Making very good use of a creepy score and some genuinely atmospheric cinematography (not to mention enough action to keep things interesting), THE WORLD OF THE DEAD turns out to be one of the better Santo movies. Our hero gets the lion's share of time on screen (which always helps in a Santo movie), and is, in fact, aided and abetted by longtime friendly rival Blue Demon. Blue, it turns out, has been resurrected by a witch to help dispense her own particular brand of justice to the Santo of today, whose ancestor (Santo in a 16th century get-up) brought about her untimely demise (she was burned at the stake). Blue Demon fans, please take note: our hero is under a spell cast by the aforementioned witch and is not bad for the sake of being Bad; in fact, by film's end... Well, you'll see. At one point, Santo enters The World of the Dead in a VERY effective sequence that includes stock clips from HERCULES AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. One more thing I feel inclined to mention here is a VERY graphic sequence (following Santo's stabbing) of open heart surgery: the operation is shown in various stages, and it's the real thing. For my money, it lasts much too long. That quibble aside, SANTO Y BLUE DEMON EN EL MUNDO DE LOS MUERTOS is a VERY entertaining movie, and, as stated, one of the better Santo movies.
3 Reviews
My favorite Santo!
BandSAboutMovies30 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Let me tell you, if life isn't doing it for you any longer, watch this movie. It will reaffirm your faith in the utter strangeness that this world can deliver to all of us. I mean, who knew that Santo would be in a remake of Black Sunday? A ripoff? Don't speak ill of the man in the silver mask.
The film begins in 1676 with four men being burned alive at the stake - one of them literally has flesh crackling off their bones as we play the credits - as their high priestess Damiana (Pilar Pellicer, who was Don Francisco's wife in Zorro the Gay Blade and won the Ariel Award for Best Actress for 1974's La Choca; she's your South of the Border Barbara Steele for this movie) kneels in a graveyard surrounded by followers praying for the help of Satan, who sees fit to send Blue Demon - in full wrestling garb - to help her get revenge on the world.
Already a minute into this movie and I'm sold. Completely and utterly sold.
That's when we meet Santo, who in this timeline is known as Caballero Enmascarado de Plata (Silver Masked Knight). His outfit is the stuff that makes me keep watching movies, as he still has on most of his ring costume yet he's added a silver jacket with frilly cuffs and a long silver cape with lush red lining. He is the fanciest of all heroes you will ever meet. He wants to marry Doña Aurora, but worries that perhaps his world of fighting against the left hand path may be too dangerous.
You know how cool Santo is? The seductively Satanic Damiana offers her body, her gold and all the power of Lucifer and he says no. And then he survives getting stabbed in the hand with a burning dagger? If church had more Santo, more people would go to church. She brings Blue Demon and a bunch of her burned up followers - yes, they rose again after being staked and flambéed - as Santo fights them with just the power of a crucifix and lucha libre. As this all goes down, Damiana stabs Aurora directly between her imposing breasts and lets her bleed out before she's caught and sentenced to be burned alive, declaring that in three hundred years she'll be back to kill everyone connected.
If you don't think everyone is going to play a dual role in this movie, I have no idea what you're thinking.
Santo's girlfriend Alicia - also played by Pellicer - is soon possessed by the same dagger that killed Aurora. Soon, the ghost of the witch is attacking Santo through mental suggestion as he tries to wrestle. Our hero is even stabbed in the chest by three ghost wrestlers and has a tarantula dropped on him when he's trying to read a book. I realize that the latter is worse than the former, but I don't go about telling the ghosts of brujas how to do their nefarious business.
How does Santo survive being stabbed in the chest? With stock footage of open heart surgery, that's how.
That's when we learn that all of the possession is causing Alicia to die and unless Santo travels to the world of the dead, he'll lose the love of his life - at least for this movie, there are always many daughters of professors for Santo to chastely court - forever. And how do you get to the world of the dead?
You think real hard.
If you read that and wonder, "Why does Sam love lucha movies so much?" then I'm never going to reach you.
Santo has to fight through red-colored gel lighting, strange music, lava and some scary monsters before Blue Demon shows up, going from rudo to tecnico and earning his liberation after three centuries trapped in the world of the dead which may be limbo, for all we know.
As for Santo, he and his potential bride must cross a burning rope bridge within an hour or be trapped for all eternity. Spoiler warning: They make it.
Just five years before this, Santo faced a similar predicament in El Hacha Diabólica. He learned absolutely nothing for this and we're all the better for it. My love for this movie is exactly why I am not allowed to currate the Criterion Collection and we're all the worst for that.
The film begins in 1676 with four men being burned alive at the stake - one of them literally has flesh crackling off their bones as we play the credits - as their high priestess Damiana (Pilar Pellicer, who was Don Francisco's wife in Zorro the Gay Blade and won the Ariel Award for Best Actress for 1974's La Choca; she's your South of the Border Barbara Steele for this movie) kneels in a graveyard surrounded by followers praying for the help of Satan, who sees fit to send Blue Demon - in full wrestling garb - to help her get revenge on the world.
Already a minute into this movie and I'm sold. Completely and utterly sold.
That's when we meet Santo, who in this timeline is known as Caballero Enmascarado de Plata (Silver Masked Knight). His outfit is the stuff that makes me keep watching movies, as he still has on most of his ring costume yet he's added a silver jacket with frilly cuffs and a long silver cape with lush red lining. He is the fanciest of all heroes you will ever meet. He wants to marry Doña Aurora, but worries that perhaps his world of fighting against the left hand path may be too dangerous.
You know how cool Santo is? The seductively Satanic Damiana offers her body, her gold and all the power of Lucifer and he says no. And then he survives getting stabbed in the hand with a burning dagger? If church had more Santo, more people would go to church. She brings Blue Demon and a bunch of her burned up followers - yes, they rose again after being staked and flambéed - as Santo fights them with just the power of a crucifix and lucha libre. As this all goes down, Damiana stabs Aurora directly between her imposing breasts and lets her bleed out before she's caught and sentenced to be burned alive, declaring that in three hundred years she'll be back to kill everyone connected.
If you don't think everyone is going to play a dual role in this movie, I have no idea what you're thinking.
Santo's girlfriend Alicia - also played by Pellicer - is soon possessed by the same dagger that killed Aurora. Soon, the ghost of the witch is attacking Santo through mental suggestion as he tries to wrestle. Our hero is even stabbed in the chest by three ghost wrestlers and has a tarantula dropped on him when he's trying to read a book. I realize that the latter is worse than the former, but I don't go about telling the ghosts of brujas how to do their nefarious business.
How does Santo survive being stabbed in the chest? With stock footage of open heart surgery, that's how.
That's when we learn that all of the possession is causing Alicia to die and unless Santo travels to the world of the dead, he'll lose the love of his life - at least for this movie, there are always many daughters of professors for Santo to chastely court - forever. And how do you get to the world of the dead?
You think real hard.
If you read that and wonder, "Why does Sam love lucha movies so much?" then I'm never going to reach you.
Santo has to fight through red-colored gel lighting, strange music, lava and some scary monsters before Blue Demon shows up, going from rudo to tecnico and earning his liberation after three centuries trapped in the world of the dead which may be limbo, for all we know.
As for Santo, he and his potential bride must cross a burning rope bridge within an hour or be trapped for all eternity. Spoiler warning: They make it.
Just five years before this, Santo faced a similar predicament in El Hacha Diabólica. He learned absolutely nothing for this and we're all the better for it. My love for this movie is exactly why I am not allowed to currate the Criterion Collection and we're all the worst for that.
A gem within the filmography of Santo and Blue Demon: El Mundo de los Muertos (The World Of The Dead, 1970)
jesusmaldonador24 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This film takes place in two different times: 1676 and 1970 and is based on the events of the films "Santo contra El Hacha Diabólica" (The Diabolical Axe) and "El Barón Brákola" (both films from 1965), because in this movie appears an ancestor of Santo, known as "El Caballero Enmascarado de Plata" (The Silver Masked Knight).
In 1676, the inquisition of New Spain burns four men at the stake, as they were members of a satanic sect, so the leader of that cult, Doña Damiana Velázquez (played by acclaimed actress Pilar Pellicer) summons Astaroth to help her finish off the Silver Masked Knight (Santo), because he was responsible for capturing the executed men. Then an envoy of darkness appears to help her: the specter of "El Caballero Azul" (The Blue Knight, performed by Blue Demon), who at just like the Silver Knight, he fought against the forces of evil, but his soul was trapped by Satan.
The suspicions that Damiana was the leader of the sect were confirmed by the bishop (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi) and some inquisitors, so she, along with Blue Demon, invoke the spirits of the men burned at the stake to finish off the Knight as soon as possible. After two battles (with quite good pipe organ music in the background by the composer Gustavo C. Carrión) in which the Silver Knight fought hand-to-hand against these beings from beyond the grave, our hero manages to free the Blue Knight from his curse and catches Damiana after she stabbed to death the Silver Knight's fiancée, Aurora (Betty Nelson), with a dagger.
Velázquez is condemned to the stake, but before dying she promises that she will return in 300 years to finish off the descendants of her captors (especially to the future descendant of the Silver Masked Knight).
In the year 1970, in Mexico, the spirit of Damiana possesses Alicia (also performed by Pellicer), who is the reincarnation of Damiana and is also Santo's girlfriend, so she will summon her undead minions again to finish with the Silver Masked Man.
However, Doña Damiana's plans do not end as she completely wants, thanks to the intervention of both the priest Francisco (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi) and Alicia's father (Antonio Raxel, who also has a dual role playing this character and also one of the inquisitors).
Because of the possession of Alicia, she is dying, so Santo must go to the world of the dead to rescue her from Damiana's clutches. After defeating Velázquez's subordinates with the help of Blue Demon (in exchange for the release of his curse), Santo and Alicia manage to get out of the world of the dead just in time and Doña Damiana disappears completely, thus ending this bizarre and entertaining story.
I must admit that the first time I saw this movie (or at least the first 10 minutes) I was young, so I was terrified by the sequences of those executed at the stake and by the gloomy background music of these scenes, but some years later I dared to see it in its entirety and I liked the film, it is quite entertaining and personally, I consider that it stands out among others in the luchador films genre for its plot, although Demon has very small participation as a villain (at least in the first half of the movie), like the other two Santo and Blue Demon films produced by Jesús Sotomayor (the "Sotomayor trilogy" of these two luchadores).
It has some continuity errors (because several scenes that were supposed to take place at night were recorded during the day); It also has few anachronisms, among which I can mention the presence of light bulbs inside the lanterns that can be seen in some of the 1676 sequences and the masks of both knights in that same year seems out of place, but you have to consider that this story is based a bit on the events of "El hacha diabólica", where a wizard named Abraca gives the mask, cape and boots to an ancestor of El Santo in the year 1603.
Considering that these types of movies were made on a low budget, several of the special effects are well done, including an open-heart operation scene and the red coloring used to simulate the world of the dead (although it is also worth mentioning which used a small part of the footage from the movie "Hercules In The Haunted World"), In addition, this film generates an atmosphere that is very close to the events that occurred in the Colonial era.
To end this comment, I give "The World of the Dead" a rating of 8.5/10.
In 1676, the inquisition of New Spain burns four men at the stake, as they were members of a satanic sect, so the leader of that cult, Doña Damiana Velázquez (played by acclaimed actress Pilar Pellicer) summons Astaroth to help her finish off the Silver Masked Knight (Santo), because he was responsible for capturing the executed men. Then an envoy of darkness appears to help her: the specter of "El Caballero Azul" (The Blue Knight, performed by Blue Demon), who at just like the Silver Knight, he fought against the forces of evil, but his soul was trapped by Satan.
The suspicions that Damiana was the leader of the sect were confirmed by the bishop (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi) and some inquisitors, so she, along with Blue Demon, invoke the spirits of the men burned at the stake to finish off the Knight as soon as possible. After two battles (with quite good pipe organ music in the background by the composer Gustavo C. Carrión) in which the Silver Knight fought hand-to-hand against these beings from beyond the grave, our hero manages to free the Blue Knight from his curse and catches Damiana after she stabbed to death the Silver Knight's fiancée, Aurora (Betty Nelson), with a dagger.
Velázquez is condemned to the stake, but before dying she promises that she will return in 300 years to finish off the descendants of her captors (especially to the future descendant of the Silver Masked Knight).
In the year 1970, in Mexico, the spirit of Damiana possesses Alicia (also performed by Pellicer), who is the reincarnation of Damiana and is also Santo's girlfriend, so she will summon her undead minions again to finish with the Silver Masked Man.
However, Doña Damiana's plans do not end as she completely wants, thanks to the intervention of both the priest Francisco (Guillermo Álvarez Bianchi) and Alicia's father (Antonio Raxel, who also has a dual role playing this character and also one of the inquisitors).
Because of the possession of Alicia, she is dying, so Santo must go to the world of the dead to rescue her from Damiana's clutches. After defeating Velázquez's subordinates with the help of Blue Demon (in exchange for the release of his curse), Santo and Alicia manage to get out of the world of the dead just in time and Doña Damiana disappears completely, thus ending this bizarre and entertaining story.
I must admit that the first time I saw this movie (or at least the first 10 minutes) I was young, so I was terrified by the sequences of those executed at the stake and by the gloomy background music of these scenes, but some years later I dared to see it in its entirety and I liked the film, it is quite entertaining and personally, I consider that it stands out among others in the luchador films genre for its plot, although Demon has very small participation as a villain (at least in the first half of the movie), like the other two Santo and Blue Demon films produced by Jesús Sotomayor (the "Sotomayor trilogy" of these two luchadores).
It has some continuity errors (because several scenes that were supposed to take place at night were recorded during the day); It also has few anachronisms, among which I can mention the presence of light bulbs inside the lanterns that can be seen in some of the 1676 sequences and the masks of both knights in that same year seems out of place, but you have to consider that this story is based a bit on the events of "El hacha diabólica", where a wizard named Abraca gives the mask, cape and boots to an ancestor of El Santo in the year 1603.
Considering that these types of movies were made on a low budget, several of the special effects are well done, including an open-heart operation scene and the red coloring used to simulate the world of the dead (although it is also worth mentioning which used a small part of the footage from the movie "Hercules In The Haunted World"), In addition, this film generates an atmosphere that is very close to the events that occurred in the Colonial era.
To end this comment, I give "The World of the Dead" a rating of 8.5/10.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
