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Santo vs the Vampire Women (1961)

Mexico- land of tequila and peyote....this may explain why films of the "luchadore" variety were huge hits for nearly four decades south of the border.

For those among you, the faithful readership, who are uninformed: Luchadore flicks were productions made between the late 1940s and early 1980s, primarily in Mexico (there have been some Turkish rip-offs, that I know of), which featured masked professional wrestlers battling various menaces to society:  gangsters, aliens, mad scientists, monsters, Aztec mummies, vampires, etc., etc.,....... Imagine a Latino version of the Power Rangers...or maybe a low-rent Ultraman, and you get the picture. and, the ost popular star of these little epics was El Santo, literally translated as "The Saint", the Silver Mask,...or, as he was dubbed by producer K. Gordon Murray...Samson, the Silver Masked Man. The Plot:  Openning on a spooky castle, complete with bats, and evil sounding organ music...we are suddenly treated to a shock cut of an OWL!....BOO!  See?  I told ya it was all spooky...an' stuff....

SANTO!!!!  Able to lift midgets above his head!

Here sleeps Selene, Queen of the Vampire Women, she who possesses a bad complexion that resembles a mud facial gone terribly wrong.  she drinks some blood and says some creepy dialouge about how powerful vampires are while the room (which looks alot like Carfax Abbey from Universial's 1931 DRACULA) fills with what seems to be the illegitimate children of the Aztec Mummy.  They conjure up the DEVIL (!), or at least his shadow, and ressurrect some vampire dudes...so that they can carry out their fiendish plot...or something like that.  I'll admit I was lost somewhere around the owl (BOO!!!).  something along the lines of kidnapping Diana, a professor's daughter, so's they can sacrifice her on her 21st birthday in a ceremony meant to ressurrect a powerful vampire named Rebecca...and Diana is her decendant...or something.  It's complicated.

El Santo, Mexican defender of justice, wasn't on screen yet, and there was alot of repetitive dialouge, so my interest hadn't been piqued yet. We then cut to the Professor's house, where we see Diana playing piano, while the creepy Vampire Dudes (who dress an awful lot like the old Quality Comics hero, Doll Man) peek through her window.  As we all know, most vampires are perverts, as well.  The Prof., who looks somewhat like Alan Napier, introduces Diana to Inspector Charlie (an affectionate pet name I've branded the character with, because of the repeated use of his name, "Charles", by the other characters...they never refer to him by a descriptive adjective, such as "you" or "him".  "Diana, this is Charles. Charles is an inspector for the police department.").  He's also the first homicide cop I've ever seen that carries a whistle to alert other cops, which he does repeatedly throughout the flick.  Then the excitement begins!  The Prof tries to contact El Santo via his magical video-telephone thingamabobber.  We are then treated to footage of El Santo in the squared circle... For fifteen minutes....fifteen minutes of the most boring wrestling match you've ever imagined. Anyways, Santo discovers that he is prophecized to be Diana's protector, and Selene crashes a costume party at the Prof.'s pad and with the help of the Vampire Dudes, succeed in abducting Diana.  Taking on all the Vampire Dudes at once, El Santo piledrives and axe-handles them so bad that the flee for their godless, Nosferatu lives.  Santo finally wrests her from their evil clutches.  Inspector Charlie then decides to investigate the vampire murders.  To do so, he naturally goes and hangs out at a piano bar.  A really bad piano bar, at that.  Makes sense to me.  We then cut to...MORE WRESTLING! One of the Vampire Dudes kills Santo's opponent, and disguises himself as The Black Masked Challenger.  In the ring, Santo realizes that the man he's battling is a fake, rationalizing that, "He's using karate, and could kill me with a single blow...". Obviously, the Black Masked Challenger that Santo knew was not trained in such arts.  SANTO- not only is he brawny as heck, but possesses a keen, razor sharp intellect and deductive ability.  Santo wins, unmasking his vampire foes, who then turns into a rubber bat...betcha Vince MacMahon never thought o' that one!  To end a long, complex story, Santo hightails it to the vampire queen's lair and proceeds to lay the smackdown on her and her evil friends, saving Diana in the process.  The END. If ya dig wrasslin'....or just men in tights...check it out...