Santo Vs. The Zombies (1962)

This 1962 black and white Luchadore film has the great El Santo going to war against a army of zombies. Its quite clear that these aren't the George A. Romero type zombies mainly because Night Of The Living Dead wouldn't come out for another ten years. So there is obviously no flesh eating and the film goes further into anti-Romero in a scene where a zombie is shot in the head by a cop, leaving a nice size hole in between the eyes and the ghoul doesn't even bother to blink.

Nope these zombies were created by a mad scientist who wears a executioner mask but the diabolical man of science and his army of the living dead are no match for our Santo, the silver masked luchadore. Santo throws a ass kicking on the undead, electrocutes our black hooded villain, and leaves the walking dead burning in flames.

Although I loved the premise and basic outline for this film I did find it to be a bit slow and boring... That is at least till the end. We have way to much long talky scenes and the action just doesn't quite make up for it.

Sure we have a decent amount of Mexican wrestling. We even have a bikini clad babe who appears out of nowhere. The we have a marvelous moment where a dead man is clearly breathing, even before he is reanimated but these moments just don't help pick up the pace until the climactic ending, where we have a burning zombie making some really silly faces. Then we have a speech about Santo and what a great hero he is.

Still from what I have seen I prefer the 70's Lucha Libre stuff like Champions Of Justice. Next on my list is Santo & Blue Demon Vs. Doctor Frankenstein (1974). With a title like that, ya just can't go wrong.