Mexploitation Cinema by Greene Doyle

Author:Greene, Doyle [Greene, Doyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: McFarland Publishing
Published: 2005-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Blue Demon socks Rufus Rex in the jaw during the finale of Santo y Blue Demon contra Drácula y el Hombre Lobo.

Having defeated the monsters, Santo and Blue Demon return to the Cristaldi mansion, where Lina is reading the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” to a sleeping Rosita. The incorporation of “Little Red Riding Hood” is highly ironic. The fairy tale genre is inscribed into the horror film, and, as noted, Little Red Riding Hood appeared several times in Mexican children’s films, including her quite unnerving treatment in Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los monstruos (Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs. the Monsters, 1960, dir. Roberto Rodriquez; U.S. title: Little Red Ridding Hood and the Monsters). Moreover, the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale is about a female menaced by a monstrous male wolf. In Santo/Blue Demon, Little Red Riding Hood is not necessarily represented by Rosita and her brief encounter with the monsters. Rather, Little Red Riding Hood is represented by Laura Cristaldi, who is seduced, murdered, and implicitly raped by the Wolf Man, Rufus Rex. While little Rosita sleeps, Lina wonders how to explain these horrible events and the loss of her dearest family members (her grandfather, her mother, and her nanny). Lina asks Santo, “What will we tell her when she wakes up?” Santo responds with a very inadequate solution: “That it was a dream.” Blue Demon nods and adds, “A nightmare.” Then, almost as an afterthought, Blue Demon suddenly reminds Santo that they have a match tomorrow and they better get some rest. The film closes with a lucha libre coda: a tag-team match featuring Santo and Blue Demon against Ángel Blanco and Renato the Hippie (the reappearance of the same two opponents time and again leads one to assume that the three matches were filmed simultaneously). As if to expunge the tragic ending from the film, the match celebrates the exploits of Santo and Blue Demon, who easily defeat their opponents, as if the routing of the rudo by the técnico in the melodramatic spectacle of the wrestling ring is all that is necessary to demonstrate that all is well with Mexican society (although the obvious irony is that Santo and Blue Demon were actually bitter tag-team rivals during their long wrestling careers).

However, despite the final images of the two técnicos triumphing in the ring, Santo/Blue Demon is not a “happy ending.” In Santo/Blue Demon, Santo is far from being “a figure of perfect justice.” At best, Santo is fallible, and at worst simply inept. Even Santo’s girlfriend must come to his rescue twice in the film: the chica moderna saving the manly, iconic luchador. Santo and Blue Demon, despite their best efforts, cannot prevent the violent deaths of Professor and Laura Cristaldi, and the resurrection and subsequent defeat of the monsters has exacted a high price: an awareness of the limits of modernity over unexplainable evils, the virtual destruction of the traditional family, and the demystification of Santo’s heroic image. The tragic

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