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10 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Aye Caramba Santo! Your drawers are drooping!, 24 December 1999 Author: evilskip from Azteca Studios
In the late fifties a horror genre burst onto the Mexican screen:masked wrestlers as super heroes.They were a huge hit in Mexico.As usual K Gordon Murray snapped up the American rights to these films.Most were sold directly to televison as saturday afternoon kiddie fare.These were pretty cool when we were well under 12. The best of the bunch was Santo(called Samson in American prints).Santo was actually a wrestler who kept his identity private until 1982 when he was 65 years old. You don't have to like wrestling (and I don't) to enjoy these films.Now if you enjoy pure,100% grade A cheese then this is the film for you.Just fast forward through the wrestling scenes (except for the bout an hour into the film where Santo's opponent is killed and replaced by a monster). A coven of some extremely crusty faced vampire women become hot mamas after a blood ritual.Their queen wants them to kidnap her successor so the queen can go to Hell and live with her hubby Satan.(Sounds like a real stormy romance).The queen to be is the unaware daughter of some idiotic professor. Well the vampires and their 3 male vampire slaves(all wrestler types)generally bite necks and raise havok.After a couple of botched kidnapping attempts the professor calls in the man in the silver mask,Santo!His real identity a secret, the man in the silver mask,droopy drawers and flamboyant cape tools around in his little sportscar to kick vampiric butt.He also has a cool lab/hideout that the professor can reach via radio/tv.Neat! After several fights the daughter is kidnapped and taken to the haunted hacienda to be prepared for the blood ritual.Santo arrives in time to get his arse kicked.He is chained next to the girl who will be queen.Will Santo somehow save the day?Will he ever get rid of that wedgie in his tights?Doesn't that mask itch? This is just dumb fun.The haunted house and the lair of the vampire women is a great spooky set.Lots of mist and cobwebs. The vampire women are very easy on the eyes.The idea of a wrestling superman is a real hoot.Go a few rounds taking punishment that would kill any human,win and go kick some monster arse.All in a days work for Santo! As usual the lousy dubbing hurts this film.There are a lot of plot holes as well.Vampires appearing in mirrors and the male vampires look like they're out trick or treating.The wrestling matches except for the last one are seemingly endless. Consumption of your favorite beverage will enhance your enjoyment greatly.Go into it with an empty head and you'll be entertained.Isn't that what it's all about?
7 out of 7 people found the following review useful: The essential Mexican Wrestler movie, 29 March 2002 Author: AlbertoAbreu from Mexico city
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.
6 out of 6 people found the following review useful: What's Everyone Complaining About?, 25 November 2000 Author: Mr. Pulse from Syracuse, NY
I don't get it! This movie makes sense to me! A bunch of vampire women (who I also suspect to be lesbians) desire to make a queen out of a not-so-fetching woman. They attempt it several times and while they fail, I guess they are grating on the woman's nerves (You'd be upset too if the undead kept bugging ya), so she calls on Santo, a famous Mexican wrestler to stop the undead and protect her. Makes sense to me! What's yer problem?This movie is a cheesy delight. As my friend explains it, mexican wrestlers of this era were even more revered than the ones we have here in the US today, so they got their own movies. Personally I'm glad, cause I doubt I would ever see a vampire get taken down in a belly-to-belly suplex by a guy in mask, tights, and cape, if not for this movie.I didn't even realize til just now that the movie was on MST3K. I missed the episode I guess, but regardless, you don't need their help to enjoy this movie, it is so ridiculous and cheesy on its own that even at 2 hours in length it is still a campy delight.For goodness sake they call on Santo like he's Batman, there's even a Comissioner Gordan type character who has a hotline directly to Santo in the car. I also dug the vampire chicks who had really dry skin (bad air circulation in coffins) until they got their hands on some blood...suddenly they got really hot. Now that's my kind of movie.Just a word to the wise. Anytime a vampire squints and then unsquints at you, they are going to use their power. Way too many people fall for that, we need to stop that. Just a friendly word from me. But enjoy Santo Versus The Vampire Women, it's a fun flick.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: The Quintessential Santo movie, 7 March 2006 Author: José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984) from Mexico
In a dark mansion deep in the woods, a clan of vampire women awakes of a 200 year slumber to complete a cycle. Thorina (Lorena Velazquez), queen of the vampire women, must find her successor before returning to hell, so she sends Tundra (Ofelia Montesco) to kidnap Diana Orlof (Maria Duval), since she has the mark of the chosen one. Diana's father, the revered Professor Orlof (Augusto Benedico) has been waiting for this moment, and with the aid of his friend, the mysterious Santo (wrestler Santo himself), they will try to stop Thorina's plan.This is the plot of the film considered as the best in the infamous Mexican wrestler sub-genre. "Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro" was the forth in Santo's career as an actor, and it sets the basis for his future films as his movies started to move away from the action genre and got closer to the realm of fantasy, horror and science fiction.The wrestling sub-genre was a mixture of action films & superhero comics taking as main characters the famous wrestlers of the time. Santo was without a doubt the most popular of them, so he starred on a long series of films as a mysterious man devoted to justice. While in his earlier films he battled crime lords, soon he started fighting the supernatural creatures (mainly because horror started to be popular), and this film is the perfect example of that.While this movie contains the typical flaws of the early Mexican b-movies (low-budget & cheap effects), it excels in other aspects such as the acting, and specially, in the beautiful Bava-influenced cinematography. The Gothic surreal look the movie has owes a lot to the Universal films of the 30s and the school of Mario Bava ("La Maschera del Demonio" comes to mind). The film has a visual composition that no other Mexican movie could surpass on a very long time.The acting is very good for a movie of its kind, and the script, while very campy, tells a very entertaining story. Ofelia Montesco steals the show, not only with her stunning beauty but also with her powerful presence on screen; a presence only beaten by Santo himself, who with only a few lines but a lot of action demonstrates why he was the best. A word of advice, DO NOT get the dubbed version, since the awful dubbing makes the film a lot cheesier than what it already is.Of course, as I wrote above, the movie's biggest flaw is the poor budget, resulting in very cheap SFX; also, the action scenes are a bit too long. On the top of that, it has dated badly and now it looks very kitsch. However, Santo's charm remains untainted and makes the film a jewel of entertainment.With this film, Santo the wrestler/actor was transformed into Santo, the iconic cult figure; and his film persona grew to mythical proportions. While this is not an award-winning film, it makes an enjoyable experience and the best way to experience the Mexican wrestler sub-genre. 7/10
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: The best mexican movie ever made, 5 August 1999 Author: Rodrigo Vidal Tamayo Ramírez from México city, México
Back when the wrestlers wrestled for real, back when vampires were scary and erotic, back when women were REALLY SEXY, there was "Santo contra las mujeres vampiro". With a popular superhero, a very, very, very sexy vampire queen (I'd let be myself bitten by her)and an hour plus of really good entertainment this is easily the best mexican film ever made. The childish special effects and poor performances of the actors just make it a jewel of surrealism. If you are looking for a masterpiece of nonsense, search no more, this one is for you.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: You love it and you know it!, 15 January 2004 Author: The Hopping Woman (clowns_n_cookies) from The cookie jar (with clowns...)
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!!!
4 out of 4 people found the following review useful: A big, heaping serving of cheese, 22 May 2006 Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I've only seen a handful of the Santo films, but Samson vs. the Vampire Women is so far my favorite. It's a cheese-filled extravaganza. The state of Wisconsin is jealous of the amount of cheese on display in this movie. What do you expect when you mix Santo, the masked Mexican wrestler, with a bevy of beautiful vampires? I don't know about you, but I expect pure, delicious cheese.Going through a plot summary or analyzing the positives and negatives seems a bit silly with a movie like Samson vs. the Vampire Women. Instead, I'll try to hit on some of the more fun, but bizarre, moments from the movie: 1. Even though he's called Samson by everyone in the movie and the title lists him as Samson, someone forgot to tell the crowd at the wrestling arena who seem overly exuberant in chanting "Santo!"2. Apparently, Santo has a closed circuit television camera mounted to the front of his impossibly small sports car.3. You simply must watch the dubbed version. The dubbing is so bad that it adds a whole other dimension to the movie.4. Mexican vampire women are the hottest.5. Santo has an uncanny knack of showing up just after the person he's protecting has been kidnapped. Why not just stay put and be there when the bad guys make their move? 6. Why does Professor Orlof ask the police for their help throughout the movie? They seem to be incapable of even the most routine of police activities.7. Don't feel bad about fast forwarding through the incredibly long and dull wrestling matches. It makes watching Santo that much more enjoyable.8. It's odd that Santo can do battle with three vampire goons and come out on top, yet when going one-on-one in a wrestling ring, he gets the snot beat out of him.There are more, but you get the idea. Watching Santo is best done with an open mind and the notion that nothing is to be taken seriously. If you do this, you're bound to have a good time with Samson vs. the Vampire Women.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Viva El Santo!, 3 March 2007 Author: MartianCreature from Redondo Beach, CA
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.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: An enjoyable mess - lots of energy, not a lot of coherence, 30 April 2006 Author: lemon_magic from Wavy Wheat, Nebraska
All I know about the cult of "Luchadore"/Mexican wrestling is what I gleaned from reading Gilbert Hernandez in "Love And Rockets" more than a decade ago, so when I happened onto this particular nugget via Mystery Science Theatre, it was disorienting. The idea of masked wrestlers as superheroes seems pretty out there. Still it actually makes some sense when you consider that El Santo and his compatriots a) wear tights, b) wear masks to conceal their identities and c) are tough muscular hombres with preternatural wrestling abilities. Who better to be street level superheroes? And before anyone in the States makes too much fun of this movie's sheer goofiness, remember that our culture is responsible for "Gilligan's Island", "Ozzy and Harriet" and Sid and Marty Kroft.On to the actual movie.As promised by the title, Samson (actually "El Santo") fights vampires to rescue a young lady from her fate as the new Queen of the Undead. Well, not so much "fights" as "wrestles". And he doesn't really fight the vampire women - he mostly tussles with their thuggish male assistants. (Vampires are apparently immune to bullets, but luckily they are susceptible to sunlight, crosses, and front suplexes.) The plot moves along briskly from scene to scene. This is so that you don't have a lot of time to think about some of the plot holes and inconsistencies...such as vampire cults that forget to put shutters or curtains over the windows of their castle to keep out the sunlight. And the way El Santo manhandles three vampires at once during several outdoor mêlées, but one of the three almost kills him during a one-on-one wrestling match (by 'using karate' on him). Or that Samson/El Santo pledges to protect the young woman, but can't be bothered to actually hang around, so he's always pulling up in a convertible at the last moment and leaping on the bad guys. (You think it would be easier and more effective to actually BE THERE with the victim when the vampires make their move). Or the fact that the vampires are proved to be EXTREMELY susceptible to the sight of crosses, but it never seems to occur to anyone in the movie to actually carry a crucifix.I suspect that this was another case where K. Gordon Murray took a fairly decent (if cheesy) film and sabotaged it with a 'English version' plot and editing job that didn't mesh with the original, sapping it of much of its coherence and integrity. (admittedly, we're talking about a Mexican wrestler film here, not "The Man Who Would Be King").There is also some unfortunate voice dubbing - El Santo is OK (if somewhat stentorian), but the Professor in particular has a fruity baritone better suited to an animated cartoon character like Dudley Doright.Still, this was a lot of fun to watch - there were some pretty good sets and lighting and camera angles, the women were pretty hot, the hero was noble and brave, and I can see how a young Latino audience would think that a masked muscle-man who drives his own sports convertible and travels around wrestling and fighting evil would be the shiznit. If I have a chance to see another "El Santo" film, I'll take it and see how it holds up.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: Atmospheric Cheese, 11 October 1999 Author: Apearlo (infantchild@hotmail.com) from El Santo's locker
I mean the above as a good thing. Used for the last season six episode of MST3K, this Mexican wrestler film has good cinematography, an interesting plot, cool vampires... okay, so the girl's father has a goofy, dubbed voice and the wrestling scenes (one with a buff vampire!) might be tedious for some (like me). This movie has turned me on to Mexican horror of the 50's and 60's -- is that wrong?
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