Director: Gilberto Martínez Solares
Year: 1970
Country: Mexico
Alternate Titles: Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos
Genre: Creature Feature; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
Investigating the abduction of his girlfriend, the popular wrestler finds a mad scientist creating clones of his friends and using criminals' brains to revive a slew of monstrous corpses, forcing him and the real Blue Demon to fight them off to save her.
Review:
This was an unbelievably cheesy and thoroughly enjoyable Mexican monster mash-up. What really works incredibly well here is how well this manages to echo the greatness of the old Universal monster mash-ups this was clearly inspired by, putting them all together in a single film that really lets them do what comes naturally to them, which is run amok and cause devastation. That really allows for a frenetic pace here, since unlike a lot of these efforts it's got very little downtime, moving from one scene and confrontation to another rapidly and providing plenty to love about those fights. From the opening wrestling matches showing not only the women fighting but also managing to include the rather fun Blue Demon tag-team match as well and plenty of great fighting elsewhere, including several rousing and fun battles with the evil clone that's quite striking for the brutality inflicted upon each other, this one generates a great deal of positives with this high-energy action.
That also includes a pretty entertaining kidnapping venture that provides some fun and excitement when it delves into a thrilling high-speed car chase through the countryside, a series of encounters with vampires in different caves as they try to continue on with their organization plans, and the uproarious amounts of cheese featured in them being able to collect and reanimate the various monsters and then letting them loose in the world. Those scenes of the creatures getting released and rampaging throughout the countryside provide its cheese quotient most of all, as each of the creatures has a scene of them out and causing mayhem, which are just so cheesy and fun they're enjoyable on any level and set up the film's greatest part, a high-energy finale in the mad scientist's lair. It's undoubtedly the highlight here that's got all sorts of action, not only from the rush on their hideout that has plenty of fighting, but also manages to finally bring him out of hiding to join in on the rather cheesy brawling, which really gives this a wholly enjoyable sequence.
Coupled with the extreme, over-the-top levels of cheese not only with the monsters and the costumes but the simplistic storyline and special effects here that manage to make this one so enjoyable, as there's not a whole lot really wrong here. Some of the monsters may look too much like a silly variation of what they're more commonly known for, which really becomes distracting at times here. They look quite cheesy and not really all that threatening, much like the remaining special effects with the monsters' lab and the filming itself. The comedy as well may not work for everyone, but this is still immensely entertaining.
Overview: ****/5
Wholly effective and cheesy kid-friendly monster-romp, there's quite a lot to like here that makes this one of the more engaging and enjoyable entries in the series as a great introduction to the characters. Those with an interest or curiosity in the style or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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