Santo Gold was a bizarre, poorly made infomercial that ran constantly on late night TV across America in the late 80s. Hawking what looked to be low quality jewelry, Santo Gold's awkward writing and patently ridiculous claims have made it one of the more infamous examples of the neglected infomercial genre. Adding to its surreal nature, Santo Gold also hyped Blood Circus, quite possibly the world's only "supersonic spacewrastlin' movie," a pet project of the shadowy figure behind it all, Santo Rigatuso.

The movie combined has-been professional wrestlers, space aliens from the planet Zorok, cannibalism and decapitation, corny jokes that would make a third grader roll his eyes, and musical numbers performed by Rigatuso himself. Unsurprisingly, Rigatuso could not find a distributor for his incomprehensible film, and was forced to rent out a theater in Baltimore for the premiere of Blood Circus. Only three people bothered to show up: two critics and one extra from the film. "The film won't make sense. It will just make dollars," Santo had bragged to a reporter. He was half-right.

Costing over two million dollars to produce, Blood Circus was a financial disaster, but had been financed in part from proceedings from another Rigatuso business, Credit Card Authorizations Center. TV commercials for this dubious enterprise promised viewers a credit card, no matter how bad their credit history, for the low price of $49.95. Instead of a VISA or Mastercard, however, viewers received a paper card redeemable only for...Santo Gold merchandise! Even more brazen, Rigatuso began airing radio commercials announcing that an unnamed millionaire who had died recently had left $2000 blocks of his $7 million fortune to anyone who would pay a $2 phone processing charge and a $50 handling fee. You can probably guess where this is going. Eventually, the law caught up with Rigatuso, who was charged with twelve counts of mail fraud. He claimed he was mentally incompetent to stand trail, but the court ruled against him and he served ten months in prison.

Legend has it that the only remaining copy of Blood Circus has been lost to the ages, thereby becoming possibly the world's least seen cult movie.

Santo, now something of a recluse, has in turn become a folk anti-hero of sorts: a man of singular vision, unencumbered by traditional notions of "good" and "bad" (or "right" and "wrong" for that matter), who served time for his art.