Santo vs The Vampire Women – 1962

The fearless luchador Santo takes on a cult of vampire women and their ruthless henchmen.

The mysterious masked wrestler Santo arrives just in time when the scholarly Professor Orlof (played by Augusto Benedico) discovers that his daughter, the lovely Diana (played by María Duval), has been marked for capture by a reawakened cult of vampires led by Zorina, Queen of the Vampires (played by Lorena Velázquez). Santo doesn’t possess any superpowers—just guts and muscle—but he does have a luchador costume and an MG Roadster sports car, and between these four things, he proves more than a match (with a little help from a natural phenomenon) for Zorina, her vampire alllady friends, and her thuggish male vampire servants.

Though hampered by a low budget, Santo vs. the Vampire Women is a surprisingly energetic film. It avoids much of the typical filler found in low-cost, similar films of the era in which we're used to seeing excessive runtime spent on characters walking, climbing stairs, or repeating dialogue to pad the story. But in Santo vs. the Vampire Women, Santo runs, jumps, or leaps into his car whenever he needs to get anywhere—and he has little to say to anyone except to collect the facts he needs to get on with the job. The plot (script by Antonio Orellana, Fernando Osés, and Rafael García Travesi) keeps everything hurtling forward to the final showdown between Santo and the vampires, with one caveat: once Santo reaches the vampires' castle, he does slow down and walk cautiously when climbing stairs—but this is appropriate, given that the castle is dark, he’s carrying a lit torch, and earlier, one of Zorina’s vampire henchmen had cold-cocked him out from behind. Since he is now inside their stronghold, it’s clear Santo needs to tread carefully.

The lair of the vampire women is used by them for sitting and looking at themselves in mirrors (in which they see themselves not as beautiful young women as we view them, but as aged, crusty hags). When any of these vampires get outside, for example to crash a costume party and to try and kidnap Diana, its probably the most fun they've had in centuries.

Santo vs. the Vampire Women is not a “great” movie by any means, but it’s quite entertaining—especially if you have an appreciation for masked luchadors battling for justice and "goodwill," which is how Professor Orlof sums up the mysterious Santo and his raison d'être at the end. With the vampires defeated, and more thoroughly than vampires in any Hammer Dracula film, Santo promptly speeds away in his roadster. He seem immediately interested in the next great task that merits his attention—or perhaps he's only going to resume battling his usual opponents in the wrestling rings of Mexico. Either way, we know precious little more about him than we did when he first appeared, and that’s apparently just how Santo wants it.

I have only been able to see Santo vs the Vampire Women in rather soft and poorly contrasted copies via the internet and from some streaming channels (there is a send-up of the film by the MST2000 crew from their Season Six, but their print copy is no better than anyone elses). If there is a decent copy of the film in circulation anywhere, we'd certainly like to know about it.

Related: Enter Santo - The Blue Ray Box Set – The box set features Santo vs Evil Brain and El Santo vs Infernal Men

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