April 22nd - S is for Santo and the Blue Demon verses Dracula and the Wolfman

April 22nd - S is for Santo and the Blue Demon verses Dracula and the Wolfman

 

This film is also known as Santo y Blue Demon Contra Dracula y el Hombre Lobo. This is a classic Mexican Wrestler movie, so obviously it has to be on this list as one of my favorite movies to that is supposed to be serious but, is actually incredibly hilarious. I watch this movie in Spanish with English subtitles because I know enough of the language to get me through this movie (Oh, and the title on the box is still in Spanish). I’m saying all of this now, so that at the end of the review you’ll know why I still recommend this movie to people even though all the rest of this review might not sound very good.

The first scene in this movie makes it clear that this is a wrestler movie. The one key to figuring out which man is our hero comes in the form of silver pants. Then, right in the middle of the action we are treated to two bat statue flamethrowers and a rant about Satan somehow bringing Dracula and the Wolfman back to life. Now, this is the plot, and don’t worry, it becomes much more involved and exponentially hard to follow. The thing is, if you’re paying attention (or consistently pausing to read the subtitles like me), you will understand why almost everything is going on. I would place this movie much higher than G.I. Joe in the story element development list, because this movie gives pretty clear reasons for these masked wrestlers to be fighting horror classics. This story doesn’t have any miraculous gravity guns (see my April 8^th review for more detail) and is dedicated to following its plot points as hard as it can. While most films could be downgraded for the sort of rigidity this movie has, it works for such a small film, and I personally like it.

Now, there are something’s about the characters that you should know before plunging into this movie. Santo and the Blue Demon always wear their masks. Santo also has a girlfriend/wife and has a female cousin with a young daughter. Character relationships are the biggest downfall of this movie. They’re acted out very well, and for the genre they do make sense most of the time, but this movie must be part of some series because they don’t introduce any of the characters except for our two lead protagonists with anything like a name for half the movie! But like I said, the acting is really good, it’s just that the writer didn’t think anyone would ever just watch this ONE movie without any foreknowledge of the characters. By the end of the movie you will know almost all the characters, though, so I don’t want to just point out how bad that part of the writing is.

SO, from all this text, what I’m trying to say is that this movie has its obvious flaws: the action doesn’t feel real enough, the story can be hard to follow (past the whole punching dudes aspect), and the special effects being really low budget, but it has some good points too. The story gives the characters reasons to be fighting these foes and also giving the characters more emotions than what you would think could be in a wrestling movie. This movie sticks to it’s story and tries to be serious, but that seriousness is also quite ridiculous at times. I dare you to watch this and try not to laugh when a wrestling scene suddenly changes to a bat-faced flamethrower. That sort of ridiculous is what makes this movie livable. 3 out of 5.

Santo and the Blue Demon verses Dracula and the Wolfman cover from IMDB

Stars off of Google Images