Alex Wheeler Movie Ops

Cryptid Cinema Corner is a celebration of all things cryptid. Cryptids are animals we love to gossip about that almost certainly don’t exist. Think Bigfoot, Nessie, Mothman, etc. They’re loveable, silly, and we tell a lot of gonzo stories about them. Of course, they’ve made their way into films, and of course, many are as absurd as the mysterious animals they’re based on.

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To kick off the series, we must begin with a Syfy Original Movie. The cable channel has produced a plethora of B-movie goodness, with lots of imaginary animals chomping on pathetic humans. They will recur in this series because I’ve spent many Saturday afternoons watching this schlock. This is my series, deal with it.

There are two things I can’t resist when it comes to cryptid movies: chupacabras and absurd titles. I mean, Chupacabra vs. the Alamo? That’s a must-watch.

Or not. The fun of Syfy Original Movies are their Mad Max-style plows into derangement, and Chupacabra vs. the Alamo doesn’t plow nearly far enough.

Chupacabras are new kids on the block when it comes to cryptids. The first popularly recognized report was in Puerto Rico in 1995, although you’ll find vaguely related stories dating back a few decades earlier. Their original description was of an upright, hoppity fellow with red eyes, reptilian skin, and spikes down its back. They sucked farm animals dry of blood, hence their name, which translates from Spanish to ‘goat sucker.’ As their legend spread, the creature became much more dog-like, suddenly quadrupedal, but still with an insatiable need for blood. The appearance change was likely due to the alleged bodies being found, most of which were canids with a particularly nasty form of mange.

El chupacabra is not real. Their story’s evolution is one of the most inconsistent of all the cryptids, but man is their name fun to say. So el chupacabra became one of the most popular cryptids around, and so Syfy made an absolutely terrible film about them.

For the movie, they go with the canine version of el chupacabra, envisioning them as a pack of hairless canids that come into the US through tunnels from Mexico. Let’s set aside the racist, fearmongering undertones of this premise for the sake of fun. Let’s focus, instead, on how quickly this movie abandons the entire mythology of el chupacabra.

In the opening scene, los chupacabras take out a group of smugglers in the tunnel. Their deaths are gory, because blood is cheap in creature features. But el chupacabra is a bloodsucker. Their victims are not found with blood seeping from their bodies. That’s the only consistent part of their mythology. They. Suck. Their. Prey. Dry. And yet, all the victims in Chupacabra vs. the Alamo are ripped apart, soaked red, with little mention of the creature’s trademark puncture wounds. I will forgive a lot in cryptid cinema, but abandoning the one defining feature of your monster is a sin.

Erik Estrada is the requisite waning “star” of this Syfy production. He plays Carlos, a DEA agent assigned to the original massacre. He’s also a widower and father of a boy caught up in the drug trade and a teenage girl just starting to push her boundaries. Working alongside him is a new partner, Tracy (Julia Benson), who inexplicably HAS A PHD. Her PhD is never important. It’s just mentioned to prove she’s intelligent, I guess, and that Carlos is a jerk for dismissing her. However, he’s correct that intelligence is not important when a pack of monstrous canines are roaming the border, and it’s especially unimportant when they get cornered in the Alamo. 

How they get to the titular site is unimportant. The important thing is that it takes waaaaaaaay too long to get there. Most of the movie is a listless procession of scenes about Carlos’ family woes and people refusing to believe in el chupacabra. Only two things break up the doldrums: an attack on a teenage party and a hero bit actor absolutely hamming it up.

The latter is an “expert” Tracy randomly knows. He gives them an enthusiastic analysis of the chupacabra body they collect, and his vibe is best described as horny Dexter. That dude is getting up to something nasty in his little lab, and I instantly wanted to know more. No one else in Chupacabra vs. the Alamo is creating a character like him. He didn’t need to, either, but I’m so glad he did.

On the other end of the delightful spectrum is a scene so horrendously perfunctory that you must laugh. Carlos’ daughter is attending a high school party. Alcohol is flowing and hormones are raging, all inexplicably in a field right next to their school. When the pack of chupacabras invades, the shortest, most lo-fi mayhem ensues. Within two minutes they bite a boy’s member off, parkour a dude into the air, and sever the arm of Carlos’ daughter’s boyfriend. Left holding his hand, she gives out an unconvincing shriek and abandons the limb.

Nothing else matches this outburst of canid hilarity, including its titular showdown. It had everything we come to a Syfy Original Movie for: bad acting, nonsensical slaughter, and no time wasted. We don’t need character development. We don’t need callbacks to Estrada’s glory days with the worst fake motorcycle rides ever. And we certainly don’t need to hold off getting to the Alamo until the film’s waning minutes. Set those bloodthirsty rascals loose on the mission and let history repeat itself. What I’m asking for isn’t complicated.

Release: streaming on Tubi
Director: Terry Ingram
Writers: Peter Sullivan, Jeffrey Schenck
Cast: Erik Estrada, Julia Benson, Jorge Vargas, Vanesa Tomasino, Nicole Muñoz, Chad Krowchuk