EL HACHA DIABOLICA (1965)
aka Santo vs the Diabolical Hatchet

Article 3684 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-31-2011
Posting Date: 9-15-2011
Directed by Jose Diaz Morales
Featuring Santo, Lorena Velazquez, Fernando Oses
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mexican wrestler movie

Santo must face a supernatural creature – an axe-wielding phantom who can appear out of thin air.

The copy I found of this movie was in unsubtitled Spanish, and I really wish it wasn’t; not only does the movie dabble in explaining Santo’s origins, but it’s one of the more genuinely eerie movies of his. It opens with an odd scene where it appears a bunch of monks are burying Santo, but it becomes apparent after a bit that we’re in the past, and it apparently establishes that Santo is not just one hero but one in a long line of them. The scenes involving the axe-wielding nemesis are memorable; sometimes his shadow merely appears on the wall for atmosphere, and his appearances are always startling and sudden. There’s a sequence where Santo travels into the past, and I believe I’ve seen a similar sequence in one of his other movies. At any rate, this is one of the higher ones on my list of movies that I really hope to find a subtitled copy of at some time.