SANTO ON THE BORDER OF TERROR (1981) ***

Santo on the Border of Terror is at its heart, a metaphor for the plight of the Mexican refugee who is escaping to America in search for a better life.  In fact, it’s probably timelier now than when it was first released.  The film also pulled at my heartstrings more than any Lucha Libre movie in history.  Because of that, it comes highly recommended, even if there are some serious lulls in between the action.  

The picture does kick off right away with El Santo participating in a fast-moving tag-team wrestling match during the opening credits.  (El Santo also wrestles in a six-man tag-team match later in the film.)  He then makes the acquaintance of a sexy lounge singer and her little sister, who is blind.  They plan to cross the border to America so she can have an operation on her eyes, and El Santo offers to help them out.  Her boyfriend is lured into thinking a doctor will help him across the border, but he just wants to use him for his own devious medical experiments.  It’s then up to El Santo to rescue him and bring down the evil doctor once and for all.

Masked wrestlers are intensely secretive about their identities.  Keeping up the mystery of their appearance is one of the most hallowed traditions in their sport.  That’s what makes the scene where El Santo takes off his mask and allows the little blind girl to touch his face so she can “see” him so damned beautiful.  The other characters respectfully look the other way when El Santo does this, and the camera is kept behind him, so the audience doesn’t see his face either.  It’s a great, touching, tender, human moment that we rarely get to see in these films.  So poignant was this scene that it reduced me to tears.  I’ll admit, I’ve had some personal stuff going on this week.  It might not have affected me the way it did otherwise.  That in no way takes away from the power of this scene, one of the finest in El Santo’s career.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff.  There’s still enough wrestling action and goofy shit (the doctor keeps a pair of eyeballs floating in a jar) to make Santo on the Border of Terror work as a pure Lucha Libre flick.  I will say the fights that take place outside of the ring are somewhat lacking.  (The overuse of long shots during the action kind of takes away from the immediacy of the fights.)  We also get two nightclub performance scenes for viewers who love seeing Mexican musical numbers in their El Santo movies.  I also enjoyed seeing The Puma Man’s Miguel Angel Fuentes in an early role as the mad scientist’s henchman.

Unfortunately, the film really drags when El Santo or the cute kid aren’t front and center.  Although the presence of a mad scientist is always welcome in these films, these scenes just aren’t as wacky or as weird as El Santo’s best stuff.  The evil doctor shit is also an uneasy mix with the exploitation of Mexican workers subplot.  Still, Santo on the Border of Terror’s heart is in the right place, which is all that really matters.  I can’t be too mad if it doesn’t quite make the grade as a social parable, especially when El Santo’s interactions with the little blind girl are so heartwarming.  

AKA:  Santo in the Border of Terror.  AKA:  Santo vs. the White Shadow.