a.k.a. THE SHIP OF MONSTERS
Producciones Sotomayor [1960] 83′
country: Mexico
director: ROGELIO A. GONZALEZ
cast: EULALIO GONZALEZ, ANA BERTHA LEPE,
cast: LORENA VALAZQUEZ, CONSUELO FRANK
Order this film from AMAZON.COM
It’s Cinco de Mayo ’round these parts, and confession time once again here at Wtf-Film. In my endless quest for weird-cinema nirvana, I have yet to dive into the fertile depths of the Mexican fantastic film industry. I’m not sure how Sampote Sands made his way into the archives before el Santo, Blue Demon, or anything else originating with our friends to the South, but I can’t say I’m proud of it.
Being the cult connoisseur that I am, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 5th of May than with this little number from producer Jesus Sotomayor Martinez, which marries two of my very favorite things – ridiculous monsters and rampant bizarreness. There’s even a joke about the French to be had [in reference to a bear with blue eyes] that, fleeting as it may be, makes the film all the more appropriate with the historical significance of the holiday in mind.
LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS begins on Venus, where the last Venusian man has died from the after effects of an atomic war. Intent on both saving her kind and creating a new world free from the threat of nuclear obliteration, the leader of the remaining Venusian women sends two of her loyal subjects – Venusian Gamma [Lepe] and Uranite Beta [Valazquez] – on an all-important mission to locate the most desirable men from around the galaxy so that they might be used as breeding stock. Their ship takes off and, with copious amounts of library footage to help it, hops from planet to planet collecting male specimens – each more horrible than the last. On the return trip the ship is beset by engine trouble, forcing Gamma, Beta, and their hostages to land on the nearest planet: Earth.
There the lovable but down-on-his-luck Lauriano [Gonzalez], a poor cowboy who spends his spare time getting wasted and telling ludicrous stories to local bar patrons, sees the ship land and mistakes it for a shooting star. Finding himself under considerable budgetary constraint and barely able to keep himself and his kid brother Chuy fed, he wishes for the one thing that could possible make his life better – a girl [not too fat, not too thin, and full of life]! He can hardly believe his eyes when he is beset by not one but two beautiful foreigners [the space women, claiming to be from a traveling circus] – so taken aback is he that he accepts their cover story without reservation, even after they reveal their super-human robot companion Torr.
But Lauriano isn’t the only one with his eyes set on romance – Gamma [who has, of course, never heard of 'love'] becomes immediately infatuated with the Earth man and his tendency to burst into ranchera-style musical interludes. Beta is interested too, but her lusty approaches just can’t compete with Gamma’s heart-felt longing. Angered that Gamma has her sights set on the finest male she’s yet encountered, Beta does the only thing she can – turns into a Gothic-style cape-clad vampire and begins feeding on the local drunkards! Gamma reports Beta’s blood-sucking transgressions, apparently the worse possible galactic offense, to her higher-ups and receives a chilling command. Beta is to be destroyed before sunrise.
Being the hot-headed Uranite vampiress that she is, Beta doesn’t take the order sitting down. Instead, she locks Gamma in the storage area intended for their monstrous male hostages, takes full control of robot Torr, and makes an offer to her former prisoners they can’t refuse: that they help her attack and conquer Earth! It’s up to the cowardly but clever Lauriano to trick Beta, save Gamma, and rid the world of their shipload of monsters once and for all.
LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS is another of those long-forgotten films granted a new lease on life through the critical work of the Medved brothers and their Golden Turkey Awards. I missed their appraisal of this one, which is probably all for the best – as Braineater reports, they seemed to have missed the boat entirely in viewing MONSTRUOS as just another poorly composed bad movie concoction. The fact of the matter is that MONSTRUOS, like Producciones Sotomayor’s earlier EL CASTILLO DE LOS MONSTRUOUS, was intended to be light-hearted and intentionally comedic family fare as opposed to serious science fiction or horror. One need only watch the ending scene, in which robot Torr serenades his new found love [a jukebox!], to realize MONSTRUOS’ true intentions.
From a production standpoint, LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS is a rather well-handled affair, even if its special effects frequently bely its budgetary shortcomings. Former radio personality Eulalio Gonzalez [credited as Lalo Gonzalez "Pipporo"] is a fine choice to play the male lead and its a testament to his considerable talents that his character, ostensibly just a coward, liar, and cheat with little other than romance on his mind, never becomes unlikable. Gonzalez is also credited with having written his own songs, of which there are several. The roles of Gamma and Beta are fairly thankless, with Ana Berthe Lepe and Lorena Valazquez [a frequent player in the long-lived Santo series] doing better in them than should rightfully be expected. Direction by Rogelio A. Gonzalez is utilitarian, but assured, and the tongue-in-cheek narrative [penned by the prolific Jose Maria Fernandez Unsain and adapted by Alfredo Varela] is kept moving at an appropriately swift pace.
Special effects vary, with the majority of the space footage being sourced from the color Russian effort DOROGA K ZVEZDAM [released as ROAD TO THE STARS two years earlier in the United States] – though a reasonably impressive close-up of full scale engines firing and a few shots of the ship landing on craggy alien worlds are original to the production. The interior design of the ship itself is vintage retro-futuristic, with flashy lights, levers, dials, and spinny parts a plenty.
Of course, the most important aspect of the production is its monsters – and what a memorable lot they are! Two seem to be based directly off of earlier American creatures. Tawal, the prince of Mars, is obviously inspired by Blaisdell’s cabbage-headed aliens from INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, while Uk, a warrior from the planet of fire, looks like a little brother to Harryhausen’s cyclops from THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. The spidery Crassus is harder to place, with possible inspirations for his design cropping up in everything from Jack Arnold’s TARANTULA to MISSILE TO THE MOON. Torr, the robot, is a ridiculous and bulky contraption that has more in common with toys of the time than automatons on-screen. All of the creatures are accomplished through intricately constructed suits that are quite animated – Uk, for instance, has a twitching eyeball, flaring nostrils, and can even flap his ears.
Each is also given his own unique personality – Uk is a boorish thug who frequently speaks in the third person while Tawal is as arrogant as one imagines the prince of Mars could be. Crassus is a bit more interesting, a sly creature who threatens to eat Gamma and Beta’s entrails ‘by the light of Utare and its seven moons’! Those who love outrageous monster designs [is there honestly anyone out there who doesn't?] should really get a kick out of what LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS puts on display, particularly when the creatures meet their fantastically graphic head-deflating demises.
But there are always exceptions to the rule – here, that exception is Zok. Poor, pitiable Zok. The fifth of the male monsters introduced by the film is easily its worst, being little more than a twitchy skull and a few spare bones suspended on a single, highly visible, string [or, even more embarrassingly, actually carried from spot to spot by one of the other creatures]. Zok spends the majority of his time off-screen and seems to have been completely forgotten by the end of the film – when it comes time for Lauriano and company to defeat the creatures, he is nowhere to be found. I can’t help but wonder if Zok wasn’t just another joke on the part of the filmmakers – the opportunity to have a pile of barely-animate bones chatter on about how all-powerful it is may have been too tempting for effects man Juan Munoz Ravelo to resist.
While LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS looks to have been targeted primarily at younger generations, there are moments of humor that are definitely intended for adult consumption as well. Lauriano wonders if Gamma and Beta might be lesbians early on, and makes several allusions to sex while wooing the former. Beta convinces her monster associates to follow her by coming on to them, to odd effect – the prospect of romantic liasons between Lorena Valazquez and beasts like Crassus, Tawal, or Uk is truly bizarre. While all of this is handled in relatively good taste, it definitely lends the proceedings a nice hint of perversity.
LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS has become much easier to procure in recent years. It plays infrequently on Mexican television and, as of February of this year, is even available in a bare bones and subtitle-free double feature DVD from Lions Gate [along with fellow Eulalio Gonzalez feature EL RATA]. I’ve not seen this disc as of yet and have no idea what to expect in terms of picture quality [the lower expectations are set, the better I suspect] but, given the disc’s low retail [$9.98], can’t imagine it being too terribly disappointing.
I suppose that’s all there is to say – if tongue-in-cheek sci-fi fantasy chock full of ridiculous monsters and ranchera-style musical numbers is your thing, then LA NAVE DE LOS MONSTRUOS is must-see material. It’s a fine way to introduce yourself and others to the wacky world of Mexican fantastic cinema, and fully deserving of my highest recommendation.
