Rating: 2.5/5
Hooptober XII | 3/31 | Countries 2/6 | Mexico | Decades 2/9 | 1960s | Zombie 2/5
El Santo is a masked luchador and hero to the Mexican people. We open on one of his real-life wrestling matches, with him fighting against a tag team. After the opening credits, we see a crowd carrying him into the ring, and people line up to get his autograph. The camera moves inside the ring, providing a closer perspective on the match. The challenger against El Santo is Black Shadow (Sombras). In the crowd is El Santo’s biggest fan, Lt. Sanmartin.
After about 10 minutes of wrestling, Detectives Rodriguez and Isabel pull Sanmartin away to the police station to speak with Gloria Sandoval, the daughter of Professor Sandoval. The professor is missing after a stint in Haiti. He just finished a book about zombies. Sanmartin is a former student of the professor and a true believer in zombies. The police take the case! They look through the professor’s study but find no clues. On their way out, they meet the professor’s brother and Gloria’s tío, Genaro. A mining accident left Genaro blind, and Rogelio, Genaro’s nurse, cares for him. The police hide their identities from Genaro and Rogelio, stating they are medical students.
Cut to the outside of Plateros Jewelry Store, where three strongmen sit in a car. They receive a radio broadcast to break in through the back door. In a stilted manner, the men amble to the back alley and break in. An alarm sounds at a private security office, and the men jump into their car to rush to the store. The men breaking in use wands that ignite like torches to break into a vault. The owner shoots one of the men repeatedly, but the man does not falter, knocking the owner out. The private security arrives on the site as the zombified men amble out. The security shoots them repeatedly to no avail.
How will the police stop an unstoppable force? Who is this masked villain who controls the zombies? Looks like they’ll need to call on the assistance of their friend Santo, who moonlights as a superhero.
By this point, El Santo’s comic book series had already been going for nine years. He reluctantly entered the film world, unsure if they would be profitable. By taking pulp plots and plugging Santo in, the Santo series was able to churn out a ton of innocuous movies.
The wrestling matches seldom have anything to do with the plot. The matches seem to exist in case anyone coming to the movie thinks, “I thought Santo was a wrestler. Where’s the wrestling?” They also serve as filler, as the pulp plots are usually too basic to fill a full-length movie runtime. This one also has a burlesque number somewhere in the middle. You know, a little something for the bored dads in the audience.
I’ve seen several Santo and Santo-adjacent movies at this point. Without the constant prattling of the MST3K crew, I can actually follow the vague plot of this one. It helps that this is the first movie where Santo officially stars, so the movie makes an effort to introduce the characters to the audience. It’s still quite boring and cheap, but I understand its appeal, especially considering the time it was released.
I think my favorite moments are the shots with cars driving at night, because they feel the most noir.