THE DIABOLICAL AXE (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Though there had been some earlier references to Santo as a "legacy hero," DIABOLICAL AXE is the first time that the luchador gets an origin mixed with equal parts of The Phantom and Captain Marvel.

First comes a prologue taking place in 1603, where we meet both a contemporary version of Santo and a mysterious axe-wielding wrestler called The Black Hood (Fernando Oses), but not that much detail is revealed right away. Then the story segues to present-day, where Santo is minding his own business, battling some opponent in the ring before a cheering audience. The Black Hood appears in the ring, axe and all, and tries to chop Santo to death. The hero fends off the apparition, who shows himself immune to security-guard bullets before disappearing.

Santo is attacked a second time, and again he fights off the unknown attacker, with a little help from a ghost (Lorena Velasquez), though this time the Black Hood leaves his axe behind when he vanishes. Santo takes the object to his fellow scientist Zanoni (bet you didn't know wrestlers could double as scientists). Together they figure out that the strange hooded man hails from the 17th century, though it helps that the lady ghost, one Isabel, shows up to give them some basic info. Zanoni just happens to have been working on a time-device that can project a subject's spirit back in time, so that he can just watch things he wants to see, just like in a movie.

It's revealed that when the Black Hood lived in 17th-century Spain, he lusted after Isabel, who was engaged to a young man. The Hood pledged himself to a devil called "Ariman," who levies the usual soul-bargain to help the evildoer conquer Isabel. The demon rather pointlessly gives the Hood a bunch of riches to charm Isabel, but the latter never even uses them, preferring to kidnap the reluctant young woman. Her unnamed suitor can't find her, and indeed Isabel eventually dies in captivity. The suitor seeks help from a mystic named Abraca (as in "abracadabra"), and the magician plays Shazam, transforming the man into the silver-masked fighter against evil, Santo. In this persona the hero captures the Hood and has him burned at the stake for satanism, but the villain turns into a bat and escapes. Instead of hanging around to further persecute the 17th-century hero, the Hood decides to wing all the way to the 20th century and menace 1960s Santo-- who isn't literally related to the earlier hero, he just uses the same magical mask. (There we get the "Phantom" legacy trope.)

And so Santo comes back to the 20th century, vowing to finish off the Black Hood and free the spirit of Isabel. But he still doesn't know where to start. In the next encounter with the Hood, the villain kills Zanoni, who somehow metamorphoses into a reborn Abraca (sort of the opposite of Shazam's death in the original CAPTAIN MARVEL comics). The Hood escapes. Abraca goes off somewhere too. Santo fights another bout, and this time the Hood expands his talents by possessing Santo's opponent, though Santo still wins the fight. However, the Hood does succeed in killing Santo's girlfriend, who (maybe not coincidentally) saw Santo without his mask (though this figure was not played by the real Santo actor). Santo finally figures out that the Hood's HQ must be the place where Isabel died, and Abraca sticks in his nose one last time to warn the hero of the Black Hood's attack. The Hood perishes, Isabel's spirit is freed from bondage, and Santo goes on to his next adventure.

There's some good myth-hero potential here, but the script, co-written by Oses, is careless and the direction of Jose Diaz Morales, who directed two other lucha-films, uses too many long shots to generate tension.