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A few years back during 31 days of horror I covered a Santo film. And it was cause of Santo movies that I got into the Lucha Libre style of pro wrestling.
Now for years most of the home video releases of Santo,and Blue Demon,movies were badly dubbed sometimes edited down. Plus looked like a 5th genertaion dub of a EP mode VHS.
There has been a few attempts to put out in the States good cleaned up dvds of some of the Santo films. Usually with the films subtitled and including a few extras. Plus the prints used for these DVDs appeared to have gotten a bit of clean up done to them.
But even with this happening there is still piles of this films that you can't get legit copies of,well legit copies that are either subbed or dubbed in English. And sure I took 2 years of Spanish in high school,over 30 years ago,but my Spanish skills aren't good enough to tranlate the films. So you gotta hope that some amazing fan out there has fansubbed these films. Thankfully over the past 20 years I have been finding fansubbed copies of most of the Santo and/or Blue Demon films.
The one I am covering today is Santo y Blue Demon contra el doctor Frankenstein (Santo&Blue Demon vs Dr Frankenstein). It is from 1974 directed by Migel M.Delgado. Back in 91 when I first learned of the luchadore series of films made in Mexico one of the ones I saw clips of and really wanted to see if this one. You get two Lucha legends and they are fighting Dr Frankenstein. But I never saw a legit release of this on VHS/DVD that had either English dubs or subs. And while I have once or twice watched a Santo film in Spanish and figured out the plot,with this one I didn't feel like having to pause the movie every sentence to try to quickly translate what I had just heard. I doubt it exists now ,but for a few years there was this great blog that was full of links to direct downloads of various fansubbed Mexican films. I saw they had S&BD vs DR Frankenstein and grabbed it. But of course the direct download link was with dropbox and it took 7 hours to grab a 2 gig file.
Before I get into the film I want to thank the "Ultimo Guapo" sub title group. No idea if they are still around but they are the ones that subbed this film and a few others I got off blog of links. The subs read fairly natural. And I remember seeing people that are way more fluent than I am in Spanish posting comments about how the subs were really close to being perfect translantions. No clue where you would find this version of the film currently. The blog I mentioned got deleted sometime in early 2021. Same day two blogs that had links to various comic book scans got deleted. Heard rumors of who ever ran the blogs getting Cease and desists letters from rights holders. But I bet if you google Ultimo Guapo you might find somewhere/someone that can lead you to the files.
Santo and Blue Demon are our heroic leads. I have always loved how in these films the general public acts like Santo running around in his mask and street clothes is perfectly normal. You know if you put on say a Nacho Libre mask and t shirt and jeans and tried to go buy some milk from Delchamps you would be told to take the mask off or leave. But not in the world these films happen in.Hell Santo and Blue Demon have more power and authority than the cops. Jorge Russek is the Dr Frankenstein. Never seen this actor in anything else. Looking him up doesn't like much else he did has gotten much attention in the States.
The Frankenstein in this film is supposedly the grandson of the famous Dr Frankenstein from the novel/movies. He is kidnapping women and doing all kinds of crazy experiments on them. Like trepaning the ladies so he can then swap out their brains.Rebun Aguirre(as Dr Genaro Molina) is Dr Franks assisstant. This trepanning doesn't work out like Dr Frank and Dr Molina intended. The ladies die. So Genaro talks Frankenstein into having the bodies return to their homes as "the living dead". Using this to create a panic. Which will distract the public,and of course the cops,from all the highly illegal antics our duo of demented doctors are up too.The doctors end up putting devices in these "zombies" so they can control them remote control style.
So what is the two Drs big plan they are wanting to keep people distracted with these robot zombies? LOL they want to kidnap Santo and place Santo's brain in a monster the doctors have made. Then making an army of killer monsters that are as tough and fast as Santo.
Now going into any of these Santo films you gotta be ready for them to be a bit cheesy and cheap feeling. And even oness made in the 70s feel like something from the 40s or 50s. They are films for when you want some action and rather not think too much. With this one adding some elements of horror and science fiction. You also gotta be ready for at least 1 wrestling match each film. This one has Santo tagging up with Blue Demon. And isn't to bad.
Overall this is one of the best Santo "horror" films I have seen. The plot is pretty decent. It looks better than most of them. Plus the two Doctors are so good. With Genaro stealing every scene he is in.
Santo&Blue Demon Vs Dr Frankenstein gets a C+
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