If a group of vampires are determined to ruin your night, what should you do? Well, according to the classic Mexican film Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, your first move should be to call a wrestler.
What to know more? Well, you can read my full review of the film by clicking here!
And you can watch the movie below because it’s today’s horror on the lens!
If a group of vampires are determined to ruin your night, what should you do? Well, according to the classic Mexican film Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro, your first move should be to call a wrestler.
What to know more? Well, you can read my full review of the film by clicking here!
And you can watch the movie below because it’s today’s horror on the lens!
Though he may be the most successful, Chris Evans is not the first actor to have played the role of Captain America. As befits a character that has been around since World War II, Cap has been played by several different actors over the years. Before Chris Evans and the character became a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the role was played by Matt Salinger. Before Matt Salinger, there was Reb Brown. Before Reb Brown, there was Ayetkin Akkaya. Before Aytekin Akkaya, there was Dick Purcell and…
Wait! Aytekin who!?
Aytekin Akkaya is the actor who played Captain America in the Turkish film, 3 Dev Adam (also known as Three Mighty Men, Turkish Spider-man, and Turkish Captain America and Santo vs. Spider-Man). Produced in an alternative universe where there is no such thing as copyright law, 3 Dev Adam is perhaps the strangest Captain America film that you will ever see.
3 Dev Adam reminds me of the old Marvel series, What If? What If showed what would have been the result if certain events in Marvel continuity had happened differently. A typical issue would have a title like What If Ben Parker Had Not Died or What If Magneto Killed Professor Xavier or What If Rob Liefeld And Jim Lee Had Not Been Hired For Heroes Reborn? Regardless of the question, the answer was almost always that a hero would have turned into a villain and everyone would be dead by the end of the issue. 3 Dev Adam could have easily been called What If Spider-Man Was A Psychotic Serial Killer?
The film opens with a screaming woman being buried up to her neck in sand. An evil criminal demands information from her and, when he does not get it, he has her killed with a boat propeller. Who is this psycho? None other than your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! However, this Spider-Man is not Peter Parker or Miles Morales. He is not even Ben Reilly. This Spider-Man is a serial killer who steals valuable antiques, sells them to collectors, and then buys them back with counterfeit money. He does not climb walls or listen to his spidey sense. Instead of shooting webs, he attacks with a switchblade. Instead of making jokes and worrying about Aunt May, this Spider-Man laughs and feeds one incompetent subordinate to a hungry gerbil. This Spider-Man has no Mary Jane Watson or Gwen Stacy in his life. Instead, he has a girlfriend named Nadia. When he has sex with her, they are watched by three laughing puppets.
Spider-Man has committed numerous murders in Istanbul. The police are powerless to stop him so the authorities ask for international help. The United States sends Captain America and his girlfriend Julia. Mexico sends famous wrestler Santo. When the three of them first show up at the Istanbul airport, a snippet of the score from Diamonds Are Forever is heard, reminding us that almost everything in this movie has been stolen.
There are some differences between the Captain that we all know and the Captain played by Aytekin Akkaya. Akkaya’s Captain America does wear a red, white, and blue costume but he does not carry a shield and his mask does not have wings on either side of his head. This Captain is trained in karate and has no trouble killing people. He also enjoys hanging out in strip clubs, which is something that you would never catch the MCU’s Cap doing. As far as personality is concerned, this Captain America has more in common with Robert Downey, Jr’s Iron Man than with the character played by Chris Evans.
Captain America and Santo’s strategy for stopping Spider-Man consists of standing around and waiting for Spider-Man and his goons show up. They then fight until Spider-Man either escapes or dies. It turns out that this Spider-Man does have one additional superpower. Whenever he dies, a new Spider-Man appears nearby and continues fighting. This leads to a climax where Cap kills Spidey in a number of gruesome ways, just to have a new Spider-Man materialize and laugh at him. By the end of the film, the screen is littered with dead Spider-Men.
3 Dev Adam is such a strange film that it is almost impossible to review. If you have ever wanted to see Captain America and Spider-Man fight to the death (over and over again), this is the film for you. As for Aytekin Akkaya, 3 Dev Adam was the only time that he ever played Captain America. But anyone who has seen 3 Dev Adam will never forget him.
Just a few hours ago, I gathered with my friends in the Late Night Movie Gang and we watched the classic Mexican “horror” film, Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro (or, as it was released over here in the states, Samson Vs. The Vampire Women.) You’ll notice that I put the word horror in quotes because there was really nothing traditionally scary about Samson Vs. The Vampire Women.
The film opens with a bunch of vampire women waking up after being asleep for hundreds of years. When we first see the vampire women, they all look like they have really bad skin and could really use some moisturizer. However, once they drink some blood and say some magic words, they all suddenly look really pretty and they get to wear these really nice white dresses as well.
The queen of the vampires, Thorina (Lorena Valesquez), has been tasked with finding a bride for the Evil One and her pick is Diana (Maria Duval), who is the daughter of Prof. Orlof (Augusto Benedico). We know that Orlof is intelligent because he wears glasses, has a beard, and his English-language dialogue has been dubbed by an actor who has a deep, intellectual voice. However, despite being brilliant, Orlof is totally ineffectual when it comes to protecting his daughter from being turned into a vampire.
(Diana, we’re told, is on the verge of turning 21. She looks like she’s closer to 40.)
And, of course, we get all of the things that you would expect from a low-budget, black-and-white vampire movie. Bats fly by on strings. Whenever Thorina needs to hypnotize someone, we get a closeup of her eyes. Whenever the sun shines, all of the vampires scream and run out of the room. It’s all pretty typical and, as a result, not particularly scary.
What is scary, however, is the man who Orlof summons to protect his daughter. Not only can Samson (played by real-life Mexican wrestler Santo) fight vampires and communicate with people via television but he’s a professional wrestler as well! In fact, Diana would probably have nothing to worry about if not for the fact that Samson has to balance protecting her with his lucrative wrestling career.
What I’m saying here is that there’s a lot of wrestling in Samson vs. The Vampire Women. Not only does Samson wrestle with vampires but he also wrestles with ordinary, every day wrestlers. Even when he’s not wrestling, Samson runs around in his wrestling outfit — mask, cape, manties, and bulge.
(Oddly enough, none of the vampire women ever think to maybe kick Samson in that bulge, which is probably what I would do if I was ever suddenly approached by someone dressed like Samson…)
Now, I know what you’re wondering. And the answer is no. We never get to see what Samson looks like under the mask. I assume that he looked like Jack Black but who knows for sure?
Anyway, Samson vs. The Vampire Women is probably one of those films that everyone should see at least once, if just because that way you won’t be left out of any inside jokes that may develop between your friends once they’ve actually experienced it for themselves. It’s not a particularly good film but it’s certainly an odd one and there’s definitely something to be said for that.
You can watch it below!
Through the Shattered Lens 