SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM UK release, DVD review

UPDATED: Yume Pictures sent us the retail version, so I had to amend the DVD-part of the review somewhat.
Some legends of the silver screen are just that: LEGENDS!

You read about them but you never expect to get to see them.
Such is the case with El Santo, a Mexican masked wrestler who rose to God-like fame and popularity in Mexico during the sixties. He starred as himself in a 35-year run of comic books and over 50 movies, in which he battled zombies, female vampires, extraterrestrial aliens, werewolves, subterranean creatures, Frankenstein's monster, you name it!

Now, through the wonderful world of DVD and internet, "finding out about legends" is of course no longer an issue. If something piques your interest it's pretty easy nowadays to find out about it.
And in the case of Santo it just became easier to do so (legally) for us English-reading folks in Europe, because UK distributor Yume Pictures is about to release a collection of his films on DVD. Having heard about the Mexican "luchadores enmascarados" films, which are genre movies starring masked wrestlers, I got curious about them. So I was very pleased to get a review copy of "SANTO EN EL MUSEO DE CERA", which translates as "Santo in the Wax Museum".

Now, what to make of this? Read on.

Small history lesson:

"Santo en el Museo de Cera" is either the third, fifth or seventh Santo movie, depending on which fan you ask this question. It was only released in Mexican cinemas for a short time, but is now one of the better-known Santo movies for the simple reason that it was also dubbed in English, and therefore frequently shown on television in the US. El Santo had already one minor hit under his belt with "Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiras" (Santo vs the Vampire Women) so this time some money could be spent on this production. Not on El Santo himself though, who got increasingly disgruntled over the low salary he received for these movies, causing him to switch studios the next year.

El Santo was already 45 when this one was released in 1963, but the best had yet to come: the absolute top of his fame would be in the early seventies. He managed to keep his real identity a secret throughout his career until he famously unmasked himself on television during a talkshow in 1984, two years after his retirement. Up until that moment virtually no-one but family and colleagues knew what he looked like without his mask, or that his real name was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta. Remarkably he died a week later of a heart attack at 66 years of age and at his own request was buried as El Santo, wearing his famous silver mask. Such is the stuff of legends.


The plot:

When people start disappearing in a Mexican town, the police finds out that all victims had just visited the local wax museum. This brings its director, the enigmatic Dr. Karol (Claudio Brook), under suspicion. With the help of a mutual friend he manages to contact El Santo ("The Saint"), hoping the wrestler will clear his name. Santo however discovers that Dr. Karol is obsessed with causing pain to others and has developed a special wax which can change people into half-man, half-animal creatures. Some of which are displayed in the museum, kept in a helpless paralysed state by daily injections...

Will Santo be in time to save two sisters from being painfully mutated into panther-women by this deranged scientist? And, in the meantime, manage to win three official wrestling matches?

Don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of...

OK, that last bit is nonsense as this is not a serial. But it looks, sounds and feels like one, to the point where you start to anticipate the ad-breaks.


The movie:

"Santo en el Museo de Cera" is in stunning black-&-white-o-vision, so with a masked hero fighting no-gooders in this subtropical landscape I was immediately transported back into the Zorro Sunday-afternoon films of my youth. This production was always meant to be shown both in cinemas and on television, so it has that made-for-television look that plagues a lot of detective movies. Which makes it look even MORE like Zorro!

It all looks rather cheap and static, even though some of the sets and most of the make-up effects are quite well done. Storywise it's not that special and actingwise it's very dated although Claudio Brook is deliciously villainous.
All people in the movie belong squarely in either of two camps: the saintly (pun intended) good guys, and the evil, EVIL bad guys. Black and white was seldomly blacker and whiter.
But the reason for watching this movie is of course the fact that it's a "luchadores enmascarados" film, and this brings us to Santo.

The first thing that surprised me was that El Santo is rather short for a legend. Being stocky and muscular is one thing, having to look up to every single male actor in the movie is another. Jack Black suddenly doesn't look half as ridiculous as a luchadore in "Nacho Libre" as I thought he did.
Second, he doesn't exactly project invincibility. He gets hit a lot, and his superpower doesn't seem to be so much that he fights a lot better than his (often superhuman) opponents, but just that he flat-out refuses to go unconscious.
Third, Santo is allowed to kill people. Everyone in the "bad people" camp is evil in the vilest way, so El Santo can dispose of them in any way he sees fit. This results in not a single one of these people reaching the end credits alive. Refreshing to say the least!

As for the wrestling: after being spoiled by seeing a lot of Asian martial arts movies lately, most of the fighting here looks slow and solely based on throws. El Santo and his team of stuntmen are certainly good at what they do though, and the moment they start hitting instead of dancing it looks a lot more brutal. Also a plus is that the fights are all shown in very long static camera shots, like you're there watching a live performance. So even when it looks a bit fake you have to admire the fact that these performers are fighting for minutes on end. And any doubts about El Santo's fighting prowess disappear when you see him dive headfirst down a flight of stairs to knock someone out, a remarkable trick that looks VERY convincing.

Now, nitpicking in a film like this is as useless as farting in a sewer so I'll try to refrain from taking easy potshots, but two things REALLY stand out as classicly barmy.
The first is El Santo's claim that he works best in secret. Which poses the question: why? It's not as if he has an alternate identity, I mean, El Santo is all there is! There's no Bruce Wayne, no Peter Parker, no Clark Kent hidden somewhere. He doesn't use his "real" identity to help him solve crimes, and it's not like there are secretly three Santos so they can mysteriously be in all places at the same time. No, El Santo just barges in, short, stocky, half naked except where he's clothed in silver and glitter, driving a sports car (which looks like it was straightened after a really bad accident), solving crimes by wrestling anything that moves in his path. Oh yes, very inconspicuous!
Second is the inclusion of the wrestling matches. I kid you not, in the middle of an investigation El Santo suddenly will declare: "I have no time now, I have a match to fight!", and he'll disappear to the ring. I'd like to see Batman do that: "Sorry guys, corporate meeting!". But in all honesty, people watch this film for El Santo and this is a gratuitious way to provide a couple of extra wrestling scenes for him.


Conclusion:

"Santo en el Museo de Cera" can be a nice starting point if you're about to collect luchadores enmascarados films, or even Mexican SF and horror in general, but if you want just one of them this entry is rather tame. If you want full-on camp lunacy, you might wish to wait for one of the later El Santo films, especially "LAS MOMIAS DE GUANAJUATO" (The Mummies from Guanajuato) where he teamed up with fellow luchadores Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras.

Or you could watch the "rendez-vous" video by the Basement Jaxx!


Now for the DVD:

Yume kindly provided ScreenAnarchy with an official review copy, so that always poses the question what the retail version will look like. My guess would be that the "Property of Yume" watermark won't be popping up every ten minutes or so, but you never know... Anyway, It's PAL encoded for Region 2.

For what its worth, this disc sports the same sort of quality you'd expect from your old VHS tape. This may sound terrible, but to be honest the only surviving copies of this film are all on 16 mm, so Yume Pictures can be commended for doing the job they did. I saw no evidence of extensive digital restoring, but large streches of it look impressively clean while others are unfortunately quite damaged.

As for sound, look up any review of the R1 DVD and you'll find people commenting on the funny English dub. Imagine my surprise to see that this disc sports the original Spanish soundtrack!! It's a bit 'tinny' sounding, and the English subtitles are unfortunately non-removable (on my disc at least) but hey, it's there at least. For those who want that infamous English dub, sorry, it wasn't here.

Also there were no extra's. Maybe on one of the other Santo discs Yume Pictures is planning?
Very much barebones, especially considering the interesting background stories about El Santo, but again, for people who collect his movies this is a nice little release.

UPDATE: the retail copy has decent menus AND removable subtitles for the soundtrack. Well done, Yume! Still no extras or trailers, but included is a booklet of upcoming releases, Santo and otherwise, many of which look interesting.