchadore's moves that they saw on TV. Of course the goverment was very restrictive back then, and had too much influence in the media.

I just want to welcome carabinero to this website. While we have posters from all over the world, I think you are first one from Mexico. And the Mexican wrestling movies are some of our favorite "bad" movies at this website.