Doctor Of Doom, A.K.A Las Luchadoras VS El Doctor Asesino, its the basic luchador film from México, but its executed very well by director Rene Cardona. Cardona never disappoints, this time he brings us with an amazing film that never ceases to be fun.The film its better than your average luchador B-movie, with some nice directing, some good acting, decent writing and a big cheesy schlock value.The film was latter remade as Night Of The Bloody Apes, A.K.A La Horripilante Bestia Humana, which its also very fun, but I found this one to be better.Overall, its definitely a must watch for B-movie fans, it has some good characters and a extreme camp value.

Another K. Gordon Murray masterpiece, this is one of those south-of-the-border wrestlin'-movies-mixed-in-with-a-bit-of-a-sci-fi-plot, and plenty of action both in and out of the ring to get those Mexicans whooping in the aisles. DOCTOR OF DOOM is a cheap, brainless, poorly-made movie with an inadequate budget and a plot that defies description. How can it be anything other than a Z-grade classic? Forget the sweaty muscles of Santo and Neutron, this is a film that introduced a whole new prolific sub-genre: the Wrestling Woman; namely Lorena Velazquez, who would carve a niche for herself as a badly-dressed female freedom fighter and purveyor of all things right and honourable. Other than the novelty of the heroine's gender, it follows the straightforward formula set by all other Mexican wrestling classics: a top wrestler becomes involved in the schemes of a mad scientist and has to fight him, with the aid of the police, at every turn.It goes without saying that many Mexican movies from this period are hit-and-miss affairs. DOCTOR OF DOOM isn't always successful, but at least it hits the mark more often than not. The worst aspect of the film are the long, drawn-out wrestling matches thrown in to satisfy the rabid wrestling fans in the audience, but thankfully these don't linger too much. Instead the film is happy to focus on all the enjoyable old clichéd genre elements: the cackling mad scientist; the heroic policeman; the old acid-in-the-face gag; the hulking monster with a human body and gorilla's brain (!); the caped wrestling monster; the old who-is-the-bad-guy sub-plot with a very unsurprising unmasking; bad guys dressed like the Ku-Klux-Klan; even the (very) old serial staple, where the good guys get locked in a room and a spiked wall moves in to crush them to death.The acting is pretty horrendous with the actors giving new meaning to the word "wooden". Apart from the mad scientist that is – he overacts instead, helped by an insane dubbing job that just adds to the fun of the thing. Genre regular Armando Silvestre is at hand but has a boring role as a straight-arrow cop. Other characters include Gomad, a hairy brute of a man who is supposed to have a gorilla's brain, and who wears a hilarious suit of armour to protect him from bullets! It has to be seen to be believed. Keep your eyes out for short cop Tommy, the butt of many a joke, whose blossoming relationship with hulking wrestler Golden Rubi adds an extra level of sentimentality and meaning to the plot. Yeah right.DOCTOR OF DOOM succeeds by offering up tons of action to be enjoyed. The scientist has loads of ugly Mexican guys to do his bidding and there are some tremendously fun abductions and battles to behold before the finale. The sets are cheap and tend to be burnt down and there are brain experiments galore for the horror fan. In some of the night-time stalking sequences the film actually manages to be pretty atmospheric and spooky too, which has to be a good thing. Check out the ending, which seems to have been ripped from HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM. Director Rene Cardona would return to his favourite subject – gorilla brain experimentation – with 1968's "video nasty", NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES.

Doctor of Doom (1963) ** (out of 4) Very silly but entertaining Mexican horror film about a mad scientist who is putting the hearts of apes into the bodies of females. When all of the females keep dying the doctor decides to use a stronger body, that of a female wrestler, and by doing so he plans on using her to kill a couple other female wrestlers who blew up his laboratory. If you're wanting some sort of art picture then I'd recommend several films by Luis Bunuel because that's not what you're going to be getting out of this picture. DOCTOR OF DOOM makes very little sense, the special effects aren't that special and the performances rank just above a middle-school production but all of this just adds to the charm. I think what makes the film work so well is that the pacing is pretty fast and there's always something crazy going on. It's funny hearing dialogue early on talking about how women are "too weak" to be experimented on and yet the doctor just keeps using them. He blames women for not being strong enough to live through his operations but then he sends his men out to get another woman. We also have an accident of the doctors, which is a half man, half ape creation who does the majority of the dirty work. You can tell that didn't have too much money to fix him us as he's just got a few patches of hair scattered around his body. In the English dubbed version we get some hilarious heavy breathing from the creature, which makes him more charming than scary. Then, of course, you have the downright silly wrestling scenes that add nothing and I'm still trying to figure out why they were so important in the first place. Naturally these must have been very popular in the day but today it just comes off rather silly and childish. While there's no tension or drama, the director at least keeps the pace rather fast and it's funny seeing the various ways that the story changes for no reason or watching things happen, which couldn't have possibly happened. Just check out the highlight when a couple cops are about to be smashed to death in a secret room (think THE RAVEN torture trap) and the wall is just a foot or so away from them. They use their watches to call out for help and the female wrestlers, in a different location, have time to drive to them, walk around the house slowly and then finally track them down. Seeing this scene play out is a non-stop laugh and one of the reasons the film remains entertaining.

This film and WRESTLING WOMEN VERSUS THE AZTEC MUMMY (1964) are included on the same DVD. Interestingly, BOTH films share many of the same scenes as well as actors and it appears as if they basically created one movie and filmed a few extra scenes in order to make two movies! While cheap and crappy, it also made for many incomprehensible moments and a lot of repetition--particularly the wrestling scenes--which were identical.To many non-Mexicans, this film is about as weird and foreign as they get! Mexican wrestling films were immensely popular in the 1960s and 70s and they rarely, if ever, made any sense. However, in this film instead of a man wearing a 'lucha libre' mask everywhere they go (el Santo and many of the other good guys wore elaborate masks and guarded their identities), here we have a couple non-masked sexy ladies. While their wrestling skills are not always great, they were very curvaceous AND were crime fighters--just like Blue Demon, el Santo and the rest! As I said, I know that this seems very, very weird! In this installment, Lorena Velázquez and Elizabeth Campbell star as the lady wrestlers. They punch, flip and grapple their way to the bottom of a strange case--a crazy doctor who is trying to perform brain transplants on unsuspecting women!!! There is also a strange guy who is apparently part gorilla! Despite the strangeness of it all, I swear to you I am not making any of this up--it's all in the film and I am not on drugs nor have I had a severe head injury!! If you've seen any of the Mexican wrestling films, it's pretty much what you'd expect--no better nor worse. It's dumb, poorly acted, poorly written and stupid...but also rather funny in a kitschy sort of way. While you'd never assume this is a good film, it is fun for bad movie fans. All others beware!!!