A rancher (Carlos Cardan), hunting down a mountain lion, comes across some strange paintings on a cliff side. He takes a picture of the paintings to Professor Bruno Volpi (Raul Ramirez) and his daughter Erika (Christa Linder). Not knowing what they represent Volpi contacts Zovek (Zovek) for help. With his sixth sense Zovek knows why they have come. Zovek agrees to help but he must see the paintings in person to determine what they mean.
Zovek, Volpi and Erika take a helicopter to the area where the paintings are. They then travel by foot. Zovek reads the symbols written on the cliff. He says that they look like Tibetan symbols he learned from the Dalai Lama. There are three elements present, earth, fire and water. The fourth, air, is missing. According to the Tibetan calendar this represents an imbalance and is a warning of something terrible to come.
In the meantime Blue Demon (Blue Demon) has been documenting UFO phenomena and trying to come up with natural explanations for them. A helicopter pilot reports seeing a strange object in the sky. Blue Demon chalks it up to a freak reflection in the sky. Later he hears about a dead body that has gone missing. It is the same area where two cops were found dead. Blue Demon speculates that body snatchers could be involved.
As these things are unfolding an object from outer space hurdles toward Earth. It hits the ground in flames. The object appears to be spherical. The sphere emits a gaseous cloud that overwhelms a nearby cemetery. The corpses in the cemetery begin to rise and move over the countryside. The zombies begin attacking and killing everyone they encounter. The newly dead themselves begin rising. It isn’t long before Zovek and Blue Demon find themselves battling zombies in a fight for their lives.
“Blue Demon and Zovek in Invasion of the Dead” AKA “Blue Demon y Zovek en La invasion de los muertos” AKA “Invasion of the Dead” was released in 1973 and was directed by Rene Cardona. It is a Mexican Superhero horror movie. The film has been compared to “Plan Nine from Outer Space” 1959 and “Night of the Living Dead” 1968 as far as plot is concerned. It’s sort of a combination of the two.
Zovek was a real person. His real name was Francisco Xavier Chapa del Bosque. I’d classify him as a Houdini style escapist, magician and all around entertainment personality. He did an act like you would see in Las Vegas with scantily dressed female assistants and lots of flair and showmanship. He was also proficient in Martial Arts and demonstrations of strength. Part of his act is in the film. He is trussed up in a straight jacket and chains, and put in a pink coffin-like box that is nailed shut. The box is then set on fire. Zovek bursts out of the coffin, rolls toward the audience and jumps to his feet. Ta da! Zovek died in March of 1972 in Cuautitlan, Mexico. He was only thirty-one.
If you’re looking to see a lot of Blue Demon, forget it. I’m not even sure why he’s in the film since his part is small and not necessary to the plot. He also has a comic relief sidekick played by Polo Ortin that is one of the most annoying people I’ve ever seen. It looks as if Blue Demon and his scenes are just filler. Even the zombies he fights look more like wolf men and vampires than zombies. It’s unclear if Zovek died before the movie was finished and then it was put on a shelf until someone came up with the idea of adding Blue Demon to pad the film but that is the general belief. All in all it’s a basically entertaining but silly movie with zombies. People get killed but no one gets eaten. These are choking zombies not chewing zombies.