Is there anything scarier than a human head living on after decapitation? Probably, but today, we’re diving into 1963’s La Cabeza Viviente, or The Living Head.

Director Chano Urueta’s films frequently made their way north, with titles like El Baron del Terror (released as The Brainiac) and El Espejo de la Bruja (featured in horror host packages as The Witch’s Mirror). Urueta even appeared as an actor in films like The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

The story begins with archaeologists unearthing the Aztec tomb of Acatl, a warrior whose head was severed in battle. A flashback reveals the gruesome fate of the person responsible for Acatl’s death, who has their heart ripped out – say it with me, “Bali mangti Kali Maa” — in a ritual sacrifice. High priest Xiu and high priestess Xochiquetzal then do the sensible thing and entomb themselves with Acatl’s head.

However, treasure hunters disrupt this ancient resting place, opening the chamber to the air and causing the mummified bodies to crumble to dust. All that’s left behind is a gaudy costume jewelry ring adorned with an eyeball, which becomes the focal point of the subsequent terror. 

Is there a curse? Of course there is. Why would you steal from the Aztecs? You wouldn’t, and you’re someone reading an article about mummy movies, not an archeologist who went to school for years to learn your craft. I would think that someone would teach you not to break into the tomb of maniacs who tore out the hearts of their own people, but higher education is a strange place.

As for Mexico, it is fantastic, as writing team Federico Curiel and Adolfo Lopez Portillo are restrained here compared to The Brainiac; yet we’re still talking about a movie where a man’s head has been alive for four hundred years and can command a mummy to kill people.

Who can stop him? Professor Mueller (German Robles, playing the good guy instead of a vampire as usual), as well as his son-in-law Roberto (Mauricio Garces, who is the head) and daughter Marta (Ana Luisa Peluffo, one of the first Mexican actresses to appear nude on screen in her home country; The Force of Desire was a big deal as a result), probably. 

Mueller’s daughter Marta is the reincarnation of Xochiquetzal, because mummy movies are based around coincidence as much as predestination. Is she going to put on that glowing Ring of Death with an eyeball in the middle of it? Certainly. Is a mummy going to tear out the hearts of mortal men? Boy howdy, I hope!

I say that there is a mummy in this, but he’s not even wrapped up. That’s how good the Aztecs were. They could mummify you without the need for leaves or bandages. Plus: Their mummies can talk!

There have been too many questions already, but I ask: If you were a professor with a mummy head and an evil ring just sitting around your home, would you give that ring to your daughter to wear? These are the kind of decisions that people make in this film, somehow all dumber than a stiffly walking zombified Aztec mummy and a head that’s sitting on what appears to be a sponge cake.

But you’re not coming to a Mexican mummy movie for things that make sense. 

Throw in a dub by K. Gordon Murray, and you have even more reason to celebrate this film, as the booming voice of Paul Frees intones as the professor and loud music blares over everything as the words barely match the lips. I don’t say this as an insult. I prefer my movies dubbed.

Maybe the professor isn’t the hero we want him to be. He unleashes a giant spider on his own home and just walks away from it, like someone else will deal with that. And why isn’t he just donating this mummy, this head, this ring to a museum instead of inviting metaphysical dread into his abode? And when the police find the bloody knife of the mummy in his study, do they arrest him? Of course not. They have no idea who did it, and the whole time, the head is giggling at them. Even a four-hundred-year-old decapitated Aztec head realizes that horror movie cops are, at best, fools.

This movie wants to entertain you, despite its reliance on monologue. You get the exact same time travel montage from The Brainiac. You’ll thrill to Martha in a diaphanous white nightgown looking for all the world like an Italian Gothic Horror heroine except she’s carrying an Aztec warrior’s head on a tray. You’ll get grossed out by organs that get cut out of the bodies of scientists and show up right next to the head as bombastic music reminds us that Mexico might be Heaven, at least for horror geeks.

I like to imagine that when this played on late night horror host shows, people came home from night turn shifts at the steel mill, came into the middle of this movie and were stupefied by it. Such is its power. In my wildest dreams, I want Acati and Jan Compton from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die to have a meet-cute and have lots of little craniums. I think we can all admit that they deserve happiness.

Capt. Steve O’Bannon (D.B. Sweeney) is searching for a mysterious radiation linked to aliens and conspiracy, but he keeps blacking out. One of those times, he wrecks his John Denver-killing ultralight plane into a wedding shoot being conducted by Caroline (Danica McKellar). And then, global warming, conspiracy and aliens.

Yes, the dinosaurs of the past are now aliens, and they are warming up our planet with volcanoes so that they can come back. 

Also, back when he was a kid, young Stevie had his mind screwed with by these same aliens while watching cartoons.

Why did I watch this, besides Winnie Cooper? Because an alien jogs down the beach and hops onto a model, scratching her to death. The CGI is abysmal, just like I like it.

Director Andrew Prowse also did Driving Force, Demonstone and episodes of Farscape. Writer Richard Manning also wrote the movie  Tyrannosaurus Azteca and the TV series Farscape. And writer David Kemper produced…75 episodes of Farscape. As for that show, Francesca Buller, who is in the cast, played M’Lee, ro-Na, Raxil and War Minister Ahkna on the show.

Someone also throws up an alien.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Released as Toho’s 55th Anniversary Film in 1987, this movie is based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a 10th-century Japanese fairy tale about a girl who comes from the Moon and ends up as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. Directed by Kon Ichikawa, who wrote it with Shinya Hidaka, Mitsutoshi Ishigami and Ryûzô Kikushima, it begins with bamboo cutter Taketori-no-Miyatsuko (Toshiro Mifune) finding Kaya (Yasuko Sawaguchi) inside that tree. She looks like his recently deceased daughter — who died because the family had no money to pay for her care — so he takes her home just in time for her to quickly grow into an adult.

She’s beyond gorgeous, so every man wants her. She decides to put them through a series of trials to even get close to her. Two of the men are unworthy, and when the third tells her that he failed but is honest, she plans to marry him. Instead, she is called back to space. If this reminds you of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you won’t be alone. And hey, there’s a sea monster!

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Directed by John Landis, who wrote it with Mick Garris, this takes trailers of old Universal horror movies to explain why the horror genre is so amazing. While this played theaters for a limited run, I first saw it on video, back in the pre-internet days when finding movie trailers wasn’t as easy as it is now.

Jamie Lee Curtis’s scenes were filmed at Universal Studios locations like Dracula’s Castle, European Street and the Psycho House.

With clips from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy’s Hand, The Wolf Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Invisible Agent, The Mummy’s Tomb, Captive Wild Woman, Son of Dracula, Weird Woman, The Mummy’s Ghost, The Mummy’s Curse, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, This Island Earth, Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, The Mole People, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Deadly Mantis, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Psycho, Brides of Dracula, King Kong vs. Godzilla, The Birds and The Night Walker, this also shows a lot of E.T. and trailers for Jaws 3D, Halloween 3 and Videodrome, as well as See You Next Tuesday, an ongoing Landis joke.

While you can find any of these trailers easily today, this is a great time capsule.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Joe D’Amato and Rosella Drudi reteamed for this sequel in name only to Eleven Days Eleven Nights, even though the character of Sarah comes back. Now she’s played by Kristine Rose and has been married and separated and given the new job of the executor of the estate of Lionel Durrington (James Jackson), one of her past lovers and the richest man in Louisiana.

Guess what? This is actually the third film in the series because Sarah was the lead character in Top Model, which is also listed in plenty of places as Eleven Days, Eleven Nights 2. Look — it wouldn’t be Italian movies if it weren’t confusing.

There are four heirs and one after another, they all get with our heroine, who will determine which one is worthy of the money based on how good they are in bed, one supposes. Sonny is the only one with no interest in Sarah, even when she danced for him at a strip club, but that’s because his last girlfriend was abused in front of him by friend of the family Alfred, who is also trying to get the money.

Because Italian films really don’t care about how insane or twisted — actually, this is what they run toward, not from — things get, Sarah disguises herself as Sonny’s old lover and goes to the impotence institute and gets a rise out of him.

By the end, she realizes that no one deserves the money, so she comes up with a plan. She’ll write a book about the family and its secrets while they split the $500 million with a mystery person. They quickly sign and yeah, the mystery guy is the man who was supposed to be dead and we have a happy ending. We also have Laura Gemser in the blink and you’ll miss it role of Sarah’s jogging publisher and Ruth Collins from Lurkers, Doom Asylum and Prime Evil show up.

For a movie about people getting naked, D’Amato has plenty of women in sweaters show up. I’m all for this.

Also: This has also been listed as The Web of Desire and Eleven Days, Eleven Nights Part 4 because Italian movies are wonderful and confusing.

88 Films has released this in an incredible slipcase with art by Sean Longmore. It also has a booklet with notes by Calum Waddel and Rachael Nisbet. Inside, you’ll find a new 4K remaster from the original negatives, audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti, interviews with Mark Thompson Ashworth, Piero Montanari and  Pierpaolo De Sanctis, and Italian opening and closing titles. You can get this on 4K UHD or Blu-ray from MVD.