Hellish Spiders

At the onset of a film career that spanned some 20 years, Blue Demon (Alejandro Munoz) made several low budget films for producer Luis Enrique Vergara. El Santo had also worked for the Vergara, but he was already receiving better offers from other producers, so Vergara lured in both Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras, in order to continue making wrestling films. A number of these contained outright fantasy or fantasy elements in their plots.

In ARANAS INFERNALES (INFERNAL SPIDERS), Blue Demon is confronted by an invasion of seemingly humanoid aliens who turn out to actually be large spiders from space. After some suitable swatting he vanquishes the foe and Earth is once again (temporarily) safe.

Like Santo, the Demon later went on to bigger budgets and more ambitious productions -- possibly the best being the DIABOLICAL BRAINS (where he gained the power to teleport) and THE DIABOLICAL WOMEN, where he was confronted (not for the first time) by a murderous pseudo-Demon. Both entries introduced a brassy Blue Demon film and a few op art sets. VERY '60s.

A nice, "veg-out" sort of film with great advertising artwork. I collect lucha film art, and the lobby cards for this film feature the Demon struggling in a huge spider web, a mechanical hand rising from the ground to grip him, as an enormous spider approaches from the other aide of the picture. A spaceship rises, reasonably majestically, in the background.

I'm not a huge Mexican wrestler movie fan I've seen several Santo movies that were badly dubbed into English as well as titles that sported other wrestlers as leads. Most were over the top time killers that scored on the inventiveness scale if nothing else. Here the hero is the Blue Demon and he takes on evil spiders from space.

High on the cheese scale of "I don't believe what I'm seeing" this is movie that has a good beginning, good ending, and a middle with too much talk and wrestling. The plot has the spiders trying to take over the world while stopping the Blue Demon the only person who has caught on to their plan. The spiders both transform into humans, the wrestler with the spider hand is way cool, and hypnotize people into doing their bidding. The spiders also have a neat death ray that turn people to bones (The film It Came From Hollywood used the clip of the alien coming up out of the flying saucer and turning a dog into a skeleton as Dan Akroyd says "You throw a dog a bone not turn him into one). The film does have moments but not enough to suffer through the whole thing for. Ideally this is a movie to watch for 20 minutes then walk away from until the final 15 since that way you see the good stuff with out the bad.

5 out of 10 for some great psychotronic images. Fans of cheap sci-fi/horror films will enjoy, all others are on their own.

Mexican luchador (wrestler) movies are a very odd genre. Imagine...they feature one or more masked wrestlers battling the likes of aliens, Atlantians, monsters (including Frankenstein, Dracula, mummies, the Wolfman, witches and zombies) and megalomaniacs bent on world domination. In some ways, the films are like James Bond or superhero films...but far, far cheesier when it comes to plot, make-up and the extensive use of cheap rubber masks.

In "Hellish Spiders" ("Arañas Infernales"), Blue Demon battles aliens from planet Arácnea, who have come to Earth to bring back brains for their queen to consume. Apparently, she ate up all the brains from her own planet and nearby planets and that's why they've chosen ours. Can Blue Demon stop them or is he destined to be brainless like everyone else on Earth?

The film might have been better titled "Plan 9 from Arácnea", as the special effects are that bad....yes, Ed Wood Jr. bad. The UFOs look like pie plates and jiggle just like them. And, like "Plan 9" they also can shoot out beams to turn folks into skeletons! And, like "Plan 9" the writing and acting and direction are pretty bad...and also unintentionally funny. I checked and was not surprised to see that some of the film WAS lifted from "Plan 9" as well as another crap-tastic American film from the same era, "Teenagers From Outer Space". You know a film is bad when it steals from this caliber of movie!!

Overall, this is a terrible film. But like "Plan 9" there is a certain campy silliness that make it fun viewing. Terrible in just about every way...yet funny because it's so incredibly bad!

...well, not spiders from hell; these are spiders from outer space that transform into wrestlers and want to conquer earth and beat Blue Demon's ass.

This is one of those movies that you watch it only because of the cheese factor. The f/x are of course horrible but amusing; I guess it deserves a recognition for the effort.

I'm a fan of Blue Demon but his movies aren't the best let me tell you. Overall, this is Mystery Science Theater material so you know what to expect. It also demonstrates that Mexican sci-fi cinema at the time had to do with wrestlers; a successful combination that 40 years later worked better.

Was Blue Demon ahead of his time?.