El Santo, the silver masked Mexican Wrestler and movie star, starred in almost sixty movies from 1958 to 1982. Most of them featured monsters straight out of the 40’s. In this one, his 11th picture, El Santo is up against a coven of witches who sacrifice women to a scary looking demon called The Lord of Shadows. They need to sacrifice a girl named Ofelia and Santo himself to appease the demon. The witches use thugs in wrestling capes to fight Santo, who gets captured, tied up, and breaks free many times. The witches aren’t ugly, or ride on brooms, but are sexy young women who seduce men and can disappear. Of course in the middle of the movie, El Santo has to completely drop everything and head down to the arena for his wrestling match! The witches in this movie are more like vampires because a cross or sunlight can kill them. In the end, El Santo busts out a big ass cross and the witches burst into flames! A solid entry in the El Santo Library. The music is stolen from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die.

In his 16th movie, El Santo battles Martians who want to take over the world (or at least Mexico) because the Earth is far too technologically advanced and they don’t want us blowing up the universe. The shirtless Martians wear helmets that look like backwards baseball caps equipped with “The Astral Eye” that can hypnotize or disintegrate people. At one point, to “blend in” they even turn themselves into Ancient Greek Era humans, complete with togas and names like Hercules!?! They want to take El Santo back to Mars to dissect and study him to create a new race of Martian supermen. One Martian disguises himself as a masked wrestler and battles El Santo in the ring. He rips off El Santo’s mask, but there’s another one underneath. (El Santo never showed his face in public and although he does take his mask off in one scene, we only see him from the back). El Santo fights the leader, Argos in an empty arena, but the Martians die out from asphyxiation from the Earth’s atmosphere. The narrator asks, “When will we end our crazy nuclear experiments?” The goofy alien costumes and effects are pretty funny and there’s a couple of hot alien babes too. Throw in El Santo kicking major ass and it adds up to one fun flick.