Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast where we watch all of the zombie movies in chronological order. The year is 1961. We're still in Mexico and we have our first superhero, not Batman, not Superman, but the man in the silver mask, Santo vs. the Zombies. You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them, zombies or something? Zombie.

What's a zombie? Just what is a zombie?

Well, a zombie?

There's, um, Mr. Bill is...

The living dead.

There's a living dead.

There's the zombies.

It's an army of zombies.

Because a zombie has no will of his own.

What is wrong? What is wrong?

Hey, everybody. I'm John.

I'm Andy.

I'm Brad.

Hello, and welcome to our new wrestling podcast, starring Santo, the world's greatest wrestler. Uh, I, uh, I found this film an absolute delight. I'll just spoil it right now, and we can talk about it. We have so much to talk about in this movie, but, uh, yeah, how'd you guys do?

This movie is packed with stuff, and this was a genuine delight.

Yeah.

I can't wait to discuss it.

I think it's the mo- it's the first- well, we'll get into it. It's the first movie we've watched that's really- except for maybe Zombies of the Stratosphere, that's kind of made for children, you know?

Yes.

So as mentioned in the intro, this week is Santo vs the Zombies. Brad, tell us about how this film came about. Give us the details.

All right, Santo vs the Zombies has several release dates. On Wikipedia, it's 1961. On IMDb, it's April 1962. They don't say if it's US or Mexico, so I'm going to go with 1961.

All right.

Santo, the man in the silver mask, whose real name is Rodolfo Guzman, was a professional wrestler. He used a variety of stage names, but first wore the silver mask in 1942, which led to him being called the man in the silver mask. He was the bad guy in the wrestling matches, but the crowd loved him. The first two movies with Santo were filmed in Cuba in 1958, but their release was held up after the Cuban Revolution. In these films, Santo was the sidekick to The Masked Man, a detective played by Fernando Oséz, who wrote the story for Santo vs the Zombies. The first film with Santo as the heroic lead is Santo vs the Zombies.

Hey, that's our movie.

Throughout the 60s and 70s, Santo fought a variety of evildoers, including many genre monsters, vampires, martians, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster and mummies.

And don't forget, vampire women was apparently the most popular one.

Yes, and we'll talk briefly about that too. But Santo will return to Zombie Strains in the 70s in a team up with Blue Demon, another masked wrestler in Santo and Blue Demon vs the Monsters.

This is exciting.

I can't wait.

And Santo died in 1984, and by then he had done over 50 Santo films. You mentioned that you like this. I liked it a lot too. And I've never seen a Santo film or a Lucha Libre film. But what I kind of like about it is it's such a long series of films, and I'm a big fan of Zatoichi, and I'm a big fan of James Bond, and they all started at the same time. And it's kind of nice to see that.

This has that same, yeah, as Zatoichi, that I didn't think of that when I watched it. But now that I hear you say that, I'm... And this is Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman, is that correct?

Correct, and they made like two to three a year, kind of like the Santo films. They just kept cranking them out. Yep. All right, Benito Alarzraqui co-wrote and directed Santo vs the Zombies. He directed The Curse of the Doll People, which we covered in our last episode. This is his 24th film and only Santo film. He directed 16 more films with his last coming out in 1995. Antonio Orellana co-wrote the script with Alarzraqui. He wrote four more Santo films after Zombies, Santo vs the Vampire Women, Santo vs the King of Crime, Santo and the Hotel of Death, and Santo vs the Diabolical Brain.

Is there any way we can get Vampire Women onto our watching schedule?

Well, apparently it's the best one, is what I've heard, was what I was reading.

We can talk about it. You know, maybe there's a reason to have fun. Fernando Osés wrote the story that Alasraki and Oriana adapted into a screenplay. He was a professional wrestler in the 1950s and 60s. In the 50s, he had his own series of Lucifer Libre films, where he played La Sombra, or in English, the Avenging Shadow. And he did this in three films. He wrote the first two Santo films, and he wrote the story or screenplay for nine more in the 60s. He also had a variety of roles in many of the Santo films, as a wrestler, a vampire inspector or henchman. In Santo vs the Zombies, he plays the wrestler who is made into a zombie and fights Santo in the ring. Irma Serrano plays Detective Isabel. Santo vs the Zombies is her first film. She is also known as the Tigress of Ranchero music, and was a very popular singer in Mexico in the 1960s. In the 70s, she bought a theater and produced live theater. In 1994, she ran for the Mexican Senate and won, representing her home state of Chiapas. Lorena Velasquez plays Gloria, the daughter of the missing scientist. And this is back to back movies for us with daughters of scientists.

This is the theme from the 50s too, because Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake had that, like it's a thing.

Right, I was going to say, so that's three. And so I don't know if it's a trend, but I think it's something to watch.

I feel like the Zombies of Maura Tau... No, it was...

She was the granddaughter of the woman who owned the...

I'm thinking of Voodoo Island, and the female lead there was the daughter of a scientist also, I think. Maybe not. I retract that.

But it's interesting. It keeps coming up.

Let's assign our listeners to rewatch all of the movies and note the relationships of the female lead.

Yeah. And it could be simple sexism, right? The only way a woman could become this expert was to be the daughter of a great man. It could be as simple as that. I don't know.

Which makes The Curse of the Doll people more interesting, because she was more accomplished and everyone looked at her as an expert.

For sure.

Velasquez was Miss Mexico in 1960. She became a cult star with her performance as the Queen of the Vampires in Santo vs. the Vampire Women, which was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Like we're saying, this movie is a delight, but what is considered the best one also was good for Mystery Science Theater 3000. I just want to create a little context about what we're watching here.

Yeah, I did wonder if this has, I would be surprised if this has not been Riftraxed or Mystery Science Theater.

Yeah.

Jaime Fernandez plays Detective Rodriguez. He won the Silver Aerial Award three times, which is Mexico's equivalent to the Oscar. One award was for playing Friday in Louis Bunwell's Robinson Crusoe, for which he is best known. He was also head of the Mexican Actors Union. Armando Silvestre plays Lieutenant San Martin. He dropped out of college to be a bullfighter, but was badly gored and gave it up. His first film role was in 1947, and he was in the 1968 film The Batwoman, which we mentioned last episode.

I do hope listeners went out and watched the trailer for that. Trust me, it's worth it.

Here's a second chance for you. It's totally worth it.

Armando Silvestre has over 200 acting credits, and his last credit was for a TV series in 2017. Andy, I think you have background on the Mexican cinema, the Golden Age, to share with us.

Yeah, I'm going to toss it to John in a minute because he's going to tell us a little bit more about the amazing character of Santo and his place in Mexican culture. But I just want to take a quick minute. We've talked about the big global events going on in 1961 a couple of times already. So this time I thought I would just take a look at Mexico. Just take a really quick overview. So in 1961, Mexico is right in the middle of what's called the Mexican miracle, which was this period of several decades. It's starting roughly in the 40s when Mexico emerged from World War II in a very prosperous and good situation. So the Mexican miracle was this period of time where the Mexican economy was just booming for various reasons. So times are good in Mexico, although it didn't reach everyone equally, of course. So we have several decades of economic growth going on, probably similar to the US giving consumers more consumer power and options, I guess. So people are getting TVs, other stuff like that. And this is the tail end of the period of time that people call the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, which was a time even though Mexicans were watching lots of Hollywood productions, during this time, there was this real explosion in Mexican film. And there was sort of a certain patriotic pride that went along with this film culture. As Santo enters the picture here, we are at the tail end of that. So I don't think we can squeeze him right into that Golden Age. And yeah, Mexico's prosperity continued through the 60s. It eventually did come to an end, like all good things. And one of the amazing cultural things that occurred kind of parallel with this period was this explosion of popularity of Lucha Libre and Santo. So John, you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so wrestling was huge in Mexico and still is huge in Mexico and Latin America. It had a huge cultural influence. It also around this time was huge in the US as well. And there's actually an interesting sort of dynamic where the two cultures of wrestling sort of feed and enhance each other. They're very different. I think there's a wider variety of characters and types at this time in Mexican wrestling, Lucha Libre wrestling. But they started to make Lucha Libre movies and they were frequently made. And where the main character was simply a wrestler who also in his spare time, you know, solved crimes or did, you know, all kinds of strange things while wearing a wrestling mask. Santo is more, and I think, so what I did to research this is I mean, I did our typical reading on the internet and poked around a little bit. But I also talked to Brad's, one of Brad's co-hosts on Multiplex Overthruster, Javier, who's a great friend of ours and who grew up in Puerto Rico. He moved to the US when he was, I think, 10. And that's when we met him and he became our good friend. But I wanted to ask him like, what, what was Santo like? Like, I know it's a huge Latin American phenomenon, but what was it like for him as a kid who's our age? When I was a kid, I was watching, there were Hammer movies and Ultraman was on TV. There was all this stuff that was around. So I asked him about Santo and he said, it was everywhere. Like you would just put on the TV and there would be a Santo movie on. So I think that's the first thing. The end of Mexican Golden Age of Cinema is sort of paired with the rise of television. And so while they still made Santo movies, I think most people saw these on TV. So Santo is in everybody's house. Santo is also described as a folk hero. Like he's more than just an actor. The closest comparison I could make to an American actor is maybe John Wayne. But even then, I think Santo's cultural influence is bigger than that. Does that make sense? Do I sound like a crazy person? No, not at all. And it's important to note also, there's no distinction between Santo and his role. In fact, for this movie, his credits are listed as Santo. He never took off his mask in public. In fact, he would often, if he was traveling to film or go to a wrestling match, and he had to leave Mexico, he would go at a different time than the crew so he could go through customs with his mask off so the crew would not see his real face. And he actually never revealed his face until a week before he died on a talk show in 1984. He pulled up his mask just enough for people to see his face. And that is literally the only time he shared it.

One of these women in this film, in her autobiography, said that he took his mask off in front of her, and she said, put it back on, please.

That's amazing. And he was buried in the mask. So the sort of myth of Santo is everywhere. But I asked, I asked him, you're like, what's it like? And the comparison he made was, as a kid, to watching Adam West's Batman, right? Santo movies are not as silly as that. They're not as arch, they're not ironic. But people just believed that Santo was doing these good things was the good guy solving all these problems. So even though the experience is like Adam West's Batman, he's actually like Superman. Santo is functionally a superhero like Superman who believes in goodness and justice and all those kind of things. And in fact, at one point, another wrestler, Blue Demon, put together a collection of wrestlers called the Champions of Justice, sort of like a superhero team. He invited Santo to be part of it, but Santo had other film obligations. But Blue Demon is another one of these Lucha Libre wrestlers who made a bunch of movies. He is sort of the Batman character. He has that sort of dark edge. Santo doesn't have that. He's always good. He's always on the side of justice, and he always wins his wrestling matches. So I just think that it's so fascinating to get this peek into somebody else's culture, because I've never seen them before. But it just has that, there's something just sort of wholesome about the whole thing. And having Santo be sort of this giant cultural figure, I just thought it was fascinating. Do you have any questions or thoughts about any of that?

It just is fascinating. When he took off his mask before his death, did he know he was dying? Was that his way of kind of hanging up the cape or whatever?

I don't know, because he died suddenly. During a live event, he had a heart attack. So he was older, but I don't think he knew he was dying. He didn't know he had cancer or anything. So maybe in some way he had an intuition, but yeah.

I'm just trying to think. We really don't have anything in American culture that quite matches that bleeding over of the fictional role into real life like that. I mean, it's like, what if we never knew who the Batman actor was, because Adam West wore that mask in public all the time? We learned 50 years later that it had been Adam West. It's impossible to even imagine. Yeah.

Do you think Tom Cruise is human? Doesn't he seem kind of superhuman? Is this a trick question?

Are we being led into a trap here?

I'm actually kind of being serious because he does a lot of crazy stuff. So what you see in the film, he sort of, it's not the same as Santo. Santo is a whole other level. But if there's one person currently, Tom Cruise sort of walks the walk a little bit.

Yeah.

I can see that, yeah?

He does. Yeah, you see a movie because I know Tom Cruise's call sign in Top Gun is Maverick, but I don't actually know his character's name. Like he's just Tom Cruise, right?

Yeah, but he does have that over the top persona that we apply to him, whether it's true or not.

Yes, absolutely. So the last thing I want to say about Santo is he also sort of transcends genre. Though I compared him to a superhero like Superman, he doesn't really have superpowers. What happens is if something is popular, if spies are popular, Santo is a spy, in this one, he has to fight zombies because zombies are popular. So he goes along with whatever genre trend he needs to go along with to make an exciting movie.

I need to see a Santo spy movie where he has to infiltrate the enemy camp or something.

I wonder how that would go.

So there's a movie called Santo and Operation 67.

Yes.

Going by title, that seems like a spy movie.

I think Javi was telling me in that one, in the middle of the wrestling match that opens the film, because a wrestling match opens every film, he gets a message on his Dick Tracy radio watch and gets called to do some spying or something. So yeah.

So actually, we might discuss this in the actual movie, but there are really long segments of wrestling matches in this movie. And I wondered, is this movie an excuse to just put a bunch of wrestling matches up on the big screen? Is that part of what these movies were doing?

Let's start there, because I think that's the case. In fact, that's how this movie opens. We see Santo in a tag team wrestling match, and it's not short. And we see footage of a crowd. I think some of it's recorded live.

It is 12 minutes long. It started at about the eight minute mark. I was like, okay, I'm gonna.

And there's two more segments. I don't think, so I think it was probably really hard to see Santo live. And if you're a kid, say in Puerto Rico or Venezuela, or another Spanish speaking country, where you're just not gonna see Santo in Mexico, like getting to see him wrestle in a movie is actually a treat for the people watching it, it's something they really wanted to see. Because he's not just an actor, he's also, I mean, wrestling is a sport, he's also an athlete. He's like messy on top of that too. I mean, I don't wanna overdo it, but you know what I mean? Like Mexican wrestling is awesome, and people still love it and loved it then, so they get to see some on film.

Yeah, makes total sense.

And this happens a couple other times, but yeah, so this opening, it's a wrestling match, and we see Santo do his thing. I'd like to comment on the quality of the film here. So it looks like this is shot on videotape. What do you think, producer Brad?

Oh, it's film. I think what we saw might have been a transfer from video.

Okay, I would buy that. The only reason I mentioned is the 1960s sort of had newer inventions, and one of them was a portable videotape, black and white videotape machine, and that makes filming a lot easier, but I'll believe you if we think it's film. Yeah, so Santo vs the Zombies is a story of a woman named Gloria who discovers her father is missing, and she gets the help of three detectives, Detective Isabel, Detective, hold on, Rodriguez, and Detective Fernandez. They are young. In fact, at one point, they're mistaken for college students. So I think they're supposed to be our young hip characters to get kids invested in the film, and they start investigating this crime. It's revealed that someone is controlling zombies to do things like break into jewelry stores and commit other crimes, and it is someone in a black hood. We don't see their face till the end. As things go along, they realize they cannot solve this mystery, so the police commissioner calls Santo, who steps up and helps solve the mystery. After multiple engagements with these zombies and the zombie master, there's a big showdown in the zombie master's layer, where it's revealed that the zombie master is actually a relative of Gloria's. We'll get to exactly who that was at the end. Santo defeats them, and then as he always does, walks off alone without needing any thanks.

Perfect.

Did I miss any big highlights? The plots of these movies are very recyclable, right?

Yeah. No, that was great. And it all starts with the wrestling match that we already started chatting about. So let's get back to it, John. Yeah.

So it's actually so the shooting here. So one thing I'll say is like, it's shot like a sporting event. It's shot well, like it's an engaging, if you like wrestling or if you don't, like it's engaging. It's well shot, it's interesting, and has all the drama of what you would expect in a wrestling match. There's cheating, there's punches, there's sneaky trips, there's all that kind of stuff. Tag team, somebody comes into the ring when they're not supposed to, the ref doesn't really have any control, but Santo and his partner win in the end.

So I don't watch wrestling at all. So my knowledge of wrestling comes from just seeing the occasional clip on internet video. But it felt like these matches were really fast and chaotic compared to some of like a modern American wrestling clips that I've seen. Is that something that you guys noted, or is that just me not knowing anything about this sport?

No, I think it's like WWE wrestling. That would be a comparison. I think the chaos and the drama is part of the story. But I think they are supposed to be chaotic. There's cheaters and punches and surprises. It's like a little drama unfolding.

In this fight, at points there are an awful lot of people in the ring just flying around. They're getting kicked out of it. They're being tossed out of it. Yeah. So it's pretty chaotic. 12 minutes is maybe more wrestling than I need, but I-

It was a little confusing too, because he has a partner in there, right? And he's in the white trunks and the partner's in the black trunks. And the opposing guys have black and white trunks. So I thought the team would all be in one color. I was confused.

I was confused by that a couple of times. But I think the only thing you need to know is Santo's in silver with the white trunks and he always prevails.

And that when they punch each other, this comically loud thump sound effect plays.

Yes. It does. They used to stomp the mat, right? They'd punch somebody and stomp the mat at the same time. I was not a huge wrestling fan, but I somehow know all of this. All right. So we're watching the Wrestling Mountain. In attendance is Detective Rodriguez, who is young and he loves wrestling. His two partners, Detective Isabel and Detective Elmada. And this is confusing. The subtitles refer to Detective Elmada as Detective Savage. So we're going to refer to him as Detective Savage here. But the two of them come to fetch Detective Rodriguez and take him to Gloria to begin the investigation. And in this scene, as they're going through the investigation, we meet all the main characters. So I'm going to list them for you. We'll go through a canonical list and then we won't worry about it too much because they're somewhat interchangeable. So let's run down our characters because there's several of them, but let's just take a moment and run them all down here. So our protagonist is Gloria. In IMDB, she's listed as Gloria Sandoval. In the subtitles, they call her Rutherford and her father, Professor Rutherford. We're going to go with Rutherford because we're silly Americans who can't handle a Hispanic name, apparently. So we've got Gloria Rutherford, her father, Professor Rutherford, who is missing, who's disappeared. The young detective, Detective Rodriguez, his sort of senior partner, Detective Savage, and the third detective is Detective Isabel. And they are led by Lieutenant San Martin. So that's the police force. In addition, we have Gloria's uncle, they just call him Tio, Tio Janero, Tio is uncle in Spanish, and his helper, who is a nurse, because Tio is blind and his helper's name is Rogelio. So those are our main characters. Did I miss anybody? I think we got most of them covered.

I think you got them. And listeners, if you could keep that straight, you are doing better than I did throughout this entire movie.

Yeah, don't worry about it too much. We've been talking about this for a while and we love this, but we're going to start moving here because there's a lot of incident in this movie, but it's a lot of sort of like, and then they go here and then they do that, and the plot's a little recyclable. In any case, they're in Professor Rutherford's office. They're talking to Gloria and Blind Uncle Tio is here. So we haven't said one, we've been talking about wrestling and detectives and Gloria, but Professor Rutherford is the key here that means this movie is one we have to watch. Why is that, Andy?

Because he is a zombie expert, that is an expert on zombies, not a zombie who is an expert. But yeah, he's a renowned professor who has just returned from a trip to Haiti and he has been writing a book about zombies. And in fact, he went missing when he left the house with his zombie book manuscript to take it to his publisher, but he never made it to the publisher and he's vanished.

The book isn't just a history book, it actually contains sort of calculations and symbols and glyphs like, it's almost like an instruction manual to Haitian zombie ritual is the impression that we're given.

Yes.

So the stealing of the manuscript is significant because somebody's stealing it for their own nefarious purposes, which we find out about immediately because the next scene is three zombies breaking into a jewelry store. What are zombies? They're zombies and we're pretty sure they're zombies, but what do they look like, Andy?

Well, they look like thugs. Yes.

They look like wrestlers. They're wearing leggings and wrestling boots and tunics.

And they're all big.

They're all ripped.

Yeah. They're big, bulky guys that look like thugs and they act a little listless, but they don't look like corpses. They're not decayed. They don't have makeup. They're clearly wrestlers so that they can get into wrestling matches with Santo when he shows up.

Correct. And they break in. So they have these rods that like can, they're electric rods. They can zap people with them. They carry them throughout the movie, but also they're portable welding torches. Long story short, they break into the vault of this jewelry store.

Do you want to bet this is our first movie where the zombies use a cutting torch to break in?

They have a weapon. The first zombie weapon.

It's the first zombie weapon and they seem to have some agency and intelligence. They don't speak. They move like zombies, but they seem to be able to make decisions and execute instructions when controlled by somebody else.

Yeah, they can move quickly if they need. They have a regular range of motion that a living human has.

Correct. Then what happens though is they're interrupted by the owner of the jewelry store who tries to shoot them. They are immune to bullets, but we get another first here, Andy. What happens when he tries to shoot them?

Well, we see the bullets like striking the zombies including a head shot. Yes. You see their shirts get ripped up by the bullets.

These are squibs, which is, there's an explosive packet under the tunic, and when the gunfire happens, it explodes out, so it looks like the person was shot. Apparently, squibs can be very painful because it is a little explosion. Then some private security folks show up and they start shooting, and there's squibs everywhere, but the zombies...

Can we talk about the squibs for a second? Because as they go off, they're disintegrating the shirt. They're that powerful. The tunic they're wearing is becoming shreds.

Apparently, some stuntmen and actors hated squibs because you would get just bruises all over your body from the explosions of the squibs.

So I need to pause us here because I got a little distracted by a detail in this scene. The security is alerted when they break into the jewelry store and that triggers an alarm over at the security office. So I did a little digging. When would you guys guess the first burglar alarm of this sort was invented? Give me a decade.

I would say 1890s.

1850s.

Oh, really?

Yes. Augustus Russell Pope patented the first electromagnetic burglar alarm in 1853.

And I presume it was just like if current was interrupted, it would ring the alarm.

That's exactly it. He had a closed electrical circuit on doors and windows.

Nice.

And so you should explain that when the alarm triggers, at the security office, they have a wall with all these lights with numbers. And it was like number seven is flashed and they go to the jewelry store and then they run off.

And I think these aren't police. It's like a private security firm.

Right.

That's right. Yeah.

So the zombies can drive cars. They can make decisions. They can use tools, but they don't seem to have free will.

Would you agree that they can wear really, really tight pants? Really tight pants is really evident in the scene as they get in the car. All right.

But they drive off in their car. They've got like a station wagon. And then we cut to the police station. Our three investigators are here. We meet Lieutenant San Martin. And they have a discussion about the jewelry robbery. And this is when the commissioner uses his special secret radio to call Santo and let him know what's up. And Santo, in addition to being a great wrestler, also has a magical radio device that lets him watch whatever else is happening in the movie. And it's not like the computer in the Batcave where he can watch it and then go, and that spurs him to action to do stuff. So this is like a conceit of the movie. Both Santo and the villain can watch everything that's going on. And I think they do a gesture about somebody carrying a microwave radio and that's what causes this to be able to happen. But I just found it delightful that Santo doesn't have to leave his wrestling house. I don't even know where Santo lives, his wrestler cave.

Well, there's a real Batcave energy to Santo's little room. He's got this bank of machinery, and it's like he's set up to be monitoring for crimes that he can go stop.

And I would like to point out that Adam West Batman takes place several years after this movie. So the superhero with the layer kind of thing. I mean, Batman had a Batcave in the comics long ago, but I'm saying it feels like Adam West Batman, but it's actually previous to that.

You mentioned that the police commissioner used a secret special radio to contact Santo. It is a special radio, but it's not a secret because it's a gigantic spinning antenna device on his desk.

And it has radar on the top. It's huge.

Yeah. The origins of the Bat Signal, I think.

Yes. But now we're going to meet our villain. So the zombies, and this is all going back and forth. This is not a slow, boring movie like some of our more recent movies. It actually keeps going pretty well. The zombies come back, they deliver the jewelry to this villain, who's a black-hooded, apparently another wrestler. And we find out that he can control these zombies. Our heroes learn this later, but we learn it now. How does this work, Andy?

Well, I didn't really piece this together until the end of the movie, but the zombies are all equipped with belts with electrical doodads on them. And the villain, he's wearing a black mask and cape. He looks very villainous. He has this computer, this whole bank of machinery and he can, I think what he selects, like the zombie he wants to control from a row of switches, which tells us that there's about two dozen zombies under his control.

Yes.

And then he turns some knobs to give them instructions, basically.

So these are science zombies controlled through scientific devices.

Yes.

But they are dead. One of the things that we learn, and I don't think we learn it here, is that all of the goons that this villain has hired are, he does turn, later turn, try to turn some people into zombies, but generally his goons are dead people. They're all criminals that he has resurrected and taken control of.

And is it suggested that when he zombifies you, you die?

Yes.

I think so.

Because I think that, yes. Well, we'll get to that later, but that's pretty clear to me.

Okay.

Now, Gloria is still searching for his father, and they say, well, we should go talk to Santo, the three detectives in Gloria. So they go to the wrestling match. It's another excuse to have another-

But wasn't Santo watching them on his screen so he knows what's coming?

Santo is watching on his magic screen that lets him see everything.

He's watching the police department.

Yeah, Santo is spying on the police, like, just to be clear. Yeah. Yeah. I love the line they use when they decide that they're going to call Santo. They say, Santo is justice's best ally.

I wish we could do clips. It's Spanish language. You watched a subtitled movie, but yes, I noted that clip as well. And then there's another wrestling match. There's wonderful, like, they go to shake hands, and then it's a secret, you know, he's really kicks him in the knee or whatever. So there's another wrestling match. It's delightful. And Santo wins this one.

And when we say wrestling match, it's like a whole wrestling match.

It's like a whole 10-minute wrestling match. But what is delightful is it's finally won when Santo realizes he's got to go investigate these crimes and he just chucks both of the other guys out of the ring into the crowd, which is fantastic.

Yes.

And then we cut to a bar. And we don't need to go into this scene in detail, but what we're doing here is one of the detectives, Detective Savage and Detective Isabel, go to this bar and what they're doing is they're leaning on the bar's owner. So there's music here. There's belly dancing. There's a woman dancing. This is another long scene, but the...

Yeah, I wrote my notes that quote, this goes on forever, specifically the belly dance.

But what's important is that the two detectives come in and they lean on the owner and they say, hey, somebody stole a bunch of jewelry. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you? And he says, no, no, I don't do that anymore. I don't engage in crimes anymore. They're like, we're watching you. They sort of try to intimidate him and then they leave. And as soon as they do, he whispers something in someone's ear. So what I took this to be is that he is in league with the villain and he's now dishing that the detectives are on to the villain for his crimes.

I saw him as a more tragic figure.

That's true.

I thought that because he's going to wind up dead shortly.

Yeah.

I thought that he was truly trying to, this is my head can and he was trying to put his life of crime behind him and he was reluctantly trying to learn about the burglary because the detectives were hassling him.

Well, no, he uses the language, the cops say, we're looking for diamonds, rubies. He goes, I don't know anything about robberies. And they said, yeah, he didn't mention robberies. So he gives away that he knows about them.

Okay. I missed that. See, this movie is so subtle, wouldn't you say?

I would. Let's go to the next incredibly subtle. We'll move on from this scene into the next incredibly subtle thing is, for no reason, and it never comes back up, but it's super essential to Santo's character. The villain says to his henchman, the other black hooded person, all right, send some zombies to the orphanage. I need new subjects for experiments. And the zombies drive over and attack the orphanage. And Santo sees this happening. So apparently you can see inside the villain's layer as well.

You know, wasn't the plot of one of the Nolan Batman movies how dystopian it was that Batman had surveillance like rigged all around the city?

I know, but Santo's pure of heart, like Superman, he's not Batman. So yeah, I think you're misinterpreting his surveillance. But the great part is here, just because we have to have it in the movie because Santo is of great character and defends the innocent, the zombies attack an orphanage, and Santo has to show up and drive them off.

Just zombies attacking an orphanage. I mean, that's right up there with kicking a cat or tripping an old lady crossing the street.

And when I say this is like a film for children, like I said earlier, it's just designed. Let's put Santo in, let's make the villain as villainous as possible and put Santo in a position to look like the best person. We can go over this scene in detail. All I want to point out though is Santo drives a suite, I believe it's a Corvette convertible.

Yeah.

Into the crime with his cape flying behind him and his silver mask, like he looks pretty cool.

I wonder if this is like a Santo mobile that is in all of his movies.

I want to believe that's true.

Yeah. Did you notice, so Santo's wearing a cape in this scene as well, a very elegant cape.

Yeah, Santo wears a cape. Now in later movies, and we're not gonna get it here, sometimes he wears like a suit to like go to a wedding and he'll have a silver mask on and wear like a suit. It's amazing.

Okay.

Our investigators hear about the fight on the radio. Though bullets do not work on these zombies, Santo is so ferocious, they run away without stealing any children. And our investigators in Santo are bound together and there's a car chase.

Can we stop before the car chase? I just wanted to say, because all of the fight scenes in this movie are wrestling matches, essentially, they are highly entertaining to watch. We have commented on how bad and un-choreographed a lot of the fight scenes in these movies to date have been. But because everyone's doing cool wrestling moves, these fight scenes are a genuine delight to watch.

They are. And if I were to make a comparison to something I grew up with, it would be like early Wu Xia, Shaw Brother type Kung Fu movies. We solve our problems by fighting, but not using Kung Fu, we use wrestling in this case, because we're a wrestling culture.

They're not just punching each other or wrestling each other to the ground. They're like doing wrestling for those.

Jumping off file cabinets and throwing each other over beds. Yeah, it's pretty entertaining.

All right, back to the car chase.

There's a car chase. The villainous zombies are trying to get away in their station wagon, being chased by Santo and the investigators.

And they're all sitting in the front seat.

And they're all in the front seat, like you do.

I looked it up. The zombies are in a Plymouth Deluxe Suburban. 1950.

Wait, so did you identify Santo's car?

There is a Corvette. It's a 1956 C1.

Okay. Yeah, 56. Yeah, it's a Corvette.

And then I think later there's a Thunderbird, too, in the film.

But no Plymouth Furies. In any case, the evil villain who has the magic TV viewer that lets him see everything realizes he can't let his zombies get captured. So he throws some switch and blows up their car and burns them to cinders. So they failed. And so, but they do find a clue. And this is, I think, the first time we hear Santo speak. The only thing left over is one of these little torches, these electrifying torch things.

That looks like a crowbar.

That looks like a crowbar. And Santo hands it to one of the detectives and says, check this for fingerprints. This is the first time he spoke. We're pretty well into the movie. And I actually wondered if Santo doesn't speak. But after this, he does say several things. So the plot picks up here. They do discover. So this is where the police discover that the zombies, right, who have been handling these crowbar torches, are all fingerprints of dead criminals. And throughout the movie, for the rest of the movie, they'll say, oh, it's another dead criminal and another dead criminal. So they really drive the point home. All the zombies so far are criminals brought back to life by whoever this masked villain is.

Was it obvious to you at this point who the masked villain was, John?

I'm terrible at things. I didn't even try.

Right here is where I guessed who it was.

Yeah. And also, there's one character who's not involved in anything else. So it kind of has to be that character, but we won't ruin it. Well, we'll get, we'll go to the end here pretty quick. So the detectives who leaned on Pavetti earlier in his club go back to say, hey, I think you knew about this and you know these criminals, but he has been murdered and he is hung. I think it's supposed to look like a suicide, but I think he was murdered by the zombies. Yeah. And this is the villain covering his tracks. So the villain is obsessed with these detectives and with Santo. So the rest of the movie is him trying to kill them or abduct them or do stuff to them. So the first target is Detective Isabel. The zombies break into Isabel's room, they menace her, and Santo also breaks into the room through the window. So Santo does not use doors if he can avoid it.

He used the door and they used the window.

They used the window and he used the door.

I don't mean to belabor this point so much, but it was just so weird that he just comes through her door suddenly.

Yes. Because he's got the secret device that lets him track everything.

So they make a big deal right before the scene of giving Isabel some radio device. I think the entire purpose of it is so that they can have Santo know what's going on without suggesting that Santo is spying on this woman's bedroom.

Absolutely. But Santo defeats these two zombies. What happens, Andy?

Well, they vanish. They fumble with those belts that have the electronic gadgets on them. And I think they turn...

I think they turn invisible.

I think they turn invisible and then they escape and try to set the house on fire. So them turning invisible, this is brand new to the movie.

I got confused by the fire because when they entered the orphanage, suddenly there's a wall of fire at the door that they passed through.

I think they can create fire.

And then there's a little wall of fire outside her window. And it seems to disappear after they do. Which is strange. There's no explanation for it.

Yeah. I'm not quite sure what that is either. But their next, that doesn't work. They're not able to kidnap Isabella. So their next plot is to kill Santo by kidnapping another wrestler, turning him into a zombie and having him kill Santo in the ring. We don't have to get into this too much except for this guy starts kicking Santo's butt.

Yeah. He works Santo over in the ring.

So back in the ring-

I would say this is why we came to this movie is for a scene like this.

Yeah.

So this is our third wrestling match against a zombie. Santo is literally on the ropes. That's where this expression comes from. He's being strangled, but he makes a discovery and takes care of the zombie. What does he discover?

I didn't catch something critical because at the end of this fight, the zombie's underwear bursts into flame. And I had not realized they were wearing these belts until now. So, this was the most bizarre. I didn't know what I was watching.

Absolutely bizarre. But yes, Santo like reaches down the guy's pants and like destroys this belt inadvertently and it kills the zombie.

Yeah. And it makes the villain super mad.

So, now Santo knows how to defeat the zombies.

This is a good fight, by the way. I enjoyed this. There's a couple of cool moments where the zombie wrestler is like strangling Santo and the referee is trying to peel his hands off Santo's throat. I don't know. It was a cool fight.

It was. We're going to assault Santo again. I'm not going to go into detail. They almost get his mask off the second time. But then we cut back to Gloria finally. I don't know what Gloria has been doing this whole time, but she finds her father's notes which refer to zombies and corpses and have some code she couldn't crack. She's going to take these notes to the cops. Does she make it?

She does not because a large group of zombies sets up a roadblock ambush for her.

Because our villain was watching on his big screen.

Right.

He was watching her phone call.

Their sinister plan to capture her is they put a log in the road and she gets out to look at it and then they capture her.

It's more like a medium-sized branch, I would say.

Yes. She's attacked. They go back to the lair. They get the father's notes. Now, as they say, the plot thins here. Clearly, the guy already knows how to make zombies. I don't know why he needs her father's notes, but let's just go past that. But they're going to turn her into a zombie. That's their next. They reveal that her father is also a zombie. Yes. They showed him earlier and I'm like, who is this weird old dude with the professor hair that's a zombie? And I'm like, oh, it's Gloria's father, the professor. That makes sense now. But don't worry, Santo is here. So it's sort of a race against time. Santo breaks into the bad man's house. How does Santo get into the house, Andy?

Santo finds a secret. It's very Scooby-Doo. He's like searching around. Yeah.

But before that, he comes in through the window. Like my note here says, does anyone in this movie know how to use a door? Santo comes in through the window, but he finds a secret entrance in the back of the fireplace. He does some stuff where he disables a couple of zombies. He sneaks out them and takes their belts and they deactivate. He breaks in, then he pulls out a flashlight. And I have a question.

Yeah. I had the same.

Where did Santo keep a flashlight in those sites? Is it in a pocket in his cape? I wasn't quite sure.

I'm happy leaving that.

We'll just move on. Now we have Detective Isabel is in the car and the zombies come to get her. So all the investigators are also coming to the lair, but they get captured by zombies.

By the end of the scene, there's like seven cars have showed up.

All these broken down cars, stopped by a large branch, people surrounded by zombies, they're shooting. And the villain says he's gonna turn Gloria into, I quote, the first woman zombie.

Yeah.

So I don't know why that's important. However, before that can happen, Santo shows up, he breaks in, and he stops and he takes his cape off. So we know Santo is not messing around. There's a big fight, there's a knife. He's wrestling with both of these henchmen with the black hoods. One of the belts is electrified. And so in the fight, Santo forces the main villain up against an electrical panel, and his belt zaps, and all the zombies, because his belt is destroyed, all the zombies collapse.

Yeah.

And then he collapses.

Yes.

And Santo pulls the mask off. And who is it, Andy?

It is Rutherford's brother.

Tio, it is Uncle Gennaro Tio. The corpses burn up. Everybody is there. Everybody, the detectives, everybody shows up just in time for Santo to give his speech. The longest line Santo has, Gloria says, why would my uncle do such a thing? And Santo says, for ambition, wealth and power, men who defy God's laws, they end up victims of their own evil acts. And then Santo walks away and the police lieutenant says, there he goes again, he doesn't even wait for thanks. And our movie ends with Santo walking off alone. Did I miss anything that you really wanted to cover?

No, they speculate about his identity at the end. They're like, I wonder who he is, and they decide he's just a legend. He's just a legend.

He's a legend, a chimera, and he embodies the greatest things, justice, honesty. That is Santo, the man in the silver mask. So great. So we've got an uplifting Superman style happy kids movie in the middle of our zombie podcast, and I couldn't be happier.

So hey, let's jump right into our wrap up questions, John, shall we?

Yes.

All right. In Santo vs the Zombies, is there a hero party?

There sure is. There's Gloria, the three detectives, there's Santo, they're all working together.

Yeah, I thought it was kind of interesting how much work the detectives do. This isn't a movie that's only about Santo just solving all the problems.

No.

It comes in at all the key moments, of course, but the detectives are doing a lot of the groundwork.

Yeah, I think so.

How does the party do? How many survive?

I think they all do. Some of them come close. Santo is near death a couple of times, but I gotta be honest, I wasn't really worried, but everybody survives.

Yep. Is there a zombie horde?

I'd say yes, specifically at the end. There are zombies that menace people.

There were about eight of them at one point on screen.

So I call that horde. I say horde.

Yeah. So what type of zombie strain are we dealing with? What are these zombies like?

These are a combination of science zombies and reanimated corpses. They don't really say how the belts clearly control the zombies, but they don't really say how the zombies are reanimated. Is it the belts or is it the scientific apparatus the villain has in his lair?

I don't think this is a movie that holds up to too much investigation here, but when they turn Santo's wrestling opponent into a zombie, they inject him, they have the world's biggest syringe.

I did put that. I put in my notes, they have a damn horse needle here.

So I think that turns him into a zombie, and then he's just kind of listless and can be pushed around. And then my guess is that then putting that belt on allows specific instructions to be delivered to him.

I think you're right.

I think that's where it works. So there's more analysis than this movie really wants you to do about these zombies.

But that's what we're here for.

Yeah, exactly.

That's why they need us.

So we're asking a new question starting with this episode. What's the speed of these zombies? Are they sub-human speed? Are they slow? Do they walk at normal pace or are they fast moving?

They walk slowly, but when it comes to, when they gotta throw down with Santo, they seem to be normal human speed, the ability to wrestle and fight like a normal person.

Yes. And how are these zombies destroyed or killed?

They, only way to kill them is to remove their belts and destroy their belts, which causes them to be deactivated and destroyed immediately. You cannot shoot them. One even gets shot in the head. So forget about shooting them in the brain.

I don't think they, that this, the head shot is really a trope yet, so I don't think they're doing anything special. But I did think it was interesting that they specifically showed a center head shot not do anything to a zombie.

Yeah, after the Joyster owner says to the security guys, I shot them, they're like, now you missed. And he's like, no, I saw him, I shot him right in the head. So yeah.

You could kill them, like you said, by taking off their belt, but then the zombie master has a central control, like the network. And if you destroy that, that destroys them as well.

And that's what happens at the end of movies. So it's kind of like a hive kind of thing going on.

Yes. All right. Are there any new zombie strains here or zombie firsts?

I don't... Other than Squibs, we'll be seeing a lot of Squibs coming up. I don't think so. I think we've seen zombies like this before. There is specifically... Do we feel like the technology zombie? I mean, science created zombies with serums and stuff, for one thing, but like these belts specifically designed to control their actions, do we feel that's new?

I feel like it's a little new, but it reminds me a lot of Creature with the Atom Brain. Yeah, I agree.

I also had first zombies that hold a weapon.

Yes.

Okay, yeah.

And this is the first bullet headshot.

I take that.

It hit a head. Now, this is not the first time we've seen zombies driving a car, right?

I don't believe so.

I don't think so.

No, I think we've had... No, we had zombies in...

Creature with the Atom Brain, the zombie was driving into the tree.

Yeah, of course, that's right. Okay, John, we have... You have identified four pillars of the zombie genre. We're going to see how many of them show up in the Santo movie. John, in Santo vs the Zombies, is there an apocalypse?

No, no, everything's fine.

Is there a contagion?

No, you have to get turned into a zombie by a scientist.

Are there tough moral choices?

No, not one, and that's the joy of this film. It is like black and white, Manichaean good versus evil.

The good guys are effortlessly making great decisions, and the bad guys are just effortlessly making bad ones. And are there loved ones turning against you in this movie?

I will say there's a bit of a tragedy here where Gloria's father is one of the zombies, and he dies at the end, and he does turn against her. So I'll say yes to this one.

Yeah, I mean, that's a really light, that's a really weak yes.

And Uncle Teo is the ultimate bad guy, but he's not a zombie.

No, he's not a zombie. He just made, he's just, again, he didn't make a tough moral choice, he's just a bad person.

All right, and lastly, did the poster sell this movie accurately?

I think so, because it features shirtless Santo with his silver mask looking to kick some butt, and Gloria screaming, and that's what we got in this movie.

All you need is just Santo on that poster, and it tells you what you need to know. All right, over to you for your questions, John.

Yeah, let me ask you some questions. These are the questions we came up with for 50s movies, which I think extend into the early 60s. Is paranoia a theme, conformity, hypocrisy, dark secrets?

No, I don't think so. This is too unsubtle of a film for those themes, I think.

Yeah, well, have our heroes changed from the 50s? Are they younger, more diverse?

So, we, this is our first female police detective.

Yeah. Now, I'd like to point out that also our last movie was set in Mexico, and the two women who are very strong in these movies, they don't make a deal of it, right? It's just a thing.

Yes. And the women aren't, they're not belittled, they're not treated in a sexist way. Like this, Detective Isabel.

She is menaced a little bit, and when the men go to fight the zombies, they do make her stay in the car.

That's true.

But that's at the extent of it.

She has been fully participating in all of the police stuff, and nobody has been telling her to stay behind.

Including going into the dirty club and confronting the criminal.

I liked their little scheme, by the way, when Savage and Isabel go in there to lean on the club owner, because they pretend to be an engaged couple in shopping for... I thought that was more clever than this movie really needed.

Do we need to track in films when the guys tell the women to stay in the car? That seems to be a trope that shows up a couple times.

I think it is. It happens pretty frequently.

And they always say that right before the zombie approaches the car in which they've told the woman she has to stay in, yeah. Oh, you know what, though? Let me follow up on that. So this does feel like a younger, more energetic cast.

Correct, I agree.

Yes, they're all kind of adult professionals, but they're on the young side, especially that, I think, Rodriguez, the youngest of the police people. And I think Savage and Isabel are both, you know, pretty sprightly characters.

Yeah, I agree. Do science and sci-fi take on a new role in zombie movies?

So not a new role, but this is certainly continuing the trend of, this is science zombies all the way. There's no mysticism in this at all, to the point where the zombies are, you know, networked on this computer, and you beat them by shorting out, you know, their control devices. Like, that's pretty sciency tech, right?

Yeah, it feels like the Batcave again, like utility belts in the Batcave, for sure.

But it isn't real science, you know? I mean, it's silly cartoon science. So I don't think this is doing anything new or interesting as far as science goes.

And finally, my last question for you is, does the genre leave its local roots in the Caribbean and move into the broader world stage?

It does, and in a wonderful way. I mean, so obviously, this...

Though we have the origins in Haiti, though, still.

We do. They nod their head towards Haiti, but there's really very little of substance that is related to voodoo here. So that felt to me like they're checking off the name. They check off Haiti and voodoo at the beginning, but in the rest of the movie, the delightful thing about this is this is a movie that I think really could only have been made in Mexico at this time in history. Yeah. To me, I love seeing how... We've seen zombies get transplanted into the US in lots of different ways, once or twice into Europe, and now we're seeing it into Mexico. And I think that this is... I mean, they don't do anything culturally interesting with the zombies, but this is our most...

Other than make them wrestlers.

Well, okay. So they do. So, I mean, you couldn't...

Oh, that's a first.

Yeah. So this is, I think, our most culturally interesting transplant of zombies that we have seen to date. Because the movies we've seen where zombies have popped up in the US, they don't feel American in the way that these, that this scenario feels Mexican. Does that make sense?

It does. It makes total sense.

So.

All right.

Yeah. Well, we wrap up each episode here by asking a few final questions and then learning what the next movie we'll be watching in, watching is. John, would you and I survive in the world of Santo vs the Zombies?

Well, I'm not worried about the zombies. I'm worried about getting smacked in the wrestling ring. Like, I think I, yeah, I wouldn't get to the zombies. I think Santo would throw me halfway into the crowd.

I would survive because Santo does not let innocence suffer. And at least relatively speaking, I would be innocent.

I see what you did there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Is this a zombie movie or is this a movie with zombies?

Okay. So this is a tough question, actually. My gut says it's a zombie movie, but it's not. It's a Lucha Libre movie with zombies in it. It's a wrestling movie with zombies. So I'll say it's a movie with zombies.

I think so too. There's certainly lots of zombies in this movie and lots of talk about zombies. But the reality is, if these were just hired thugs, the plot of the movie would not really change very much.

I think that's true of a lot of Santo movies is that they have these interchangeable plots and you just insert the new kind of villainous creature and you can have a similar story. Which the last thing I'll say about that, I said a lot of enthusiastic things about Santo. I think one of the things that these movies also do is they're very comforting. Let's watch another Santo movie. All the same things are going to happen, but we'll get to see Santo wrestle and we'll get to see good prevail. So there's a comfort to this.

I don't think you're going to see anything upsetting or disturbing or dark in these films.

No.

It's feel good stuff. And so lastly, John, would you recommend this movie first, generally, to anyone, and secondly, specifically to our legion of zombie loving listeners?

I mean, I cannot take a movie that gave me this much joy and say, don't watch it. If you've never seen a Santo movie, if you don't know anything about that world, I think watching at least one is something you should do. And is it important to zombie fans? I don't know. There's a couple of firsts here, but I'm just going to say yes to both because I enjoyed the movie so much.

Yeah. I mean, this is an easy yes to both, I think, because it's such an interesting and fun movie. Is it like a, quote, good movie? I mean, no. I mean, so when we do say yes to this, please understand, this is mystery science theater fodder for sure, right?

But in the most delightful way. Yeah. And it's not incompetent. I think that's the other point to make. This is a competent film made by competent people that is just going for a more, for a younger, more, less subtle vibe. But it's not bad.

It's a silly movie in the mostly good way, I think, so I agree.

In the context of the films we've just watched, it stands out for being fun.

Yes.

We haven't seen a movie this, when's the last movie this fun? I can't remember that we watched.

We probably have to go back to like, I mean, this was more fun than Ghost Breakers, I mean, as a viewing experience. I think Ghost Breakers is a significantly superior film, but I think you have to go back to Abbott and Costello to be smiling this much while watching a movie, I think.

Yes.

I don't know if I'd really recommend it to Zombie fans. It's a fun diversion, so I'll give it a soft yes.

Yeah, go for it. Just, you won't regret it. It's fun. Put it on in the background, eat some popcorn, and you'll have a good time.

All right. And so we have made it. We have survived all the way to the end where we enter the scariest part of each episode. And that is when producer Brad reveals to us what we will be watching next. Can I just say, I would love to linger in Mexico a little longer.

Yeah, don't bust up the good vibes, producer Brad. Yeah.

Okay. So we are not going to stay in Mexico, but to make up for it, we are going to, I'm going to toss in some of the all time greats in horror film. So here is the poster for our next film.

Let's see it.

Oh, okay.

Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Terror in Color. Andy, who's in this movie?

It's in color, but could they make the poster be in color? It wouldn't be that hard. This is a trilogy of shock and horror starring, oh, hey, all right, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and somebody, Debra Padgett.

All right, this is our first Vincent Price, our first Peter Lorre, and our first Basil Rathbone. I'm probably our last Basil Rathbone, but I don't want to predict anything.

So I'm interested by a couple of things here, a trilogy of shock and horror. Is this an anthology film?

I don't know. Is the trilogy, are they stories, or is the trilogy the three actors?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe each actor stars in their own film.

I'm going to bet it's three stories in an anthology style. This has got some kind of cool stuff on it. Look at that picture in the bottom left there, John. Can you just describe? So obviously the main feature of this poster is the lead actors here. But we have a few illustrations. Can you describe a couple of them?

So there's a haunted house in the upper left-hand corner. In the bottom left, there's some sort of skeleton-like creature that looks like a skeleton with a melting face.

Yeah, it looks like something out of, what is the Crypt Keeper, you know?

Yeah.

Can you read the text?

It's got this lurid thing.

I cannot read the text.

That is small text. Let me see if I can.

Okay, it's bigger on my side. So the text is, and this is in quotes, because it's attributed to Poe. And there was an oozing liquid processence, all that remained of Mr. Valdemar.

Oh, wow. I'm trying to imagine Peter Laurie in a scary movie though. I'm having trouble. I know he's a big actor, but every time I see Peter Laurie, I just think of the old Ren and Stimpy cartoon. You fat bloated idiot. Yeah.

You didn't see him in M, where that was the German film, where he's a killer and someone writes M and chalk on their hand and taps his back and marks him as he's fleeing and everyone's chasing him.

Oh, wow. Okay. I'll try that.

Well, that's cool.

And Vincent Price looks so young here and here.

He does. So I know Vincent Price from watching Mystery, where he was the host of that for quite a while. Do you remember that TV show?

I don't. I remember just a lot of late career appearances he made as himself, including the thriller video.

Yeah.

Brady Bunch.

I remember him from Evan Costello, the Evan Costello me Frankenstein, the cameo he does at the end.

That's right.

That's my first met him.

So guys, this will not be our first Edgar Allan Poe inspired zombie film. Quick quiz. What was the first zombie movie based on an Edgar Allan Poe story that we watched?

Oh, I know this. It was-

It's just a very unfortunate answer, I'm afraid.

No, I can't remember. I'm picturing it in my mind because we talked about it. Which one is it?

It was Maniac.

That's right. The Telltale Heart.

And The Black Cat.

Yes.

And look in the center photo on the bottom. Can you see what's going on there? There are people behind a brick wall and they're being bricked in.

It must be the casque of Amontillado, yeah.

Okay.

All right. The last tidbit from this poster is, this is produced and directed by Roger Corman.

Oh, my gosh.

I can't believe we're here already. That's great.

Wow. Is this early, Corman? Well, we'll find out next week. We'll stop speculating and we'll just go watch it.

Yeah.

Well, everyone, thanks for joining us. We're at the end of the podcast where we remind you, please subscribe to our podcast and your podcast app of choice, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Also, give us a rating and review the podcast. It helps us get new listeners. And we have a blast doing this and we'd like to share it with more people. We'll see you folks next episode.

You've been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram, at Zombie Strains. All of this helps like minded people find the show. See you next time.