Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro

Plot synopsis:
In The Forest of White Pine, a coven of Vampire women living in a castle, has awoken after a sleep of over 200 years.The first one to awaken, is Tandra,the Vampire Priestess, who must prepare to awaken Thorina, the Queen of the Vampire Women. 200 years prior, a woman chosen to be Thorina's successor escaped the clutches of the Vampire Women and their henchmen. That woman's beauty has now been passed down to a current relative named Diane, on the cusp of turning 21. Per a prophecy, Diane is to take Thorina's place as Queen of the Vampire Women, as Thorina descends into the depths of darkness, to be with her husband: Lucifer.Tandra and several male henchmen go to Diane's home and spy on her. The young woman almost falls under Tandra's hypnotic gaze, when her father, Professor Orlof, and husband-to-be, Jorge, console her.Orlof recommends that she lie down, and as Jorge leaves for the evening, Inspector Carlos comes by. Orlof has called Carlos to provide security for a party of Diane's in a few days, but will not tell the Inspector just what he and his men are to protect Diane from.It turns out the Inspector has known for some time, due to some old parchments, that his daughter is destined to become the successor to Thorina. A mark on her shoulder shaped like a bat, is also a sign of Diane's 'destiny.' However, even with all this knowledge, Orlof has not told his daughter a thing about this prophecy.In the meantime, Tandra and her henchmen have attacked a couple coming out of a nightclub. The girl has been drained of blood, and her male escort has disappeared. Inspector Carlos looks over the body, with many perplexed about her bloodless corpse, until a doorman who saw Tandra turn into a bat and fly off, claims that the woman was attacked by a vampire! His declaration causes Carlos to declare the man be placed under arrest.Back at the Castle, the henchmen drain the kidnapped man of blood, and use his blood to revive the reset of the coven, along with Thorina.Back at his house, Santo arrives to speak with Orlof. Orlof tells of the prophecy, and how Diane's relation many years before, was saved by a former relation of Santo. Like then. Santo is the one who can save the woman destined to become Queen of the Vampires. Santo claims he will do what he can to protect Diane, but has to appear at a wrestling match.The day of the party, Inspector Carlos has a number of men watching over the party. However, their security does little, as Tandra and her henchmen detain several, and infiltrate the party. The two henchmen almost get away with Diane, before Santo appears, and detains them.It is in the aftermath of the attack, that Orlof finally tells of the vampire prophecy. Carlos then formulates a plan: hearing that another couple was attacked at the nightclub like the previous one, he suggests taking Diane there with several of his men to see if the vampire women and their cohorts might show up.Back at the castle, Thorina reprimands Tandra for failing to bring her Diane. Tandra then explains about Santo, and his possibly foiling the prophecy laid out.The vampires then send one of their male henchman to a wrestling match Santo is taking part in. The henchman takes out an opponent, and putting on his clothing and mask, attempts to take down Santo in the ring. The henchman's karate moves almost stop Santo, but Santo manages to unmask his opponent, showing his opponent's face to look like a wolf creature! Several officers fire bullets at the man, but he turns into a bat and flies off.Meanwhile, Diane, Carlos, and several other officers are at the club, when Thorina and Tandra appear, to take a look at her. Thorina leaves soon after, and Tandra and her henchmen manage to make off with Diane. Santo shows up too late to stop them, but manages to chase down one henchman, who bursts into flame upon running under the shadow of a cross.Carlos returns to Professor Orlof, and demands he quickly finish deciphering the parchments, feeling they have to tell where the coven is. With minutes ticking away, Orlof manages to find the location in The Forest of White Pine. Orlof radios to Santo, and the wrestler takes off for the castle.His attempts to infiltrate the castle end with him being trapped and tortured by the henchmen. However, Tandra does not act quickly in performing the ritual on Diane, and the sun begins to rise, burning the henchmen and Tandra, as well as sending Thorina and the other women to hide in their coffins.Santo manages to get free, rescues Diane, and burns the remaining Vampire Women in their coffins.Carrying Diane outside, she is reunited with her boyfriend and father, before Santo drives off.

Tags: cult

Review:
In the late fifties a horror genre burst onto the Mexican screen:masked wrestlers as super heroes.They were a huge hit in Mexico.As usual K Gordon Murray snapped up the American rights to these films.Most were sold directly to televison as saturday afternoon kiddie fare.These were pretty cool when we were well under 12.
The best of the bunch was Santo(called Samson in American prints).Santo was actually a wrestler who kept his identity private until 1982 when he was 65 years old.
A coven of some extremely crusty faced vampire women become hot mamas after a blood ritual.Their queen wants them to kidnap her successor so the queen can go to Hell and live with her hubby Satan.(Sounds like a real stormy romance).The queen to be is the unaware daughter of some idiotic professor.
Well the vampires and their 3 male vampire slaves(all wrestler types)generally bite necks and raise havok.After a couple of botched kidnapping attempts the professor calls in the man in the silver mask,Santo!His real identity a secret, the man in the silver mask,droopy drawers and flamboyant cape tools around in his little sportscar to kick vampiric butt.He also has a cool lab/hideout that the professor can reach via radio/tv.Neat!
After several fights the daughter is kidnapped and taken to the haunted hacienda to be prepared for the blood ritual.Santo arrives in time to get his arse kicked.He is chained next to the girl who will be queen.Will Santo somehow save the day?Will he ever get rid of that wedgie in his tights?Doesn't that mask itch?
The vampire women are very easy on the eyes.The idea of a wrestling superman is a real hoot.Go a few rounds taking punishment that would kill any human,win and go kick some monster arse.All in a days work for Santo!
As usual the lousy dubbing hurts this film.There are a lot of plot holes as well.Vampires appearing in mirrors and the male vampires look like they're out trick or treating.The wrestling matches except for the last one are seemingly endless.
Diana's father, the revered Professor Orlof (Augusto Benedico) has been waiting for this moment, and with the aid of his friend, the mysterious Santo (wrestler Santo himself), they will try to stop Thorina's plan.This is the plot of the film considered as the best in the infamous Mexican wrestler sub-genre.
"Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro" was the forth in Santo's career as an actor, and it sets the basis for his future films as his movies started to move away from the action genre and got closer to the realm of fantasy, horror and science fiction.The wrestling sub-genre was a mixture of action films & superhero comics taking as main characters the famous wrestlers of the time.
Santo was without a doubt the most popular of them, so he starred on a long series of films as a mysterious man devoted to justice.
While in his earlier films he battled crime lords, soon he started fighting the supernatural creatures (mainly because horror started to be popular), and this film is the perfect example of that.While this movie contains the typical flaws of the early Mexican b-movies (low-budget & cheap effects), it excels in other aspects such as the acting, and specially, in the beautiful Bava-influenced cinematography.
The Gothic surreal look the movie has owes a lot to the Universal films of the 30s and the school of Mario Bava ("La Maschera del Demonio" comes to mind).
The film has a visual composition that no other Mexican movie could surpass on a very long time.The acting is very good for a movie of its kind, and the script, while very campy, tells a very entertaining story.
A word of advice, DO NOT get the dubbed version, since the awful dubbing makes the film a lot cheesier than what it already is.Of course, as I wrote above, the movie's biggest flaw is the poor budget, resulting in very cheap SFX; also, the action scenes are a bit too long.
While this is not an award-winning film, it makes an enjoyable experience and the best way to experience the Mexican wrestler sub-genre.
Back when the wrestlers wrestled for real, back when vampires were scary and erotic, back when women were REALLY SEXY, there was "Santo contra las mujeres vampiro".
With a popular superhero, a very, very, very sexy vampire queen (I'd let be myself bitten by her)and an hour plus of really good entertainment this is easily the best mexican film ever made.
El Santo, The Man in the Silver Mask, was the most popular wrestler at the time, a true idol of the masses.
So somebody at some point decided to make "wrestling movies" transforming popular wrestlers into superheros (after all, they are masked and caped, aren't they?) and pitted them against criminal mobsters, evil scientists and in one occasion, a martian invasion.
Today this movie would only inspire chuckles and outright laughs, but its a nice history lesson of the time when caped and masked men were in the imaginations of millions of Mexican kids..
You haven't seen fun camp and delightful cheese until you've seen an El Santo movie, and his match with a bunch of beautiful vampire ladies is probably his best.Since Lucha Libre (Wrestling) is very popular south of the border, El Santo (or Samson, or The Silver Masked Wrestler etc) was the master of caped comic book heroes in Mexico back in the 60's.
This movie boasts not only the typical Santo plot: a wrestling match at the beginning, a pretty girl being menaced by bad guys, a professor who knows how to stop the bad guys, a second wrestling match with a concealed bad guy masquerading as a wrestler trying to kill Santo in the ring etc., but it also has some cool old-school Gothic style undead evil mistresses.
And some beauties they are too: Lorena Velasquez (a look-alike to a young Liz Taylor, except prettier) is the effectively sinister vampire queen who is looking for a successor.It's a lot of late night horror movie fun, the kind the "live monster" hosts like Elvira and Vampira used to show.
You can't help but love the stilted, translated dialog done in laughably out-of-synch dubbing, endless fighting scenes (the kind where people fall down even when a punch misses them by ten feet), a slowly unravelling master plot, and cheap special effects.
They attempt it several times and while they fail, I guess they are grating on the woman's nerves (You'd be upset too if the undead kept bugging ya), so she calls on Santo, a famous Mexican wrestler to stop the undead and protect her.
I missed the episode I guess, but regardless, you don't need their help to enjoy this movie, it is so ridiculous and cheesy on its own that even at 2 hours in length it is still a campy delight.For goodness sake they call on Santo like he's Batman, there's even a Comissioner Gordan type character who has a hotline directly to Santo in the car.
But enjoy Santo Versus The Vampire Women, it's a fun flick..
Used for the last season six episode of MST3K, this Mexican wrestler film has good cinematography, an interesting plot, cool vampires...
okay, so the girl's father has a goofy, dubbed voice and the wrestling scenes (one with a buff vampire!) might be tedious for some (like me).
if you want good acting, a good story and great special effects, stay away, but if you want to have fun watching a masked mexican wrestler kick vampire butt, this is the one for you!This is probably the most popular film starring legendary wrestler El Santo, a true classic..
In this flick, a vampire took his chance to wrestle mano a mano with the silver-masked hero, but the Arena Coliseum is Holy Ground for Santo.
Oddly, the title for this film when I found it on Roku was "Samson Versus the Vampire Women" and they call the hero 'Samson' throughout the picture*.
Now seeing Santo fighting against the undead is NOT unusual, as he made quite a few movies involving werewolves, aliens, vampires and Frankenstein!
But the title is totally misleading and stupid.The film begins with vampire women being awakened and released from her grave by some weird lady in bad make-up.
Las Mujueres Vampiro" is a stupid but fun film....much like all the other Santo movies I have seen.
Now from what I understand Sampson is sort of like the Superman of Mexico, he's their hero, I always honestly thought it was a joke with the Mexican wrestlers, thanks to this movie, I'll be having nightmares for weeks, seeing that ridicules costume, no offense to fans of Samson, just God, that was such an outfit!
But the only thing I can say about this movie, is that it's so bad that it turns around once again into the good/bad zone that makes it so laughable and you actually find yourself enjoying it, it's the vampire version of Goodfellas.A vampire woman has awakened and discovers that it is time to find the reincarnation of the queen of the vampires.
and SAMSON, a Mexican wrestler who for some odd reason sometimes runs away from the bad guys and just flips them on their backs.
the Vampire Women is pretty stupid, I mean we go from a vampire story to a wrestling match that has nothing to do with the story, it's like watching a movie with Paris Hilton and then in the middle of it cut to her sex tape just because that's mainly what she is famous for.
This movie is about a Mexican Alfred the butler who has a machine that can see anything in the world, much like the Chinese guy in that wrestling women movie, and a vampire woman who needs thugs to bop her victims over the head.
The Santo films, indeed the wrestling superhero genre as a whole, is unique to Mexico (I recently tried to sit through an Italian variant, Superargo, and wasn't impressed), and on that basis alone deserves more respect than it is usually accorded.
For my money, the best of the Santo films I have seen is Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos, which is wildly exploitative and inane, but the clips I have seen of Misterio en las Bermudas, together with what I have read of it, suggest that it is truly an epic of its variety.In any event, here we have a fairly early representative of the genre, and I write this because I was able to see an English dub version, that appearing in the Mystery Theater 3000 series.
But it is the Santo film that really makes the viewing worth it.It should be noted that for some reason best known to Santo's management and audience, a large chunk of his filmography has him battling vampires - he even battles Count Dracula himself on at least three occasions.
Perhaps that's just as well - when he battles simple gangsters, as in his first film Santo contra cerebro del mal, the going gets pretty slow."Vampire Women" is an odd film and a silly film.
Suddenly, literally out of nowhere, Santo appears, and the film becomes an excuse for the masked one to thrash some vampire - and werewolf - butt, in and out of the ring.It is silly because there is no coherence to how the myth of the vampire is used throughout the movie; one moment they can be seen in a mirror, then later not, the vampire becomes a werewolf then soon disappears in a fire-bolt at simply the sight of a cross on a church-steeple - The whole narrative seems terribly ad hoc - as if the script were written on the fly (and I suspect it was - although the first half has some money showing in its atmospherics, which are quite impressive, the second half looks pretty cheap).Fortunately, this is a fairly short movie, and the pacing is pretty good.
It is also representative of both the wrestling superhero genre and the Mexican horror genre, so may be a good beginning point for those interested in either.
When it comes right down to it, the "masked Mexican professional wrestler Vs. karate-chopping, wrestling, vampire/werewolf" movie genre has a fairly large void that this movie tries hard to fill.
This is the very best Mexican wrestler Vs. vampire movie I've ever seen (although it should be noted, it's also the ONLY one, so I guess that makes it the worst too).2.
It features some extremely good looking Mexican women, which is definitely NOT a bad thing.
What kind of afruit would enjoy seeing a cheesy black and white movie abouthow a tubby Mexican wrestler battles a bunch of withered oldhags that are supposed to be vampires, who slither around theircrypts ordering their bloodsucking slaves to do their dirty workfor them?
What do you expect when you mix Santo, the masked Mexican wrestler, with a bevy of beautiful vampires?
I don't know about you, but I expect pure, delicious cheese.Going through a plot summary or analyzing the positives and negatives seems a bit silly with a movie like Samson vs.
Even though he's called Samson by everyone in the movie and the title lists him as Samson, someone forgot to tell the crowd at the wrestling arena who seem overly exuberant in chanting "Santo!"2.
It's odd that Santo can do battle with three vampire goons and come out on top, yet when going one-on-one in a wrestling ring, he gets the snot beat out of him.There are more, but you get the idea.
And before anyone in the States makes too much fun of this movie's sheer goofiness, remember that our culture is responsible for "Gilligan's Island", "Ozzy and Harriet" and Sid and Marty Kroft.On to the actual movie.As promised by the title, Samson (actually "El Santo") fights vampires to rescue a young lady from her fate as the new Queen of the Undead.
Or that Samson/El Santo pledges to protect the young woman, but can't be bothered to actually hang around, so he's always pulling up in a convertible at the last moment and leaping on the bad guys.
(admittedly, we're talking about a Mexican wrestler film here, not "The Man Who Would Be King").There is also some unfortunate voice dubbing - El Santo is OK (if somewhat stentorian), but the Professor in particular has a fruity baritone better suited to an animated cartoon character like Dudley Doright.Still, this was a lot of fun to watch - there were some pretty good sets and lighting and camera angles, the women were pretty hot, the hero was noble and brave, and I can see how a young Latino audience would think that a masked muscle-man who drives his own sports convertible and travels around wrestling and fighting evil would be the shiznit.
It's one of those fun Mexican movies starring the wrestler/superhero 'Santo'.
In this one he is called on to help a father protect his daughter from a group of Vampire women who want to make her their next queen.
At least he knew to return to his own corner when the bell rang.There was some very good imagery in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film when the vampire women first awaken from their 200 year nap.
The makeup on the waking vampires had a certain unique even bizarre look to it often found in Mexican horror films.
Unfortunately there's far more screen time given to Santo - who we twice have to watch in the ring taking ages to floor his opponents - than to the vampire women; who Santo only takes on at the film's very conclusion.
(If Tundra and her girls had thought to put blackouts on the window of the crypt and kept track of the time as dawn approached Santo would have perished on the slab to which he'd been chained, Diana would now be leading the vampire women; and I for one would have been well satisfied at that outcome.)One puzzling question remains.
The third of the Mexican wrestling movies picked up by K.
The human characters lack interest and the film spends far too much time concentrating on their activities when a look at the vampires and Santo himself would be far more interesting.
This film is from Mexico and features the fan favorite wrestler Santo.
So of course, this movie is going to have people saying that this film is good, we Americans just do not understand it and blah blah blah.
Sure Santo may be popular in Mexico, but that does not mean a film he is in is good or that he can act or the story is somewhat tolerable.
For the most part though when the film is not plodding along it is showcasing Santos' wrestling skills which for me is even more boring than the plodding along!
The story has a coven of vampire women and their three wrestling vampire men plotting to kidnap a woman and making her the new vampire queen.
Meanwhile, the coven has chants and this and that and about halfway in the movie Samson shows up (Santo).
Well Santo is not very effective, mainly able to just flip people away, but he somehow manages to get ahead in the game and burn all the vampire women alive as they close themselves into their caskets...basically helpless.So the main problem is the pacing.
Mexican wrestlers are hailed as heroes in Mexico and perhaps a little kid from that country can see the appeal, but I do not as I do not like wrestling and do not hail them as heroes.So the film is mainly a bore.
The only thing making this film a two instead of a one is the very attractive vampire women.
So if you are into Mexican wrestling and can enjoy a very pointless plot and non epic final showdown, give this one a look see.