Grave Robbers (1990)

Rubén Galindo Jr. could be one of the most underrated horror directors out there. He made tons of them, often with a lot of blood - and they are hardly mentioned in our respected horror community. Grave Robbers could be his best, or at least most entertaining slice of splatter-cinema. Made in 1990, it look and feels like something from the mid-eighties, which makes it even cooler.

A gang of young and hot grave robbers accidentally finds a secret tomb under the graveyard. It belongs to a famous... satanist... Maybe, at least he was an evil bastard who enjoyed sacrificing virgins to the devil. But now he's dead and buried with a large axe in this chest - a least until the grave robbers (Jorge, Manolo, Raul and so on) decided to steal his gold and grab the axe! Soon they have this axe-wielding zombie after them and it's gonna be a bloody awful night for everyone!

If you haven't seen Grave Robbers (the catcy original title is Ladrones de Tumbas!) you should know that this looks like a long episode of Tales from the Crypt, but with more blood. It's colorful, gory, cheesy, silly and Galindo's idea of scares is cobwebs, skeleton hands, graves, fog and a generous amount of (cheap) graphic gore. There's a lot of axe-cuts of course, a head crushing, stabbings, a belly-ripping (from the inside, by a demon hand!), some general stabbings and decapitations and more. They didn't want so much money on the gore, but it's bloody and fun and shouldn't disappoint anyone.

Grave Robbers is also so stupid that it's hard to dislike it. The characters react like they're from a different planet, and the haircuts and fashion is a different - tasteless - planet too! Sometimes it feels like watching a Mexican soap opera, but with a zombie and some stupid teens in the cast instead of some botoxed "actors" trying to survive another day, another episode of their only life support.

I think this movie is a blast, and almost to much fun for it's own good.