Santo in the Wax Museum

Santo in the Wax Museum (Santo En El Museo De Cera) (1963)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Alfonso Corona Blake/Manuel San Fernando

Starring: El Santo, Claudio Brook, Norma Mora, Ruben Rojo, Roxana Bellini

From: Filmadora Panamerica

Not the best film if you want to see the legendary luchador do battle against monsters. It’s been more than two years since I’ve viewed any El Santo movies. Regrettably, those used to be easier to track down in the past, when there was the El Rey Network and some subtitled or dubbed prints were available to stream. Now, good luck viewing most of those unless you speak Spanish. Wax Museum recently became available on Prime; the conclusion will explain which films are better than this but now, why this was a letdown.

It seemed to be painting a rosy picture… at first. It’s a mad scientist who runs a wax museum; sorry for the spoiler but it’s rather obvious, even if it takes Santo and the others a long time to determine this. Think of it as a cross between House of Wax and Island of Lost Souls. The evil Dr. Karol wants to create half-human hybrids to rule the world; it’s not for quite the same reason as Dr. Moreau. Rather, it was because Karol… was a prisoner at AUSCHWITZ. No way could I make up such a tasteless plot point.

That wasn’t even my main issue with this. Rather, it was that this was full of talk, talk, talk. The wax museums have figures of folks like Gary Cooper circa High Noon, Gandhi and Joseph Stalin on the ground floor-figures of famous monsters are downstairs. The half-human abominations literally do nothing until the ending. I’d have preferred them do something before that… or even better, the wax figures come alive. It’d be best if the figures of Cooper, Gandhi and Stalin came alive to do evil! That’d have been more interesting than seeing highlight of three Santo matches in the role that are superfluous to the plot.

The best Santo movie I’ve seen was 1974’s Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter. For monster action, there’s 1970’s Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters, which includes The Wolf Man, a cyclops, a vampire, a mummy, and Frankenstein’s Monster, who sports a goatee & drives a car at one point! Those are both campier and more entertaining than Wax Museum, a movie that wastes a villain who at least in the English dub delivered some amusing flowery dialogue.

Oh yeah, the print of Prime looks great yet the audio was the old K. Gordan Murray dub from the period where Santo was known as… SAMSON. That isn’t ideal, yet how dull this was sank the picture.