Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos

Into the world of Mexican wrestler movies we go. In this one a mad scientist, seeking revenge on his brother and sister-in-law, is resurrected from the dead by Waldo, his faithful servant who also happens to be a hunchback dwarf. Using his gang of zombie minions, he enlists the services of a wolfman, Frankenstein, a male and female vampire, a mummy and a cyclops. But that's not all because there are wrestlers as well - Blue Demon and Santo - it doesn't matter if they are in the ring, in the office or out driving their cars, they go about everywhere wearing their wrestler masks (well, of course they do). Anyway, Blue Demon is captured by the mad scientist and a replica of him is sent out to fight the hero, Santo along with the gaggle of monster villains. This one is chock full of ridiculousness from start to finish but it is top quality nonsense which never fails to entertain. There are lots of fights (it's a wrestler movie after all) and plenty of monster action. I seem to remember there was even a bossa nova song and dance routine thrown in as well. Great fun basically.

We saw this on a decent-sized screen at a showing presented by the Mexican Consulate (!). The "monsters" are so hilariously bizarre that your treasured memories of vampire women and Aztec mummies will be left in the dust.

But why go on? All you need to know is that Santo and Blue Demon vs the Monsters contains the following line from mad scientist Otto Halder, as he confronts the entire crew of good guys in his lab, all momentarily under his power: "You called me insane!" (Turns to evil invention, calmly.) "I will now disintegrate my niece."

What more could a True Believer ask from a movie than a line like that?

The following review is an extract from the book "Santo, the Wrestler with the Silver Mask: A guide to all his films", which is now available on Amazon.

"In this part of the Saint we have condensed in just over 80 minutes the classic monsters of the cinema, all in a single film. Here, these beings are automatons without their own will, which at all times follow the orders of the usual mad scientist - an archetypal character of science fiction B movies in general and of Santo´s films in particular. The vampire and the mummy correspond to the usual aesthetics, and so does the "Franquestain" (whose name is written like this during the presentation in the credits), with its markedly "Karloffian" aspect. The werewolf, on the other hand, looks more like a bearded vampire, while the "cyclops" is powerfully reminiscent of the "creature of the black lagoon"; it is a scaly, amphibious beast with a single phosphorescent eye. We also have zombies (if the professor's greenish lackeys can be considered as such). One of them is characterized by wrestler "Caveman" Galindo. Another monster also appears in the laboratory, which although it has a secondary role, is striking: It resembles the aliens in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks", a film that would not be made until 26 years later.

(...) It is curious the confusion between day and night in certain sequences. For example, during the car chase, one moment you see the daylight and the next moment it is suddenly night (!). Or when the entourage of henchmen of the mad scientist arrives at the castle with his corpse to revive it, they go in a carriage carrying torches... when it is clearly visible that it is daytime...

If up to now Santo used to be enraptured by an aura of mystery, by a certain intangibility, now there are shown moments of his private life: Like his courtship with Gloria (whom he kisses with the mask on!)"

Investigating the abduction of his girlfriend, the popular wrestler finds a mad scientist creating clones of his friends and using criminal's brains to revive a slew of monstrous corpses, forcing him and the real Blue Demon to fight them off to save her.

This was an unbelievably cheesy and thoroughly enjoyable Mexican monster mash-up. What really works incredibly well here is how well this manages to echo the greatness of the old Universal monster mash-ups this was clearly inspired by, putting them all together in a single film that really lets them do what comes naturally to them which is run amuck and cause devastation. That really allows for a frenetic pace here, since unlike a lot of these efforts it's got very little downtime, moving from one scene and confrontation to another rapidly and providing plenty to love about those fights. From the opening wrestling matches showing not only the women fighting but also managing to include the rather fun Blue Demon tag- team match as well and plenty of great fighting elsewhere including several rousing and fun battles with the evil clone that's quite striking for the brutality inflicted upon each other, this one generates a great deal of positives with this high-energy action. That also includes a pretty entertaining kidnapping venture that provides some fun and excitement when it delves into a thrilling high-speed car chase through the countryside, a series of encounters with vampires in different caves as they try to continue on with their organization plans and the uproarious amounts of cheese featured in them being able to collect and reanimate the various monsters and then letting them loose in the world. Those scenes of the creatures getting released and rampaging throughout the countryside provide it's cheese quotient most of all, as each of the creatures has a scene of them out and causing mayhem which are just so cheesy and fun they're enjoyable on any level and sets up the film's greatest part, a high-energy finale in the mad scientist's lair. It's undoubtedly the highlight here that's got all sorts of action not only from the rush on their hideout that has plenty of fighting, but also manages to go for finally bringing him out of hiding to join in on the rather cheesy brawling which really gives this a wholly enjoyable sequence. Coupled with the extreme, over- the-top levels of cheese not only with the monsters and the costumes but the simplistic storyline and special effects here that manages to make this one so enjoyable as there's not a whole lot really wrong here. Some of the monsters may look too much like a silly variation of what they're more commonly known for which really becomes distracting at times here. They look quite cheesy and not really all that threatening, much like the remaining special effects with the monsters' lab and the filming itself. The comedy as well may not work for everyone, but this is still immensely entertaining.

Rated Unrated/PG: Violence.

In this story, our hero Santo, called "Sampson" in English, must wrestle against an array of monsters:

(1) Frankenstein's Monster, complete with neck bolts (2) The Wolfman (3) Dracula, escorted by fanged female helpers (4) The Creature from the Black Lagoon (5) The Mummy

The monsters are controlled by a mad scientist (what else?), whose laboratory is located in an old castle. As expected, the scientist is rotten to the core and has all kinds of evil schemes in the works. The monsters and laboratory look great - all classic horror movie stuff!

Poor Santo is way outnumbered. Fortunately, the monsters can only come out at night (even though it often looks like daytime, at least to this viewer).

How can Santo defeat the monsters and stop the scientist?? You will have to watch the movie to find out!

Great fun.