Lucha Libre

Professional wrestling in Mexico is known as lucha libre — literally “free wrestling.” Over the decades it developed its own unmistakable style, with colourful masks, acrobatic high-flying moves and larger-than-life characters. The masks are particularly important, becoming part of a wrestler’s identity, with some matches even putting a luchador’s mask on the line.

A fond childhood memory of mine was waking up early on a Sunday morning, grabbing a box of sugary cereal and scanning the TV Guide — remember those? — in hopes of finding Mexican wrestling films. Superhero Mexican wrestlers fighting zombies, vampires and assorted monsters were an absolute delight to me. They still are.

El Santo was the biggest legend of them all, becoming much more than a professional wrestler. He was a Mexican folk hero who carried his masked character into comic books and dozens of wonderfully strange movies, battling criminals, mad scientists, monsters and just about anything else the filmmakers could throw at him.

My favourite of all these luchadors was Blue Demon. I just knew that if he was in the movie, it was going to be awesome. He appeared alongside other masked heroes and became one of the great icons of Mexican wrestling and lucha films.

My favourite of all the luchador films is Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters. The basic idea says everything you need to know: Santo and Blue Demon battle a mad scientist and an army of monsters. Cool, right?