Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Ricardo Daly The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Scarecrow-88 When a colleague of his unearths the coffin of a vampire, Dr. Enrique Saldívar(Abel Salazar)finds his life turned upside down as the one who helped bring the corpse(..with the stake still plunged into his heart), a criminal fiend, Baraza(a brutish Yerye Beirute;perhaps not used as much as he should have been)desires for the amulet around Count Karol de Duvall's(Germán Robles)neck. In getting to the amulet, Baraza has to remove the stake lunged in the Count's heart and when he does, the vampire has free access to once again bite the necks of females for blood. As obvious in these films, the Count will command(by using the amulet, a hypnotic device he uses to control his victims)Baraza to do his bidding..especially as a watchman when he sleeps during the day. Duvall sets his sights on theater actress Marta González(Ariadna Welter), Saldívar's love-interest, desiring to make her his vampire bride. María Teresa(Alicia Montoya)knows all too well what Duvall is capable of as she's been guardian over his tomb for some time and had tried to stop Saldívar's colleague(a doctor wishing to study the cellular structure of a vampire as part of researching diseases of the blood)and Baraza from removing his coffin from it's place of rest. When Baraza and Duvall flee from the Pasteur medical clinic where the coffin was taken(..not before Duvall casts a spell on Marta and almost chomps down on a little girl's neck), Saldívar will have to somehow protect Marta against a predator he's ill-prepared for. We see that María and Saldívar's colleague face a horrifying fate when they seek to find the vampire and his coffin..in a wax museum featuring "devices of death" where in the basement both can be found. It all comes to head when the Count and his henchmen seek to kidnap Marta during a stage production as Saldívar must follow them into their wax museum lair for the ultimate stand-off.Although the flick suffers from some embarrassing bat sequences where you can clearly see the strings controlling it, this is quite an entertaining modern Gothic vampire tale. It's your typical Mexican horror flick incorporating borrowed elements, such as the wax museum which I thought was a marvelous hiding spot for the vampire, but takes some interesting liberties such as having the Count disappear and reappear often tricking those who both know and not know he's in the building(..or room)with them. The amulet around the Count's neck is a major device he uses to control people where oftentimes a vampire can merely focus his eyes on the victim. There's an inspired sequence where an unfortunate victim finds her way into an iron maiden in the wax museum as she is trying to hide from Baraza. The one problem, besides the bat's visible strings, is the fact that Count Duvall is too much of a pushover against Saldívar. He's able to fight him a bit too easily while struggling mightily against Baraza. The chief plus of the picture is the Gothic atmosphere and lighting in a modern setting. There's a great scene where the Count opens his cape as the shadow nearly engulfs the whole picture as he pursues a victim into an alley-way. The Count's demise at the end is kind of neat and different than in a lot of vampire flicks in that he's actually in bat form when suffering a grim fate.

insomniac_rod I have to be honest, I was very disappointed with "El Ataùd del Vampiro". Not even the great Germàn Robles; who is an excellent actor in movies and theater (I've seen him in his brilliant performance in "The Woman In Black"); but sadly, he can't save this movie by himself.The movie lacks the greatness of the "El Vampiro" in all aspects. The atmosphere is no longer creepy, the acting is quite silly and naive. The performances are cartoonish; of course, except for Robles.The effects are truly horrendous although I understand the minimal budget at the time for Mexican classic Horror.Overall, this is an over the top Vampire flick that displays what was going on with Mexican Horror classic cinema: Kitschy dialogs, cheesy settings and situations, and a cartoonish atmosphere that is nowhere as creepy as the original.The grave robbers plot was quite interesting but it lost credibility when they found the Vampire. Robles characterization wasn't that good.Still, the best thing is the cinematography; specially when Mr. Robles comes in fully disguise.Give this movie a try ONLY if you liked the original "El Vampiro" which is a creepy and beautifully done Horror movie. Among the best ones from the time. This sequel will let you expecting more but sadly, you won't get more than just the typical Horror/Comedy from Mèxico.

Coventry Imagine yourself trapped inside a museum of the dark middle Ages and a resurrected vampire and his maniacal sidekick are chasing you. Where is the absolute last place you want to hide? I'd say inside the uncanny Virgin of Nuremberg torture device, because there's a good risk you'll get brutally spiked to death. And yet, the elderly lady in this film stupidly runs into her spiked coffin. "The Vampire's Coffin" is a rather disappointing sequel, as director Fernando Méndez doesn't re-create the Gothic atmosphere of the 1957-original but puts the emphasis on comical situations and dialogs. No more ominous castles with eerie cobwebs and dark vaults, but confused doctors and clumsy assistants that provoke laughs instead of frights. The story opens inside Count de Lavud's final resting place, where an eminent doctor and a hired assistant steal the coffin in order to examine the corpse at a private clinic. Naturally the wooden stake gets removed from his heart, and the vampire count comes to live again, immediately enslaving the petty thief to do his dirty work. The vampire has his eye on a beautiful female patient at the clinic, and it's up to Dr. Enrique Saldívar to rescue her soul and to destroy the bloodsucker. "The Vampire's Coffin" uses a limited amount of locations and there's very little action. The whole film would actually be pretty boring if it weren't for a handful of memorable sequences and decent acting performances. The photography is amazing, though, with the sublime use of shadows and darkness. This is most notably during the scene in which Count de Lavud stalks a young woman through the deserted streets of little town at night. It's the only truly worthwhile scene of the whole film, the rest is fairly mediocre and déjà-vu.

Thomas_J_McKeon EL Ataúd del Vampiro(1958), The Vampire's Coffin, is not a fitting sequel to El Vampiro,both featuring German Robles as aristocratic vampire Count Lavud. This sequel seems like a quickie followup. Most of the film is filmed inside modern buildings or building sets. It lacks the beautiful foreboding night fog scenes of the former. However, when I first wrote this review I had only seen the K. Gordon Murray dubbed version. I expressed thoughts that the Spanish version might be better. I have now seen the Casa Negra restored version in which the beautiful photography and music are quite apparent. The restored version DVD has both Spanish with and without English subtitles as well as the inferior K. Gordon Murray dubbed English version.German Robles's acting is fine; he is quite the natty-charming-aristocratic-menacing-sensual vampire seeking Martha (Ariadna Welter) from the first movie. There is also an interesting scene in which he picks up a woman in a bar. He returns to this life?? thanks to a thief who becomes an assistant and acquires that status while attempting to steal the Count's large pendant and in the process pulling out the stake and thus bringing the Vampire back from the nether place to which he had been consigned in El Vampiro. The Count does not punish him but acknowledges his appreciation and makes him his assistant. (This is somewhat a precursor to Leo (Manver) the beguiling, willing hunchback assistant in the later Nostradamus films). The Spanish restored Casa Negra version is part of a two DVD set with El Vampiro in both Spanish with and without English subtitles and dubbed English. The movie does now stand on its own and is worth seeing IN Spanish with or without English subtitles. I would now give it a 7.5 or 8 rating for its genre. IMDb will not allow any modification of my review of El Vampiro so I am unable to mention the quality of the Casa Negra restored version of El Vampiro; it is outstanding. I would add to my earlier review of that film that the photographic and sound quality are magnificent in the Casa Negra restored DVD. Thomas J McKeon Indianapolis