Santo vs. The Riders Of Terror

Santo vs. The Riders of Terror (1970)

Runtime: 80 minutes

Directed by: Rene Cardona

Starring: Santo, Armando Silvestre, Julio Aldama, Mary Montiel, Gregorio Casal

From: Cinematografrica Calderon S.A.

Santo as a cowboy in a period Western!

Via the El Rey Network I saw another Santo movie; each late Saturday night they now show a pair of Mexican movies involving professional wrestlers, whether or not they have the man with the silver mask. I was only able to see the ending of the first movie (Santo and the Treasure of Dracula), which has two different versions; the cut they showed was an R-rated one which has a lot of nudity. It's hilarious to me that the legendary wrestler once appeared in a vulgar motion picture.

Anyhow, this is a period Western and much to my delight, Santo does wear an appropriate shirt; he does not don a cowboy hat but I imagine it would be more difficult to wear one if you are masked. In addition, he does ride a white horse throughout. The plot is that lepers are let loose from a hospital and that creates a lot of fear in a small town. Turns out, nefarious bad guys are responsible for that as they use them to commit crimes; creative, admittedly. Much to my relief, this movie is usually not horribly inaccurate when it comes to leprosy. The disease has always caused fear due to the scary-looking lesions it gives those afflicted and the belief that it is contagious, which it is not. It's even less so than COVID-19, actually; of course you're in trouble if someone w/ leprosy coughs or sneezes on you but otherwise it's not an airborne transmission and even touch is not a 100% guaranteed transmission. Thankfully the movie did not create a whole load of poppycock concerning a real life disease that has been around for thousands of years... nor demonize those with leprosy.

Sure, Santo does not appear until more than 20 minutes into the 80 minute movie but it is in essence a standard Western and it is watchable. The fight scenes perhaps go on a touch too long, yet that did not bother me too much. Some moments did bring me much delight... for example, Santo wields a rifle at one point, and uses it to great effect. Also, they managed to find a way to include a wrestling sequence. It was done at a carnival event where (and this was actually done way back in the day) a “shooter” would be in a ring to challenge those in a crowd to come in the right and fight them for a cash prize. In this case, a trio of nuns at an orphanage (!) ask our masked hero to stop the bully in the ring, which he does. Of course Santo gives the money to the nuns. It's hard to hate a movie with such an earnest moment, you know.