A
killer is about to be executed for his crimes, so he puts himself in a trance
to feign death. He winds up being buried
alive and rises from the grave fifty years later to take more victims with his
hypnotic power. One of his victims happens
to be Blue Demon’s cousin, and the masked wrestler sets out to get revenge.
Blue Demon vs. the Satanic Power is only seventy-seven minutes long, which makes it seem like it would move right along at a snappy pace. I’m sad to report it does anything but. This is one of the slowest Mexican wrestling movies I’ve watched lately. It doesn’t help that the story is so thin that the filmmakers are forced to heavily pad the rest of the movie with four wrestling matches, two nightclub acts (one of which is a not-bad Lesley Gore impersonator), and even a dance sequence.
The
scenes with the killer are appropriately atmospheric. I especially liked the use of shadows whenever
he hypnotized his victims. There’s even
a moment of blatant sexuality when he makes a woman strip down to her bra and
panties before some prolonged kissing in bed.
Too
bad the stuff with Blue Demon is so dull. It’s not really his fault though. I’d place the blame on the filmmakers for not
giving him anything to do. I mean, what
can you say about a Mexican wrestling movie when your Mexican wrestler spends most
of his time sitting alone in the dark reading? The underwhelming action-free climax is a big
letdown too, but at least the final shot is cool.
Perhaps
sensing Blue Demon wasn’t quite ready to topline his own solo feature, El Santo
briefly shows up to give the movie a quick kick in the pants. He’s shown wrestling in footage taken from (I
think) Santo vs. the King of Crime and makes a cameo appearance when he stops
by Blue Demon’s dressing room to say hi. He should’ve stuck around longer
because the picture really needed more of his swagger to make it come alive.
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