The opening title sequence is promising, providing us with a collection of clips from old Mexican wrestling matches as a wacky Mariachi tune overlaps them. Not a bad way to start a movie my friends, especially when your movie’s about, well, let’s get to that part, shall we? For starters, we have six victims people: Alfonse, Steve, Jacko, Daisy, Debbie and Dallas. If you’re wondering why our three ladies’ names all have that irritating “their names begin with the same letter” thing going on, it’s because these gals are about to be in an amateur porn! And by amateur, I mean so amateur that they’re getting paid with booze and a van trip to Caba San Lucas to bang Alfonse while Steve camcorders the results. As such, Daisy already cashed her “paycheck” and spends much of her time passed out or throwing up. I’m a little scared for the tramp too, cuz she’s giving Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan (and those meat curtains she calls a poon) a run for the self-starvation world cup and I don’t think she’s got much left to heave…

Debbie is one of those creepy “Linnea Quigley now” types whose body is all trim muscle and therefore has a frightening set of knockers that look like half-inflated flesh bags hanging off of a man’s pecs. Unsettling to say the least, but at least we don’t need to see her topless for very long. As for Dallas, she’s the “sassy tomboy one” who wishes everyone would stop looking at her as a pair of tits and an ass and start acknowledging that her father’s an auto mechanic, damn it! She’s seen an much time with engines as she has watching the back of her hand disappear between other women’s legs or around a guy’s junk, hence the proverb. As for the guys, Alfonse is the alpha male type who snorts testosterone (and coke), decks himself out in one of those retarded cowboy hats that city girls wear to the club scene for that “redneck trailer trash chic” look, shares his face with an alien symbiote he’s trying to pass off as facial hair, and wishes he could be the next Scorsese, though his direction never quite gets beyond “you girls make out while this fay guy videotapes you making out” and the creative extent of his writing is, “Hey girls, I’m the plumber and I'm here to fix your pipes”. Steve is the resident fat cameraman who’s expected to know his way around the Bumblefuck parts of Mexico seeing as how he’s Mexican (despite being born and raised in Seattle…), has a passion for lucha libre (Mexican masked wrestling), hasn’t seen his dick in years and hopes that by growing his hair long chicks will mistake him for Jorge Garcia on “Lost”. Jacko, well, Jacko’s just there because it’s his van and he was too stoned to say no when being asked if Alfonse could use it… he’s Shaggy-Lite (Scooby-Doo Shaggy, not “my name is Mr. Ro-ro-romantic” Shaggy) and we don’t have to put up with him for too long, so don’t worry.

The six are on their way to Mexico to shoot a porno (don’t know why, unless they plan on digging up a donkey and giving their movie that “international flavor”) and get lost along the way. Alfonse makes the genius move of throwing away their map after they realize they’re lost, so the crew stop at the last last last rest stop before absolute fucking nowhere to get directions. The shithole’s owner (cult fav Irwin Keyes credited as “The Stranger”) directs them down their deserted road path to a ghost town called La Sangre de Dios (“the Blood of Christ/God”). As with any ghost town there’s a spooky local legend to go along with it, hence the whole point of our story.

In the 1960s, the president of Mexico (Adolfo López Mateos, whom the writers didn’t want to bother looking up, but whose name I did in the interest of that “full disclosure” stuff) was hellbent on taking home wrestling gold in the 1964 Olympics and spit in the face of the unbeatable Russians… well, when you’ve got a guy calling himself "The Red Cyclone" representing your homeland, how can you lose?! Anyway, as such, it’s said el presidente kidnapped three of his country’s greatest luchadores and had his scientists pull a Tijuana Frankenstein, combining the best parts of the trio into an unstoppable steel cage match caliber masked whirlwind of tights and terror! This all went to shit though when the beast, named “El Mascarado”, apparently gouged out the eyes of his opponent in the Olympic try-outs. The man-beast was carted away to the sleepy little burg of God’s Blood and the scientists tried to get him under control, but no one ever heard from him (or the townspeople for that matter) ever again. You can pretty fill in the blanks for the rest of the story, as a dirt road that had nothing on it but dirt and road for a hundred miles suddenly pops out a big egg-shaped rock that fucks up the van just outside of God’s Blood and the shoot locale for this much vaunted porno gets an emergency transplant… and I say “emergency” because Daisy might sober up before too long and there’s probably no booze left to “loosen her up” a second time. Before I end this paragraph though, I’d like to point out that, though the rock likely fucks up something underneath the van that causes it to stop running, Dallas spends all of her time under the machine’s hood just grabbing tubes and pretending she knows what she’s doing, which somehow apparently fixes whatever the problem underneath was… is it my fault for trying to make sense, or am I just being a nitpicker?

El Mascarado starts picking off the kiddies one-by-one, with his trademark finishing maneuver not being a simple “stone cold stunner” or a “tombstone piledriver” or even one of those candy-ass little “peoples’ elbow” things, but a backbreaker that lives up to it’s name, followed by a full on face tugging finisher that leaves his victims with no future need for pimple creams… but at least he’s kind enough to leave their nose, lips and eyelids intact… *sigh*. Anyway, Steve gets the great idea that the monster’s weakness lies in removing his mask, but can a stoner, a moron, a fatso and three tramps hope to beat up a 60+ year old Mexican wrestler whose ghost town stomping grounds are mysteriously well fed with electricity for being practically uninhabited for nearly 40 years, or will there be six new additions to the trophy wall of the king of Hell’s squared-circle? And furthermore, what’s stopped El Mascarado from leaving town and seeking victims elsewhere? And what the fuck has he been using for nourishment if everybody else is dead?! What are you looking at me for? Go find out!

There’s a lot of stuff at work here that just seem like nobody knows what they’re doing. The acting is decidedly bad (I know it’s direct-to-DVD, but still!), there’s nothing interesting going on with the direction, and the writer should have his credit revoked since his dialogue has been artificially bloated with way too many “fuck”s and “dude”s for my auditory nerves to sit through without getting bored, irritated or both. On the plus side though, the movie sticks with traditional gore and makeup effects, ignoring the popular budget saving shit tactic of making all their blood digital. Yes my little gore whores, it’s all real here… or as real as you’re going to get without actually tapping a vain or scalping somebody’s face. The violence in a few of the scenes are cringe worthy (a good part of Alfonse’s much deserved attack scene is both painful and satisfying to watch) and pulled off well enough. Additionally, I have to admit that the base concept is an interesting one and that the pacing is surprisingly well done, so even if you can’t get behind the flick, at least it doesn’t seem to drag on. It’s kinda refreshing and reminds me of the good old days of direct-to-video horror before digital imaging equipment and DVD productions costs became so cheap that the weird kid down the block could get his own “independent horror” bullshit onto store shelves. This is the kind of movie that Charles Band should be putting out, not the bargain basement “I wish I was Jurassic Park instead of Carnosaur” loaves he’s been pinching for the last 10 years. Overall it’s a fun little movie that, had they toned down the stupidity of the dialogue, tried to make the characters a tad less generic and maybe dug up some more competent actors and attractive actresses, could’ve worked out a bit better.

Two final tidbits for your movie geek trivia bank: the name “Vorhees” is painted on the side of one the town’s buildings and the wrestler playing El Mascarado is real life (ex?) luchadore Rey Misterio!... not the little guy in the WWE, but his uncle, Rey Misterio Senior. That’s for those of you who always wondered why that “Junior” title followed his name. Funny thing about Rey Sr. though, if you watch the credits you’ll notice that El Mascarado’s voice was dubbed over by another guy. This is funny because all the guy does is grunt, so somebody on this movie gets a credit for simply grunting into a microphone a few times… way to go grunt guy!