Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood vs. the Monsters (1962)

Original title: Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los Monstruos

AKA: Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters

Director: Roberto Rodriguez

Writers: Fernando Morales Ortiz, Adolfo Torres Portillo

Composer: Raul Lavista

Starring: Maria Gracia, Cesareo Quezadas 'Pulgarcito', Jose Elias Moreno, Manuel 'Loco' Valdes, Santanon, Ofelia Guilmain, Armando Gutierrez, Miguel Inclan Hijo, Alfredo de Soto, Elvira Lodi

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Now...the famous characters of the fairy tale world...together for the first time!

Plot: Caperucita, the Wolf and the Ogre are captured by the Witch Queen, accused of treason by the Vampire. Caperucita, followed by a host of old and new characters begin the adventure to rescue their friends.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Way back when American producer K. Gordon Murray bought the U.S. for Mexican made kiddie films and had them dubbed in English, giving him the nickname of "King of the Kiddie Matinee".  This is the first one of these pictures I've seen and, as you probably would expect, it's hit and miss.  The miss is it's incredibly silly and obnoxious as it was made for, well, small children.  But the hits are worth watching this for.  The large lavish sets are fantastic.  The colors pop beautifully for this children's fairy tale.  It's like real life isn't that colorful but it's what you'd expect for a fantasy world such as this.  There's some real horror going on, too.  If this were remade today and it played to the horror element that exists in this 1962 version, you could really get some scary shit going on.  The dragon fight at the end gets a little hairy when the flames get way too close to the actors.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone got hurt.  The songs are fine.  The audio is bright and tinny so when the children are running around screaming in terror (normally that's music to my ears), it's so shrill it hurts.  It's only an hour and twenty two minutes long and I bet if you took out the boring bits you could whittle this down to a fun forty five minutes.  The whole thing is on YouTube below so watch away...