Assembled by Something Weird Video back in its VHS heyday, the bottomless bowl of queso known as Mexican Monsters on the March is a compilation of 10 black-and-white schlock classics from Mexico heavily edited into featurettes. Basically, all the dull parts have been excised, leaving you, dear viewer, with what has to be the ultimate party tape to feature fake-looking monsters, sexy señoritas and lots of trilled Rs. Short of swimming naked in a room full of Takis Fuego, what could be more fun?

The 1958 Western The Rider of the Skulls stars a hooded hero dueling a wolfman, a batman and a headless horseman amid tumbleweed, while 1959’s The Return of the Monster features a fazed, Frankenstein-like creature kidnap a child, roar and find his head smoking, all while his creator (whose assistant is a talking skeleton) goes loco, prior to an assault by pitchfork.

From 1960, the space-themed The Ship of Monsters introduces us to the lovable “monstruos de las galaxias“: Uk, Utirr, Tagual, Tor and Zok — or, to lessen confusion, a cyclops, a belching alien, a robot, a hairy tarantula-man and a set of dinosaur bones. Together, they turn a woman into a vampire; she provides an incredible musical interlude; then one of the creatures get a slingshot to the eye.

Straight from 1965, Adventure at the Center of the Earth offers cardboard bats, rat-devouring gargoyles and other assorted cavern-based beasts, while ’62’s The Baron of Terror — better known as The Braniac, he of the forked tongue and pulsating cranium — administers a kiss of death to the bare necks of various lovelies.

Also abridged within are 1966’s Dr. Satán; comedian Tin-Tan’s 1961 melting-skeleton epic, Madness from Terror; the House of Wax-esque Museum of Horror, from 1964; the 1958 Zorro-like Scarlet Fox vehicle, Vengeance of the Hanged; and 1965’s self-explanatory She Wolf.

None of the condensed films are dubbed or subtitled, nor do they need to be, as the comp swings a purely visual punch. For the ultimate in old-school, south-of-the-border trash peliculas, settle down with an appropriately chintzy Patio dinner or two and revel in Mexican Monsters on the March. —Rod Lott

Get it at dvdrparty.

When her estranged brother vanishes while looking for life-extending pharmaceuticals in an abandoned mine in the Chinese desert, venomous animal expert Dr. Jia Le (Li Bingbing, The Meg) joins a team to find him. Leading the charge is the brother’s boss (Kelsey Grammer, The Expendables 3), co-founder of the biotech firm for which the siblings’ father was CEO. As if Grammer’s presence weren’t off-putting enough, Kellan Lutz (The Legend of Hercules) is on hand as the search-and-rescue expert.

After the team members encounter dried-out livestock at ground level and manage to outrun a lightning storm, they descend into the mine — actually a series of secret tunnels from an ancient emperor’s underground palace. There they find the movie’s raison d’être: spiders genetically engineered to breed and kill — and, per the closed captioning, “chitter.”

7 Guardians of the Tomb is a Chinese-funded production helmed by Australia’s Kimble Rendall, the former founding Hoodoo Guru whose 3D sharksploitation effort, 2012’s Bait, is not dissimilar in spirit, but boasts less convincing effects. That the CGI spiders don’t look as “added in post” as expected is one of 7 Guardians’ two strongest points; the other is that Rendall doesn’t skimp on them, with spiders small, medium and big-ass crawling all over his film’s frames and cast members.

But one cannot depend on all that arachnageddon alone, which is why a heavy dullness soon sets in. Overwhelming crudity drags the proceedings down to such a level of Syfy silliness that not even Grammer’s hammy God-complex speechifying can distract from it, no matter how loudly he yells. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.