El Santo and Zombies

 

 (IMDB)

EL SANTO VS THE ZOMBIES (aka INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES)-1962-In pro wrestler Santo's third picture as a grappling movie star and the first to be filmed in Mexico (the first 2 were filmed in Cuba), "The Saint" helps the police fight men turned into mindless zombies by a hooded mad scientist. Three detectives Isabel (Irman Serrano), Sanmartin (Armando Silvestre) & Rodriguez (Jaime Hernadez) meet Gloria Sandoval (Lorena Velazquez; SHIP OF MONSTERS) who says her scientist father is missing. After a  jewel robbery (in which they are shot but not killed) the zombies are sent by their boss to an orphanage to kidnap kids to use in his experiments! Fortunately “the sainted one” arrives in time to thwart their plans. (He seems to have a secret HQ where he can observe what both the police and the zombie maker are doing).

Santo gets beat up but manages to get one of the crowbar like weapons (that shoots fire) and give it to the police to examine. Then Santo saves Isabel from a zombie attack. The mad scientist decides to do away with Santo in the ring (where else?). He has Santo's challenger kidnapped and turned him into a zombie to wrestle our hero. They fight but the zombie goes haywire and begins to smoke. Later Gloria is kidnapped but El saves the day. 

This is a pretty cheap production and uses El Santo himself very sparingly. It seems to be director Benito Alazraki's only entry into the Santo series. Earlier he made the horror-comedy FRANKENSTEIN, EL VAMPIRO Y CAMPANIA.

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No Holds Barred

NO HOLDS BARRED-1952-In this Bowery Boys outing Sach (Huntz Hall) somehow gets a special power from time to time. At first his head becomes very hard so Slip (Leo Gorcey) gets him into professional wrestling. He beats (real wrestler) Hombre Montana for the championship and runs afoul of his crooked manager (Leonard Penn). Henry Kulky (another real wrestler who later became a movie and TV character actor) is Mike the Mauler, Sach's trainer. When Sach loses his hard head he gets a powerful index finger and then a strong leg. Marjorie Reynolds is dispatched by the the manager to find out more about Sach's power. 

David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett are Chuck and Butch again but they could have used little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) more. 

Some other real wrestlers appear: Brother Frank Jares, Ted Christy, and John Smith as well as (non-wrestlers) John Eldredge, Sandra Gould and Tim Ryan (who co-wrote the script). 

It was one of 10 movies William Beaudine directed in 1953 (including BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA)!

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See No Good Movie

SEE NO EVIL-2006-Eight teenage delinquents are send to clean up a dilapidated hotel where a bald evil serial killer is hiding out. The group also includes an ex-cop who years before had shot the killer in the head. Most of this is a derivative mess is torture and killings (he likes to pluck out eyes) but I was surprised when the ex-cop was killed so quickly! The killer (named Jacob Goodnight although he is never called that in the movie only in the credits…go figure…) is played by Glen Jacobs better known to some as the pro-wrestler Kane which should not come as a surprise as this nasty nonsense was a “WWE production” and head scumbag I mean honcho Vince McMahon Jr. was the executive producer. Who the hell knows what he was thinking?

SNE was directed by Gregory Dark, one half of the Dark Brothers who used to produce adult (aka porno) movies. He made a lot of non-porn under the name Gregory Hippolyte. Screenwriter Dan Madigan wrote episodes of the WWE TV product RAW. Their previous production was THE MARINE which starred another pro wrestler. See my review here: 

http://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2009/10/wrestlers-or-rock-stars.html 

I’m tired of promoting McMoron’s crap….

Thanks to my buddy Tony for lending this movie to me...