EL VAMPIRO Y EL SEXO a.k.a. Sex and the Vampire

Is this the Holy Grail of exploitation movies? A lot of people are saying it is. The story of El Vampiro Y El Sexo is an interesting one. For many years is actual existence was questioned and debated, but the proof is in the print and electroschlock has a copy.

In 1969 a black and white Santo movie was released in Mexico named “Santo en El tesoro de Drácula” a.k.a. “Santo in Dracula’s Treasure.” It was a bit of an unusual Santo film with the story involving time travel, reincarnations, and of course Dracula. Not a really one of the better films in the Santo series.

Flash forward to the mid 70’s collectors of film memorabilia in North America started trading with collectors in Europe. It’s impossible to pinpoint who originally came up with this stuff but it was quite a surprise to say the least when still photographs and lobby cards started turning up showing actor Aldo Monti in the same outfit worn in Santo in Dracula’s Treasure fondling some nice looking Mexican breast.

What confused people more, was the fact that the lobby card set which contained nudity also advertised the film to be in color. The problem was there wasn’t a real reliable source that had seen the advertised movie in the lobby card set. Film collectors looked but a print with this title and nude scenes was not found.

The lines were drawn in the sand with two groups of fans. One group who believed the stills and lobby card sets were just a marketing ploy by director René Cardona to boost European sales with a bait and switch. The other group believed that there was an indeed an alternative cut of the film in color that was actually a real nudy Santo flick shot for overseas consumption.

More proof supporting the nudy theory surfaced a couple of years ago when a color print of Santo in Dracula’s Treasure surfaced. Still it was virtually the same film as the black and white counterpart.

Finally as reported in the March 25th 2011 issue of “Proceso”, Mexico’s number one selling weekly political paper an uncut print of “El Vampiro Y El Sexo” was uncovered by Viviana García Besné in the personal archives of his uncle Guillermo Calderón Steel.

The awesome Mexican horror film maker Guillermo del Toro (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) bought the print and paid mucho money for its restoration so it could have its North American debut at the 2011 FICG festival.

So once and for all the rumors were to be put to bed, and the world would soon see El Santo’s one and only adult movie. The day the film was scheduled to play El Santo Jr. a wrestler and film star himself showed up at the festival with film crew in hand and didn’t ask but “told” del Toro that he would be taking possession of the one and only copy known to exists because he didn’t want his fathers (or his) image tarnished as a family entertainer.

del Toro was more than gracious by not telling him to fuck off and actually handed the print over! Now, there has been quite a bit of speculation as to why El Hijo del Santo waited until after the print was restored to take possession of it. If you’re like me you’re probably thinking the prick used his father’s name to grab a very valuable piece of film history to make a little money off of.

Well it didn’t take long before we knew the answer. About a month ago on a Mexican premium cable station El Vampiro Y El Sexo showed up in regular rotation. El Hijo del Santo claims he has no knowledge as to how the cable station got the print, right….

The good news is not only did someone record it, it was fandubbed by the some of the film freaks on CG. Within a week it has sprung up all over file sharing networks and I’m sure is making its way on the list of many of gray market dealers catalogs.

So how was it you ask? It was good. El Santo doesn’t appear in any sex scenes which is a crying shame but Dracula does cop a feel more than once, and there is plenty of ripe Mexican flesh on display. The story remains the same but has a lot of sleazy undertones attached to it.

In the end it’s nothing but a shame that it had to happen this way, I’m sure del Toro would have given this a proper DVD or even Blu Ray release. In the end the story about how this all came about is almost as exciting as the movie itself.

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Big Thanks go out to the crew at CG for information, and providing a copy of this lost gem.