The film begins and ends extremely well, but in between becomes a draggy police procedural in which the vampire women remain largely in the background confined to their lair while only their High Priestess Tundra goes out into the field to suck blood and stalk heroine Diana Orloff. Tundra's appearance at Diana's window sufficiently spooks her father Prof. Orloff to get on to his video link to Santo rather as Commissioner Gordon used to contact Batman on the batphone; with Santo himself resembling a sort of blue collar Caped Crusader who wears only the trunks and cape and nips about in a nifty little sports car.In the hands of cameraman Jose Ortiz Ramos and production designer Roberto Silva it all looks good, especially Ofelia Montesco as pouting High Priestess Tundra - easily the hottest chick in a film full of them - and María Duval as the virtuous young heroine Diana, who gets disappointingly little screen time. Unfortunately there's far more screen time given to Santo - who we twice have to watch in the ring taking ages to floor his opponents - than to the vampire women; who Santo only takes on at the film's very conclusion. For the rest of the time Tundra is flanked by three beefy henchmen (one of whom turns out to be a werewolf!) who handle all the rough stuff instead of the vampire women themselves until Santo finally sees them off in their lair in a climactic vampire holocaust that justifies sitting through the talky preliminaries. (If Tundra and her girls had thought to put blackouts on the window of the crypt and kept track of the time as dawn approached Santo would have perished on the slab to which he'd been chained, Diana would now be leading the vampire women; and I for one would have been well satisfied at that outcome.)One puzzling question remains. Was that a pair of spectacles the blonde vampire woman seated at Zorina's feet when she's giving Tundra a dressing down was wearing?

The third of the Mexican wrestling movies picked up by K. Gordon Murray for US television (the others being INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES and SAMSON IN THE WAX MUSEUM), SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN is more atmospheric but even less action-orientated than the other two, trading numerous run-ins with henchmen for an extremely slow pacing, with lots of lingering pans across creepy, cobwebby rooms, dark crypts, and cheesy rubber bats flying about on strings. As such, the film is only for the die-hard Santo fan. Anyone else watching from a modern perspective might well find it dull, clichéd, and utterly predictable.This time around the villains are a bunch of sexy female vampires, who lurk around looking through windows and occasionally transform into ugly old hags (surprisingly efficient make-up effects are utilised here). They also have a couple of male zombies (including one weird alien-looking bald type) to do their bidding, which is mainly kidnapping and strapping prone victims to stone slabs and then draining them of their blood. Unfortunately the viewer must wade through dozens of minutes worth of exposition, badly dubbed dialogue about nothing in particular, some excruciating musical numbers and some minor characters being offed before he gets to the good stuff, which is almost worth waiting for.We first meet Santo about thirty minutes into the picture. Amusingly, our doctor protagonist attempts to call him on one of those flat television screens all Mexicans seemingly have in their homes, only to find that Santo is away at a wrestling match! Later, the vampires send an undercover agent in to attack Santo, and a lengthy match ensues before the bad guy turns into a hairy werewolf and runs amok in the audience. After numerous encounters with the villains, the admittedly strong finale is set in the vampires' crypt, where a devastating ray of sunlight turns most of the bloodsuckers into burning ash, at which point (the coolest moment in the whole film) Santo runs in and finishes off the rest of the evil ones with the help of a fiery torch.Sadly, the film offers little flair or excitement for one's money and the deathly slow pacing never seems to pick up until the very end. On the plus side, the set design is of a good standard, especially with the vampire's crypt which is very atmospheric. Sadly the low budget means that this is the only detailed set in the whole movie, with the rest of the action taking place in parks, wrestling rings, and people's houses. The human characters lack interest and the film spends far too much time concentrating on their activities when a look at the vampires and Santo himself would be far more interesting. As for Santo, he proves to be reliable as ever although his presence is sorely lacking in the opening stages and he needs far more screen time in my humble opinion. As such, this curio is for collectors only, and if you've never heard of Santo my opinion is to not bother.

When it comes right down to it, the "masked Mexican professional wrestler Vs. karate-chopping, wrestling, vampire/werewolf" movie genre has a fairly large void that this movie tries hard to fill. It's a very bad movie, of course, but the "so bad it's good" factor is huge on this one. I'm glad I didn't smoke pot before watching this because death by laughter would surely be the result.I won't even try to describe any of the scenes, but rest assured, each one stands on its own as a testament on how not to make a movie. This isn't Casablanca, people.Now, on to the merits of this film: 1. This is the very best Mexican wrestler Vs. vampire movie I've ever seen (although it should be noted, it's also the ONLY one, so I guess that makes it the worst too).2. It features some extremely good looking Mexican women, which is definitely NOT a bad thing. However, no explanation is given about how one of the vampire women, who was awakened after 200 years, came across her horn-rimmed glasses. (I detected the distinct odor of "Producer's Daughter".)3. I saw the English dubbed version and the dubbing wasn't that bad.All in all, it will depend on your mood whether or not to watch this. If you're up for some fine film making, take a pass. If you're up for some lifelike cartoons involving men in capes and masks doing a lot of fake fighting, dive right in.

I don't get it! This movie makes sense to me! A bunch of vampire women (who I also suspect to be lesbians) desire to make a queen out of a not-so-fetching woman. They attempt it several times and while they fail, I guess they are grating on the woman's nerves (You'd be upset too if the undead kept bugging ya), so she calls on Santo, a famous Mexican wrestler to stop the undead and protect her. Makes sense to me! What's yer problem?This movie is a cheesy delight. As my friend explains it, mexican wrestlers of this era were even more revered than the ones we have here in the US today, so they got their own movies. Personally I'm glad, cause I doubt I would ever see a vampire get taken down in a belly-to-belly suplex by a guy in mask, tights, and cape, if not for this movie.I didn't even realize til just now that the movie was on MST3K. I missed the episode I guess, but regardless, you don't need their help to enjoy this movie, it is so ridiculous and cheesy on its own that even at 2 hours in length it is still a campy delight.For goodness sake they call on Santo like he's Batman, there's even a Comissioner Gordan type character who has a hotline directly to Santo in the car. I also dug the vampire chicks who had really dry skin (bad air circulation in coffins) until they got their hands on some blood...suddenly they got really hot. Now that's my kind of movie.Just a word to the wise. Anytime a vampire squints and then unsquints at you, they are going to use their power. Way too many people fall for that, we need to stop that. Just a friendly word from me. But enjoy Santo Versus The Vampire Women, it's a fun flick.