It may seem like we have lucha libre on the brain, but this time we’re fulfilling our mission of commemorating film anniversaries. Santo vs. Las Lobas was released today in 1976—a rather amazing fact, because quality-wise it looks much older. In fact, if you dragged an original celluloid print behind a mule through all thirty-one Mexican states plus the Federal District, then transferred it to DVD, it would still look better than our copy. The plot concerns a werewolf clan’s new queen scheming to murder a local family, but that’s unimportant, really. The fights are the thing. They’re pure wrestling cheez whiz, with Santo in his dapper outfits headlocking his way up the werewolf food chain to the clan’s top dog, who he unceremoniously dumps off a cliff (cutaway to falling mannequin). We’re latecomers to the Santo phenomenon, but we can understand why so many are fond of this film and others in the series—they’re hilariously awful.
