Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy (1971)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Absolutely amazing

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

A masked wrestler is brought along by friends on a journey to recover a mummy's petrified remains, but the party's presence awakens the creature and forces him to protect them from the creatures plans.Another in a great selection of masked wrestler movies from Mexico, this one falls just short of the best of the bunch but still has a lot of enjoyment on hand. There's some minor problems in the party taking way too long to get to the tomb, as the Adventure Film surroundings seem like time-padding and really only there to feature the titular hero wrestling with animals, but beyond that there's a lot to like here. The camp where all the stalking goes down is pretty decently used for setting up some suspenseful stalking, the grand burial tomb is Gothic splendor and the frequent battling between the two are highly enjoyable and entertaining. The twist ending is a little hard-to-follow in terms of adhering to storyline continuity but makes for a nice touch in the genre overall and it moves along at a nice enough pace to not really be boring. Overall, it's pretty solid.Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Adult Language.

To my mind, prolific but very competent director René Cardona made two minor mistakes with this entry. I found his variation on the zip pan (the camera buzzes into colored beads or baubles) distracting and I thought he gave away the plot far too early (halfway through to be reasonably exact). But it seems I was mistaken in this latter belief for nobody else seems to have noticed the particular close-up concerned (which is held for at least five or six seconds). I've just read a scad of reviews in which all the writers expressed surprise at the way the story is worked out. Presumably, all were too frightened or in such a state of shock, they failed to notice the giveaway details Cardona deliberately chose to reveal in the particular angle he selected for this camera set-up. And I will certainly agree that Cardona does keep the plot moving at such a fast clip that even in possession of the director's giveaway information, you really don't have time to work out the complete aspects of the resolution before it actually happens on the screen.Another thing that didn't grab my wholehearted enthusiasm were the boring wrestling bouts with which the main story was enclosed. Scrupulously choreographed though they were, it's easy to see how punches were pulled by undercranking the camera to speed up the action and then adding a loud soundtrack from the effects library.Once we delved into the story proper, however, my interest perked up considerably. Mind you, despite his silver mask, I found Santo himself to be an indifferent performer. Fortunately, in his capacity as co-producer, he does allow the other players a fair share of the running. The charismatic Eric del Castillo really impresses as the helpful engineer, the two girls are attractive, and (despite criticism from a number of fans) I really enjoyed the comic relief provided by Carlos Ancira as an absent-minded professor.However, to my mind, the player who actually walks away with the picture's acting honors figures right down at the bottom of the official cast list: Amado Zumaya brings a great deal of dignity to the role of the reluctant guide and translator. The scene in which he reads from the scroll is one of the most telling in the whole picture.As usual, production values are top drawer. Carrion's outstandingly atmospheric music score, however, deserves a special commendation.

As far as movies featuring Santo the masked Mexican wrestler/superhero are concerned, I thought this one was fair enough, and it's far from the worst in this very long-running series. Here, a professor enlists the aid of Santo in exploring the ancient tomb of an Indian warrior named Nanoc. What qualifies the world famous champion to join such an expedition makes no sense to me, but we're watching a Santo film, after all, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Santo travels to the jungle (man, doesn't he ever get hot sporting that ever-present mask?), with a small entourage, one of these rocket scientist's being a really irritating "funnyman" scientist who tries without much luck to add comic relief. Once entering the forsaken tomb, all sorts of killings start to occur every now and then by the mummified corpse of Nanoc who's apparently up and alive, shooting a bow and arrow through his victims. The production values for this type of thing aren't too bad, though the ending feels a bit of a letdown. ** out of ****

Famous Mexican wrestling hero Santo takes part in an expedition which leads him and his friends to the tomb of Opache prince Nonoc, who has been buried alive because he wanted to escape with a maiden who was destined to be sacrificed to a god named Xucul. It doesn't take long time until the expedition members start dying one by one... Has the mummy come back to life?This was my first time to experience a movie starring legendary Mexican superhero, Santo El Enmascarado De Plata. Having heard so much about him, I wondered what to expect. It's an entertaining film with surprisingly decent production values and make-up - however, as a big fan of supernatural horror movies, I was a bit disappointed in the ending. Still, it was fun to watch and I'm looking forward to see more of Santo. He himself was very cool in this one.