Starring Santo, Blue Demon, Aldo Monti, Augustín Martínez Solares, Nubia Martí, María Eugenia San Martín, Wally Barron
Directed By Miguel M. Delgado
From the lofty, almost socially conscious heights of Santo in the Wax Museum, we dive headfirst back into familiar Santo lunacy with Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolf Man. This is latter-day Santo we’re dealing with again, and if vs. the Monsters taught us anything it’s that el enmascarado de plata was finally allowed some of the finer things in life after saving the world from monsters and aliens countless times. This is an older, leisurely minded Santo who has nicely settled into his role as superhero, ladies man, and cultural ambassador. He has a full-fledged girlfriend now named Lina, who really represents massive progress in the area of women as portrayed in Santo films. Lina can sport a sexy miniskirt like the best of them, but is also skilled in operating heavy machinery, which proves to be a major asset for an aging luchador with a penchant for supernatural combat.
Dracula is a pretty impressive dude this time around, much classier (and also more Mexican) than the jolly Tom Smothers lookalike featured in vs. the Monsters. The Wolf Man looks more or less the same… that is, when he’s the Wolf Man. You see, the film decides to have the Wolf Man gallivant around town as a normal guy for most of the film, trying to rope the professor’s daughter in by wooing her. It takes Blue Demon punching him in the face repeatedly towards the end, literally beating the wolf back into him, in order to restore his hairy appearance. I felt a little shortchanged here, as the Wolf Man has long been a staple of Santo films and he finally gets his name in the title, only to run around clean-shaven for the majority of the film.
With wrestling out of the way, the two try to track down the location of the crypt, bumping into a gang of flamboyant mobsters along the way. When they finally stumble upon the catacombs they discover that a whole army of vampires and Wolf Men are waiting for them! There is something about a pack of Wolf Men as opposed to one Wolf Man that just looks silly. They look like a bunch of overgrown Ewoks wearing leather jackets and pastel knit-sweaters. Regardless, Blue Demon gets outnumbered by them and is soon captured and chained to a wall. Helpless, he is forced to watch as a disloyal Wolf Man is forced to walk a plank laid across giant pit littered with razor-sharp spikes. All is going well until the main Wolf Man starts wobbling the plank, making the traitor fall to his death… FATALITY!
Blue Demon is forced to walk the plank next, and when the Wolf Man begins his wobbly plank schtick, Santo leaps in just in time. Chucking spears into Wolf Men and Vampires left and right, the two have some serious rhythm together before, in trademark fashion, the action comes grinding to a halt in a satisfying, but anticlimactic resolution.
Whew! Damn, there’s a lot of movie here. While not quite the wacky roller coaster ride that vs. the Monsters was, Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolf Man (that fucking title!) provides more than enough fun and goofiness to place this right up there in the upper echelon of the Santo filmography.