Santo en el museo de cera

Wow... is this movie bad.

Words cannot describe how horribly cheesy, campy and utterly boring this movie is.

The plot is terrible, and the acting is sub-par (at best!)

The best thing about this entire movie is the wrestling scenes. Being a huge wrestling fan myself, I was very entertained by the wrestling scenes. However, the lack of commentary, and the fact that he went to wrestle at the weirdest times, made them a little lacking.

The only reason I even own this movie is for my knack for collecting wrestling memorabilia.

So, unless you are a huge wrestling fan (and I mean HUGE) I would not recommend this atrocity to the cinematic arts.

The luchador (wrestler) movies of the 1960s to the present are an interesting genre...and to the casual observer they might easily be dismissed as campy or bad...especially since the often involve wrestlers saving the world from various monsters and megalomaniacs...as well as aliens! Well, they are campy and bad...but also very entertaining. There's a lot to be said about this...much like the American horror/sci-fi films of the 1950s. Most of these also were far from great pieces of art...but folks enjoyed them...much like Mexicans enjoyed these wrestling films.

"Samson In the Wax Museum" ("Santo en el Museo de Cera") is most unusual in that an American production company, American International, bought the rights to it and dubbed the film into English. In addition, they inexplicably renamed Santo....here he's Samson*. I can assume this happened because American International also dubbed some Italian Hercules or Maciste films and renamed the character Samson in these films as well.

In this installment, the most famous Mexican luchador, Santo/Samon, battles an evil man with a wax museum, as Dr. Carroll is kidnapping folks and turning them into his evil army. The plot is a bit like "Mystery of the House of Wax" and "House of Wax" because the museum owner is turning living people into his wax figures or using them to kill, that's original to this film.

The quality of this film is pretty much what you'd expect from a Santo film, though its make-up is a good bit better (for example, the Frankenstein actually looked like Frankenstein). The only gripe I have about the dubbing is Samson's voice...it seemed pretty weird and nothing like his original Mexican voice. Enjoyable and a bit better than usual.

*Listen carefully when the wrestling match begins at about 25 minutes into the film. The crowd is chanting "Santo, Santo, Santo" repeatedly despite him otherwise being dubbed as Samson.

SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1963) **1/2 (D: Alfonso Corona Blake, Manuel San Fernando) Not bad as far as Santo films go. The masked man goes up against a mad doctor who kidnaps people and turns them into wax figures for his museum. Decent story, although (as usual) there are needless wrestling matches padding it. Similar to HOUSE OF WAX.

El Santo, a Mexican superhero who's part Batman and part Hulk Hogan, gets involved in a mad scientist's nefarious schemes. When he's not solving the mysteries of a bizarre wax museum, he's trashing his opponents in a wrestling ring.

I've been curious about Mexican wrestling movies for a few years, so when I got the chance to check out two of them, I decided to take the bait. This one was the better one of the two (the other one, Las Luchadoras Contra la Mumia, was just excruciating). While I'm not sorry I watched them, I can't say that anyone who hasn't seen them has missed anything.

El Santo en el Museo de Cera is silly and incredibly dated. See it only if you love obscure and very bad films.

1963's "Samson in the Wax Museum" ("Santo en el Museo de Cera") was the fifth entry in El Santo's starring movie series, 'The Silvermask Man' (as he's listed in the dubbed AIP-TV print) already a comic book hero since 1951 and by this time was doing the caped crime fighter thing in cinemas as well, director Alfonso Corona Blake previously at the helm for "The World of the Vampires" and "Samson vs the Vampire Women." As usual Santo/Samson has a secret lab where he collects evidence when not throwing opponents around the ring during his three bouts, the obvious inspiration here being Vincent Price's "House of Wax," Claudio Brook a poor substitute as a mad surgeon disfigured by Nazi atrocities (discussed, never shown), whose creations are hidden in underground catacombs, figures of Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, the Wolf Man and Dr. Hyde, who sadly don't come to life until the final reel. Only two ordinary henchmen do all the kidnapping, the doctor planning to feature a Panther Woman in his exhibit but that never comes to pass. Aside from the frequent fisticuffs it's pretty dreary, not so much fun as "Invasion of the Zombies," but at least our hero has no use for a double to distract from his prowess in the ring (can't say the same for the Wrestling Women from "Doctor of Doom"). Claudio Brook is underwhelming as the villain, showing off his scarred hands but little else, and worked with Lon Chaney in 1955's "Daniel Boone Trail Blazer," William Shatner in 1974's "The Devil's Rain," and John Carradine in 1978's "The Bees," before doing a cameo as a bank president in the 1989 James Bond thriller "Licence to Kill" (as the cop, Madrid-born Ruben Rojo had previously featured in "The Brainiac," later playing opposite Boris Karloff in 1967's "Cauldron of Blood").