Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo (1973)

... aka: Santo & Blue Demon vs. Dracula & the Wolf Man

... aka: Santo y Blue Demon Contra Drácula y el Hombre Lobo

Directed by:

Miguel M. Delgado

"Never trust a hideous monster from hell!"

Words to live by.

It's been seven sun eclipses and seven moon eclipses since monster hunter / alchemist Cristaldi put Count Dracula and the werewolf to rest and, since that whole eclipse business has now passed, the famed bloodsucker and his equally esteemed hairy pal are good for another resurrection and terror spree. Their scar-faced hunchback disciple Eric ([Alfredo] Wally Barrón) knows this and, using the Book of Kabbalah, pleads to Satan for their return. However, he first needs the blood of one of Cristaldi's descendants to complete the ritual. Soon after, the elderly Professor Luis Cristaldi (Jorge Mondragón) receives an anonymous letter threatening him with death and warning him that he and the rest of his family will soon have to pay back their debt. The letter brings to mind a passage in a 400-year-old book passed down from generation to generation in the professor's family. It tells of an unholy alliance between Dracula and the werewolf, who'd joined forces centuries earlier in order to "dominate humanity" along with their army of "beast men." Now, the professor, his daughter Laura (María Eugenia San Martín) and his nieces; teenager Lina (Nubia Martí) and the youngest, little Rosita (Lissy Fields), may all be in peril. The book also points out that the fiends won't be content with just killing them, but instead want to turn them all into zombie slaves.

You may be asking how Santo factors into all of this. Well, he just so happens to have dated into this family. No, silly, he's not dating the professor's daughter, Laura. Santo is a star after all, so he's instead hooked up with the teenage niece! Doing a little quick research, that pairs the 55 or 56-year-old "Saint" up with the 18 or 19-year-old Martí; a whopping age difference of 37 years! Santo also happens to be 18 years older than the actress playing the "middle-aged" daughter, who still looks just fine but is portrayed like some spinster who sits around knitting and bemoaning her lost youth and looks all the time.

Eric, who's descended from Transylvanians, chloroforms and kidnaps the professor, drags him back to his crypt hideout and then explains his plans. Already entrenched in the criminal underworld, Eric's basically hoping to get rich by having Dracula reveal the whereabouts of some gold. The professor warns there may be consequences to his actions but Eric proceeds with the ceremony, anyway. He hangs the professor upside down over the opened stone graves, cuts his throat and has him bleed all over the skeletal remains, which start smoking and regenerate. The debonair and well-dressed Dracula is played by Aldo Monti (who'd already played the count once before in SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA), while the Werewolf, wearing a gold lamé pirate shirt and given the horrifying name Rufus Rex, is played by Agustín Martínez Solares of NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES fame.

The monsters quickly get to work kidnapping people and transforming them into vampires and werewolves. After all, if you plan on taking over the world, you're gonna need a little help, right? Due to the disappearance of the professor and others in the area, the police ask for Santo's help. He immediately gets into contact with Blue Demon, who's more than glad to assist his pal. Meanwhile, Rufus Rex transforms back into his handsome human form, gets cleaned up and buys some new duds in hopes of trying to seduce Laura. He makes a great first impression saving her during a (staged) attempted kidnapping using a couple of members of a bald mob bosses goon squad, but soon his true motives are revealed.

Colorful, breezy and (often intentionally!) humorous, this fun Santo horror adventures thankfully tosses out the wall-to-wall repetitive fight scene format of some of the other entries for a more straightforward Gothic horror story. With only small amounts of blood and no sexual content, this is something that can be enjoyed by kids of all ages. Well, granted the kids in question have a thing for schlock! We get lots of great turtlenecks, miniskirts, suits and over-sized sweaters in every color imaginable, rubber bats on strings, spear-wielding werewolves, giant telephones, vampire ladies in sheer red nightgowns, sacred daggers, secret passageways, precursors to Apple watches, zombies, flame-shooting golden bat heads and lots more. Our heroes have to fight a bunch of werewolves during the big finale, which is set around a giant spike-filled pit used to dispose of interlopers and traitors.

This is my tenth Santo film review so we're hitting a little milestone here at BPOH. Now just, er, eh, about 30 more to go until I finally have the legendary Mexican star's horror-ography under wraps! As per usual, there are several lengthy grappling matches squeezed in to please the wrestle-hungry Mexican public, with Santo (also one of the producers) squaring off against Angel Blanco, Blue facing Renato the Hippie (?) and Santo and Blue in a tag team match against Angel and Renato.

Unlike most other Santo offerings, this was given a U.S. VHS release by Million Dollar Video Corp. way back in 1987. A beautifully restored print with a brand new English dub is now being distributed by VCI Entertainment and Peter Hamilton Films.

★★1/2

Santo en El tesoro de Drácula (1969)

... aka: El vampiro y el sexo (The Vampire and Sex)

... aka: Le trésor de l'horreur (The Treasure of Horror)

... aka: Santo and Dracula's Treasure

... aka: Santo in 'The Treasure of Dracula'

... aka: Santo, le mutant (Santo, the Mutant)

... aka: Sex and the Vampire

... aka: Treasure of Dracula, The

... aka: Vita sessuale di un vampiro (Sex Life of a Vampire)

Directed by:

René Cardona

An interesting entry in the Santo series in that two distinctly different versions of the film exist. Prior to this, the series was rather family friendly. Sure there were always horror elements and some violence present, but these films didn't have much objectionable content otherwise and they weren't something that parents couldn't safely drop their kids off at the theater to watch. Still, by the end of the 60s exploitation films were starting to take off in a big way so continuing on as is with old fashioned serial-type Santo adventures meant limiting your potential audience. Director Cardona obviously realized this. He'd just made the glorious exploitation romp NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES (1969), which had all of the usual ingredients like wrestlers, a mad doctor and a gorilla-monster, but with the added attraction of eye-gouging gore, sex, nudity and even full color shots of real open heart surgery spliced in. The film was a big hit and, due to the high exploitative content, was dubbed into different languages and distributed in many other countries.

For this Santo film, Cardona shot two separate versions simultaneously. The first was in black-and-white, kept pretty much in line with the tamer previous films, runs about 82 minutes and was titled Santo en El tesoro de Drácula ("Santo in the Treasure of Dracula"). Version #2, meant for international distribution, was shot in color, features a LOT of female nudity (including full frontal) and runs about 87 minutes. The black-and-white film was released in Mexico while the more exploitative color film was released in the U.S. and throughout Europe under many different titles. In Italy this racier cut was called Vita sessuale di un vampiro ("Sex Life of a Vampire"), in France it was Le trésor de l'horreur ("The Treasure of Horror") and in the U.S. it was released theatrically as El vampiro y el sexo ("The Vampire and Sex") in a Spanish-language only version. The English subs on the print I viewed called it "Sex and the Vampire."

Nuclear physicist Dr. César Sepúlveda (Carlos Agostí) invites distinguished members in metaphysical studies to his home to inform them that brilliant scientist / pro wrestler / crime fighter Santo, who has always kept his identity hidden behind his trademark silver mask, has made some miraculous new findings. After his introduction, Santo informs the group that he's found a way to uncover the past lives of individuals using the decomposition of matter (?!) He then takes them to his lab and shows him the device he's just created, which he says is "basically a time machine." The machine is able to de-materialize a person's atomic structure and then project them through time and space to their previous incarnation. Sounds simple enough (ha!) except for one catch: Santo hasn't yet tested out his machine. Most of the men laugh at him and walk out.

The test subject needed is ideally female because of their biological makeup and the fact women are "four times stronger than men" so it "would be easier to send female cells across time." The only female around who could possibly quality is Dr. Sepúlveda's daughter, Alicia (Noelia Noel), who also happens to be Santo's girlfriend and is helping to raise Paquita (Pili González), Santo's orphaned niece whose parents had been killed by the mafia. As the group discuss what to do, someone wearing a black hood who is referred to as "Black Mask" spies on them from the window. It's finally agreed upon that Alicia will be "decomposed" by the machine and sent back in time.

It's at this moment I realized that, save for a few minor details, this is the exact same set-up as THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957) to the point where this could actually be considered a remake of that film! Same basic characters (younger scientist out to prove himself, older scientist, scientist's daughter / younger scientist's love interest, little kid...), same bit where the scientist is laughed at by his peers, same spy peeking from behind the curtains, same spinning wheel, same "return to a past life" set-up... Hell, the older scientists are both called Sepúlveda and each has a nerdy, cowardly "comic" assistant; Aztec had Pinacate while the one here is called Perico / "Parakeet" (Alberto Rojas). It comes as no surprise that both of these films were written by the same man: Alfredo Salazar. The real question is whether or not anyone other than Salazar knew that he was only slightly re-purposing an old script here that had already been produced!

After getting sucked into the machine's wheel, Alicia is transported to a Victorian-looking bedroom circa the late 1800s. She's now Luisa Soler and she's so ill she can barely even leave her bed. Many other girls in the same village have already mysteriously fallen ill and then died; each with two small puncture wounds on their neck. Hmm. Luisa's dad (Jorge Mondragón) sends for a doctor friend, Professor Van Roth (Fernando Mendoza), to help out. A plastic bat shows up at the window, which Van Roth drives away with a special herb that only grows in Transylvania called, uh, Mistletoe. Coinciding with the attacks was the arrival of one Alucard (Aldo Monti), a deep-voiced, well-dressed and suave count from Europe, who's recently purchased a ruined old mansion in the area.

Alucard turns out to be a vampire (I know, I know, I really didn't even need to tell you this) who's been feasting on the young ladies in the area and is keeping a harem of hottie vampire girls hidden away in his home who are probably played by real-life strippers as most of them would certainly get the Russ Meyer seal of approval. Each is put through a ceremony that involves being chained to an altar, being bitten and then being stabbed. Afterward they're stamped with a bat on their chest and added to his collection. He then suggests they go out to quench their thirst with fresh human blood. These scenes are where there are some very noticeable difference between cuts. What kind of differences, you ask? Well, allow me show you...

I usually try to limit the amount of bare breasts and asses I include in my screen caps due to Blogger flooding my inbox with warnings about potentially flagging this as a porno site, but sometimes it's needed for comparison purposes, like during the next scene where the vampire visits Luisa. In the b/w version he crawls into bed and bites her. In the color version she writhes around in bed moaning as she rubs her breasts and then the vampire gets into her bed to help her out. That's followed by the count visiting the maid Lupe (Gina Morett). In the tame version he bites her and then mesmerizing her; making her do his bidding. In the other version, this process somehow also requires him to first rip open her blouse.

Alucard / Dracula soon whisks Luisa to his lair. He has decided to keep her as his lifetime companion and the other naked vampire chicks are to be her "vampire court." As a show of trust, he first shows her the whereabouts of his treasure and lets her know that the map is written in Serbian on his medallion necklace and ring. As he and Luisa lay down in their coffins, the vampire hunter finds them and prepares to stake them through the chest. Santo and company, who have been watching things on a TV set back in the lab (?!) then brings Alicia back to the present day. And then things revert back to ripping Aztec Mummy off and it stays that way for the rest of the film, save for an eight-minute-long wrestling match that's shoehorned into the works towards the end.

Having spied on their successful experiment, the hooded man reveals himself to be the evil Dr. Kur (Roberto G. Rivera), who is called Dr. Krupp in Aztec. He, his wrestler / weightlifter son Atlas and their gang of thugs (who have intimidating-sounding names like "Dandy" and "Mouse") decide to go after the treasure. Kur orders his men to sneak into the house, bug it and set up cameras so they can keep an eyes on Santo. In Aztec, they wanted the breastplate as proof of their experiment; here they want the treasure. Santo, Alicia, Dr. S and Parakeet head to the cemetery, locate Dracula's tomb and take the medallion while Kur and his men end up with the ring. However, both are needed to find the treasure. In order to settle the dispute, a wrestling match is arranged between Santo and Atlas to take place before a live audience. Whoever wins will get the treasure. And, of course, the bad guys have no intention of actually sticking by the agreement.

The scenes taking place in the 1800s I quite enjoyed and not just because of all of the gratuitous nudity but also because they're atmospheric and pretty fun, with decent art direction and photography. I kept jumping back and forth between the two versions as I watched this and, visually, much preferred these Gothic horror bits in the tamer black-and-white print. Of course the film only spends about half an hour in the past and the ambiance is mostly lost once we return to the present day. Sadly, my interest went along with it. The bulk of this being a virtual repeat of Aztec Mummy with nearly identical characters, events and plot developments proved to be a disappointment. As for which cut you should view, it depends entirely on what you're wanting out of this.

Cardona was undoubtedly the right person for this particular assignment as he'd already made plenty of movies covering this same ground: crime-horror hybrids (1943's El espectro de la novia / "Spectre of the Bride"; 1944's La mujer sin cabeza / "The Headless Woman"), Gothic horror films (1960's La Llorona / "The Crying Woman"), wrestling films (1964's WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY; 1967's Las mujeres panteras / THE PANTHER WOMEN) and Santo films (1965's Santo vs. the Strangler; 1966's Santo vs. the Ghost of the Strangler). He also directed a number of other films in the series after this, including Santo vs. Capulina (1969), Santo vs. the Riders of Terror (1970), Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy (1971) and Santo vs. the Head Hunters (1971).

★★