Search - El Santo y la Tigresa (El Santo - The Royal Eagle) on DVD

Hilariously Bad movie, not so hiliariously bad transfer

curtis martin | Redmond, WA, USA | 09/08/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Santo y La Tigresa" is hilariously bad as only a Santo wrestling movie from the 70s can be. This one, however, doesn't have the added interest of monsters with horribly amateur makeup. "Tigresa" is more like an episode of "Big Valley" mixed with some "Starsky and Hutch." It's actually pretty darn funny, with loads of 70s hair, clothes, and music adding to the camp value of a big fatass eating, sleeping, loving, and carrying on serious conversations in a silver wrestler's mask as though that were normal. Oh yeah, and he occasionally kicks some ass. But "Tigresa" has a few moments that animal lovers might find offensive. There is an extended cockfight and a cat is deliberately poisoned (though the scene was obviously faked, since the cat is still moving once everyone in the scene insists it is dead).

The transfer on the DVD currently available from Vanguard Cinema is very, very poor, however--much more like that of a $3.99 budget disc than a $15 to $20 one. The sound is passable, but the picture is annoyingly soft and washed out, with background characters' faces disappearing almost entirely into mush in the longshots.
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