Locura de terror (1961) User Reviews

Naive but entertaining.

[insomniac_rod · 7/10 · 12 March 2006]

Those were the days when Mexican cinema could mix horror and comedy in a delightful manner. Starring the great and only "Tin-Tan" and "Loco Valdèz" (brothers in real life), this movie is filled with naive humor and cheesy lines.

The settings are actually pretty good! In a scene it's even spoofed the famous Frankenstein monster birth. Also, the lab is very well done! The black and white cinematography adds a special feeling to the movie; because it might be old, but it's entertaining. Don't expect horror or scary scenes, in fact, you should expect a family movie with funny scenes. Even that a cat is thrown into a liquid experiment and drowns. Even that scene is naive. Great f/x by the way! Specially when Tin-Tan runs in a skull outfit. Aww. The scene deserves it's credit.

Tin Tan and Loco steal the show with their comical performances. Give it a try if you appreciate Mèxico's golden era in cinema. This is the typical family movie with adventure situations and silly jokes.

Picking the meat off the bones might offer some reward...

[darkwebonlinedotcom · 6/10 · 24 February 2019]

Mexican comedian Germán 'Tin Tan' Valdés made dozens of horror and science fiction comedies from the 1940s until the 1970s. Many of them have the feel of the Abbott and Costello 'Meet the Monsters' series, but are much more wacky... and quite honestly less funny.

This one sees Tin Tan get himself deliberately checked into a mental hospital because his mother-in-law plans to move in with him and his wife (Verónica Loyo). He pretends to be Tarzan, and is cared for by Dr. Lucas (Manuel 'Loco Valdes' - Tin Tan's real-life brother) who is even more insane than any of the patients.

After 45 minutes of musical numbers and madcap tomfoolery, such as crawling on ceilings and climbing trees, we're eventually introduced to the horror part of the story, as mad old Dr. Ivanov (Andrés Soler) and his Dr. Cyclops look-a-like assistant, Dr. Jones (David Silva) steal the bodies of dead patients for experiments.

Dr. Ivanov has created a cell regeneration formula than re-grows flesh onto bones and even restores life. However, the face flesh mutates, causes his basement laboratory to fill with crusty-faced monsters. The experiment process is the highlight of the film - a body is stripped of its skin and muscle in a horrible, drawn-out sequence which includes the victim's eyeballs dropping out, until there is nothing but bones. Reversal of this process creates the monsters, who make useful servants for the mad doctors.

Shortly after this, Tin Tan's little deceit backfires as, when playing Tarzan, he falls from a tree to his death. Naturally, his body is soon exhumed by the mad doctors and he is put into the regeneration machine - however, this time the doctors protect the head with a giant metal helmet. This brings Tin Tan back to life with his head in tack, but with a skeletal body!

Tin-Tan's boney body is soon covered up by a mack and boots, but there's still comedy to be had with his skeletal hands. The mad doctors decide they need children's brain for their experiments so kidnap a couple of kids off the street; then they go after Tin Tan's wife and Loco and his blonde nurse girlfriend (Sonia Furió), and it all leads to a battle in the cellar lab for the showdown, which also included an unconvincing tarantula.

The comedy is often excruciating, but the horror elements are imaginative and memorable, so check this out - but you can probably skip the first half of the film.

Horror insanity.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 5/10 · 14 October 2019]

Needing to finally do some long E-Mails I've been pushing back,I decided to go for a Horror flick which would hopefully would be swift. Finding the plot details I could find to make it sound like a easy going Horror-Comedy,I got set to locate the terror.

View on the film:

Loud enough to make those in the cheap seats go deaf, German 'Tin-Tan' Valdes gives a brash performance as Otero, whose physical comedy is handled by Tin-Tan in a bombastic fashion that literally goes up the walls, and never comes down to give the Horror element a needed shot of being scared.

Supported by invented low-fi effects melting layers of muscle down to the bony plans of a Mad Scientist, director Julian Soler & cinematographer Raul Martinez Solares attempt to make a answer to the Abbott and Costello 'Meet the Monsters' series stumbles, partly due to large parts of Tin-Tan's act (such as blacking up) now falling flat,but also because the horror of the Mad Scientist gets pushed right off the stage, leaving it burnt out,instead of offering insanity horror.