DVD Review: Curse of the Mayans is a Serviceable Sci-Fi Adventure

March 31, 2018

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Dr. Alan Green (Steve Wilcox…who looks alarmingly like Ridley Scott) discovers a manuscript that he believes holds the key to solving the disappearance of the Mayans centuries before, which results in him hiring a team of spunky spelunkers headed by Danielle Nobel (Carla Ortiz…who thankfully looks nothing like Ridley Scott since she has a nude scene) to put that pesky parchment to the test! Well these folks bitch and moan and trek through the jungle for a long, long time before they arrive at an underwater tomb from which they unleash an evil from beyond the stars.
Kicking out the positive jams; this film is extremely well shot, and features some truly beautiful locations (yup, the film makers actually filmed in Mexico, at ancient Mayan ruins) that add an immeasurable amount of production value to Curse of the Mayans. Along with those vistas comes some solid acting, and a unique (if uneven) story…but the real show stopper is the cool alien suit designs; these things come across like extremely pissed and toothy Gillmen, and when they are the scene I was well and rightly pleased!
As for the negatives, if you don’t like a slow burn to your creature features you are in for a bumpy-ass ride with this one my fiends. A rather large chunk of the run time is devoted to the exploration team assembling, then travelling to the location where all of the alien action transpires (roughly forty five minutes out of an hour and twenty eight before sci-fi shenanigans even begin to ensue). But that aside, what really frosts my ass is the same thing that I actually loved about the film…the creatures…in particular what is on the front of the box as opposed to what you get in the film. Now, the monsters in the film were enjoyable as stated…but man, look at the dude on the poster for this flick…he’s clearly that “alien” mummy fetus thing found in Chile, but all growed up and itchin’ to rip mankind a new one…he’s glorious, and unless I blinked and missed him he isn’t in the damn movie! So yeah, it’s a negative with the ad department and not with the actual film, but it detracts from the experience and effects viewer expectation (the U.F.O. however shows up as pictured for roughly one P.H. of screen time).
So the film was decent enough, now lets take a deep dive into the extras contained on this DVD release…first up you get nothing followed closely by jack shit. Awesome. Seriously, this was a flick screaming for a “making of” at least based on the amazing locations alone!
Look, all bullshit aside, this was an entertaining enough affair; it had exotic locales, a solid story (and one that would really tickle the pickle of lovers of Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods), cool creatures…it’s worth a view as long as you can deal with an uneven (though not boring) pace and don’t fall too much in love with that ad art!
 

 

 

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