Santo Y Blue Demon Contra Los Monstruos (1969)

This is the sad and tragic story of the epic struggle between brothers; the tale of how their division touches the life of others, nearly ruining those poor victims in the process.

Or, you know, it could be the daft yet lovable tale of El Santo and Blue Demon fighting a bunch of monsters.

Otto Halder (Jorge Rado) was a classic mad scientist with the usual nefarious plans concerning dead bodies, other people's brains and world domination. Alas his - surely benevolent in the long run - plans were thwarted through the combined forces of his brother Bruno (Carlos Ancira), the Idol of the Masses El Santo (El Santo!) and his chipper little side-kick Blue Demon. Now Otto is quite dead. All this and more must have happened in the imaginary prequel to ...Contra Los Monstruos - unfortunately we don't get to hear many details. Be that as it may, Otto's story does not end with his death.

His assistant really wants his master back! I suppose life as a hunchbacked dwarf (and what a glorious combination that is!) isn't easy without a cackling madman around. So the good, ahem, fiendishly evil man grabs himself a bunch of his master's green-faced mind-controlled zombie slaves (!bonus monsters) and steals Otto's dead body, which he'll have revived faster than you can say "Igor".

But fret not! Blue Demon is on the case and soon breaks through the gate of the evil doers' castle ruin (which has an interior that looks very much like a bad cave set, but oh well) and...gets caught by the zombie brigade.

This is quite a happy coincidence for Otto, who can finally try out his newest invention, the  evil-doppelganger-o-matic 2000. It turns out the machine works perfectly and Blue Demon has reached another chapter in the disconcerting saga of his being mind controlled, copied or hypnotized to do evil things like hitting poor Santo.

The mad Doctor Halder is of course not a big fan of Santo's or his own brother and takes the first step in his campaign to kill the luchador and kidnap and mistreat his brother and niece.

The innocent victim is all the while occupied with the other Doctor Halder's daughter Gloria (Hedy Blue) who seems to be more than willing to try out a few kinky escapades with a masked man. A snogging cruise in Santo's swell cabriolet is suddenly interrupted by Evil Blue Demon and the zombie cohort. The following hoedown does not end too well for the forces of evil. Santo is still alive and well. Furthermore Gloria stays very much not kidnapped.

While Santo and the good Doctor Halder puzzle over the reason for Blue Demon's sudden attack (the Doctor proposes it to be a natural consequence of their rivalry in the ring - Freud would be so proud), the evil Doctor Halder sends his minions out to capture him some reinforcements. After some searching and a few minutes in his mind-control-o-mat, Halder's Army of Evil has grown to new size and quality through the addition of: a mummy (Hollywood variant), a bearded guy with silly teeth everybody just calls The Wolfman, Franquestain (who should be Franquestain's monster, but oh well), the cyclops we last saw in the epic "sexually irresistible Mexican singing cowboy versus aliens" flick La Nave De Los Monstruos (the big brained guy from that movie is also inexplicably and unexplained part of this masterpiece, just standing around in the lab, obviously the brains of the operation; !bonus monster number two) and last but certainly not least the Vampire, a skinny dude with bat ears, usually wearing a cylinder that miraculously disappears from shot to shot, who'll mostly proceed to hang on walls and be unable to catch Gloria for the rest of the movie, as much as he will run around with opened cape or jump like the kangaroo version of a Chinese hopping vampire (I heard revered horror icon Christopher "Dracula" Lee wasn't amused).

This army of evil now starts to attack random people in the countryside, until Santo's masterly detective work (don't ask) leads him to a lagoon and a little punch-out with the Cyclops (from the Blue Lagoon), ending with Santo's famed finishing move, the stake-through-chest rumble. The Cyclops escapes anyway and survives thanks to his master's surgical talents.

A little later the monster army attacks the good Halder's mansion. Santo is able to defeat the whole bunch who also fails in kidnapping Gloria again, thanks to a cross-shaped gravestone that just stands there in the mansion's garden. Revered horror icon Christopher Lee again does not approve.

Besides fighting evil, Santo has of course another job to do. There is a new wrestling sensation in town who challenges Santo to a match. His name is El Vampiro. Might this be a cunning plan of Santo's enemies? I can't blame Santo for falling for the trick - the Vampire's wrestling double doesn't look at all like the spindly guy whose playing the silly bugger the rest of the time.

When it looks like Santo would get a few very unattractive new puncture marks, Gloria's deus ex machina necklace with crucifix medallion comes to the rescue. Revered horror icon Christopher Lee doesn't even know what to say anymore.

The Vampire has brought his monster friends, though, and we are treated to a too short moment of the other attending wrestlers jumping into the ring and helping Santo out.

The monsters escape again, but Santo and potential kidnap victim number one are still alive and well.

In his copious free time, the vampire has created two attractive female vampires. The next evening (if evening is a time when the sun is standing as high as if it were noon, but everyone says "good evening") one of them waits for Santo in his swank car. He does not look very surprised, and why should he? Things like that happen to him every day, and he knows exactly what to do - drive the half naked woman into the next patch of wood and proceed to kiss her maskedly. Gloria certainly won't mind. Queue the next monster attack that again ends with a very much alive Santo. Revered horror icon Christopher Lee for his part has left the building.

We have now reached the point where some readers may ask themselves if this will never stop. Don't be afraid! There is just one more scene of Santo, Gloria, and her father staring blankly at hilariously bad fitting stock footage of a painful dance number, another monster attack in which the monsters finally manage to abduct Gloria and her father and then the glorious finale. Santo has cunningly managed to attach a tracker to Franquestain's jacket, and while Doctor Halder rants evilly at Gloria and his brother, our hero defeats Evil Blue Demon in a decisive beat-down and revives the real Blue Demon.

Together, the two punch back the monster army, set the castle on fire and walk into the sunset with the rescued Halder family.

Santo Y Blue Demon Contra Los Monstruos is the kind of film that nearly defies belief. It was obviously made by a bunch of cackling twelve year old mad-men that just didn't care about stupid things like facts. I'm speaking of the fact that they really, absolutely didn't have the budget for even a single good monster costume. Or the fact that their budget wasn't high enough for sets or locations that weren't some of the ugliest I have seen in a film. Or the fact that their movie's script lets the films of my personal nemesis of boredom where none should exist, Paul Naschy, look like art (and positively intelligent).

And you know what? They were right about ignoring these facts (and logic...and good taste...and my ability to know the difference between day and night)! There is not much in this world that beats the combination of stupidity and inappropriate enthusiasm ...Contra Los Monstruos just bombards you with every single moment of its running time. I was giggling like a loon while watching it, screaming things like "You can't do that! That's absolutely idiotic!" at the screen (and here I am wondering why I suffer from Insomnia), feeling like the stupid kid I never really was again. It was glorious.

 

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