King Devil says Go for It: DR. SATAN (1966), DR. SATAN VS. BLACK MAGIC (1968)

 (Famous Monsters Medical Mephistopheles of Mexico III)

Viva la Dr. Satan, discipulo numero uno di Rey Diablo!

A lot of classic Mexican horror emulates the classics of other nations, movies, TV, and comics. Ther original contribution is mainly lucha libre movies, their main monster is la Lorna, of course, and....well, Dr. Satan. Wait, who? 

Thanks to our draconian censors, the master villain antihero has no real equal in the US. Other countries get enigmatic good bad guys like Diabolik (Italy), Satanik (Turkey), and, of course Fantomas, and Irma Vep (France). On the good guy side may be an equally intelligent police chief, or the cops may be klutzy comic relief, outwitted at every turn. The free world was in that sweet spot between Thunderball and Charlie Manson. Our censors insisted the bad guys be totally bad, the good always win - lest kids grow up believing crime is 'cool.'

Down in Mexico, well, you had to have a completely accepting attitude towards the devil to stay 'balanced'. You can work to expel him, exorcise him, but hating and fearing him just made him stronger. You go to the local bruja and get a charm of protection, make a prayer to the blessed virgin, and you send the devil on his way with a few pesos for his trouble. He's just one of the figures revolving tower clock neither more powerful or less than any other--it's all about the bout, the match, and for that to be engaging, the sides have to be even. To love lucha libre is to understand this, the match may be fixed, the 'narrative' set, but the emotions are still engaged. For our collective unconscious, there is no faking it, as long as you commit. And it's ultimately our collective unconscious that all this for. And deep down in there, a man for his time, cometh the inimitable.....

DR. SATAN

(1966) Dir. Miguel Montoya 

Wreathed in a nice haze of Satan summoning smoke and artifacts from the slightly blurry print, Mexican pelicula/telenovela leading man Joaquin Cordero is at the peak smolder as Dr. Arrozamena (aka Dr. Satán - accent on TAN), and that means peak smolder, period. Crazy arched (painted?) eyebrows on a face that's a blend of Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson: eyes that don't even need the light shining in them to glow with cunning, connivance and chaos; a masterly demeanor; a smile that's never more than a slight curve; a low measured lion king hypnotist. hypnotist of a voice--f you get an instant mancrush on Dr. Satan, you're not alone. The film refrains from scenery chewing, pushing his egomania too far, or hamming, cackling over torture devices, and dying in a burning lair. Our Arrozamena is a team player, asking permission from 'King Devil' every time he needs to harvest a soul. The devil doth appear in a huge cloud of evil smoke, on a hill with a leafless tree (above), barely speaking except to grant his request with a surly "so be it!" before disappearing again in a puff of smoke. Arrozamena's traps their souls in little box, so their bodies may be raised by his secret formula, as zombie henchmen. 

It's hard to place Dr. Satan in the context of his time or place. Are we supposed to root for him, or against him? Casual summarizers lump him in the 'mad scientist' and 'sorcerer' camps, but they just don't get it. He's neither, he's just himself--totally unique. And the quest for global domination only enters his mind when his new lady friend suggests it. His measured calm is almost hilariously deadpan and the film blessed by simplicity, a small but capable cast, good editing and freedom of cliche. It's short, it hums with a unique score of thumping timpanii and what sounds like the Forbidden Planet score forced through a flanger and slowed to an industrial screech. Hell yes. 

everybody's clockin' Rodriguez (top: Interpol /bottom: Satan Inc.

And most of the rest of the cast are women, good and bad, all professional, capable, and not objectified. Say, whaaa? Notably there's the intense Gina Romand, so sublimely evil as Frankenstein's Daughter in Santo meets Frankensteins Daughter), is dynamite as an agent sent by the leader of a shadowy international crime ring to check in on the doctor, their man in Mexico, to let him know a box of counterfeit money is coming in, and also he needs to kill Rodriquez, an agent  INTEPRPOL has been shadowing. He suggests in that low measured rumble, never moving his head or taking his eyes off of her, he takes her out and show her the town, they can knock off Rodriguez on the way. Her blonde 'changed her mind halfway up a beehive' hair endearingly out of control, her eyes and voice on maximum smolder. These are actors very good at that close talking seduction stuff; they're like a pair of cats in a staring contest who stop looking at each other only to silently clock a clueless nearby squirrel, i.e. their target, his back to them at the bar. Keeping their conversation golf tournament quiet, except in the most innocuous and slick cocktail bar manner, he calmly rolls a cigarette but is really loading up his discreet blowgun with a posion pellet, looking for all the world like he's just rolling a spitball, or some other cocktail bar napkin futzign spitball dugout, nailing him 

But there's another cool couple, the INTERPOL agents, Nora (Alma Delias Fuentes) and Mateos (José Gálvez) they're at another table at the bar, never even noticing when the dart hits the back of his neck. Neither side knowing who each other are yet, but they are, it's genius, two wild cool and capable couples begin to wind their way towards each other, inexorably. 

So that makes three capable women characters, when you factor in the connect, which is Arrozamena's secretary, taping his diabolical conversations, making a clay impression of the key to his secret lab,  and make tapes for INTERPOL. He seems to be a good and balanced boss, never being grabby or overbearing."I've always treated you with the respect due an employee," he declares at the climax, almost hurt at the reveal, probably the closest he comes to a dismayed register. And we believe it. Even his zombies seem to like him when he gives them their salt tablets once the jig is up - as if to say, thanks boys, for your fine work, we'll see each other soon, if King Devil allows. 

I mean you could say on the one hand here is a Jess Franco/fumetti neri-style horror/master thief caper, cheap and disposable, but on the other hand Franco never dealt in absolute archetypal iconography (he's astonishingly irreligious, a true Sadean). Dr, Arrozamena does though; he doesn't have to sacrifice people or a chant or anything-- he just gives a few unholy hand gestures and viola.. 

Putting it over the top into perfect Erich heavy rotation, the "music" score at times wanders close to the Ed Wood library score rotation, and times like the Beebe's Forbidden Planet tonalities dredged through a flanger and a wet sponge--and I hope you don't have to be told that's a very good thing. At time it's almost on the level of the fusion of slowed-down strings and Mancini stings in Hellish Spiders --my other big 'find' of 2024. But you'll hear about that in the next installment. 

You'd think it would be the opposite but the usual sexism we get in films from Europe and North America is totally absent in these peliculas fantasticas. I know and love at least three movies where, when the monster breaks in on them in the dead of night, the endangered lady whips a gun out of her night table and start blasting. Most times in these scenes the woman needs a man to rescue him because killing is unladylike and if unless she's a Russian spy, if she does kill a person has to cry and moan and act traumatized. But not these flacas fuertes --just the gun scares them off but she still shoots after them, blat blat blat. in the back, or after they're already backing away, and more than one shot, often. The bullets may have little effect because there targets are spider aliens, or vampires, or zombies. It doesn't matter - it's the capability, the fury and quick action, that makes Mexican women, if I can sweeping generalization, so frickin' badass. 

DR. SATAN VS. BLACK MAGIC 

(Dr. Satán y la magia negra)

(1968) Dir. Rogelio A. González

When one is at their top of their game like our Dr. Satan was before he got nabbed at the end of the last film, well, there's nowhere to go but down, quite literally in his case. When we last saw the doctor he had disappeared, if that makes sense. This is filmed only two years later, but it's in color, with a kind of 'owning' it cheap Batman TV show mise en scene, and our Cordero just doesn't quite look the same, a little bloated and ragged from taking a long nap on a comfy rock in his own wing of hell (or is it just his man cave, quite literally, in his case). Now it's time for King Devil to ask -him for favors. Sleeping on his spacetious slab, he first lazily tries to weasel out of it. Arrozamena, what happened to you, man? 

What's even weirder is that King Devil needs him to go up there to the land of the living and kill an evil Asian vampire named Yei Lin (Noé Murayama) with a criminal outfit and genius connivances to rival the doctor himself and planning to steal a formula that can turn any metal into gold, thus working even better than Arrozamena's counterfeiting in the last film. If Yei Lin gets a hold of that process, it's implied, he will out-devil the King Devil, so our Dr. S better work. That's a bit confusing- you would think any evil is good even as far as the King Devil is concerned. Think again. King Devil wants that formula for himself. Say whaaa!? Is hell short of funds? I mean, it's great if that's the reason. Hail, King Devil!

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For this mission, Arrozamena magically gets his lair back up on the surface and takes as his zombie slaves a pair of cute women who he finds via a want-ad, then hypnotizing them into his power. Though they seem zombified, they're just as capable as the men if not more so, able to sneak around and spy on the other side with ease, and easily survive knives thrown into their backs. They wear complimentary comic book colors, will make any weird film fan think they may have wandered into a Jess Franco spy movie (it's better) and the nights glow deep blue or olive green over flat shades of light blue (no checkered socks), and everything kind of beams with that flat TV lighting, comic strip framing. It's so chill it almost seems like it could be the pilot to a Dr. Satan TV show and man, what a wonderful world it would be with such a series in it.  

Naturally it's not at the level of the first film, suffering from a kind of flat TV budget, but there's a lot to love especially if, like me as a small child watching Speed Racer, you've always rooted for the bad guys, hoping they'd win just this once. Here they do, more or less. Once again we kind of like all the characters on both sides, even if they kill each other a lot; the arch enemies are each loyal to their women, not pervy etc. We root for Satan just because he's the home team but Yei Lin, is cool, nice to his girlfriend crime partner (though she shoots a cop in the back before sitting down to finish her tea) but stern with his henchmen (he blames them when the formula they stole doesn't work). Our doctor would never do that. He's such a good boss even if he programmed normal girls into becoming automaton zombie killers, it's not in a pervy way, and when it's time for the old salt tablet farewell, they seem legitimately sad to be breaking up the team or at least as sad as a zombie can be. "Maybe we will meet again, if King Devil allows it," says Arrozamena. Even when the girls use crosses to subdue the vampire, they hold them inverted, yet it still works. And thus doth evil conquer evil in the name of evil. For some of us weary sinner cineaste's souls, grown so tired of bland heroism and knee-jerk Christian backtracking always bringing everything to a fiery halt just when it's getting good, just so the heteronormative couple can escape to propigate their irritating lack of evil.

I'm also a sucker for when the good guys are just slightly less bad guys, and I hate the years of censorship programming that made movies like these so unique and forbidden for American audiences. It wasn't until 1994, year of Pulp Fiction and Last Seduction, that the old moralistic bad faith resolutions finally blew up, never to be seen again. No more needing to drive off a cliff to atone for thy crimes, Thelma! But with Dr. Satan we learn Mexico was 28 years ahead of us. Viva el' Diablo Rey!