Santo vs. the Zombies/Santo contra los zombies/The Invasion of the Zombies (1962)

‘You will soon be the first zombie woman.’

A professor disappears on his way to deliver a manuscript to his publisher containing his research on zombies in Haiti. Meanwhile, a jewellery store is robbed by three strange men who act like robots and seem bulletproof. The police are baffled and call in a silver-masked wrestler to assist with their investigation…

Legendary Mexican masked wrestler Santo encounters the supernatural just three movies and a couple of years into his long screen career. Writer-director Benito Alazraki enters the Santo Cinematic Universe for the only time but is helped out on story duties by veterans Antonio Orellana and Fernando Osés.

The film opens with two and a half minutes of footage from one of Santo’s real-life wrestling matches before we get to the credits, and we stay in the square ring afterwards, although the subsequent match is obviously staged for the film. The crowd carry on roaring, but we no longer see them, and the ring is shot from a lower angle to disguise the fact that only a couple of dozen people are watching. One of these dedicated fans is detective Rodriguez (Jaime Fernández), who is dragged away from the action by colleagues Lt. Sanmartin (Armando Silvestre) and Miss Isabel (Irma Serrano). I guess she’s a detective too. The film doesn’t really make that clear.

Meanwhile, a trio of strange men rob a local jewellery store, wearing tunics and tights as if they’ve wandered in from a medieval costume flick or an old Hollywood serial. In related news, zombie expert Professor Sandoval (Rafael María de Labra) has disappeared, and his brother, blind man Tío Genaro (Carlos Agostí) and daughter Gloria (Lorena Velásquez) are worried. While Silvestre and Serrano deal with the robbery, Fernández is assigned to her case. He takes Velásquez to see Santo wrestle at the arena (it’s his third contest in the film if you’re counting!) We assume they’re there to discuss her father’s disappearance as they seem to be working together on it as partners(!), but they leave without speaking to him. Maybe Serrano is Silvestre’s girlfriend, and he just takes her along on cases too?

Could all these shenanigans have something to do with a mysterious villain and his assistant working in a Batcave nearby? They always keep their hoods on, even though the only other occupants are their (rather small) zombie army. Remaining disguised is a wise move, though, as it seems that Santo has somehow managed to place a hidden TV camera in their lair. Technology cuts both ways, though, as the villain has apparent access to all the hi-def CCTV cameras that line the streets of Mexico City! What amazing cable packages were on sale in Mexico in the early 1960s! 

As the film progresses, the story develops in a number of silly and cheerfully illogical ways. The zombies attempt to kidnap Serrano (why?), and the villain ‘beams’ them out when Santo turns up like they’re the ‘away team’ on an episode of ‘Star Trek’. Failing with that baffling gambit (just what was he trying to achieve?), our hooded menace zombifies Santo’s next opponent in the ring, wrestler Dorrell López (Fernando Osés). His scientific method involves a large syringe and a lot of electrical ‘Frankenstein’ noise going on in the background. I’m not sure what’s actually making all that racket, but it’s very impressive.

Santo foils the plan by pulling on his opponent’s trunks, which belch smoke before he falls down dead (for real this time). The villain counters by kidnapping Velásquez after she’s completely flummoxed by finding a dead tree branch in the road. Now, I know it will probably be a bit of a hassle to move it, but it’s not that big, and it won’t get up on its own and walk off if she just stares at it. The biggest mystery of all, though, is how everyone turns up at the villain’s secret lair for the finale. 

Santo began his movie career in the unlikely locale of pre-revolutionary Cuba, where he shot two films back to back, starting with ‘Santo Vs The Evil Brain/Santo contra cerebro del mal (1961). However, despite his prominent billing (in the title!), he was a supporting actor on both projects, lending his muscles and fighting skills to some action scenes. These films sat on the shelf for almost three years, looking for a distributor. His next screen assignment was three films for director Federico Curiel in 1961, but all were still unreleased when this film hit theatres in May 1962. In what may have been an in-joke of sorts, Curiel has a small role here as the watchman of the jewellery store targeted by the zombies.

All these early films have one plot point in common; Santo being called into the action after the story has already begun. This seems to be a hangover from the Cuban films and is especially noticeable in Curiel’s work. It’s still present here to an extent, but thankfully it’s well before the halfway point when senior policeman Detective Almada (Dagoberto Rodríguez) calls him in via the large box with the rotating aerial that sits on the side of his desk. 

And no wonder he’s needed! The zombies attack an orphanage when the bad guy needs kids for unspecified ‘experiments’ (don’t worry, it never comes up again). Santo makes the scene, of course, and so do the official forces; Silvestre, followed a few minutes later by Fernandez. No one else shows. Later on, Silvestre recognises all the zombies as criminals that he personally brought to book, confirming what we’ve already realised; Silvestre, Fernandez, Serrano and their boss are the City’s entire police force!

There are a couple of other minor concerns about the story for the nitpickers and logically minded. We never find out how the bad guy has managed to raise the dead, reverse all signs of their decomposition, or what the Professor and his Haitian research had to do with it. Come to think of it, what were his long-term objectives anyway? We never find out. One thing we do learn is that he hasn’t been keeping up with the official Health and Safety statutes applicable to his secret lab. Electronic panels should not explode when someone falls into them. I’m pretty sure that’s a code violation right there. 

Calling this Santo’s first encounter with the supernatural is pushing the definition a little. These zombies aren’t the result of a witch doctor’s potion, black magic or spell-casting; they’ve been brought to life by the scientific method. Sound scientific method. Although they can be short-circuited using the battery from a torch, so perhaps a few kinks still need ironing out.

Classic 1930s and 1940s Hollywood cast a long shadow over the Mexican film industry of the 1960s, producing an odd cocktail of the classic Universal monsters and Saturday morning serials filtered through a unique, ‘anything goes’ sensibility. This film helped to establish the Santo Cinematic Universe, providing a story template to follow and some conventions and trappings that would become all too familiar. There would be variations over the years, but many of the basic building blocks are here. 

Velásquez playing a heroine seemingly helpless in the presence of a tree branch is rather a novelty for anyone familiar with her screen work of the time. Her damsel in distress role is severely underwritten, but she still manages a few nice moments. When Fernandez takes her to the wrestling arena, she looks vaguely uncomfortable at first before she’s swept up in the atmosphere. This is wonderfully ironic, considering that, within a year, she was debuting as one of the heroic, ass-kicking ‘Wrestling Women’ in ‘Doctor of Doom/Las luchadoras contra el médico asesino’ (1963). By then, she’d already appeared as bloodsucking Queen Zorina in ‘Santo and the Vampire Women/Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro’ (1962). A long, successful career in movies followed, and as of 2020, she was still active in front of the camera. 

The Santo story really begins here. For all its faults, it’s still great entertainment. 

Santo will return in ‘Santo and the Vampire Women/Santo vs. las mujeres vampiro’ (1962).