Santo en la venganza de la momia

Famous Mexican wrestling hero Santo takes part in an expedition which leads him and his friends to the tomb of Opache prince Nonoc, who has been buried alive because he wanted to escape with a maiden who was destined to be sacrificed to a god named Xucul. It doesn't take long time until the expedition members start dying one by one... Has the mummy come back to life?

This was my first time to experience a movie starring legendary Mexican superhero, Santo El Enmascarado De Plata. Having heard so much about him, I wondered what to expect. It's an entertaining film with surprisingly decent production values and make-up - however, as a big fan of supernatural horror movies, I was a bit disappointed in the ending. Still, it was fun to watch and I'm looking forward to see more of Santo. He himself was very cool in this one.

'Santo In The Vengeance Of The Mummy' is bookended by sequences of Santo, the silver masked wrestler turned crime fighter, wrestling opponents in front of a large and enthusiastic audience. However the movie is mainly concerned with an expedition led by Santo's friend Professor Romero. Romero wishes to explore the tomb of long dead Indian warrior Nonoc which is hidden deep in the jungle. Despite warnings that there is a curse on anyone who disturbs Nonoc's remains Romero doesn't hesitate in his quest for knowledge. Romero's crew includes his secretary, an eccentric fellow scientist Professor Jiminez (responsible for lots of lousy "comedy"), Sergio an engineer, a female photographer (love interest for Santo) and a local Indian guide and his young grandson Jorgito, who becomes Santo's protege (and is in fact played by Santo's real life son who subsequently took over the long running franchise after his father's death). Romero and Santo become baffled when their colleagues are picked off one by one, seemingly the victims of a resurrected Nonoc. I can't say I enjoyed this as much as 'Santo And Dracula's Treasure' but it was still reasonably entertaining, despite an unconvincing surprise ending. Santo is very cool and macho, and the movie has quite decent production values. Not great, but fun.

As far as movies featuring Santo the masked Mexican wrestler/superhero are concerned, I thought this one was fair enough, and it's far from the worst in this very long-running series. Here, a professor enlists the aid of Santo in exploring the ancient tomb of an Indian warrior named Nanoc. What qualifies the world famous champion to join such an expedition makes no sense to me, but we're watching a Santo film, after all, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Santo travels to the jungle (man, doesn't he ever get hot sporting that ever-present mask?), with a small entourage, one of these rocket scientist's being a really irritating "funnyman" scientist who tries without much luck to add comic relief. Once entering the forsaken tomb, all sorts of killings start to occur every now and then by the mummified corpse of Nanoc who's apparently up and alive, shooting a bow and arrow through his victims. The production values for this type of thing aren't too bad, though the ending feels a bit of a letdown. ** out of ****

Bouyed by interesting pink and green advertising art which shows a close-up f the mummy's distorted face and a color insert of Santo fending off the monster with a blazing torch, this promises to be an exciting lucha title. While mummies had been heavily used in Mexican cinema (and, in fact, Santo faced them in another outing), the ad art on this film suggested a decent budget and an ambitious presentation. The mummy mask/make-up was also worlds above the job done on the Aztec mummy, being both unsettling and actually a bit alarming.

While the film is good, it's inexplicably one of the few Santo features which pulls its punch. Considering the wild excesses of the lucha film genre, the twist ending, which does anything but satisfy, makes little or no sense.

Santo is enlisted for Professor Romero's (Caesar del Campo) expedition to the lost tomb of Nonoc, an Aztec warrior. As usual, this is a cursed tomb and the dead warrior had been entombed and cursed for loving a maiden designated for the gods' use. This aspect is scarcely new, having already been covered in the Aztec Mummy series and other genre films.

The expedition also includes an old native guide (Amada Zumaya)and his grandson, two girls, and hunter Sergio (Eric del Castillo).

Arriving at the tomb, they find a scroll which explains that, by entering, they are now officially cursed. Nobody attaches much importance to this announcement, which is a mistake. Shortly thereafter, the party is being stalked and killed off by the avenging mummy -- or so it seems.

A decent adventure flick. Worth the watching.

After a friend makes a special discovery, a masked wrestler is brought along by friends on a journey to recover a mummy's petrified remains, but the party's presence awakens the creature from its slumber and forces him to protect them from the creatures plans as it rampages through the group.

This one falls just short of the best of the masked wrestler movies from Mexico but still has a lot of enjoyment on hand. Among the film's strongest features is that it moves along at a nice enough pace to not be boring, providing plenty of fun moments here. The flashback to the original mummified figure stealing the girl and being chased by the imperial soldiers through the woods and then showing their capture and eventual sacrificial rites allows for some a strong start by giving this a real localized flavor. As well, the mummy's rampage on the villagers is quite fun with it using a bow and arrow to silently strike before resorting to more traditional hand-to-hand measures to strike everyone it can. Their eventual search for the missing individuals once they realize what's going on has some fun to it and once the mummy is released the frequent battling between the two is highly enjoyable and entertaining. On top of that, there's enough care in the rest of the film to stand out. The atmosphere here is a big part of that, with their digging through the catacombs adds a real sense of the underground filled with falling rocks and dirt before getting to the grand burial tomb which is pure Gothic splendor and feels like an elaborate ceremonial room. The camp where all the stalking of the villagers goes down is pretty decently used for setting up some suspenseful moments where the figure emerges from the darkness to terrorize the helpers on the expedition. Several of the nighttime encounters in the jungle offer some suspenseful stalking here, from an encounter with the mummy inside a corridor in the cave to the later wrestling matches that take place which adds atmospheric action to the mix. Along with the great look of the mummy costume that's effectively tattered rags and dried-out skin, there's enough to like to hold this one up. There are some minor problems with this one. Among the biggest issues is the build-up to the mummy's release in the party taking way too long to get to the tomb, as the Adventure Film surroundings seem like time-padding and only there to feature the titular hero wrestling with animals that threaten the group. This could've been trimmed down somewhat to allow an explanation for why he's even there in the first place which is never brought up and makes no mention of why they even need him specifically even though he does prove his worth eventually. As well, this one changes his behavior around pretty drastically to where the virtuous hero is now talking down to the villagers and dismissing their mummy claims as pure superstitious which is completely out of his character to not be supportive of his heritage. The twist ending is a little hard-to-follow in terms of adhering to storyline continuity, but beyond that, there's a lot to like as it's pretty solid.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.