Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro

Samson is the finest superhero of filmdom. A caped, masked Mexican wrestler who drives a sportscar. What more could you want.

He doesn't say much, but that doesn't matter when you're dealing with the undead.

The final scene is muy bueno. Much better than Forrest Gump!

In the late 50's and early 60's Mexican wrestling was flowing with renewed popularity. El Santo, The Man in the Silver Mask, was the most popular wrestler at the time, a true idol of the masses.

So somebody at some point decided to make "wrestling movies" transforming popular wrestlers into superheros (after all, they are masked and caped, aren't they?) and pitted them against criminal mobsters, evil scientists and in one occasion, a martian invasion.

Of course these movies are on par with the best (and worst) of B movies of the time, but this particular movie is considered an icon, receiving awards in Europe and Asia.

Today this movie would only inspire chuckles and outright laughs, but its a nice history lesson of the time when caped and masked men were in the imaginations of millions of Mexican kids.

This is one of the funniest movies and the greatest Santo movie, perhaps only challenged by "Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon vs. los monstruos." It should be enjoyed with friends, as then you could discuss the progressive social critique this movie lays down. Not really.

A simple question...

How do you make a B- vampire movie more interesting than other B- vampire movies?

Answer...

YOU THROW IN A MEXICAN WRESTLER!!! Woo hoo!

To the creators of 'Samson vs. The Vampire Women', my hat goes off to you. Few people could turn a bad movie into a down-right deliciously horrible one so effortlessly. That is a talent in of itself.

The acting, dialogue, and storyline are recognizably trite from scene one, but the premise is still fairly easy to follow. Vampires + reincarnated vampire sacrifice + spooky castle = a vampire movie. Then... suddenly out of nowhere... a mysterious masked wrestler pops up halfway through the film. Why, you ask?

To stop the vampires, of course!

This is Samson the wrestler, and it's his destiny to conquer evil. He wears a mask, sports a shiny cape with leotards, and drives around in a convertible! "But why a Mexican wrestler for the hero?" Well... because it's never been done before! That's why!

I must admit, these laughably bad B- movies are really a guilty pleasure with me. You really learn to appreciate their sheer stupididty... so long as you don't take them seriously. In any case, I'd recommend this movie to anybody. You have to see it at least once to believe it.

It begs the question, "Who felt that this story needed to be told?"

1.3 out of 10!!!

You haven't seen fun camp and delightful cheese until you've seen an El Santo movie, and his match with a bunch of beautiful vampire ladies is probably his best.

Since Lucha Libre (Wrestling) is very popular south of the border, El Santo (or Samson, or The Silver Masked Wrestler etc) was the master of caped comic book heroes in Mexico back in the 60's. This movie boasts not only the typical Santo plot: a wrestling match at the beginning, a pretty girl being menaced by bad guys, a professor who knows how to stop the bad guys, a second wrestling match with a concealed bad guy masquerading as a wrestler trying to kill Santo in the ring etc., but it also has some cool old-school Gothic style undead evil mistresses. And some beauties they are too: Lorena Velasquez (a look-alike to a young Liz Taylor, except prettier) is the effectively sinister vampire queen who is looking for a successor.

It's a lot of late night horror movie fun, the kind the "live monster" hosts like Elvira and Vampira used to show. You can't help but love the stilted, translated dialog done in laughably out-of-synch dubbing, endless fighting scenes (the kind where people fall down even when a punch misses them by ten feet), a slowly unravelling master plot, and cheap special effects. This is a "must see" for fans of campy horror films.