Everyone’s favorite husky Mexican wrestler with a mask, a cape and the ability to put wolfmen in headlocks like no other — El Santo, in case I didn’t narrow it down enough for you — is celebrated with this bone-crunchin’ compilation of his greatest triumphs, both in and out of the ring.
Honest talk: I started to find the in-ring footage tedious, as there’s only so much wrestling my brain can take before shuttering operations.
The out-of-ring stuff, however, gives this Something Weird Video assemblage its delirious kick: Santo fights fanged babes; Santo tackles zombies; Santo packs a wallop to a slow-moving, human-eating blob — all in scenes from such south-of-the-border exploits as Santo vs. the Vampire Women, Santo vs. the TV Killer and Santo vs. the Diabolical Hatchet.
As you may infer from the second half of Viva Santo and His Pals’ title, friends occasionally show up. One such pal, Blue Demon, joins in the creature-hunting, back-cracking fun of Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters.
If the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences ever see it fit to award Santo a Lifetime Achievement Oscar (and they won’t), the clips have already been selected, and they’re all here in this two-hour collection. —Rod Lott