THE INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES (1962)
aka Santo contra los zombies
Article 3190 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-12-2010
Posting Date: 5-9-2010
Directed by Benito Alazraki
Featuring Santo, Armando Silvestre, Jaime Fernandez
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican wrestler vs the undead

A professor vanishes after having written a book about his studies in Haiti. Meanwhile, there are reports of crimes being committed by unstoppable creatures whose fingerprints match those of dead criminals. Can Santo, the Silver Mask, solve these mysteries?

You know that the bad guys in a movie are really evil when one of their plots is to send out zombies to kidnap children from a local orphanage with the intent of using them as experimental subjects. You also know that no good-hearted Mexican wrestler is going to let them get away with that atrocity. This Santo movie is heavy on the wrestling scenes, especially towards the beginning; it’s a good ten minutes into the movie before you even get a hint of the plot starting up. This is a fun but standard entry in the Santo oeuvre, though it may be the closest he’s come to being unmasked during a movie; you actually get to see the bottom half of his face at one point. Amazingly enough, my copy had subtitles so I could easily follow the plot, though this one wouldn’t have proven a difficult challenge if it hadn’t had them. I’ve also noticed one standard scene; the bad guys try to get Santo by setting him up in a rigged wrestling match; in this case, they kill a wrestler and turn him into a zombie for the match.