User Reviews

A year after making the very successful "Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro", director Alfonso Corona Blake once again was reunited with most of that film's crew and directed this new adventure of the famed Mexican wrestler turned Superhero. "Santo en el Museo De Cera" would be the title of this story that would continue Santo's image as a fantastic warrior that uses his wrestling techniques to help the police and fight against evil and criminals. Obviously inspired by the 1953 horror classic "House of Wax" (starring Vincent Price), this Santo adventure repeated the formula of action, mystery and Gothic horror with very good results, and along "Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro" remains as one of the best Santo movies of his early career.

In this movie, a series of kidnappings begin to occur near a very popular Wax Museum. After a reporter of an important newspaper disappears while doing research for an article about the Museum, all the clues seem to point to the owner, Dr. Karol (Claudio Brook). However, to everyone's surprise, Karol asks crime-fighter Santo (himself) for protection as he fears someone wants to kill him. While Santo accepts to protect Dr. Karol, he begins his own investigation about the mysterious kidnappings, and soon he'll discover what's hidden in the Wax Museum.

Written by Corona Blake himself (adapting a story by Fernando Galiana and Julio Porter), this film once again makes Santo a superhero similar to Batman, that can be called to fight crime (most Santo films were adaptations of comic books, where Santo the real life wrestler became Santo the fantasy hero). While this makes for a poor development of Santo as character (this would change in future Santo films), it makes the adventure itself the focus of the story, making "El Museo De Cera" one of the most atmospheric and captivating of them, as well as the one that gave Santo one of his best villains in his career.

Like in "Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiro", the direction by Corona Blake is subtle but effective. A very visual movie, the mix of action film with Gothic horror sounds unlikely but once again Corona and cinematographer José Ortiz Ramos (who would create some of the best Bava-influenced imagery in Mexican horror) craft something that feels both haunting and creepy. It's not really a movie meant to be scary, but a movie meant to be enjoyed as a fun action flick with horror and creepy atmosphere as a setting. Despite the low budget, Corona Blake manages to pull off a classy final product that at times reaches the level of his previous Santo film, setting the bar high for future adventures of the masked wrestler (sadly, few films came close to it).

In this film Santo has an greater role than in the previous ones, although here he is still the superhero called to do fight crime. While not really his best acting, the script is cleverly built to not let his lack of experience mess with the film, certainly Coronoa Blake knew that his star was not Oscar-material. The whole opposite is Claudio Brook, who like Lorena Velázquez in "Las Mujeres Vampiro", becomes the center of the film with a terrific performance as Dr. Karol. With more than a subtle nod to Vincent Price, Brook creates a complex ambiguous character that at times looks like a villain, while at others is really a sympathetic man. It is his ambiguous nature what drives the film for the most part, making Brook's performance the highlight of the movie.

Like in most (if not all) Mexican fantasy films, the serious problem the film has is its really low-budget. While Corona makes the best that he can do with what he's got, at times the cheap special effects and the bad make up truly take away the feeling of the film. Another small quibble is that the film loses a lot of steam by the ending, as it becomes another typical film by the moment of the final confrontation. Still, "Santo en el Museo De Cera" is one of the better Santo films, as it presents an atmospheric movie with beautiful Gothic cinematography. Watch the subtitled version as like in most Santo films, the dubbed one is truly awful and doesn't give justice to the film.

Along with "Santo Contra Las Mujeres Vampiro", "Santo in the Wax Museum" is a great addition to a Santo collection, and another of the best films with Mexican wrestlers as main characters. It may not be a classic horror film, but it's an entertaining film with a great performance by Claudio Brook. 7/10

SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1963) **1/2 (D: Alfonso Corona Blake, Manuel San Fernando) Not bad as far as Santo films go. The masked man goes up against a mad doctor who kidnaps people and turns them into wax figures for his museum. Decent story, although (as usual) there are needless wrestling matches padding it. Similar to HOUSE OF WAX.

The luchador (wrestler) movies of the 1960s to the present are an interesting genre...and to the casual observer they might easily be dismissed as campy or bad...especially since the often involve wrestlers saving the world from various monsters and megalomaniacs...as well as aliens! Well, they are campy and bad...but also very entertaining. There's a lot to be said about this...much like the American horror/sci-fi films of the 1950s. Most of these also were far from great pieces of art...but folks enjoyed them...much like Mexicans enjoyed these wrestling films.

"Samson In the Wax Museum" ("Santo en el Museo de Cera") is most unusual in that an American production company, American International, bought the rights to it and dubbed the film into English. In addition, they inexplicably renamed Santo....here he's Samson*. I can assume this happened because American International also dubbed some Italian Hercules or Maciste films and renamed the character Samson in these films as well.

In this installment, the most famous Mexican luchador, Santo/Samon, battles an evil man with a wax museum, as Dr. Carroll is kidnapping folks and turning them into his evil army. The plot is a bit like "Mystery of the House of Wax" and "House of Wax" because the museum owner is turning living people into his wax figures or using them to kill, that's original to this film.

The quality of this film is pretty much what you'd expect from a Santo film, though its make-up is a good bit better (for example, the Frankenstein actually looked like Frankenstein). The only gripe I have about the dubbing is Samson's voice...it seemed pretty weird and nothing like his original Mexican voice. Enjoyable and a bit better than usual.

*Listen carefully when the wrestling match begins at about 25 minutes into the film. The crowd is chanting "Santo, Santo, Santo" repeatedly despite him otherwise being dubbed as Samson.

I have a fondness for most south of the border horror movies.This really isn't one of them.Masked wrestlers were very popular in Mexico from the mid fifties to the mid eighties.Santo was the most popular of them.Only three movies were imported and dubbed into English.This sad one, the much better Samson And The Vampire Women and Invasion Of The Zombies (which I haven't seen).

Okay for some reason Santo is called Samson in this movie.What is goofy is when he is in the wrestling arena (which is too often) the crowd is chanting"Santo!Santo!Santo!"Samson battles for the good of mankind when he isn't wrestling with other sweaty guys.Everybody has to have a hobby.

The plot boils down(if I may pun)to this:The mad Dr Karol runs a wax museum.With some sort of mad scientist formula he has live exhibits that obey his commands. There is a Frankenstein type monster, a werewolf, a pig man and a caveman.Karol was disfigured in an explosion(but only his hands). Therefore he wants to make the world feel pain and ugliness.(Maybe he should make them watch this movie, eh?)Well he kills a friend of Samson's and makes it look like someone is also out to kill him.So old droopy drawers, I mean Samson is on the case.

Now we have to fill 90 minutes here kids.So we get endless wrestling scenes not to mention the endless mad scientist chortling over his helpless victims scenes.Samson takes nearly the whole film to figure things out.He has to face Dr Karol's army of wax zombie/critters.Will anyone survive?

You won't care.While this movie is better than the absolute bottom of garbage heap films (say New York Ripper for instance)it is well below average.So if you have 90 minutes to kill and want to inflict pain and suffering onto yourself or share that agony with others, this film may do it for you.

To the people that say this is garbage, it just shows how ignorant you are in the subject of film and societies around the world. Your Anglo-centric point of view does not allow you to appreciate other takes and reactions to modernity.

This movie shows a reaction to modernity and science in a culture that was previously homogenized by the Golden Age of cinema through comedias rancheras, catholic ideals, morals, and the like. The Santo films are reactions to such stipulated foreign horrors that came and made wax dummy hybrids out of people who blindly believed in the name of progress. The Santo movies are about Good vs. Evil, inclusion vs. exclusion. They were a way to show banned lucha libre fights on television. They were a mode of resistance and a middle finger to culture snobs, who think anything that they do not understand is camp and below them. Get off your high horse and take a real film analysis class. Learn.

1963's "Samson in the Wax Museum" ("Santo en el Museo de Cera") was the fifth entry in El Santo's starring movie series, 'The Silvermask Man' (as he's listed in the dubbed AIP-TV print) already a comic book hero since 1951 and by this time was doing the caped crime fighter thing in cinemas as well, director Alfonso Corona Blake previously at the helm for "The World of the Vampires" and "Samson vs the Vampire Women." As usual Santo/Samson has a secret lab where he collects evidence when not throwing opponents around the ring during his three bouts, the obvious inspiration here being Vincent Price's "House of Wax," Claudio Brook a poor substitute as a mad surgeon disfigured by Nazi atrocities (discussed, never shown), whose creations are hidden in underground catacombs, figures of Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, the Wolf Man and Dr. Hyde, who sadly don't come to life until the final reel. Only two ordinary henchmen do all the kidnapping, the doctor planning to feature a Panther Woman in his exhibit but that never comes to pass. Aside from the frequent fisticuffs it's pretty dreary, not so much fun as "Invasion of the Zombies," but at least our hero has no use for a double to distract from his prowess in the ring (can't say the same for the Wrestling Women from "Doctor of Doom"). Claudio Brook is underwhelming as the villain, showing off his scarred hands but little else, and worked with Lon Chaney in 1955's "Daniel Boone Trail Blazer," William Shatner in 1974's "The Devil's Rain," and John Carradine in 1978's "The Bees," before doing a cameo as a bank president in the 1989 James Bond thriller "Licence to Kill" (as the cop, Madrid-born Ruben Rojo had previously featured in "The Brainiac," later playing opposite Boris Karloff in 1967's "Cauldron of Blood").

El Santo, a Mexican superhero who's part Batman and part Hulk Hogan, gets involved in a mad scientist's nefarious schemes. When he's not solving the mysteries of a bizarre wax museum, he's trashing his opponents in a wrestling ring.

I've been curious about Mexican wrestling movies for a few years, so when I got the chance to check out two of them, I decided to take the bait. This one was the better one of the two (the other one, Las Luchadoras Contra la Mumia, was just excruciating). While I'm not sorry I watched them, I can't say that anyone who hasn't seen them has missed anything.

El Santo en el Museo de Cera is silly and incredibly dated. See it only if you love obscure and very bad films.

Wow... is this movie bad.

Words cannot describe how horribly cheesy, campy and utterly boring this movie is.

The plot is terrible, and the acting is sub-par (at best!)

The best thing about this entire movie is the wrestling scenes. Being a huge wrestling fan myself, I was very entertained by the wrestling scenes. However, the lack of commentary, and the fact that he went to wrestle at the weirdest times, made them a little lacking.

The only reason I even own this movie is for my knack for collecting wrestling memorabilia.

So, unless you are a huge wrestling fan (and I mean HUGE) I would not recommend this atrocity to the cinematic arts.

Another of the world's worst. This is a product from Mexico and the hero is a silver masked wrestler that also is a crime fighter. The evil Dr. Karol(Claudio Brook)is not happy with the subjects in his wax museum. This is so horrible, it is funny. Also in the cast are Norma Mora and Ruben Rojo.

This was my first masked wrestler horror movie and it blew my mind. I'm giving it an extra star because I recognize quality even if it's bizarre to me.

Half of it looks like a gorgeous forties horror classic. Half of it is wrestling. Complete matches of wrestling. My mind is blown.

My first Santo movie but definitely not my last.

I watched the AIP dub of this movie and found it to be a highly enjoyable, fun little movie that moves at a decent pace. It has impressive sets and night-for-night cinematography. It's a shame that these movies are not shown more often. The main characters are likeable and the storyline is interesting enough to keep your attention throughout its roughly 90 minute run time. I'll be checking out more of these Samson/Santo movies at the first opportunity. This one was just plain fun, escapist entertainment, which is becoming much more difficult to find these days. Hopefully this film will someday be released on DVD or Bluray.