THE INCREDIBLE PROFESSOR ZOVEK (1972), INVASION OF THE DEAD (1973)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor?,* (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical*

When I started watching a subtitled copy of INVASION OF THE DEAD-- whose title is prefaced by the familiar name of the heroic wrestler Blue Demon and the unfamiliar name of a "Zovek"-- I assumed that the latter was just one of many cinematic luchadores of whom I'd not heard. Instead, I learned that the actor billed as "Professor Zovek" was a real-life Mexican celebrity, a combination "mentalist/athlete/escape artist" who was popular in Mexico until his death in 1972, and whose career is summarized here. After finishing INVASION I looked for and found an untranslated copy of the performer's only other film. Both films were directed by Rene Cardona, one of the leading lights of Mexican horror/SF/superhero cinema.

I rate ZOVEK "poor?" in mythicity mostly as a placeholder, since I can't really judge a movie without knowing what the characters are saying. In every way the performer's first film looks like a typical Mexican translation of an American serial, with some larger-than-life hero charging in to vanquish an insidious mad scientist. 

A plane explodes, killing over twenty scientists, and the government suspects foul play, possibly committed by rogue scientist Doctor Druso. They send for Professor Zovek, who apparently doubles as a government agent when he's not performing escapes in his nightclub act. After some set-up to establish Zovek's incredible abilities-- he's seen hypnotizing some hot chick who I don't think ever appears again-- he heads out to the Mexican countryside, looking for Druso's lair. Druso has already kidnapped Zovek's comic sidekick (popular Mexican comedian Tin Tan) and the hero's new hot blonde girlfriend (Tere Velasquez, sister of the more well known Lorena Velasquez). 

Frankly, I forget the entire middle of the film, but there's a long, long slam-bang fight as Zovek penetrates Druso's lair, for the mad scientist has created a small army of freakish humanoids for some damn reason. Zovek gets a lot of martial-arts action against the freaks and the guards, and even the hot blonde gets some karate-action as well. It seems pretty incoherent, but then, I doubt Cardona wanted to do anything but sell the performer Zovek as a hard-hitting superhero.

INVASION OF THE DEAD is a different, weirder animal. I've no specifics about its production, but since so much of the action again takes place in the Mexican countryside, it seems likely that Cardona almost immediately started a new Zovek opus, possibly on some of the same locations. The original work, according to some reports, may not have originally included the well known luchador Blue Demon.

In 1973 only diehard fans of sci-fi movies knew anything about Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE; the book that bestowed fame on both the late filmmaker and his film would not be published for another five years. One account claims that Cardona used some clips from PLAN 9 in a Blue Demon film, HELL SPIDERS, but I've not verified that yet. Some reviews peg INVASION as a "remake" of PLAN 9, which it certainly is not. At most Cardona may have decided that he liked the basic idea of an alien force reanimating dead people, because it would be easy to film a lot of ragged zombies stalking around the countryside.

Before any zombies rise, archaeologist Professor Volpi and his hot daughter Erika (Christa Linder) call Professor Zovek to the countryside to consult on some weird archaeological cave-drawings that seem to prophesize a major calamity. Around the same time a fireball strikes the earth, and leaves behind a black metal spheroid. In no time the dead are springing from their graves, making one wonder why there are so many burials far from civilization. The zombies attack anyone they meet and create new zombies when they kill people. The zombies atypically retain some human knowledge of skills like driving cars, but unlike the animated corpses from PLAN, they aren't being used to accomplish any particular game-plan.

As for Blue Demon, he never meets Zovek at all despite the poster above, though there's a scene in which the wrestler supposedly talks to the mentalist over the phone. The Demon largely contributes talking-head scenes with his comedy-relief sidekick about previous alien visitations to Earth, and he has one big scene fighting zombies and a couple of unexplained werewolves, possibly left over from the previous Zovek movie. The sidekick actually gets a better scene, pretending to act like a zombie to avoid being mauled by a gang of the critters.

Zovek, though, is the one who gets the most zombie-fighting action, and this includes keeping a zombified Professor Volpi from strangling sexy daughter Erika. Zovek alone saves humanity by destroying the alien spheroid.

In a contrast to Bela Lugosi's passing before PLAN 9 even started filming, Zovek apparently completed all of his scenes-- including a long speech about how the catastrophe may occur again and again-- before he performed an aerial stunt in Japan and was tragically killed. Possibly Cardona meant to film additional scenes to bulk up the movie's run-time, but ended up doing them with Blue Demon instead.

INVASION is a cheap production. But it wouldn't have cost Cardona much to film a few scenes of alien plotters in gold lame suits discussing their plans, so I think he made a conscious choice to avoid Ed Wood's stilted expository scenes, desiring a sense of mystery about the aliens' nature. Portentous though Zovek's final speech is, it's the only part of the film-- aside from the antics of the comical sidekick-- that works pretty well. To be sure, Christa Linder-- an unusual German face in a Mexican flick-- provides ample pleasures every time she's on screen, but Cardona can hardly take credit for her biological gifts.

Both films are the sort of lively junk on which Cardona built his career, so they're certainly better than a lot of dull Mexican fodder. As an actor Zovek is a little too hyperactive to project any charm or gravitas, but his onscreen fight-scenes have their moments, and had he not made these movies, I suspect almost no one today would remember his faded fame.