Previously titled Aztec Blood a film directed by Charles Pinion (Red Spirit Lake (1993)) who co-wrote the script with Greg Salman, on a budget of $3-million and received distribution through Wild Eye Releasing. The flick plays a bit like an 80s cheesy movie with no budget and yet strives to for a serious tone, overlooking the clear intention of comedy so readily available. In addition, Universal Studios rebooting their monster movies, as the Dark Universe, (which currently lay in limbo) all thanks to the disastrous Tom Cruise ‘The Mummy’ movie. Thanks Tom, for perhaps ending this fresh stench of dreadful movies. It only made sense to explore the bandage figure once again, with a group of university students with a connection to Aztec, not a far fetch as one could conceive, but the genre always welcomes the cash-in projects. When one thinks and researches it there’s been 82-Horror Feature Film Titles that included the world ‘Mummy’ but only 5-films with a reference to Aztec Mummy in the title those are:
The Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot (1958)
Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)
Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy (2007)
La momia azteca aka: Attack of the Aztec Mummy (1957)
La maldición de la momia azteca aka: The Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957)
The film set in an archaeological dig in the New Mexico desert, a group of university students unearth a mummy wearing a fearsome mask made of a human skull. Carmen (Esther Canata) performs a secret, bloody rite above the ancient corpse, awakening the spirit of Tezcalipoca, also known as the lord of death intent on spreading evil to the world. Sadly, no true Aztec mummy rips its way through the film, although the cast brings a little fun to everything with comedic lines and a tinge of nudity, even though the curse involves an ancient STD. The spirit of the ancient god possesses and with strong sexual desires conquers lovers and hence killing, interesting twisted it reminds one of Night of Something Strange (2016) but skips the comedy too much. This movie does insert more of the mummy mythology into the storyline, giving it a reference to the traditional stories from both Universal and Hammer studios.
Most of the budget went into the film process of creating a 3D movie and sought for the audience to enjoy it in that manner, but that likely ate the miniscule budget of this independent horror project. One of the biggest problems that many indie movies encounter, issues with sound, such as the exterior shots, especially in the desert with windy conditions effecting the actors and turning all dialogue into a muddled mess. While the movie lacks any visible star power, for example, staying the lane of mummy-movies, Legend of the Mummy (1998) a dreadful horror film, bud Louis Gossett Jr. stars in it, strives forward with assistant of the special effects especially gore-factors. The film gets many different actor performances concerning from forgettable to overly dramatic, which delivers unintentional laughs.
If the movie had more terrific gore and blood splatter or straight up parody it likely generates a more positive reception, and more throughout plot pieces, than silly moments presented on the screen. At least the film doesn’t focus on CGI overload like another mummy flick, it tries to return the old horror to the screen, needless to say, this icon actually is more of a love/hate relationship with some fans, as it seeks a slower and romantic storyline, than a quicken pace if they seek the true gothic conceptual design.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877890/
IMDb Rating: 2.8/10
Baron’s Rating: 2.5/10