"Actor: Santo"

• Santo vs. the Riders of Terror (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (25/03/2024) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  El Santo, the Silver-Masked Man, rides into the Wild West in Santo vs. the Riders of Terror (Santo contra los jinetes del terror), a unique blend of gunplay and lucha libre action. When a group of lepers escape from their asylum, they fall under the influence of a band of outlaws who are terrorising a small western town. The desperate sheriff calls for El Santo to defeat the bandits, defend the townsfolk, and help the exploited lepers. Produced by Guillermo Calderón (The Bat Woman) and directed by René Cardona (The Panther Women), Santo vs. the Riders of Terror sees the cine de luchadores meet the 'chili western' and adds dashes of horror and romance along the way. This striking 4K restoration is also coupled with Lepers and Sex (Los leprosos y el sexo), the recently rediscovered 'sexy' reworking of Santo vs. the Riders of Terror, which was created by the producers for the export market - all without the knowledge of the family friendly El Santo! Product Features 4K restoration from the original negative for Santo vs. the Riders of Terror and the alternative softcore version, Lepers and Sex Original Spanish mono audio Audio commentary with film historian and Mexican cinema specialist David Wilt (2024) Never-seen-before archival interview with co-star Armando Silvestre in which he discusses his involvement with the Calderón family (2024) Western a la mexicana (2024): lucha libre specialist and filmmaker the Killer Film, el critico enmascarado (the Masked Critic), assesses the film, its different versions, and its place within Santo's acting and wrestling career Cardona Bonanza (2024): writer and Mexican genre film programmer of Trash-Mex Armando Hernandez discusses René Cardona's career and the Cardona dynasty Alternative French opening credits Original theatrical trailer Image gallery: promotional and publicity material New and improved English translation subtitles Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with a new essay by Colin Gunkel, archival essays by Doyle Greene, Olivia Cosentino and Brian Price, archival interviews with El Santo and Viviana García-Besné, and full film credits UK premiere of Santo vs. the Riders of Terror on Blu-ray World premiere of Lepers and Sex on Blu-ray Limited edition of 8,000 individually numbered units for the UK and US All extras subject to change

• Mystics In Bali | DVD | (24/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A bizarre Indonesian horror movie concerning the dangerous research an Australian woman undertakes when looking into black magic practices in the Caribbean...

• Imaginary Heroes | DVD | (15/05/2006) from £5.97   |  Saving you £14.02 (234.84%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This realistic family film starring Sigourney Weaver and Emile Hirsch as a loving mother and son asks some deep questions about mortality, the risks of depression, and staying together verses splitting up.

• Two Thousand Maniacs | DVD | (30/05/2005) from £17.97   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Brutal... Evil... Ghastly... Beyond Belief!!! The second film in Herschell Gordon Lewis' infamous `Blood Trilogy' (begun with 'Blood Feast' and completed with 'Color Me Blood Red') 'Two Thousand Maniacs!' was an attempt to both out-gore Blood Feast and make a gruesome horror movie with production values above those of its predecessor... Not only is this release digitally remastered but it's also uncut too! To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War the inhabitants of a small Southern US town organise the festival to end all festivals. With a captured audience of North Americans the townsfolk amuse themselves by playing roll-the-man-in-the-nail-lined-barrel and compete at target practice using a pretty girl and a boulder. With all this chaos erupting around them a young couple make a desperate attempt to leave the town before they too fall victim to Two Thousand Maniacs!

• 2000 Maniacs | DVD | (28/10/2002) from £10.55   |  Saving you £2.44 (23.13%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Available "fully uncut" for the first time in the UK, Two Thousand Maniacs! is the second of director HG Lewis' "blood" trilogy. Though the "once-in-a-lifetime" title makes a promise no film could keep--only about 30 maniacs show up--and the level of gore is a notch or so down from Blood Feast--only four deaths--this is perhaps the director's most watchable film. The Brigadoon-derived plot nugget concerns a Deep South town (variously suggested to be in Georgia or Arkansas, but actually Florida) wiped out by Union raiders during the Civil War, which reappears once every 100 years to wreak "blood vengeance". For the centennial celebrations, Pleasant Valley lures Yankee tourists off the road and subjects them to gruesome fairground games--a cannibal BBQ, a "horse-race", a "barrel roll" and "teetering rock". The ideas are nasty, and Lewis even attempts subtlety by keeping the quartering and the spiked barrel inside mostly off screen, but the creepiest touch is the "aw-shucks" good humour with which the ghostly Confederate maniacs--led by a mayor who is the spitting image of Sergeant Bilko's Colonel Hall--treat their horrible sport. It has the usual Lewis drawbacks--mostly inept staging, acting that veers between the wooden ("Playmate" Connie Mason) and the amateurishly hammy (one of the worst child actors in film history), clumsy editing, community theatre production values--but his fans wouldn't have it any other way and the hayseed music is great! On the DVD: The full-screen image is as good as this ever will look, considering Lewis' primitive understanding of lighting cinematography, with rich scarlet blood, vividly ugly 1963 leisurewear and very few print imperfections. The features offer an imaginative "Welcome to Pleasant Valley Centennial" menu, with buttons like the target you have to hit to drop the "teetering rock" on the Yankee; lurid original trailer ("Two thousand maniacs crazed for carnage started bathing a whole town in pulsing, human blood ... brutal, evil, ghastly beyond belief"); filmographies for Lewis, Friedman and star William Kerwin (aka Thomas Wood); promotional art gallery; notes by aptly-monickered expert Billy Chainsaw, highlighting the connections with John Waters and Brigadoon; a teaser trailer for "the Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection"; a mass of trailers for other "Tartan terror" titles. The Lewis-Friedman commentary and mind-numbing outtakes reel available on the Region 1 DVD are sadly absent, but that release doesn't have this one's major bonus addition--the entire soundtrack album, with compositions by Lewis himself (including the immortal "Yee-Hah, the South's Gonna Rise Again") and Flatt and Scruggs (of Bonnie and Clyde fame). --Kim Newman

• Santos Vs The She-Wolf | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £18.99

  Mexican cultural icon and wrestling superstar SANTO makes his second UK DVD premiere in this classic adventure. Fighting his way across the screen in dozens of movies El Santo the silver masked man is Mexico's greatest superhero and a real-life professional wrestler. A superstar in the arena the hero of comic books and a score of Mexican sci-fi/horror/action movies he is a genuine phenomena. Probably the best-known and widely-seen Santo film Santo Vs The She Wolves begins in the dungeon of an old castle where the dying vampire Tundra and her werewolf hoardes have awakened and go out in search of blood to revive Zorina the vampire queen. It is time for Zorina to join her lord Satan in Hell so Zorina's successor must be chosen... Santo faces his most diabolical and terrifying foe in this classic adventure from 1976. If you aren't already familiar with Santo he's a silver-masked wrestler who drives around in a convertible sporting tights and a cape (no shirt). When he's not busy fighting in the ring he's out fighting crime in the shape of various monsters and super villains. So come with us for a trip back to the days when masked men not only wrestled in the ring but fought gangsters werewolves vampires martians and killer mummies as a sideline!

• Santo In The Wax Museum | DVD | (28/05/2007) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  El Santo the masked Mexican wrestler investigates a series of kidnappings. He discovers that the mysterious Doctor Caroll is using the victims as part of his experiments to develop an army of monsters. Naturally El Santo is able to overcome them all - with wrestling!

• I'll Never Die Alone | DVD | (30/09/2013) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-5.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  An Argentinean film that literally points a sawn-off shot gun at the head of the whole rape-revenge genre and blows it away. Brutal intense exploitative and profoundly disturbing. I'll Never Die Alone centres on four young women travelling through the countryside who get on the wrong side of the local police after they witness some illegal hunting. What follows is a savage escalation from violence to rape to a series of extremely savage and intense confrontations that really push and challenge the viewer in ways that are evocative of films like Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 and I Spit on Your Grave though without I Spit's misogyny.