Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Santo in the Treasure of Dracula

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe dive into one of Mexican luchador El Santo's various horror cinema adventures -- and not just any Santo film but the legendary "Santo In The Treasure of Dracula," which features time travel, dracula and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. Unfortunately,
we're not gonna be able to bring you a new
episode of Weird House Cinema today. Uh and next week
is actually going to be a repeat episode as well.
But after that we shall return with all new episodes
to fill up your October. Oh you're November, Yeah, you're

(00:25):
December as well. We're very excited about some of the
films we have. We have picked out, but I thought
we'd we'd feature a rerun here or a a rewind
if you will. That that certainly feels in keeping with
the season. This is going to be the nineteen six
nine supernatural Lucha Libre film Santo in the Treasure of Dracula.

(00:47):
I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your
Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird
House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
And today I'm really excited about this one because we're

(01:10):
getting into one of my favorite types of movie weirdness,
which is unlikely genre crossovers. Uh So, I think people
who have listened to Stuff to Blow Your Mind for
a while probably heard us talk about the subject of
supernatural biker movies. This is something that we keep coming
back to over the years. Um in that extreme niche

(01:32):
crossover sub genre, you've got stuff like a you know,
grimy seventies exploitation that the musk of something like Werewolves
on Wheels, which is a kind of I don't know,
satanic werewolf biker movie where you can really smell the armpits.
But then you've also got stuff like the the extreme

(01:52):
litch Pope Nigel tough Knell energy of psychomania. Psychomania's it's
very British, It's almost visually easel somehow, but it's beautiful
in its own right. And I think I especially enjoy
unlikely genre crossovers when at least one of the genres
that's being crossed is not a universal type like horror

(02:15):
or romance or comedy, but something much more deeply associated
with a particular place and time. And biker movies are
a great example here because they sort of hit their
peak in the late sixties and early seventies, and American
movies it was I think it was part of that
kind of general panic about lawless counterculture and the Hell's
Angels and the horror of Altamont and all that you

(02:37):
you can you can hear Nixon kind of grumbling right
over the back of your shoulder while you're watching these movies.
And so these biker movies are all the more stimulating
to me, at least if you can make the biker
gang also a lych coven or a satanic werewolf conspiracy.
And so a few weeks back, I was sitting at
my desk working on something, and I don't remember what

(02:59):
it was, but I remember I kind of closed my
eyes and my mind's I opened and there was this
void of howling, undifferentiated chaos, and the darkness was suspended
over the infinite pit. And then slowly, the blizzard of
emptiness in my mind's I resolved into a single phrase,
which was supernatural wrestling movies. Now, you may you may

(03:25):
not have been aware this is a thing. Rob. I
know you are aware, but but you the listener. But
this absolutely is a thing. Uh. There are, of course,
lots of different kinds of wrestling movies throughout history. One
of the things I associate most with wrestling movies is
Barton Fink, one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen,
but the one of the plot lines in that is
that John Turturro's character is a playwright who has been

(03:47):
brought to Hollywood to write a wrestling movie, and he
is not very familiar with the genre conventions of the
wrastle and picture. I forgot about this that was that
was a detail and in that particular film, and and
that might be worth coming back to again later because
I haven't researched it fully, But a lot there's all,
there was a lot of wrestling media in the old days,

(04:08):
like wrestling short stories in the same way that there
were a lot of boxing short stories. And it's my
understanding that a lot of it has not been um
has has not been uh like, you know, researched and
preserved in the way that other genre literature has been
uh preserved, you know. But it all came out during
the golden age of pro wrestling, right well, so in
Barton Fink, of course, that they're asking John Tataro's character

(04:30):
to write a Hollywood style wrestling movie, you know, the
Wallace Beery type movie. But I think what is probably
inarguable is that the greatest examples realized on Earth of
the platonic form of the wrastling picture would be Mexican
wrestling movies, and especially Mexican wrestling movies starring the incomparable

(04:52):
El Santo. That's right. So yeah, you you mentioned to me,
you were like, we should, we should do an Al
Santo movie and I and my response was like, Okay,
I'm definitely in, but we've got to make sure we
pick a good one. We got because they're a bunch
of them. I haven't seen most of them. I'm just
kind of like aware of them. Um, I'm more familiar
with Lucha Libre itself than than these films. So I

(05:12):
started looking around and then i've I've I've found what
seemed to be the perfect pick, and we'll explain why
as we go. And it is Santo in the Treasure
of Dracula. Now, this is actually not the only El
Santo supernatural wrestling movie. In fact, El Santo battled many
a creature of the night and and undead type. I

(05:32):
think he fought some zombies at some point. He's he's
gone up against mummies. I think probably aliens. I don't
remember all of the ones that came across. I haven't
really seen many of these movies. I've I've actually seen
bits and pieces of some of them. I think because
there used to be a bar we would go to
in town years ago that would project these movies on
the wall pretty often, and that always looked like tremendous fun. Yeah,

(05:55):
they made for great casual viewing. I've done that as well.
And and some folks maybe you're with at least one
of them was was riffed on Mystery Sense Theater three
thousand back in the day, but it's not an episode
I've seen a lot. But yes, anyway, so so so
given this theme of supernatural wrestling movies, the one you
landed on was Santo in the Treasure of Dracula, and

(06:15):
this movie was was a hoot. Yes, it has so
many things going for it. Um, the backstory is fascinating.
We'll get into because you have different versions. You have
lost versions, uh you know, color and black and white,
and and also a newly restored and released version that
you can get on Blu Ray. Yes. But in addition

(06:36):
to this movie's particular singular qualities, I think it's also
very important that it needs to be understood as part
of a genre in which you can't really, I think,
understand this movie without having a larger picture of what
the deal with Mexican wrestling, Mexican wrestling movies and El
Santo movies and the al Cento phenomena in general are.

(07:00):
So I'm not gonna I'm gonna gonna try not to
go overboard here, but I think it is necessary to
have just a basic understanding of lucha libre that's Mexican
pro wrestling, free fight, free fighting. Uh, just an understanding
of what it is and how it sort of loosely
fits into um uh and into its culture. So um yeah.
So first, first of all, at its heart, it is

(07:22):
pro wrestling. It's a work fight with an athletic performance
central to it. So it's you know, it's highly athletic.
People can be injured and are injured and sometimes die
performing uh like this, Uh it is you know, it's
the actual contact is often made. But it's also it
is a performance. So it's when contact is made, you
want it. You generally want to try and make it

(07:42):
look even better, more intense than it than it actually was.
But this is this is a choreographed, performative fighting style.
I mean, it is as absolutely actual athleticism. But it's
not like m M A or something right. Um, and
and it's my understanding that the choreograph and drove it
kind of depends on who's performing. Like I think a

(08:03):
lot of these guys they get to the point where
they're they're able to sort of improve a bit, but
there is a structure to the match there. It does
have a predetermined finish, etcetera. But but yeah, this is
professional wrestling, but it is the distinctly Mexican evolution of
professional wrestling. Professional wrestling itself seems to have emerged out
of wrestling folk traditions in British grappling contests at fairs

(08:25):
in the late nineteenth century. And of course this in
and of itself entails a great deal of Carney tactics,
you know, worked matches, cheats, you know, strongman competitions, all
of that, and uh, but it begins to really take
hold and solidify into a form, and the sport becomes
increasingly popular in the United States and in the British Isles,

(08:45):
and then popularity declines during World War Two and skyrockets
afterwards into what is sometimes described as kind of a
Golden Age of wrestling. So it takes roots in other parts,
it sikes roots in other parts of the world, and
you see different styles and traditions emerge, most notably in
Japan and Mexico, but especially in Mexico because this is
where we see the birth of lucha libre, which probably

(09:08):
dates back to the early twentieth century. Here. Now, what
are some of the main and most recognizable characteristics of
lucha libre? Obviously, Uh, if this hasn't come through already,
Rob is our in house wrestling expert. Well, I don't
want to oversell your experts. It's not um but I
don't know all that much about wrestling. But you're a
big wrestling fan, and like almost any time I have

(09:30):
a question about wrestling, you've got an answer. Uh, yeah,
I am. I'm a lucha fan, or I have been.
I keep up with it now, but I don't watch
it religiously like I used to. But I'd say the
most obvious characteristic colorful masks or at least shiny mask
and you know, sometimes demonic masks, etcetera, high flying moves,
and fast paced action. But there's there's even more to

(09:53):
it than this, and I think most people are familiar
with those aspects of it. But I want to roll
through just a few of the of the ways that
it is a little bit distinct from other wrestling traditions. So,
first of all, there's a strict dichotomy of good guys
and bad guys. In traditional lucha libre. You have the
technicos the good guys, and the rudo's the bad guys.
The good guys are really really good and the bad

(10:15):
guys are really really bad. And this would kind of
correlate to like, if you watch WW today, you might, uh,
what are the terms the face and the heel? Like, yeah,
so you'd have, you know, the hero wrestlers that the
crowd loves and then the one who comes out and
there they exist to rile up the crowd and get
booed and cheat and stuff. Right now, in an added

(10:36):
drink on lucha libre is that there will often be
two refs in the ring, not just one referee, but
to a rudo ref and a technico ref, because that's
just fair. It's also more like the real world. Yeah, yeah,
each it's it's like a legal case. It's being presented
physically in the ring, and we have a legal representation
for both sides. Now, another big thing, and this is

(10:56):
this is something that's very widely known about Lucca is
that masks, the colorful masks, they may be bartered and lost. Uh.
You put your mask on the line in a big
match against usually against another mask or sometimes against another
wrestler's hair. Uh. And if you lose your mask, that's
not only going to reveal your face to everybody, it's
going to reveal your identity. So the identity of a

(11:17):
mask wrestler is often not a manner a manner of
public knowledge until you lose your mask. So the great
star Alsanto, he I mean he he would wear his
mask always in public, not just while he was in
a wrestling capacity, Like if he was doing something in public,
he was masked, right, Yeah, this was his public persona. Uh.

(11:38):
This was how he was photographed. Uh. And a lot
of this still remains to this day, but especially at
the time. Again, this was like the golden age of
Lucha libre we're talking about here, and uh and yeah
he would. He was the El Santo, was this figure
with the mask, and that's all you ever saw of him.
So in closing for now, we'll probably touch more on
this in a bit, but yeah, lucha libre is it's

(12:00):
kind of a passion play. You know, it's good versus evil,
and again, the good guys are really really good. I
can't stress that enough, especially as far as El Santo
is concerned. I mean, he is the saint. Yeah. The
movie really goes out of its way to show that
El Santo is is lawful, good to the max. He's
like Batman from Heaven. Yeah, I mean he's He's basically

(12:21):
like classic Superman, right where there's just not a shred
of evil in him. There's no grim dark to this, uh,
this version of the hero. Alright, So, considering all the
context we've just talked about with with Lucha libre, how
does a wrestling tradition like this end up blending with
Dracula in a feature film? Well, I mean basically by

(12:43):
virtue of him being this larger than life character that
then transitions into film and uh, yeah, you're you're left
with just a whole series of films. Will name some
of the other other ones of note here in a bit,
but in this particular one, this is the elevator pitch.
What if Lucador and uh famous research scientist Al Santo
invented a time machine that could send women back to

(13:04):
their past lives and in doing so, encounter Dracula and
his fantastic treasure. That's that's basically the wedded that's the
all fair pitch. Yeah, you know, somehow the mask does
a lot of work because I could buy Elsento inventing
a time machine much better than I could buy one
of the like face revealed famous American wrestlers of today

(13:27):
inventing the time machine, like oh Stone called Steve Austin
invents the time machine and he goes back, that's not
a time machine, that's just beer. Um, very good. Should
we hit that trailer audio? Yeah, let's let's hear some audio.

(14:11):
All right, Well, let's let's start talking about some of
the folks that are that are involved in this picture,
because it's really a fun group here, even outside of
El Santo. So we'll get to Al Santo in a minute.
But first let's talk about the director, and this is
Renee Cardona Um who lived nineteen o five through nine.
Am I wrong in thinking that he also directed the

(14:32):
Santa Claus movie with the with the extremely expressive devil figure? Yes?
I think a lot of our listeners will know cardona
best from the really that the excellent nineteen fifty nine
film Santa Claus, in which Santa Claus and the devil
battle for the soul of poor Lupita in Mexico City. Um.
That one was of course featured on Mystery Science Theater

(14:53):
three thousand and UM. Interestingly enough, I've I've read that
it apparently played an actual role in introduce seeing the
character of Santa Claus to the Mexican public, which which
is interesting. Well, but there are a lot of features
in that movie that are I don't know where they
come from or how they ended up being accepted in
general folklore. But uh, but like in that movie, Santa

(15:15):
Claus has a bunch of science fiction technology. He's got
like these machines that allows survey lance of the entire earth,
and he's got a thing called the Flower to Disappear,
which allows him to teleport. Yeah, in a way, you
could compare these two films rather favorably because Santa and
El Santo are both super achievers. Though I would say

(15:38):
Santo is even better than Santa. But if you haven't
seen it, that's a tremendous Christmas film. Now. Cardona was
a director, an actor, a producer, a writer, and editor,
but he's best remembered as a director in the Golden
Age of Mexican cinema. He was born in Havana, Cuba,
and began medical school there, but then he had to
flee the country. His family had to flee the country

(15:58):
for New York City. Uh, and he was unable to
continue his studies and got involved in filmmaking, which took
him to Hollywood, and then he made the move to
Mexico City, first as an actor, but then eventually as
a director as well. So on IMDb he has a
hundred and twenty three acting credits, fifty five writing credits,
and hundred and forty six directorial credits. As an actor,

(16:19):
he was in some really well received in Mexican films
of the day, such as The Priest's Secret from ninety
one and The Rock of Souls from nineteen forty three. Uh.
In any of you out there that are, you know,
far more familiar with Mexican cinema and Golden Age of
Mexican cinema, let us know about those films, because I
haven't seen either of them, but I understand that they're
very well received and and you know, kind of legendary.

(16:40):
But as a director, this was not his only Santo movie. Right, No, no,
he directed, I believe, unless there's some that are missing
or the titles obscure them. Seven different Santo movies, as
well as some other titles such as She Wolves of
the Ring, which I believe is also a wrestling picture
but without Santo um and then some other genre films

(17:01):
that will mention in a bit. Now, maybe this is
a place to talk about how one thing that's interesting
about this movie is that there are a couple of
different versions of it that are extremely different from one another. Yes,
and this this was when I discovered this detail. This
was another thing that pushed this film over the edge
for me as our selection, because apparently when Cardona shot

(17:21):
the film, he shot a color version and a black
and white version, and more to the point, he shot
a family version for distribution in Mexico. This would be
the black and white, and also a quote unquote adult
version that was mostly for the European market. And so
from what I can tell, the adult version is just
the exact same movie, but with a bunch of absolutely

(17:45):
extraneous nudity added in right or at least toplessness among
the various women that Dracula interacts with. And we cannot
stress stress it enough. None of the scenes with nudity
in them um are Santo scenes. Santo scenes are are
entirely upright, So it's only Dracula scenes that have this
added nudity. Again in this color European version, that is true.

(18:06):
You can almost feel like a force field barrier between
Santo and his scenes and any of the scenes that
display like obvious prurian qualities. Right. Yeah, they were clearly
kept separate. I believe that was probably the arrangement as well.
It was like, well, if you're going to shoot these
added scenes, if that's for the Europeans, fine, but this
is not from Mexico. It's funny that they had to

(18:28):
do that for the Europeans. So the idea is like, hey,
we want to show this to French people. They are
not going to watch it unless there's like a solid
ten minutes of extraneous nudity, right and and ultimately I
mean it, it's do not go out and buy this
just for the nudity, because the nudity scenes are very
boring there, and they're very they're I should stress too,
they're they're pretty tame too, especially by modern standards, but

(18:49):
even by nineteen seventies standards. Really. Oh yeah, I would
say the star of this movie is is Santo and
the and the time machine stuff like that's that's what
you're here for. The Dracula stuff is funny and great
because it exists in contrast to the Santo content, right right.
But if it was just the Dracula stuff on its own,
that would be a bit it would be a bit dry. Um.
But that's Dracula, He's undead, right. Um. So. The the

(19:13):
interesting thing about this color quote unquote adult version or
the sexy version is that sometimes referred is that it
was thought lost for a long time until it finally
turned up in the Cardona vault in eleven. And there
was initially some controversy and even legal concerns over releasing it.
I think there were, you know, concerns with the estate
of El Santo himself. Um. But and this was despite

(19:37):
advocates stepping forward like Giama de Toro, who was like, hey,
this is great, this is vampire uh cinema of Mexico.
It should it should be shared with the world. Um.
But it was restored and then it was It was
successfully screened later that year and finally released on Blu
Ray by vc I Entertainment just earlier this month. Now,
I think another one of the things that's complicated is

(19:59):
you did mention this it to emphasize the difference with
these what was called the European cut is not just
the extraneous nudity, but also that it was shot in
color and the restoration looks great. Yeah, you do side
beside comparison. You look at the black and white and
you look at the color, and I mean, the color
is just so much more beautiful and alive. Like. One

(20:20):
of the things that really I really noticed this the
most in was a scene that had nothing to do
with Santo or Dracula, somebody mowing a lawn. Uh, and
it was just like this feel like I felt like
I was transported in time just by virtue of just
how clean and restored the footage was. Nevertheless, I can
see why this version might have been lost, or at
least why there might have been an impulse to cut

(20:41):
the nudity stuff. I mean, apart from just opposing that
on its own grounds, it's totally extremely jarring because of
how wholesome Santo is. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And like there
are scenes where there's there's Dracula and this nudity, and
then Santo enters the room and everyone is magically clothed again,
Like you can really feel that. The jarring edit that

(21:04):
was like, okay, we're gonna now paste over the nude
scene here in the nude scene here, all right, trip
of Europe. Now, who was the mind who brought us
this script? Alright? So the writer was one Alfredo Salazar um.

(21:25):
He was writer and director brother of actor Abel Salazar,
who start as the brain drinking vampire in the nineteen
sixty two filmed The Brainy Act. So if you're if
you want more Mexican cinema vamporism, that one's must see.
It's really good. We might need to come back to
that one in the future. Now. Alfredo Salazar wrote five
Santo films as well as The Batwoman, which was also

(21:49):
directed by Cardona. And this also is really interesting looking
because it's an unofficial adaptation, very unofficial adaptation of the
d C Comics character. And I believe it involved at
times of the keenie clad Batwoman battling fish monsters. Well,
you've attached an image and I see this fish monster here,
but I gotta say he looks like the rocketeer with claws.

(22:10):
He does. It's like an organic rocketeer. Yeah, alright, Well
let's talk about Santo himself. El Santo the Saint, real
name Rodolfo Gozman Hirta born nineteen seventeen died in ninety four.
Again probably the most I mean, without a doubt, the
most famous and instantly identifiable luchador of all time. He

(22:30):
was active for five decades and in addition to being
just a superstar in the ring, he was featured in comics.
He was a numerous films, often as a kind of
crime fighter or superhero super scientist, even taking on corruption,
supernatural evil. He was again the just the ultimate technico.
He never lost his mask, but he did. This is interesting.

(22:52):
He did famously reveal his face on TV prior to
his death from a heart attack in ninetour and uh
in just a year after his retirement. Um it was.
You can look it up on YouTube and see it.
It's this very like human moment where where he's kind
of like, I'm going to show you who I really
am before I'm gone. I just have to add, especially
seeing this restored version of the movie where you can

(23:14):
get more detail up close with Santo's face, like seeing
his eyes through the mask, It's easy for me to
see why Santo was such a star even outside of wrestling,
because in this movie he's wearing his mask the entire time,
of course, and his voice this is only available in
the version that we were watching. It only available with

(23:34):
an English dub, so his voice is dubbed by someone else.
And yet somehow he still has this absolutely powerful likableness
and charisma that burns through all of those obstacles, through
the mask, through having his voice completely dubbed over. I
guess it's all just in his body language and like
seeing his eyes through the slits in his mask. But

(23:56):
he really did seem like, yeah, this guy is pure good. Yeah.
I mean it's we have to It's like you really
can't stress it enough that Santo was not just a
lucha star or a movie star. He was he was
a cultural icon. Um. I've I've read wrestling journalist Dave
Meltzer uh talking about this, and he says that it's
it's ultimately difficult to really you can't really point to

(24:19):
any like American um or even a Japanese wrestling icon
and and have any idea about like just how popular
Santo was, Like you would have to compare him to
someone instead like Muhammad Ali or Elvis Presley, like he was.
He was that big of a star. Yeah, I mean
even after seeing him in this ridiculous movie like I

(24:41):
get it. Yeah, and and again he's been dead for
decades and it still has this status that has outlived
him now. Um, it isn't worth noting. Santo had nine children,
but only one of them followed him into Lucca uh
Hio del Santo born nineteen sixty three, who was seemingly,
against all odds, an incredible warmer in his own right,
who was able to carry on the tradition, you know,

(25:03):
the mass, the costume, the move set. Um. He still
wrestles today, but he slowed down quite a bit, and
he's been an independent talent for like fifteen years now,
so asn't shown up in either of the two major
lucha promotions in Mexico. Like I said earlier, I have
not watched nearly as much wrestling as you, and so
I was less familiar with this. But you you posted
a a match for me to take a look at.

(25:26):
It was one that was l Ejo del Santo and
Octagon versus Art bar and Eddie Guerrero from and this
one was fantastic and Eo del Santo was great. I
mean doing like, uh, a lot of like really uh,
I don't know what jumpy kind of moves like up
in the air. Yeah yeah, high flying, twisty moves. Uh. Yeah.

(25:49):
That that match in particular is one that that that
Dave Meltzer gave five stars to, which is his highest rating,
and it's it's often held up is is one of
one of the great luchen matches, certainly of that period
of the the nineties. Uh. And you can find this
one in all the usual places online. But if you're wondering, okay, well,
what how about Santo himself and his wrestling, Well don't worry,
we'll get to that because one of the things that

(26:10):
this movie features is an entire wrestling match in the
latter half of the film. And uh and I think
it's an excellent representation of lucha libre. There's a plot
conflict that takes place outside the wrestling ring, and somehow,
through some contrivance, it's it's like, whatever is the outstanding
problem in the plot must be settled through a wrestling match. Yeah,

(26:33):
I mean it makes perfect sense, right. I mean people
are coming to see a wrestling picture. They want to
see some wrestling, not just a you know, an occasional
wrestling move thrown into a street fight. I think it
often will involve like a bet of some kind, like
you know, some amount of money or object or something
is in dispute, and it's like, well, whoever wins the
wrestling match gets the outcome they want. Yeah, the combat

(26:55):
by champion once again. But of course, lest we forget,
this film also does have Dracula, and yes, yes, Dracula
is played by Aldo Monty, who lived nineteen twenty nine
through sixteen, who was an actor and director. Born in
Rome but spent his entire career in Mexico. He played
Dracula twice in this film, as well as in nineteen

(27:19):
seventy threes Santo and Blue Demon Versus Dracula and the
Wolfman that that sounds like it's worth of watch. He
also played a role in the Santo movie The Vengeance
of the Vampire Women in nineteen seventy, and he directed
nineteen seventy five Santo in Anonymous death threat that doesn't
sound fun? Who's he gonna wrestle? It's anonymous. I don't know. Well,

(27:44):
they were probably under a mask, right, that's probably the
whole thing. I haven't seen that one, though it could be.
He also directed some horror movies, two different um bloody
horror movies, Bloody Holidays and Bloody Seduction in nineteen six
and nineteen nine Vacationes angrient Us Yeah, which I guess
that's like bloody Holiday and then um yeah, yeah, so

(28:07):
that these I have known nothing about them, but the
box art was bloody, so maybe they're good. Uh he was.
He also acted in an interesting nineteen sixty six movie
titled Panico or Panic, which which sounds like a potentially
interesting Mexican horror anthology film. In this movie, as Dracula,
he's um, he's a kind of standard sub Christopher Lee

(28:29):
type Dracula from but but fits in with the hammer
horror Victorian type vibe. Uh he. He also sort of
has George Lason b energy he does Yeah, so he
and in George Lason by fashion. You know, he does,
he does the job. You know, it's not exceptional, but
it's not bad. It's you know, there's only so much
that's required of a Dracula, all right, then we have

(28:51):
the actor playing Louisa. This is Noelia Noel, this was
this is our our beautiful time traveling heroin in the film.
Um pretty amazing time travel jumpsuit. That will touch on.
She was an Argentinian actress. She was only in a
handful of films, but her filmography includes nineteen nine Night

(29:12):
of the Bloody Apes, which is also directed by Cardona.
That sounds intense. Yeah, it looks pretty interesting. I haven't
seen it, but it's it's on my like loose list
of things to check out in the future. Um oh,
and uh, I'm not sure on this, but it looks
like she might have been a pop singer at the
time as well. I found some I found I found
some some old Mexican or Argentinian albums. I'm not sure which,

(29:36):
but it's her name on it, and it looks a
lot like her because she has this like signature red
hair and all. Uh So I'm like, sure, if this
is her, I gotta look up her music. I wasn't
able to find any of it. I just found I
found some records for sale, but that doesn't really do
me much good. Well, I've got a turntable, maybe I
can Yeah, yeah, all right, then we we also have
the comic relief in this film. And this is the

(29:58):
uh this the character Perico. Yeah, Periko played by Alberto Rojas,
Yes who I wasn't able to find a birthdate for him,
but he died in And this is Perico is Santos
super cowardly and largely incompetent, but hilarious. Friend. I don't
think he's really this actor is really known outside of

(30:21):
Mexican cinema. Could be wrong, but he seems to have
a had a very long career in Mexico, playing comedic
roles for film and television from nine nine all the
way up to two thousand fifteen. This was his first
acting role, though, according to IMDb, and he apparently is
also known by his nickname El Caballo Cabio. I think
I think that's horse. Oh is it the horse? I

(30:42):
think so? So he's either because Perrico means I think parakeet.
Uh so he's either a parakeet or a horse, depending
on which nickname you're going by. Yeah, I can see
there one fitting. I think he's supposed to be a skinny,
cowardly butt of a joe. He wears a huge dollar
sign necklace for some reason. Yeah, it's never explained. He's

(31:05):
got big, big old glasses, like gigantic lenses. Uh. And
I gotta say so there the one time in this
movie where el Cento was anything other than just like
perfectly virtuous is when he was sort of a little
bit bullying to Perico. But I think I think it's
just because Perico is supposed to be super annoying. Yeah,

(31:28):
he's so annoying even if you're a saint. Um, you know,
it's kind of hard to take. But but he's I
have to say, sometimes the comedic figure in films like this,
it's a they're a bit much to take. But I
thought this guy was great in this. Like I legitimately
laughed out loud at some of his antics. Um. And
I think he plays an important role in keeping the

(31:49):
movie clicking around, because otherwise most of the other characters
are ultimately kind of static. I mean, it's Dracula, it's Masknin,
it's sexy vampire thralls. But this guy's just overflowing with
comedic vod Villian energy. There's a great scene where he,
in his terror, accidentally swallows a whistle and then he
can't stop whistling while talking. Yeah, and he's always terrified. Yeah, alright,

(32:13):
any other actors we want to mention before we get
into the plot. I would say, just very briefly, there
are two guys in this that that we're wrestlers. There's
this guy, um wrestler XU, Guillermo Hernandez, and he shows up,
as is this guy that is one of Santo's training buddies.
Oh is this like his his Burgess Meredith type guy,
the gravelly voiced guy who helps him out. Yeah, and

(32:36):
I believe he wrestled, if I'm not mistaken here, he
did wrestled as a lobo negro and um and unwrestled
Santo even back in the day. And then there's also
a guy named Atlas that pops up that is the
villain's son that Santo ultimately has to wrestle and Um.
I don't think the actor playing Atlas is credited, but
I think it's clearly a luchador from the era. And

(32:58):
I think it's a guy named Mr Atlas, which was
Daniel torriko um Balderrama, and he would have been a
contemporary of Santo's. But I couldn't find out a lot
of information about him. Okay, he was interesting because he
was like he was the champion of the villains, but
he wasn't as villainous as the He was just a wrestler.

(33:19):
He was just pure muscle. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well
let's let's get into the plot of this film. Okay.
So it's got a good I love a good like
production company title card, and this one has it. There's
like an excellent, wacky one that says cinemato Graphica. That's
a hard word, Cinematographica Calderon, which I think is named
after the head of the production company um that made

(33:42):
this and and it says it stars Santo the Silver Mask.
We may not have mentioned that point, but Santo's mask
is silver, and also his his pants are silver when
he wrestles. But in a lot of this movie he's
just like wearing a suit, which is fun. Yeah, with
the mask, it's fun. But it gives you two different
titles for the movie, by the way, because the European version,

(34:05):
with all of the totally pointless nudity scenes, that one
had apparently been retitled l vampiro e l sexo so,
which literally translates to the Vampire and the sex Uh.
And then then it gives you. But the actual title
of the movie is Santo in the Treasure of Dracula, right,

(34:26):
which is a that's a more authentic title, like that's
what it's about. And the first thing we get is
a location establishment. We see like a plaque on the
wall that says Dr Caesar sepulveda physical nuclear nuclear physicist.
And so it's a meeting at the office of this
this nuclear physicist, Dr Sepulveda. And I think it's important

(34:47):
to hear the opening spoken line of the film because
it gets so much done. Dr Sepulveda is speaking and
he says, my dearest colleagues, I took the liberty of
holding this meeting here at my house to inform you, all,
distinguished members of the Metaphysic Research Society, about the work
of an esteemed friend of mine, known to all of

(35:08):
you for his scientific work, as well as having dedicated
his whole life while hiding his identity to fight effectively
against crime. Let me introduce you to Santo. So many
funny things here. Number one, I'm curious why it's the
Metaphysic Research Society. I think these people are supposed to
be physicists, not metaphysicists. Um, But then the other thing

(35:32):
would be uh. He says, he needs to tell you
about the scientific work of this person who is known
to all of you for his scientific work. But anyway,
then Santo walks into the room and from the moment
he's on screen, he's just in command. It's like what
anybody else is talking, I don't care. I want to
hear what Santo has to say. So his pitch is

(35:52):
pretty much, gentlemen, I have invented a way to materialize
your body into a past existence. And he says that
we could use this to study cultures of the past
and things like that. And all the scientists in the
room or there were somewhat interested, and so they want
an explanation, and he takes them next door into the lab.
And the lab there are a bunch of scenes that

(36:14):
take place in the lab. It's great. It's got a
big red leather office chair, beeping machines, hoses, levers, flashing lights,
and Santo says, and and by the way, I just
gotta say this comes through in a bunch of parts
of the movie. Whoever did the English dub over for
Santo's lines has some extremely funny line delivery. I don't

(36:35):
know whose voice that was, but bravo to them. You know,
I have to stress in a way that feels very
respectful though, like it's not. It's not some sort of
a wonky, you know, high jinks kind of dubbing, even
though I do feel like it is. It is it
was done recently, Like I don't think this is dubbing
from the sixties or seventies, but it but it did.

(36:56):
It did feel authentic. It felt like they were they
were doing their best to give fitting dubbing for a
nineteen nine film. Yes, and the I mean often what's
so funny about the dub is the the flatness and
directionists with which ridiculous lines are delivered. And this would
be an example. So they walk into the room and

(37:16):
Santo says, this is my mechanical invention. It is actually
a time machine. Yes, um, and that that's one of
the great things too, is that he then goes on
to explain how this time machine works. And I really
admired that it's not just a hey, I made a
magic portal and you walk through it and you're in
the past, Like it's it's more elaborate than that. It's

(37:37):
ultimately it's a bit different than you might expect. You
would expect kind of a walky time to our situation,
but that's not what Santo has invented. Well no, In fact,
this piece of technology assumes the premise of reincarnation because
it says that by decomposing a subject's atoms, it causes
them to be sent back to one of their previous lives.

(38:00):
And that's just science. I mean, if you stuff to
blow your mind enough, you know that's just what happens
when you decompose an atom, right, regrets to previous lives.
Uh So the scientists are like, well, why haven't you
tested it yet? And he says that he hasn't found
a willing test subject because, as we will learn in
the ensuing scenes, the test subject to travel back to

(38:20):
a previous life really needs to be a woman in
in good health because, as we will learn, women have
quote four times more resistance than men, and it will
be easier to radiate her cells for a longer period
of time. They do not say resistance to us, just
four times more resistance. Well, and it's like they say,
females are strong as hell, so you know it makes

(38:42):
sense that they are the ones that can survive time travel.
I mean, I buy it. I'm I'm here for this
plot device. So the visiting scientists demand proof, and because
he can't give them proof, they leave, scoffing mercilessly. These
are the scoffers who come scoffing, and they scoff off
on their way, and Santo and his friends are very disappointed.

(39:02):
If only they had a volunteer, right, So so they
sit around talking about how they could fix this if
they had a volunteer. Everybody turns to look at Santo's
friend Perico, who we've discussed already, his cowardly buddy, and
he's like, oh, not me, boss, I'm so scared and uh.
Then they turned to their esteemed colleague Dr. Sepulvida, and

(39:24):
the answer is no, he can't do it. He tries
to volunteer, but he's too old and he's male. Uh.
And then finally their friend Luisa asks if she can
be the volunteer, and there's a little bit of himing
and hawing, but basically Santo is like, yep, let's get
to the lab. Oh and we should say. All the while,
there is a creep in a hood spying on what

(39:45):
Santo and friends are doing. Yeah, and at least at
this point of the film, we are to assume that
this is privileged knowledge for the viewer and not something
that Santo and company are aware of, right exactly. Yeah,
there is a creep sort of like peeking in the
windows and over the hedges at what they're doing in
the lab. And so Luisa puts on a rad silver

(40:07):
time travel jumpsuit with I might add, I don't know
if you noticed this a very Dracula style color on it. Oh,
I didn't notice that. I'm gonna have to go back
and look at stills. Yeah, it's got that I don't
know what you call that in fashion terms, but the
kind of collar that's like sort of puffed up and
large and raised. It's like a Dracula cape collar. In anyway,
these scenes where they're they're getting the time machine working,

(40:30):
this is one of the ones where I was really thinking, like, man,
it is. It's just easy to see why Santo was
a star again, through the mask, through the dub, his
charisma shines through. Yeah, I mean again, El Santo is
presented as the absolute best of us. He's noble, intelligent, strong,
he's just absolutely good. He's an athlete, a warrior, a scientist,
and as we'll see, even his enemies often just recognize

(40:52):
his honor just just it's just a given. Oh yeah,
that's great. There are parts where the enemies are like,
you know, I would like to kill him, but he
he is too sacred. Yes. Um. So Luisa gets into
the time machine, and the time machine is very funny.
It's like it's like a hallway in Christopher Lee's house
and the Man with the Golden Gun. It's got this

(41:13):
big spiraling turning disc and weird psychedelic effects all over
the place. Yeah. Like it's basically it's basically a time tunnel,
which makes sense because the Time Tunnel was on television
sixty six through sixty seven. Okay, I don't know anything
about that. What what is that? I've never said. I
just remember seeing ads for it on the Sci Fi
Channel back in the day reruns, and it is is

(41:35):
just a show that featured a psychedelic time tunnel that
was like this crazy spiral and I believe you went
through it and that allows you to travel in time.
I see. So Luisa travels through time and she reverts
into one of her past lives where she lands on
a big bed with two visible puncture wounds in her neck.
And I think we can immediately see where this going.

(41:58):
Um oh, and we should say that Santo and Sepulvida
and Perico have a way to watch what Luis says
doing on on a TV screen, so they can watch
her doings in the past on TV. Yeah. I love
this because it's it's so ridiculous but also so powerful.
Like if you were able to do this, like think
of I mean, all you could just discover about the past,

(42:19):
like like forget actually sending the person back to their
past life somehow, being to being able to watch it
on like some sort of direct video feed Like that's
that's incredible, it is. And it's interesting to see the
way they apply their knowledge to what they're looking at,
Like we find out that santo Is is also a
furniture expert because he immediately deduces the time period they're

(42:40):
looking at by the furniture in the room. Oh. Absolutely, yeah,
he's a detective. He's he's he's an expert in all things.
So in the past we see old furniture, there's horse
and carriage and so for a while here it becomes
a movie within a movie. It just turns into a
Dracula movie, with Santo and friends occasionally popping in to

(43:04):
comment on the action, like I don't know, like Grandpa
Monster coming in in the middle of the movie to
introduce a commercial break. Yeah, which again is is I
think it's admirable that we we don't just have a
standard Santa goes back in time and fights things like
we have a far more kind of elaborate plot going
on here. Santo watches a movie about the past that

(43:24):
then later becomes a life and death struggle in the present. Yes,
and so this movie about the past, I'm not going
to go super into the details about it. It's a
very standard Dracula style plot. So you get a slayer
professor Professor van Roth, who is clearly the Van Helsing character.
He meets a Professor Solar. Solar's daughter is sick. Her

(43:45):
health is declining day by day. She's weak and pale
in the mornings, just like what happened to her friend
Maura previously. I think we might recognize the like Lucy
mina vampiric illness plot line from Dracula. I do love
that when this whole setup is being explained Dr. Van
Roth or Professor van Roth and Solar and their study,

(44:06):
and suddenly there's a bat attack, just like a rubber
bat attacks the window and they have to ward it
off with mistletoe, which Professor van Roth says is a
herb that grows in Transylvania and vampires can't stand the
smell of it. Uh you know, I'd never encountered this
use of missiletoe before, but I mean, I guess it
would make sense given the you know, Druidic properties of

(44:28):
mistletoe and what has kind of like magical properties in
some legends, So why not sure? Uh ye? And to
pick up further on the druidic themes right after that,
I laughed out loud when I saw this when Luisa
comes into the room and she's wearing this I don't
know why it was so funny, but it's this green
velvet robe with like huge puffy Santa Claus cuffs on

(44:48):
the sleeves, and she gives this whole spiel about how
at night fog comes, there are dogs barking, and I
see a pale face with blood red eyes, and then
her Dad's like, yeah, I don't worry about that and
then oh, and then a dude shows up and he's
introduced as Count Alucard, and he just sort of like

(45:09):
does some uh jousting back and forth verbally with the
with the professor's uh and you count Alucard yet get it? Yeah,
it's of course Dracula backwards. Uh. And this is this
is not the only place you encounter Count alocard um.
You see. We see this pop up in various Dracula movies,
including Dracula two and in ninety three Son of Dracula

(45:35):
starting Lon Chaney Jr. And I guess the whole thing
is Dracula is ultimately lazy and if he needs to
fake his identity, he's just going to spell his name
backwards and leave it at that, Like I imagine his
like he would be horrible at coming up with a
password for his email account. It reminds me of the
episode of the Office where Dwight is pretending to have
gone to the dentist but he's lying and Michael asks

(45:58):
him what the dentist name was. He takes about ten
seconds and then says Crentict. Yeah. Yeah. Alcartes is very
very much on the Crentest level of creative line, but
it's working for Count Alkard here because he's he's on
a roll. Yeah, they're there. I mean it's basically, these

(46:19):
people would fall for the crentest excuse. They would they
would accept that that doctor's note. But anyway, van Roth
introduces the idea, oh, what if Luisa is being attacked
by a vampire and that's the cause of the punctures

(46:39):
in her neck, and you know, that could be like
the many other girls who have disappeared. And then here
we we transition into one of the long I think
European cut sequences. So when we see Count Alucard and
his army of vampire women and they're vamping some new victims. Uh,
they're long, extraneous scenes of of extended nudity that are

(47:00):
in no way necessary to the plot. There was one
detail from this part that was funny where it seems that, uh,
Count Alucard puts a cute little stick on bat tattoo
on all of his lady vampire soldiers. Oh yeah, like
it's they don't seem to be implying or trying very
hard to make it seem like he's branding them or
anything or doing any kind of like magical tattoo or

(47:22):
it's just like he's kind of, yeah, putting a sticker
on him, um, you know, stamping him in. And then
he tells them, now, go quench your vampire thirst for
human blood, as all of us must do. And there's
fog and bat squeaks and blood sucking havoc. I think
there was a there was a funny I was watching
with subtitles and it did have like the parentheses bat

(47:42):
squeaks sounded uh. And Count Alucard attacks Luisa in or
sleep and you know, I guess as he's been doing
throughout this whole time. And then we cut back to
Santo and friends and they're watching all this on TV,
putting the pieces together, and you know, they they figured
that Luisa has had a past life in which she
lived at the same time as this vampire, Count Alucard.

(48:06):
And then we get one of my favorite quotes from
the film. Santa watching this on the screen says that
vampire is Dracula. I I legitimately laughed out loud at
that part. Um. This was another one of those The
voice actor who does the dub has some really hilariously
straight line readings. But anyway, so the Dracula subplot here

(48:27):
the movie. Within the movie, it just sort of barrels
on towards the resolution of the standard Dracula plot along
standard lines like van Roth the Slayer goes about some stakings,
Dracula closes in on Luisa to seal her doom. He says,
I have chosen you as my wife for all eternity.
Um I I do wonder though, is there is the

(48:47):
suspense in this lesson by knowing that this is one
of Luisa's past lives? Well? Maybe, but then again we
don't really it's not established, like what happens if you
go into a past life and then you die in
that past life, and then then ultimately we know via
the rules of time travel that have been presented to us,
the male characters cannot travel back, like Santo can't go

(49:09):
back and help her. And even if he could, I
don't know if there's any guarantee that he would be
in the same time or in the same life, or
you know, in that same part of the world. Who knows.
That's a good point. Yeah, well, and also you get
the sense that Luisa in the past, does she ever
give an indication in the past that she like retains
her knowledge about the future. I don't recall anything like that.

(49:32):
It's almost as she just like becomes her past self,
possessing only the knowledge of that past self. Yeah, of course,
it's complicated by the fact that she also falls under
the power of a of a of a you know,
tremendously powerful vampire lord almost immediately. But yeah, we've not
given a lot to go on here. But anyway, as
I said, the vampire plot just barrels towards the conclusion

(49:56):
you would expect. Van Roth is trying to find Dracula
and stake him. He says, I have hired a wolfhound.
The animal has the power to track vampire assassins. And
then while they're watching the movie Paraco, he's commenting like, oh,
where is Alucard taking her? And he's he's very scared
about what's going to happen. But then he sees all
of the jewels in Dracula's treasure box, and when Dracula

(50:19):
reveals his treasure, Perico is intrigued. He's like, could those
jewels be real? I guess we're supposed to understand that
he likes riches because he wears the dollar sign necklace. Yeah, yeah,
and again the riches here it's um is I remember,
it's a it's a casket, one of the caskets in
this vault of Dracula. This just filled with what we

(50:40):
assume to be a treasure, jewels and stuff. Yeah. But
so Dracula and Luisa they brag about how no mortal
will ever find Dracula's treasure, and they go into their
coffins to rest, and then van Roth arrives to stake
the vamps. So he stakes Dracula, do you get the
big hiss? And then he's about to stake Luisa. Oh oh,

(51:00):
So Santo and friends have to intervene to save her,
and they do this by bringing her back through the
time machine with a reverse footage effect before she can
be staked in the past. I'm not sure exactly how
that works. Yeah, but this is suddenly really like this
is interesting because Dracula is staked in the past and
now we're back in the present and we still have

(51:22):
quite a bit of film to go. So this is
the point where I was really intrigued. I was like,
I wonder where this is going, you know, like it
seems like we resolved this journey into the past. Yeah,
the movie is like less than half over at this point.
But then the plot in the present develops in a
pretty awesome way. So we get some info filled in
on the creep in the hood who has been snooping

(51:42):
on Santo and friends the whole time while they're doing
their experiment. He comes back home and he meets with
a bodybuilder or like a wrestling dude, a kid who's
like pushing up, you know, doing uh barbell exercises named Atlas,
and Atlas addresses the guy in the hood as Faber
and father fills him in on what's going to happen.

(52:02):
The guy in the hood is like, I can find
Dracula's treasure because I spied. Yeah, there's a lot of
spine going on in this, because Santo and company knew
about the Draculus treasure because they spied through the time machine.
And then we have a father and company who were
spying on Santo and therefore learn about the treasure as well. Right,
so we we see there are a bunch of I

(52:23):
guess the guy, the guy in the black hood is
supposed to be a crime boss of some sort. He's
got gangster thugs who worked for him, and there's a
great scene where he calls them on the phone and
they're sitting around a table playing cards with liquor bottles
and cigarettes and guns. And one of the guys at
the table playing cards looks like a standard nineteen forties

(52:46):
or fifties film noir button man, you know, he's suspenders,
a Fedora cigarette, that kind of thing. But then there's
another one of the thugs who looks like a philosophy
professor or something. It's like he's got like a turtleneck
can a sport coat and he's smoking a pipe. But anyway,
the gangster guys here, they get their instructions from the

(53:07):
dude in the Black Hood. They are told to do
surveillance on Dr Sepulvida's house, but no guns. He says
that the life of Santo must be sacred to you all.
That's right, even the villains, they have a code when
it comes to Santo. So here we get Santo and
friends investigating the remains of the vampires Layer. They're going to,

(53:27):
you know, like where Dracula got steaked. That's like a
secret crypt and they know how to access it because
they watched the past on TV. And they go to
find it and Perico is very afraid. There's a part
where Santo says, aren't you a man? And he says,
I am a little mouse. Yes, he's like cowering in
the backseat. Uh yeah, it's it's great. He he hits

(53:49):
this note all the time in the film and and
somehow it works like he's you can compare him very
easily to uh Shaggy and Scooby Doo. Right, um oh, totally,
except more hilarious. He should have been eating, like, you know,
fourteen layer sandwiches. But so they're searching for the right
crypt and they're paraic oceananigans where he's running around being

(54:11):
scared and uh and and Santo tells him if he's
in danger, he can just blow the whistle and we
will come to help you. Uh. And while they're investigating
the crypt, the hooded Man and his dudes follow behind,
and then eventually there's a big fight Santo and his
friends versus the hooded Man and and his his sgoons.
And this is the part where Perico swallows the whistle

(54:32):
and he can't talk without whistling. But of course Santo
wins the fight and chases the other guys off, and
Santo gets the It's actually a little more complicated because
like they they don't just know where the treasure is.
It's that Dracula has a couple of pieces of jewelry,
like a medallion and a ring that have markings on

(54:54):
them in Serbian that tell the location of the treasure.
Did I get that right? Yeah, because like there's a
later scene where the guy in the black mask the villain,
is like, I'm going to get these artifacts, then I
need to fly to Transylvania and find somebody who can
translate the Serbian. Yes, yeah, that's it, but you need
both of the pieces of jewelry, and Santo and friends
only take one piece. They take the medallion, but me

(55:17):
and meanwhile the bad guys get the ring. So each
side has one of the pieces of jewelry. Uh. And
Santo wants to continue investigating Dracula, despite Luisa having a
bad feeling about this. She says, like humans should not
venture into the world of the unknown, but Santo says,
we have to keep investigating Dracula and find the treasure
for two reasons. He says, first to prove to those

(55:40):
scientists who mocked me that my theory is right, and
then second uh quote to find a vampire's famous treasure
which will help the people in need. And I like
this because they make it clear that Santo would not
keep the vampire's treasure to himself. He would he would
give it to the needy, right yeah, I mean that's
just the code, that's the way he is right now. Now,

(56:01):
one thing that's worth driving home here, and we'll come
back to this in a bit too, is that it
is revealed in all this and the obtaining of the
ring and the medallion, that that Draculus body is still
steaked there. Like his body went one steaked, It did
not you know, burn away or melt into snakes and
crickets or anything like. He's still there with that steak

(56:22):
through his heart. Um And and that will become important
in a bit, right. So eventually Santo and his friends
end up in another big fight with the Black Hood
and UH and his goons, and Dr Sepulvida proposes a
solution to their problem because Santo will not hand over
the medallion even though the guy in the Hood wants it,

(56:43):
and the solution proposed by by Dr saysar here is
that there should be a wrestling match between Santo and
the Black Hood's son Atlas, and the outcome of the
match will determine who gets Draculus treasure, who gets both
of these artifacts that will together spell the location. Yeah,
and of course Santo agrees to this because this is
highly honorable and like, let's face it, he's he's El Santo,

(57:07):
like he has a very strong chance of winning this
no matter how great Atlas happens to be, right, And
then we get a great scene that's a tutorial on
the rules of wrestling, using Perico kind of as a
as a dummy, just getting body slammed over and over
and uh and and of course here's where we meet
Santo's own gravelly voice trainer. Yeah, yeah, you know it's

(57:29):
got I don't know, it's it's it's like he's training
him or training with him. But I remember I was
also thinking, like, why does al Santo need anybody to
train with him? But I guess for the purpose of
the plot, and also just for the comedic fun of
having Paraico slammed on a on a comfy mat and
then having like what six luchadors all pile on him
for comedic effective was pretty great. And then it's wrestling time.

(57:53):
So we get a great wrestling match where where it's
Atlas versus El Santo, and they do they show you
the whole thing. It's three rounds and it's just like
there is a wrestling match in the middle of this movie. Uh,
and it's it's actually pretty good. Like you, by modern standards,
you might expect the wrestling scene to be like, have
a bunch of hypercuts, or to be a montage or something,

(58:14):
but no, this is like a complete I mean, maybe
it's not as long as it would be in real life.
I'm not exactly sure, but it feels like a very
complete wrestling match loog libre match with all of the
signature spots and sort of the you know, the the
Rudeau winning the Matt the round he's supposed to win. Um,
you get to see the high flying moves, you get
to see the Matt wrestling, which is also important, you know,

(58:36):
complicated submission moves and all. And it's it's it's great,
Like if you want to see a fun little Santo match,
just watch this film because it's there in its entirety,
extremely impressive tumbling moves. Again, I'm not as big a
wrestling fan as you are, but I got into it.
I really wanted Santo to win. Yeah, Like, there's a
part where, you know the the Rudeau uses a special

(58:57):
submission move to win one of the falls, and then
in the towards the end of the match for the
final fall, he tries to put the same move on
it in Santo fights out of it. So it's it's
it's right, it's right, good totally. And the one thing though,
in the middle of the match, there was a moment
where I started thinking, wait a second, wasn't there a
vampire in this movie? And then I was worried for

(59:18):
a bit. I was like, are there going to be
no undead in the conclusion of this film? Has it
just turned into pure wrestling? And like the vampire stuff
was just for the first third of it. Oh ye
of little faith. Yeah, So Santo wins the wrestling match
and the bad dude hands over the ring but gasp,
he has made a copy. He is not honorable. He cheats,

(59:39):
I guess because he's a Rudeau. So what's the bad
guy's plan at this point? Well, they've got a brilliant plan.
It's too unstaked. Dracula wake him up from the sleep
of the damned, and then he will kill Santo and
his friends, and after Santo and his friends are dead,
the bad guys will be able to get the medallion
necklace from them, and then together with their copy of

(59:59):
the ring, they can find the treasure. Yeah. That they
kind of skipped over how they're planning to so to
lose Dracula and all of this because they're also awakening
this terrible undead threat, right right, I mean I think
the logic is, we we stand a better chance against
Dracula than we do against Santo. Well that's fair, that's fair, right.
So what so then it goes kind of into third

(01:00:22):
act warp speed. Uh, you know, so the vampire is awakened,
he hypnotizes Luisa again, the bad guys scheme and scheme again. Uh.
There's one part where the villain in the in the
hood tells one of his one of his buddies, Uh,
you fool, they haven't invented a bullet that can kill
a vampire yet. And it also there's a car chase

(01:00:43):
where they're, you know, Santo and the bad guys are
chasing each other around and it has one of my
favorite sound effects, which is car tires screeching on a
dirt road. Well, I mean, you gotta try, no matter
what kind of road you have to work with, you
gotta try and make it look like a car chase.
But you've also got to make it sound like a
car chase. Right, And then there's another big throwdown fight.
It's Santo versus the Hooded Man's goons, and in the end,

(01:01:06):
the black Hooded Man's identity is revealed. I won't spoil it,
but it's a it's a good villain unmasking. Yeah, yeah,
very This is a sort of unmasking that would become
popular with Scooby Doo cartoons. Later on, pull the mask off,
find out who was behind all this dastardly plotting all along.
There's also a final confrontation with Dracula and with his

(01:01:28):
Army of the Damned. But I won't reveal how Santo
wins that one. I will say there I was slightly
disappointed that Santo never directly wrestles Dracula, but I will
say he outsmarts him, and it reminds us that a
hero is not only braun but also wits and while yeah,
and it makes sense too, right because Dracula is so
much about like carnal physicality and desire and uh and

(01:01:53):
and Santo defeats him without ever even having to physically
touch him, so uh, you know, in a way it works.
To be clear, there have been vampire themed rudo luchadors
over time. Yeah, there was one guy that wrestled as Nosferat.
Those costume didn't particularly look very like vampire ask he
didn't look like enough Ferat too so much, but his

(01:02:14):
name was not s Farato, and I enjoyed that. Well,
I would like to watch some more supernatural wrestling movies
that resolve in a more brutal direct way where the
monster is just wrestled to a submission at the end.
What if you did a frankensteiner on Frankenstein, Well, that
that would be that would be interesting. Yeah, I don't
know if that's ever been done. I don't know. That

(01:02:35):
seems like someone should have done it by now. I'm
not sure you You had a lot of different horror
movie characters pop up in in wrestling, certainly in Luca
Libre like for a long time. Maybe still you could
find teenage mutant ninja turtles wrestling in Lucca um just
just kind of a standard get some guys in some
turtle costumes and get them out there wrestling for the kids. Uh.

(01:02:56):
You know, if it had various um, like I think
in Japan you had like Jason Vorhees wrestled, leather Face wrestled, Uh,
Freddie somebody, Freddy Krueger outfit wrestled. So, uh you know
that the two go together quite well. I also like
how at the end of the movie, Santo agrees with
Luisa that it's sort of the final moral of the piece.

(01:03:16):
It's that humans should never ever enter the world of
the Unknown. Yeah, though apparently it paid off right there
because presumably they were able to get the treasure and
then give it to the needy. So I'm I'm not
sure we should say never venture into the unknown because
it seemed to have some benefits here. That's a good point.
They've probably saved lives by entering the world of the Unknown. Yeah,

(01:03:40):
you know, um all told I was. I was very
impressed with the plot in the pacing of this film
because again it could have even knowing that it was
gonna have time travel and Dracula in it, I was
kind of expecting something a lot clunkier, you know, Like
Santo goes back in time and wrestles Dracula. But there
are a lot has all these twists and turns in it.
It's it's very watchable. Towards the end of it, like

(01:04:00):
towards the end of other films from this era and
of this sort of caliber, you know, you often reach
that point where're like, jeez, when is this going to end?
But with this one, you're more like, I don't know
if they're gonna be able to wrap it up. How
are they gonna wrap it up in just ten more minutes?
Uh now? Now. One of the things that I found
really interesting in this is the whole business with staking
Dracula and Dracula not dying but then being able to

(01:04:22):
He's just frozen in the box in this state of
suspended animation, and then when he's unstaked, he just wakes
up and carries on where he left off. Um, so
this does seem to be you know, this is a
variation of the vampire legend that you see other places,
the idea that the steak doesn't kill the monster but
rather fixes it and freezes it to the spot, very

(01:04:43):
much like staking something down to the earth, so that
like staking a tent down. Sure, so you know, it's
interesting that while one often encounters the stake to the
heart detail and vompire legends, you know, sometimes there are
particular wood requirements for the steak. There's at least one
variety where the empire must be steaked through the mouth.
There's another where a large nail must be driven through

(01:05:04):
the forehead. Um. And I was looking at a book
by one Paul Barber titled Vampire's Burial and Death, and
he points out that the steak to the heart might
have picked up steam because if you if you actually
unearthed a decaying corpse and you drive a steak into
its chest, um, the decaying corps will very often produce

(01:05:25):
a sound. In fact, Barbara writes that it would be
surprising if it did not um, because the lungs are
going to be compressed by the steake's entry into the chest,
and this will force air and gases to explode out
of the mouth and produce a sound not unlike a
groan or a hiss, sometimes compared to the squealing of
a pig. And this detail was apparently specifically pointed out

(01:05:47):
in seventy two by the Royal Prussian Society of Science. Yeah,
just when I thought we we discussed all of the
vampire science facts on this show, that that's a new one. Yeah. So,
I mean you can imagine how if you had enough people,
certainly with superstitious ideas in mind, where unearthing bodies couldavers

(01:06:08):
and then driving steaks into them, they might say, well,
you heard the gas, You heard the sound coming from
this creature's mouth. Clearly we just slight it. We killed it,
or at least we you know, we we staked to
the spot so it can't come up again until uh,
you know, sometime in the future when criminals removed the
steak as part of a ploy to steal treasure from
a luchador. So I guess every time they did that

(01:06:30):
and the corpse made a made a wheezing sound, they
would have thought, oh, we should have asked where it
had treasure hidden first. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, of course,
then again, it sounds like a great way to be
tricked by a vampire, right, I mean, it's it's kind
of like going after a lepricn s Gould at that point. Yeah,
that can be dangerous. Why aren't there more films about
about vampire treasure? You know? That was another thing that

(01:06:51):
it feels a little different about this film. So oftentimes
it's just about the threat of the vampire. But yeah,
vampires have been around a while manipulating lots of people. Uh,
makes sense. They have treasure. Yeah, they would always have
stores of riches, I would imagine. I mean, Dracula is
investing in real estate in London, He's gotta he's kinda

(01:07:11):
of some something in his bank account. Yeah. Then he's
leaving for Mexico. I guess it becomes difficult to really
couch this within the timeline of Dracula's life. That's another thing.
So in in the World of Santo in The Treasure
of Dracula, when they watched the story of Dracula and
Luisa's past life unfold on the TV, and the characters

(01:07:34):
comment on the fact that I didn't know Dracula ever
came to America, and they were like, Dracula, what Dracula
in the Western Hemisphere. That's strange. Yeah, it seems like
a whole side discussion should take place. Okay, there was
an actual historic Dracula who is a vampire, but he
was not killed in London. He has actually he actually

(01:07:57):
lived and came to Mexico. Yeah, it's um. It probably
strains the brain if you think about it too hard.
But luckily it's a Santa movie, so you don't really
have to. I think in the book he's killed in
Transylvania because they go back to back. That's right. It's
in the movies usually that they stake him, like at
his abbey in London. That's right. I have to admit,

(01:08:20):
every time I read Dracula or see if you know
a pretty accurate adaptation of it, it's that first chunk
of of of Dracula that I'm most into. Once it
leaves Transylvania. Initially, I don't remember it as much. Maybe
I'm lessening interested in it that that that first story
is gold. Oh, I think I must admit that I

(01:08:43):
I generally enjoy the movie adaptations of Dracula better than
I like the book itself. Yeah, which is which is
not true of like like Frankenstein. I love in the original,
But yeah, frank the original a piece of literature. Not
to say that Dracula is an import it as well
from from a literary standpoint. All right, Well, that's Santo

(01:09:04):
in the Treasure of Dracula. You can find both versions
of this film out there, you know, in the usual places.
But the new v C I version just came out
on Blu Ray and it looks amazing. Again. The restoration
is is wonderful. My only gripe is that I as
good as the dubbing is. I wish I had the

(01:09:25):
ability to have the Spanish audio, but there's no Spanish
audio included on the disc, so I don't know what
the reason is for that, but that would be my
only gripe. It could be that there the audio was
lost for this cut of the movie, but yeah, um yeah,
I don't know what that is, but I agree it
would also I think it would have been nice to
to hear the original audio with and just have English subtitles.

(01:09:47):
And of course the black and white version has been
around for a while, but again, like it just the
quality isn't there like that. It's just the black and
white footage is so grimy looking. Uh. It looks like
it was on earthed in a tomb, you know. I
feel like what somebody should do is put together a
a fund for the whole family cut of the great
looking restoration, you know, so like you can cut out,

(01:10:09):
cut out all the like you know, European cut R
rated scenes. So it's the kind of movie you can
enjoy with your five year old. But it's still got
the eye popping color and all that. Yeah, absolutely, because yeah,
it's it's it's such a colorful film. All right, Well,
we're gonna go ahead and um drive a stake into
this one. But yeah, who knows, maybe we'll be back
with with another Santo film in the future, or heck,

(01:10:31):
some of those biker films we mentioned early on, I'd
be game to u to rewatch one of those, for sure,
Psychomania I hear at Colin yeah, or some other biker
There's a lot of biker films. You know, not all
are great, and not all involved supernatural elements, but um,
you know that's that. That would be. My one big
gripe about the Sons of Anarchy television series is they

(01:10:52):
never brought were wolves or vampires into the mix. I've
never seen it, but uh, I can't imagine that where
wolves would hurt Well, hey, Ron Pearlman, yeah get oh yeah, yeah,
he plays like it's essentially Hamlet but with bikers for
f X. Okay, so you got Pearlman in there. Yeah,

(01:11:14):
he would have made a good werewolf, just having Ron
Pearlman in the cast is almost that almost makes it
a supernatural film in its own Yeah. Absolutely. Um, so
we uh prompt to you, the listener, what is your
favorite bizarre niche genre crossover film, especially if it's like
crossing over a usually non supernatural genre with a weird

(01:11:35):
supernatural genre that I think that's my favorite type. Yeah, yeah,
we'd love to hear from a minute that way, we'll
Ge've already getting some great suggestions for Weird House Cinema.
I've added some of them to the list. There's even
one film that I just went in order to copy
of based on a listener suggestion, So keep them coming
in the meantime, if you would like to check out
other episodes of Weird House Cinema, it publishes every Friday,

(01:11:56):
and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast fee and
you can find that fee wherever you get your podcasts.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

(01:12:25):
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