Late one night, three men, being supervised by a fourth, Dr. Toicher (Mario Orea), dig up two bodies, a young male and female, from the local cemetery. The men (Fernando Oses, Guillermo Hernandez, and Jesus Camacho) are two of the doctor’s henchmen and his assistant, a hunchback. They take the bodies to a hidden laboratory. Dr. Toicher is attempting to reanimate the corpses. The experiment is a failure. Dr. Toicher believes that the experiment didn’t work because the hearts of those he is trying to reanimate are too weak. He believes that he needs someone who has extraordinary power and a strong heart.
When Santo finds out about the grave robbing he makes it his mission to stop them. Toicher tries to kill Santo as well as his companions, a singer named Marta (Gina Romand) and her boyfriend, Carlos Resendiz (Jorge Peral). When that fails he decides that he needs to just kill Santo and capture the other two so he can use them to further his experiments.
The criminals include a guy (Nathanael Leon) who sells products, made by the hunchback, that kill people and are made from the body parts left over from Toicher’s experiments. Toicher uses them to create problems for Santo and kidnap Carlos and Marta but Santo is hot on their trail.
"Santo in 'The Grave Robbers'", AKA "Santo en 'Los Profanadores de Tumbas'" AKA “The Grave Robbers” was released in 1966 and was directed by José Díaz Morales. It is a Mexican science fiction horror thriller and a luchadore movie.
We never really know what Dr. Toicher is really doing with the dead bodies. Yes, he’s trying to bring them back to life but he is willing to kill people to do so, which seems to me to defeat the purpose of the experiments. He is adamant that he needs a subject that is strong and healthy which would mean that Santo would be the best person to experiment on. Instead he is willing to kill Santo to get to experiment on two other people, Carlos and Marta, who are not as strong as the wrestler. It seems to take the Frankenstein premise and twists it a little bit. Dr. Toicher isn’t creating humans from body parts but is just trying to reanimate them. The hunchback, however, is creating weapons out of body parts.
The movie has the usual singing and wrestling that you find in most Mexican luchadore movies. The latter of which also sports some of the well known luchadores of the period, both in the ring and as actors in the film. Since luchadores are usually not great actors there is some camp here. The plot is a bit of a mess. Most of the film is plot devices to pit Santo against the grave robbers in fight sequences.
My copy of the film looks like it was downloaded from either the television or from an old VHS tape shown on television. It is, however, the only copy of the film I could find that has subtitles. The subtitles, which appear to be some kind of auto generated translations, are atrocious and are, sometimes, more confusing than enlightening.
The movie’s not all that great, but it is harder to find and certainly worth the attempt if you are a fan of Santo, or any luchadore movie.