PROFANADORES DE TUMBAS (1966)
aka Santo Vs. the Grave Robbers, Dealers in Death
Article 2877 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-24-2009
Posting Date: 6-29-2009
Directed by Jose Diaz Morales
Featuring Santo, Gina Romand, Mario Orea
Country: Mexico

A mad doctor employs a hunchback (who he beats repeatedly) and two grave robbers (who really enjoy burning dead bodies). His experiments with heart transplants are unsuccessful because he needs a super-human heart, such as one from a masked wrestler named Santo. However, they have to kill him first…

Okay, the mad scientist needs to kill a masked wrestler for his heart. I can handle this; this is familiar territory. Then things start getting weird. The killer lamp with a bleeding heart on the shade is strange enough (hint for Santo: lamps don’t work if they’re unplugged), but we also get a bleeding painting, a killer violin, and… a killer wig. This is one mad doctor we’re talking about. Santo has wrestled a lot of nemeses in his days, but if you want to see him doing battle with a lamp, this is the movie for you. Oh, and Santo (and I’ve mentioned this before, I know), please, please, please don’t let your cape dangle out near the tires of your Santomobile when you’re out driving; this just makes me nervous. The cast includes actors named Frankenstein and Quasimodo; incidentally, the latter actor is NOT playing the hunchback. At this sitting, this takes the cake as the weirdest Santo movie of the lot; I only wish it was dubbed or subtitled in English.