Wednesday

In last night's after-midnight movie, El Venganza de la Momia, (the Mummy's Vengeance, 1971),* Mexican authorities have possibly uncovered the lost tomb of Opache king Nonoc deep in the forests of Nicaragua. At least I think so. The professor gathering the expedition gestures grandly at a map with no political borders: "it is here," he says. But first, there's a little matter of the two Italian warriors who are after our hero. They won't stop until pinned to the mat (best two out of three wins). The man to do it: El Santo! Since there are two Italians, Santo is saddled with a rookie that almost loses the match for him. Luckily, near the end of his endurance, Santo finds himself executing bone-shuddering double spinning headscissors on the Italians, and that's that. Later, Santo agrees to accompany the professor's expedition to the lost tomb as security guard. Soon a fourteen-strong safari is winding through the jungle, hiring guides in a secluded village, and making camp outside the lost tomb. This progression is rife with walking, but occasionally danger punctuates: Santo must wrestle a jaguar attacking the group; he defeats the giant black cat with a modified full nelson. Almost immediately, they stumble across the hidden tomb ("I think we are in the center of the mountain now," says Santo. "Let's break through this wall."), where they find the mummified remains of Price Nonoc and a number of ancient scrolls that translate into a warning: disturb the tomb of the wrongly-sacrificed mummy prince and perish by means of a spooky curse. Apparently, ancient Opaches were not too concerned with intellectual property rights. The rest plays out like normal: scientists are all very skeptical until a 2000-year-old mummy shoots them full of arrows, but by then it is too late. [Cavin]