Santo (Santo), the man in the silver mask, is buried in 1603. In the twentieth century Mexican luchador Santo is fighting an opponent in the ring when an axe wielding masked man (Fernando Oses) suddenly appears in the ring and tries to kill Santo. When the cops get there, they shoot the man in the black hood, but he vanishes into thin air. Later the man in the black hood appears at Santo’s house and throws his axe at the luchador. The black hooded man disappears again leaving his axe behind.
Santo takes the axe to Dr. Zanoni (Mario Sevilla) who tells him the axe is from the time of the inquisition. He asks about Santo’s ancestors. Santo tells him that all he knows is that his luchador costume was given to him by his father. It belonged to one of his ancestors and that his mask is supposedly made of an indestructible material. The doctor examines Santo’s mask and finds that there is an unusual symbol on it. The symbol protects the wearer against evil.
Suddenly the spirit of a woman named Isabel (Lorena Velazquez) appears and tells Santo that he must destroy the man called the Black Hood. She tells him that the Black Hood has been chasing him for centuries. She tells him that in order to defeat the evil Black Hood, Santo must remove his black mask. Only then can her spirit rest. Even though Santo had called out her name he tells the doctor that he doesn’t know who Isabel is. Zanoni hooks Santo up to a machine that transports his spirit back in time to when this all happened in the early seventeenth century.
In the past the Black Mask sold his soul to the devil for power and riches. Both Black Mask and Santo were in love with Isabel. She loved Santo so Black Mask chained her up in his dungeon. Santo visited the wizard Abraca (Mario Sevilla). Abraca gave Santo the magic silver mask and told him he will fight against the forces of evil.
Black Mask is caught and burned at the stake. His spirit, however, follows Santo through the centuries and will continue to try to kill him until Santo can find where Isabel is imprisoned, free her spirit and defeat the Black Mask sending him to hell.
‘’The Diabolical Axe” AKA “El hacha diabólica” was released in 1964 and was directed by Jose Díaz Morales. It is a Mexican horror movie and a luchador film.
The movie is basically a fight between good and evil. The story is a good one and there are some interesting turns to it but it is hampered by the usual low budget problems and some so-so acting. There’s a couple ring fights. One goes on quite a long time, but Santo is battling the spirit of Black Hood that has taken over another wrestler’s body and the Black Hood is fighting to the death.
It’s not the best Santo movie but it is far from the worst. There are some interesting elements to the story. The story was written by Fernando Oses, who also plays the evil Black Mask. I find that the movies written by Oses are more entertaining than some of the other luchador films whether it be Santo or Blue Demon or whoever the luchador of the day is.
This is another Mexican movie that was filmed as episodes rather than one full film. The titles of the episodes were removed but supposedly they were “The Diabolical Ax”, “Terror in the Past”, and “Disciple of Satan”.