RG
Roberto Giacomelli
•The population of Acapulco is shocked by a series of brutal murders whose victims are left in the sea and deprived of the pineal gland. The police decide to turn to Gloria, a beautiful lucha libre wrestler who fights crime behind the mask of Batwoman. The clues lead the superheroine to the yacht of Dr. Williams, a mad scientist who would like to bring to life a race of fish men.
But how beautiful was the ingenuously goliardic cinema of René Cardona! A life dedicated to entertainment cinema with almost 150 films spanning various genres, with a certain predilection for horror, sci-fi, and adventure.
With "Batwoman – The Invincible Superwoman," the Cuban director brings to life one of his most famous cults, a film so picturesque and absurd that it is absolutely irresistible.
First of all, it must be clarified that, despite the title, this film has nothing to do with the DC Comics heroine. As you know, Batwoman was originally a secondary character in the Batman comics, named Kathy Kane, Bruce Wayne's girlfriend, and from time to time, equipped with a mask and costume, she assisted the bat-man in the fight against crime in the comics of the 1950s. For René Cardona, however, Batwoman is a lucha libre wrestler, Mexican wrestling, who in her free time collaborates with the police to solve incredible criminal cases. Dressed only in a blue bikini, Batman-style mask, and cape of the same color, Batwoman is a sort of Santo in the feminine, played by a sexy Maura Monti ("48 Hours to Not Die"; "Alien Terror"), practically perfect in the role of the killer heroine.
"Batwoman – The Invincible Superwoman" must be taken with caution, however. It is, in fact, a film so "sleazy" that it requires a certain predisposition on the part of the viewer. Cardona throws into the cauldron so many disparate ingredients to cook a meatball that entertains – and not a little – if you are looking for an extremely carefree viewing. In "Batwoman" lives the horror, represented by the mad plans of the mad doctor by day, a disfigured Roberto Canedo, who from his yacht with the very discreet name of Reptilicus, wants to bring to life a race of incredible fish men led by the prototype Itticus (probably inspired, in look, by "The Monsters of the Sunk City" with a touch of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon"). But in "Batwoman" also lives the spy story and the police procedural, not to mention a successful dose of action that reaches the highest levels in the underwater fight scenes, very well directed. Obviously, any medical-scientific relevance is to be considered a joke with the delusions about the pineal gland and the attempts to shrink human guinea pigs... but it is also in these ridiculous details that lies the beauty of a film like this.
Absolutely to be recovered for fans of certain "camp" cinema.
If you are wondering, Cardona got away with it completely smoothly by using a famous copyrighted character, unlike Jack Warren, who only two years earlier ran into legal troubles with DC Comics for "The Wild Wild World of Batwoman."
In DVD Mosaico Video.