Chanoc y El Hijo Del Santo Vs. Los Vampiros Asesinos (1983)
Inside a cavern, legendary Mexican wrestler & the people’s protector El Santo tells his son it is now time for him to fight against evil & to protect the innocent. El Hijo Del Santo is now the hero, but will he do well?
We are then introduced to the legendary Mexican hero Chanoc (played by Nelson Velazquez) who’s enjoying a stay in Cabo San Lucas alongside his sidekick Tzekub (Arturo Cobo). The vacation becomes something more when both Chanoc & Tzekub are beaten & proceed to go after the bad men in the area. This of course aligns with El Hijo Del Santo joining them on the crime-fighting and an investigation in regard to so-called vampires in a graveyard.
With a title like “Chanoc y El Hijo Del Santo Vs. Los Vampiros Asesinos”, you’re surely in for a god damn good time, but unfortunately the title & premise does not live up to the hype at all. The mash-up between the legendary comic book hero & son of the famous luchador feels underwhelming with its light action and soda pop flat comedy. Even the typical Lucha Libre matches that are showcased here aren’t even all that.
What went wrong here? It’s obvious the script was just not written well at all since it’s so congested. Mashing up 2 big characters into 1 may seem like it could be a great thing, but often this leads to two different stories crossing over which hardly ever make sense & having too many characters without some separation will often lead to shit like this. The movie does tend to focus more on Chanoc, but his story here is just offbeat & his random ranchera music numbers here are not necessary. Clearly they were done though by the request of the actor Nelson Velazquez, whom was an actual ranchera singer—more so than an actor.
The parts with El Hijo Del Santo are far more underwhelming since we aren’t treated to the best of him at all. He’s also mostly out of costume–consisting of a fake as hell mustache, big dark sunglasses & obvious bad wig. The fight & lucha scenes are also “meh”. Not the best we could’ve gotten at all and it’s a damn shame. You know what else is a damn shame? The “vampires”. The vampires are not exactly what we think they are, but it’s a nice little glimmer of hope we get before it all goes down all lame..
Chanoc y El Hijo Del Santo Vs. Los Vampiros Asesinos seems so promising, but unfortunately doesn’t live up to the high expectations. I will say though, that the overall tone of the film is fairly positive so it’s something you can at least play in the background while you text your friends, doom-scroll the 100+ Instagram reels/TikTok’s your partner sends you, and when you fold up your laundry instead of leaving it in the basket all week (like I do).
