A high-camp slice of black and white Mexican wrestling action, this forgotten Santo epic has been thankfully given a much-needed DVD release complete with English subtitles: maybe the new millennium is worth something after all! Helmed by veteran fantasy director Alfredo B. Crevenna and starring a whole cast-full of oddly monikered wrestling "legends", SANTO VS. THE MARTIAN INVASION is Saturday morning level entertainment that fondly recalls the action-packed serials of the 1930s and '40s in its naiveness and simple charm. Sure, the low budget is evident throughout the movie and the plot is less than impressive, basically consisting of lots of talking in between some well-staged wrestling bouts, both in and out of the ring. It's hardly the most imaginative Santo movie there is to see.However, this movie becomes enjoyable through the sheer energy of it all. Santo is on top form as the efficient crime fighter-cum-wrestler and gives it his all as he tackles various Martians. The Martians themselves are more amusing than scary, deciding to disguise themselves as Greek gods at one point (why?) and using their "astral eyes" to vaporise people via a poor and unconvincing special effect. Dig the impressively shiny Martian costumes, polished silver with a high collar and designed to show off the well-proportioned bodies of the wearers. The voluptuous female stars are given a wacky dance routine, but otherwise their only job seems to be to hypnotise human beings and make them do their will. The rest of the time they just stand around and look alluring. Worth watching for is the steamy close encounter between an unmasked Santo (!) and one of the Martian girls that will set anyone's pulse racing.As for the male Martian members, they're also a funny yet impressive lot, led by fellow wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis as the stern and commanding Argo. Just check out the names of the co-stars: El Nazi, Ham Lee (the oriental Martian!), Beny Galan, even Natanael Leon Frankenstein! Despite being wooden actors, the fighters acquit themselves well with all the wrestling bouts that take place and are as fun to watch as ever. Other fun elements include the extremely poor wobbly flying saucer that appears at the beginning of the film; Santo racing against time to destroy the Martian ship whilst the Martians asphyxiate inside; the two-mask twist in the wrestling arena; the silly dialogue; and the benevolent scientist who burns away the bad guys. The rest of the running time is mainly taken up with prolonged and strenuous sweaty bouts of wrestling with the participants really giving it their all as they simulate being kicked in the face, punched in the stomach, and hauling opponents over their backs. This is a crazy, entertaining slice of slapdash Mexican cinema.

Over the course of his long career, the masked Mexican wrestler hero Santo the Silver Mask (Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta) appeared in dozens of movies, including this one. A group of scantily clad human-looking Martians is planning to teach us Earthlings to live peacefully without nuclear weapons and if a verbal warning is not enough, they are prepared to disintegrate mankind completely. Besides their primary mission, they also intend to kidnap some elite individuals for research purposes, among them the righteous muscle hero Santo and a brilliant scientist named Ordorica (Manuel Zozaya). However, Santo is not easily fooled by the Martians' schemes: the strong alien men and their seductive women, who all go by names taken from Ancient Greek mythology, must work hard to achieve their goals.The movie is clearly all about the heroism of Santo; the goofy plot is secondary to the numerous and endlessly long fight scenes where Santo gets to show off his wrestling moves while everyone else just stands still watching their friends getting beaten. Some of the wrestling is pretty fun though and the seductress-Martians' hypnotic dance number is worth seeing, so even if the acting couldn't possibly be any more wooden, there's plenty to like in the movie: the futuristic but crude spaceship set and the Martians' tight outfits and wigs look rather amusing indeed. I don't think it was ever supposed to be a serious sci-fi thriller in the first place, but seeing it now, it's pure comedy and recommended to any wrestling fan and cult movie aficionado.

My introduction to the Santo cult proved to be a somewhat disappointing experience. Santo is not so much a Mexican Super-Hero as a Mexican Bruce Lee. Instead of kung fu, we are treated to wrestling. Mucho lucha. Demasiado lucha! It never stops. Santo cannot step into a room without stepping into the fray. I admit it was well staged, but the sound effects were overdone. I liked the girls best, especially Belinda Corell. On the other hand, the male Martians were totally unconvincing. Complete with ridiculously fake wigs, they looked about as much like men from Mars as refugees from Central Casting. Not that the rest of the players were much better. Only the always reliable Manuel Zozaya (who rarely received decent roles matching his abilities) as the professor and the impressively voiced "Picoro" (doing his customary stint as the ring announcer) stood out in a very mediocre cast.Production values were also second-class with ho-hum special effects that wouldn't gladden the hearts of a group of seven-year-olds; plus competently routine photography by Jorge Stahl (who did such good work on Henry Hathaway's 1954 Garden of Evil); and all topped off by capable but blissfully unimaginative direction from that veteran workhorse in Mexican cinema, Alfredo B. Crevenna (who helmed no less than 150 features between 1945 and his retirement at the age of 81 in 1995).Sci-fi fans will be hard pressed to find anything to cheer about in this effort. It's the sort of film that a quickie serial producer like Columbia's Sam Katzman would have been proud of, but it didn't strike many chords with me.

This time round Santo has to battle with Peace loving Aliens, who descend onto the earth which a monstrous plan...world peace thru force(how sickening is that!).Their objective is to make the planet speak under one tongue and destroy all national boarders and traditions, and if the earth does not succumb, then it will be destroyed. Charming. First thou they must chose a nation to make an example of, so they chose Mexico, which is a bad move on their part as they have never heard of Santo, the silver masked Hero of the Mexican Nation.Santo has his first encounter with Argos (the lead alien) at a Baseball Park, where the evil Argos vaporizes stands of people and some children, he and Santo do battle , but he cheats our silver masked hero and vanishes into thin air.The aliens are stunned by Santos strength and decide that the only way to kill him, is to cheat. After using some mind control techniques on two of Santos peers at the training gym they realise that getting rid of the masked Hero is not as cut and dried and they first believed.Santo knows that these evil aliens must be stopped for the fabric of Mexico and indeed the world now sits on his shoulders to defend, but can he save the day?