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Released by: Rise Above Entertainment
Released on: 7/29/2003
Directors: Rene Cardona
Cast: Santo, Gina Romand, Carlos Agosti, Aldo Monti, Noelia Noel
Year: 1971
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The Movies:
Rise Above Entertainment continues releasing the Santo films with English subtitles for the first time in North America. The second round of the series contains…
SANTO EN EL TESORO DE DRACULA (SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA)
Santo In The Treasure Of Dracula was originally released in Mexico as kiddie fare but oddly enough was exported in an alternate version as a more adult oriented nudie horror film entitled El Vampiro Y El Sexo. This release is the original version, not the adult cut (though hopefully that will surface one day, as it sounds pretty interesting).
In this odd entry in the series, Santo plays a scientist (who knew?) who has recently invented a snazzy new time traveling device that he plans to unveil before his fellow scientists until he finds that they don't believe he's really been able to pull this off. I dunno about you, but I'd believe Santo no matter what he said. Why would Santo lie? Anyway, it's to their discredit that they don't believe him because his friend, Dr. Sepulveda, allows his daughter, Luisa, to go back in time.
When she arrives a century in the past, she ends up involved in a vampiric mess and is found with two bite marks on her neck - never a good sign in a monster movie. Things get even more complicated when it turns out that the slick guy living next door, named Count Alucard (Aldo Monti) wants to make Luisa one of his hoochies. Shortly after he starts to work his mojo on her, he's staked through the heart and before the vampire hunters can work their way to Luisa, Santo, who has been watching all of this on his TV set (no, really) whisks her back to the present day.
Little does Santo know that the evil Black Hood has snuck into his lab and has also been watching the events transpire on Santo's TV. Things get crazier from here on out, and much wrestling and monster bashing ensures.
While it's not without it's moments (there are a few choice scenes in this film), the major problem with this entry in the series is that Santo really isn't in it all that much. Sure there are some cool vampires running around doing their thing, but when you sit down to watch a Santo film, you want to see Santo wooing the ladies and smacking the bad guys around and sadly, not enough of that occurs in this chapter. It's still worth seeing, but it's not the ideal starting point if you've never seen a Santo film before.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Santo En El Tesoro Del Dracula looks quite nice with sharp colors, nice deep blacks, and only very minor print damage. It's quite watchable, but it's not going to win any awards for visual quality and there is quite a bit of print damage. Both films are presented fullframe.
The Dolby Digital Mono track is serviceable enough. It's presented in its original Spanish language with nice, clear, removable English subtitles. There is some hiss and background noise in a few scenes but it's easily ignored.
The features a two-minute clip of Santo in action entitled 'The Best of El Santo' as well as some trailers for other Santo films and a few unrelated Rise Above releases as well. There is also a decent photo gallery on the disc, but the real bonus of the extra features lies in the form of David Wilt's well-written and informative liner notes that serve as a nice background piece on each of the two films. Wilt is the author of the upcoming The Mexican Filmography: Feature Films 1916 - 2001 book.
The Final Word:
There's just something undeniably fun about masked wrestlers fighting monsters and Santo fans are going to want to add these titles to their libraries despite a less than perfect DVD presentation.