THE VENGEANCE OF THE CRYING WOMAN (1974) ** ½

**NOTE:  Today is the 36^th anniversary of the death of El Santo, and I dedicate this review to his eternal memory.  Viva El Santo!

The Vengeance of the Crying Woman offers a slight variation on the established Lucha Libre formula.  This time, instead of El Santo’s sidekick being a masked Mexican wrestling colleague, it’s boxer Mantequilla Napoles lending him a hand.  While it’s nothing revolutionary or anything, Napoles’ boxing sequence is a nice change of pace, especially if you’ve sat through as many of these things as I have.  

A kindly old professor asks El Santo and Mantequilla to help him look for a treasure that once belonged to the legendary “Crying Woman”.  Since the professor wants to donate the gold to local children’s charities, El Santo readily agrees.  He and Mantequilla accompany the professor to a cave that houses the crypt of the now mummified Crying Woman.  When they remove a priceless necklace from the tomb, they accidentally resurrect the Crying Woman, who goes around terrorizing the children in town.  Meanwhile, a nefarious gangster (played by frequent El Santo director Rene Cardona, Sr.) wants to get his hands on the treasure and sends his goons out to hassle El Santo.

There’s plenty of atmosphere to go around, but the various subplots never really mesh.  Although there are highlights to be sure, The Vengeance of the Crying Woman often feels like three movies randomly stitched together.  The scenes of the windswept villainess are striking and strangely beautiful, but the stuff with the gangsters is just kind of routine.  While it’s fun to see Cardona Sr. as the gangster villain, his plotline never really intersects with the Crying Woman in a meaningful way.  Also, it’s a big letdown that neither El Santo nor Mantequilla battle the titular terror.

It’s a shame too, because this is one of the better looking El Santo movies.  I especially loved the Scooby-Doo style scenes of the girls walking around the caves with flashlights.  The shots that alternate from night to day also give the horror sequences a bit of an Ed Wood vibe, which put a smile on my face.

The wrestling sequences look really cheap too.  Both of El Santo’s matches (not to mention Mantequilla’s fight) take place in a ring that is set in front of a blue background with not a fan in sight, only the sound of a crowd.  The fights that occur outside of the ring are solid though.  The sequence where El Santo and Mantequilla get jumped in an alley by a dozen or so of Cardona’s men is the action highlight.

It’s the creepy Crying Woman who steals the movie though.  Her sequences are among the most atmospheric in the entire El Santo series.  Too bad her character almost seems more like an afterthought than an honest to goodness villainess.

AKA:  The Revenge of the Crying Woman.