''El Castillo de los monstruos'' (Spanish for 'The castle of the monsters') is a 1958 Mexican

horror comedy Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and sp ...

directed by

Julián Soler Julián Soler (born Julián Díaz Pavia; 17 February 1907 – 5 May 1977) was a Mexican film director, actor, and screenwriter of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. In his career spanning half a century, Soler received two Ariel Award nominations ...

.Silver ''The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Interview with the Vampire'' 1997

Plot

Mexican funnyman, El

Clavillazo José Antonio Hipólito Espino Mora (13 August 1910 – 24 November 1993), better known as ''Clavillazo'' (Great Little Nail) was a Mexican comedic actor who was mostly popular during the 1940s to the 1960s. History His catchphrases were "''"¡P ...

(Antonio Espino), is in love with a seamstress named Beatriz (Evangelina Elizondo) and also hangs out with a variety of odd characters, including a newsboy and a mental patient. Meanwhile, a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

named Dr. Sputnik and his scarred, hunchbacked assistant are busy making monsters at the nearby castle. The doctor poses as a kindly blind man in town and uses hypnosis to lure Beatriz to his castle, brainwashing her into believing that she is his own love named Galatea. El Clavillazo, with an assist from his friends, blunders his way into the castle, where he spends most of his time being chased around by various monsters. There is the butler, who looks like the

Frankenstein Monster Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compare ...

. The other monsters include a

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or ...

, a

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

, a

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

(clearly modeled after

Count Dracula Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by som ...

), and a

gill-man The Gill-man—commonly called the Creature—is the main antagonist of the 1954 in film, 1954 black-and-white science fiction film ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' and its two sequels ''Revenge of the Creature'' (1955) and ''The Creature Wal ...

(clearly patterned after

Creature from the Black Lagoon ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm. It stars ...

). There is also another unidentified monster being kept in a cell (why it is not allowed to run free with the rest is unknown), referred to as a “gorilla” in some reviews. However, it appears to be more of a humanoid ape-like creature, perhaps based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the end, El Clavillazo manages to defeat the monsters, mostly by luck, and rescue the girl. A chemical in Sputnik’s lab devolves the gill-man into a big fish, the werewolf is choked out by the monster in the cell (perhaps that is why he was kept behind bars), Frankenstein accidentally electrocutes himself by grabbing a power cable in the lab and turns into cogs and clock-parts, the mummy falls into a pit of alligators and is devoured, and the vampire vanishes when the sun rises. Dr. Sputnik has the usual falling out that all mad scientists seem to eventually have with their deformed assistants (usually due to the scientist mistreating his assistant, or the assistant developing a crush on a girl the scientist has designs on, or sometimes a combination of both), resulting in his being shot after he stabs the scarred hunchback. Clavillazo and Beatriz are trapped in a room and about to be crushed by the walls moving together when they are rescued in the nick of time by the rest of the gang, and they all live happily ever after.

Cast

* Antonio "Clavillazo" Espino as Clavillazo *

Evangelina Elizondo Gloria Evangelina Elizondo López-Llera (28 April 1929 – 2 October 2017) was a Mexican actress and singer from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. She starred in movies, television and theater. She was an accomplished artist having studied at t ...

as Beatriz *

Carlos Orellana Carlos Orellana Martínez (28 December 1900 in Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo – 24 January 1960 in Mexico City) was a Mexican actor, film director and screenwriter. Filmography As actor *1932: ''Santa (1932 film), Santa'' - Hipólito *1933: ...

as Don Melchor *

Guillermo Orea Guillermo () is the Spanish form of the male given name William. The name is also commonly shortened to 'Guille' or, in Latin America, to nickname 'Memo'. People *Guillermo Amor (born 1967), Spanish football manager and former player *Guillermo Ar� ...

as El Cojo *

Germán Robles Germán Horacio Robles San Agustín (March 20, 1929 – November 21, 2015) was a Spanish actor who came to Mexico when he was 17, after Spain's civil war. In Mexican cinema, he is best known for his amazing characterization of vampires in many c ...

as El Vampiro * José Muñoz (as Jose Muñoz Wilhelmy) * Jose Moreno Camacho * Alejandro Reyna as Licenciado (as Alejandro Reyna Garcia) * Leopoldo Pineda (as Leopoldo Pineda Magaña) * Fernando Shewan

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castle of the Monsters, The 1958 films 1958 horror films Mummy films Frankenstein films Mexican vampire films Mexican comedy horror films Mexican werewolf films Mexican black-and-white films Mexican science fiction films 1950s comedy horror films 1958 comedy films Films set in castles 1950s Mexican films