Today is
Cinco de Mayo so today's movie review is for a really weird Mexican movie called
ARANAS INFERNALES (1968) aka
THE HELLISH SPIDERS.
This film features Mexico's number 2 masked wrestler
The Blue Demon. This man was for years a very popular wrestler just behind Mexico's number 1 wrestler
El Santo. The two of them often starred together in wrestling men movies but this was a solo starring role for
The Blue Demon.
This was a sci fi film in which the masked wrestler
The Blue Demon fights against Spiders from outer space that are invading the Earth. The sci fi movie was shot in a dark moody manner more fitting an old Gothic horror movie than a sci fi movie of the sixties.
The spiders from outer space are making use of human zombies and in one scene a wrestler fighting The
Blue Demon in the ring is revealed to be a zombie when his hand turns into a spider and this spider hand on the end of the wrestler's arm tries to bite
The Blue Demon.
The really insane part of this movie is that the filmmakers used special effect scenes from both
TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE and
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Most of the flying saucer shots in the movie is from
PLAN 9. Both those movies played in the Mexican movie theaters. I have seen Mexican movie posters for both.
This film was shot in the sixties when both
TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE and
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE were still films unknown by the general public so it was not an attempt at being campy. It was just a case of using stock footage rather than making their own special effects.
|
Popular Mexican wrestler THE BLUE DEMON |