Director: René Cardona
Release date: 1967
Contains spoilers
In truth, when I started watching this Luchador movie I wasn’t expecting to review it, I was just looking forward to some Mexican nonsense with lycanthropic Panther women. It is just that, but it also had an aspect where I felt that there was at least the use of tropes and the more I thought about it the more I knew that there was a vampiric aspect. The film itself kind of felt like a clone of a Santo movie, but it is great fun if absolute nonsense.
After credits where we see stills of a female wrestling match we cut to the cave-like lair of a satanic cult whose spiritual leader, in ages past, Eloim (Ángel Di Stefani) was killed by a man named Pietrasanta using the Sword of the Druids. The cult has killed the descendants of Pietrasanta and there are four left and it has been decreed that they must die by the full moon. What we later discover is that they are going to use the blood of the descendants to resurrect Eloim’s corpse.
Cut to a wrestling match with the tag team of Golden Ruby (Elizabeth Campbell, Wrestling Women Vs the Aztec Mummy) and Loreta Venus (Ariadne Welter). The latter is one of the descendants of Pietrasanta and her uncle, Professor Rafael Pietrasanta (Jorge Mondragón, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula), and cousin Ramón (Genaro Moreno), are watching the match. They invite them for drinks after the match and we discover that Ramón is a widower with a daughter, Paquita (Elena Saldívar). However, he has recently found love again – we recognise his new lady friend Tongo (Tongolele) as one of the cult.
After drinks they go back to the Professor’s house and (never one to miss tipping off a victim) a letter has been left for the Professor saying he is going to die. He tells his son and the wrestlers about the legend of Pietrasanta and actually has the sword. The younger guys don’t believe it. That night the professor decides to put the sword over Paquita’s sleeping form. A shame as we later discover it serves as an apotropaic against the cult and so he may not have died if he's kept hold of it. As it is he is subsequently jumped by one of the female cult members transformed into a panther (in a cut price outfit sort of way).
The gang are interviewed by cop Arturo (Eric del Castillo, the Empire of Dracula). It seems that a wildcat attacked the Professor (or so the cops believe) but Ruby tells Arturo what the Professor told them and the cop decides to get a friend to help with the case. That friend is El Angel (Gerardo Zepeda, Santo vs. la hija de Frankestein & Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters). Now El Angel is a masked wrestler, inventor, crime fighter with a radio watch (very Santo) and a new cape of his own invention that is bullet proof and fire proof – that’ll come in handy.
So the vampiric element is around Eloim being brought back with the blood of his enemies and he is reanimated by pouring the blood from the first two murdered descendants into his coffin. He needs the blood of the others but, as we see him, he is a desiccated corpse and one might call him a revenant. The blood is, of course, from a certain family of victims but it is blood nonetheless. The Sword of the Druids can kill him again – causing him to burst into flames when stabbed.
This is nonsense but it is such good fun. El Angel wears a mask because justice has no face. We get a cowardly policeman sidekick as comic relief and wrestling in and out of the ring from El Angel, Ruby and Venus. Like many Luchador movies, it isn’t great cinema, but it is fab for a watch. Definitely check this one out, as derivative as it might be it is worth your time – though probably as a film it deserves 5 out of 10, the fun is greater than the sum of its score.
The imdb page is here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
 |
| the cult |
After credits where we see stills of a female wrestling match we cut to the cave-like lair of a satanic cult whose spiritual leader, in ages past, Eloim (Ángel Di Stefani) was killed by a man named Pietrasanta using the Sword of the Druids. The cult has killed the descendants of Pietrasanta and there are four left and it has been decreed that they must die by the full moon. What we later discover is that they are going to use the blood of the descendants to resurrect Eloim’s corpse.
 |
| out for drinks |
Cut to a wrestling match with the tag team of Golden Ruby (Elizabeth Campbell, Wrestling Women Vs the Aztec Mummy) and Loreta Venus (Ariadne Welter). The latter is one of the descendants of Pietrasanta and her uncle, Professor Rafael Pietrasanta (Jorge Mondragón, Santo in the Treasure of Dracula), and cousin Ramón (Genaro Moreno), are watching the match. They invite them for drinks after the match and we discover that Ramón is a widower with a daughter, Paquita (Elena Saldívar). However, he has recently found love again – we recognise his new lady friend Tongo (Tongolele) as one of the cult.
 |
| transformed |
After drinks they go back to the Professor’s house and (never one to miss tipping off a victim) a letter has been left for the Professor saying he is going to die. He tells his son and the wrestlers about the legend of Pietrasanta and actually has the sword. The younger guys don’t believe it. That night the professor decides to put the sword over Paquita’s sleeping form. A shame as we later discover it serves as an apotropaic against the cult and so he may not have died if he's kept hold of it. As it is he is subsequently jumped by one of the female cult members transformed into a panther (in a cut price outfit sort of way).
 |
| El Angel with radio watch |
The gang are interviewed by cop Arturo (Eric del Castillo, the Empire of Dracula). It seems that a wildcat attacked the Professor (or so the cops believe) but Ruby tells Arturo what the Professor told them and the cop decides to get a friend to help with the case. That friend is El Angel (Gerardo Zepeda, Santo vs. la hija de Frankestein & Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters). Now El Angel is a masked wrestler, inventor, crime fighter with a radio watch (very Santo) and a new cape of his own invention that is bullet proof and fire proof – that’ll come in handy.
 |
| using blood to raise Eloim |
So the vampiric element is around Eloim being brought back with the blood of his enemies and he is reanimated by pouring the blood from the first two murdered descendants into his coffin. He needs the blood of the others but, as we see him, he is a desiccated corpse and one might call him a revenant. The blood is, of course, from a certain family of victims but it is blood nonetheless. The Sword of the Druids can kill him again – causing him to burst into flames when stabbed.
 |
| almost a revenant |
This is nonsense but it is such good fun. El Angel wears a mask because justice has no face. We get a cowardly policeman sidekick as comic relief and wrestling in and out of the ring from El Angel, Ruby and Venus. Like many Luchador movies, it isn’t great cinema, but it is fab for a watch. Definitely check this one out, as derivative as it might be it is worth your time – though probably as a film it deserves 5 out of 10, the fun is greater than the sum of its score.
The imdb page is here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
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