SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN

 

Robert Eggers won't be remaking this movie. He doesn't need to, since this is one of the better entries featuring the silver-masked Mexican adventurer/professional wrestler. (The film's original title is SANTO VS. LAS MUJERES VAMPIRO.) The production was made in 1962 and it is in black & white. 

A coven of vampire women have been awakened after 200 years by one of their number called Tundra (Ofelia Montesco). Tundra plans to resurrect the Queen of the Vampire Women and then seek revenge against a descendant of a lady who foiled the undead's plans centuries ago. This descendant (who is a beautiful young woman of course) is the daughter of a Professor, who, due to his knowledge of ancient writings, is well aware of the fate that awaits his child when she turns 21. The Professor calls upon El Santo to protect his daughter from the vampiric brood (apparently Peter Cushing wasn't available). 

SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN opens with a very atmospheric sequence showing the undead ladies rising from their coffins. The Vampire Women are quite creepy in their desiccated state, but once they get some blood in them, they become voluptuous white-gowned lovelies. The Queen Vampire, Zorina, played by Lorena Velazquez, is quite a looker as well, but she doesn't get nearly enough to do as Tundra (it must be beneath a vampire queen to run around after mere mortals). 

Because of the setting up of the vampire women and their plot, Santo doesn't show up until later than usual, and he even gets somewhat overshadowed by the lethal ladies. Tundra also resurrects three muscle-bound slaves to handle the ladies' dirty work, and one of these fellows actually disguises himself with a mask and takes on Santo in the ring. After a vicious battle, Santo pins his opponent, and pulls off the slave's mask....to reveal that the brute has turned into a werewolf!! As Santo and the local police try to stop the rampaging beast in the ring, the creature turns into a bat and flies away. (Needless to say, Santo has his work cut out for him in this outing.) 

As in nearly every Mexican classic horror, SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN takes familiar genre tropes and gives them a bit of a twist. There's the obligatory scene where investigators puzzle over the two tiny marks on a victim's neck, and there's plenty of extreme Lugosi-like close-ups of Tundra's eyes before she hypnotizes someone. One nice touch is that the vampire women can be seen in a mirror--but the reflection reveals their true decomposed, corpse-like state. 

I watched the American version of this film on Tubi, which was titled SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN and redubbed by the infamous K. Gordon Murray. The visual quality of this version wasn't great--one can only imagine how good the scenes of the vampires in their castle hideout would look in a restored and remastered HD print. 

I'm not going to claim that SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN is an impressive vampire tale--but it is fast-moving fun, and it does have a few atmospheric moments. One might even venture to say that the story might have worked even better if Santo had not even been in it. The silver-masked man would go on to have plenty of encounters with the undead onscreen--he even faced off against Count Dracula a couple of times. A lot of folks scoff at Santo and his adventures, but I've found that most of the ones I have seen are a lot more entertaining than the two-hour plus CGI filled remakes and reboots churned out endlessly in today's times.