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Santo contra el Asesino de la TV
Santo vs. the TV Killer
Santo contra el Asesino de Television / Santo vs. the Murderer of TV / Santo vs. the TV Assassin
Mexico 1981
produced by
Rafael Pérez Grovas for Cinematográfica RA, Producciones Géminis
directed by Rafael Pérez Grovas
starring Santo, Gerardo Reyes, Rubi Re, Carlos Agostí, Rosalia Montero, Carlos Suárez, Jean Safont, Nelson Juarez, Coloso Colosetti, Fernando Yapur, Ismael Ramírez, Jesús Velázquez, Eleazar Garcia jr, Julio Santos Salazar, Roy de La Serna, Carmen Cabrales, Baltazar Ramos, José Navarrete, Francisco Cortés, Francisco Leal, Irina Areu, Johnny Baraona, Juan Fava, Heriberto Ruiz, El Mago Yeo
story by Sergio David, Carlos Suárez, screenplay by Rafael Pérez Grovas
El Santo
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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There is a new masked villain in town, Magnus, who not only commits (or
rather has his men commit) daring crimes, he also hijacks all TV
frequencies to broadcast his achievements live. First he kidnaps popular
actress Marina Laval, then he's audacious enough to even announce his next
crime, the kidnapping of popular singer Brenda - but Brenda has hired a
bodyguard, popular wrestler and crimefighter Santo ... who has also been
asked to investigate the case by the chief of police. In the meantime, a
stubborn girl reporter, Diana (Rubi Re), has made her boss give her the
assignment to investigate the Magnus-affair, but since her boss doesn't
fully trust a woman on the job, he has asked his top reporter Gerardo
(Gerardo Reyes), who also happens to be a popular ranchera singer (and
will eventually turn out to be a federal agent), to have an eye on her.
Diana and Magnus soon team up with Santo, his assistant Carlitos (Carlos
Suárez) and Brenda, as does fellow journalist Pedro Grandet (Carlos
Agosti). Magnus doesn't like the competition, so he plans to kill Santo in
the ring - but since Santo is such a good wrestler and Gerardo is such a
good marksman, he fails. Eventually, Magnus strikes, kidnapping Brenda
during a performance, but Gerardo, Diana and Santo have deviced a plan to
replace her with Diana, so when Magnus boasts about the kidnapping of
Brenda in his next show, they know it's not live. Gerardo and Santo then
go look for (and find) the transmitter that hijacks the airwaves, and from
there on it's easy going to find Magnus's hideout - an elaborate system of
caves -, beat up his men, unmask him to be Pedro Grandet, free Marina and
Diana, and make it out of there just in time before Magnus/Grandet blows
up his caves. And in the end, Gerardo gets the girl - Diana that is ... A
masked supervillain devicing silly plot after silly plot to prove his
supremacy. A masked wrestler and a ranchera singer (this being Gerardo
Reyes' main claim to fame in the real world) team up to fight him. And a
gigantic system of caves serving as the villain's hideout. Now in my book
at least these are all ingredients for a great pulp movie. Unfortunately
though, Santo contra el Asesino de la TV just isn't - basically,
the film is just not well-written: The villain never has a proper motive
for his actions, the twists and turns the plot takes seem to come out of
thin air and are never really anchored in the narrative, and the whole
thing is lacking in narrative buildup. Add to this the many songs that
slow down the proceeedings considerably, and you've got ... well, one of
the lesser Santo-films.
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