In this film — Santo’s first in color — we learn that he isn’t just a wrestler and crime fighter, but also a scientist who has built a time machine. Women are more capable of time travel than men are (because they are “four times stronger”), so Santo enlists Luisa (Noelia Noel), the daughter of his nuclear physician friend Dr. Sepulveda (Carlos Agosti), to test the machine.
Luisa lands in the 19th century, where Santo, Sepulveda, and cowardly comic sidekick Perico (Alberto Rojas) watch her on a television screen, as she unwittingly performs in a relatively straightforward version of Bram Stoker’s story with Luisa in the role of Lucy. Unbeknownst to Luisa, a mysterious man named Count Alucard (ahem) wants to make her one of his vampire brides. But just before Drac (Aldo Monti) can fully transform her, Santo (remember...he’s watching) yanks her back to 1969.
However, Santo, who believes Dracula’s treasure could be useful to help those in need, decides to use the time machine to retrieve from the vampire’s crypt a medallion and a ring that reveal the location of Dracula’s treasure. Opposing Santo and his friends is the Black Hood, who wants Dracula’s wealth for his own nefarious purpose. And if you get the feeling you’re watching two films at the same time, you aren’t wrong.
Fans of TV’s THE TIME TUNNEL will notice the show’s design influence on Santo’s time machine, though on a much less expensive scale. While EL VAMPIRO Y EL SEXO is certainly entertaining, it suffers from a pronounced lack of Santo, who appears in less than ten minutes of the first half of the movie. The reason is clear: Santo (the real Santo) refused to appear in any erotic scenes, which leads to implausible scenes of Santo, Sepulveda, and Perico watching Luisa (Sepulveda’s daughter, remember) being stripped and molested by Dracula while she sleeps.
If it were just a few topless women, that would be unusually frank enough for a Santo adventure, but the erotic content also includes full nudity and much breast kissing by Dracula (I think we found his fetish). Strangely, despite the sexual material, director Rene Cardona (NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES) refrains from showing even a drop of blood. Cardona isn’t shy about ripping off his own work, though. To set up a lengthy wrestling match between Santo and the Black Hood’s son Atlas (surprisingly, the film’s lone wrestling scene), Cardona swipes plot points from his earlier film WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY.
EL VAMPIRO Y EL SEXO is likely the only Santo movie to receive a theatrical release in the United States, but not in Mexico. The “adults only” cut played in New York City in 1969, but didn’t hit the big screen south of the border until producer Guillermo Calderon Stell’s family recovered the missing footage and debuted the film at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2011. SANTO IN THE TREASURE OF DRACULA, of course, unspooled in Mexican theaters.
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