| Author | Message | ||
     John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
It’s been a while so I thought it was about time I watched another in the seemingly endless series of Paul Naschy movies I have piled up. Purely as a public service, naturally. Last night it was CURSE OF THE DEVIL – the sixth (and therefore apparently the halfway point in the cycle!!) of Naschy’s Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies. This time a bit of a bigger budget allows it to be a period piece but oh dear that doesn’t seem to prevent the silliness. Two conquistadores, one of whom is Naschy, the other bearing a worrying resemblance to ‘Oddbod’ from CARRY ON SCREAMING, have a bit of a fight that results in Naschy hanging all the guy’s family for being Satanists. Cue curse. Flash forward a couple of hundred years. Cue a lot of pointless nudity (although as Mick Curtis has quite correctly pointed out there really is no such thing, and you can’t argue with a man who freeze frames TWINS OF EVIL ) that culminates in some sort of shagging that looks daft enough but will sound far too silly if I try and describe it here. Naschy gets a hairy problem, lots of people get their throats torn out in glorious Kensington gorecolour, more ladies take their clothes off, and then, surprisingly enough, the film settles down to be quite an atmospheric gothic piece, as if Carlos Aured got all the daftness/crowd-pleasing stuff out of his system so he could get down to filming some good bits. In fact by the end I’d almost forgotten the silliness of the first 20 minutes. This is a lot better than some of the movies of this period I’ve seen & for anyone unfamiliar with this particular branch of Spanish cinema (because come on I know you're all actually watching these as I recommend them) this would be a good one to start off with. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Sounds delicious... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Am I the only one who loves John's film reviews? Keep 'em coming, Lord P! | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 77.86.104.231 |
I'd rather see him fighting crime, but this will do. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.189 |
I love Lord P's reviews too - they always cheer me up when I need it, and remind me that I'm not alone in sometimes enjoying and even seeing merit in dodgy horror films. Lord P, I hereby request that you try your best to watch and review for us another old Euro 'classic': LA ORGIA DE LOS MUERTOS (aka THE HANGING WOMAN, ORGY OF THE DEAD, etc), featuring the intrepid Mr. Naschy as a necrophiliac gravedigger/manservant.  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 77.86.104.231 |
Oh you horror experts, you make me feel so ashamed.  | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.157.91.38 |
Am I the only one who loves John's film reviews? 'Fraid not, matey! I love 'em too, and at least it keeps his Lordship out of trouble. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.44 |
Hey - some nice comments there! Thanks chaps, but I'm not sure if you realise what you're letting yourselves in for. Huw - I'll try & track that down, along with THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE, which is one I've wanted to see for ages. Tonight however was: WEREWOLF SHADOW/WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN/BLOOD MOON/THE NIGHT OF WALPURGIS Those alternate titles do go on a bit, suffice to say this is more gothic pottiness from 1970 this time, and the first in the cycle to be directed by ex-dentist Leon Klimovsky (so why don't the vampires & werewolves have better teeth I hear you ask?). A precredits sequence features Julio Pena (Inspector Mirov from HORROR EXPRESS) and a friend doing an emergency post-mortem on Naschy in a crypt during a full moon. Just for a laugh they decide to remove the silver bullets that allegedly put paid to his werewolfy activities in the last film, 'just to prove he isn't one'. Oh dear. Naschy gets hairy & kills them & then it's off into the forest, pausing only to tear a girl's top off and her throat out before the titles arrive to the most screechingly godawful inappropriate music you can imagine. After that it's the usual laughs all the way - a couple of gorgeous women go in search of the tomb of Countess Bathory that just happens to be next door to where Naschy is hiding out with his sister (whose head he has to chop off later and I'm still not sure why) and just a swallow's flight away from a zombie monk who pops up merely to be knocked down again. Before you can say 'on dear I'm a gorgeous young girl who's accidentally opened a tomb, pulled a silver dagger from the heart of a vampire's corpse and somehow managed to cut my arm so that my blood drips directly onto her teeth' Barbara Steele looky likey Patty Shepard is up and about and looking rather fetching in black. We're still only about 20 minutes into the picture & the script does then get bogged down a bit, but never fear, the vampire woman and the werewolf do get to kick the shit out of each other at the climax before it all ends in a welter of maggots, disintegation effects and a gradual loss of hair from Mr Naschy's fleshy face. Cue the quite unbelievably shit theme music again and suddenly you're back to reality. Which is actually a bit of a shame. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
I've actually seen that one - it was an edited version, which made it een weirder. It's the only Naschy I've seen, but I too want to see the Hunchback one. Is that the one where they allegedly used real cadavers? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.110 |
I think it is | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.102 |
Right I'm on a roll: BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL / HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN They just don't make films with titles like that anymore. This is Naschy & Aured's attempt to emulate the Italian giallo subgenre. Unfortunately for the majority of its running time it comes across more like an early 70s British sitcom. By the halfway mark there have been no murders and all we as fans of this sort of stuff have been treated to are some nudity (courtesy of the admittedly gorgeus Eva Leon) and the biggest cheese sandwich ever seen in European horror cinema, all to music the like of which Ronnie Hazlehurst would not have written at his laziest. The fact that this irritating jingle is used at every opportunity renders a lot of the movie laughable. When we do get to the murder scenes, however, they are excellent - atmospheric and creative and so good in fact that they look as if they've been cut in from another film. The denouement gives us giallo fans twist upon twist, and the ending is so supremely demented, horrifying, crazy and just plain brilliant that you don't care that a lot of what has gone before is bollocks. Honestly it's that good. One of those beautiful shining nuggets of exploitation insanity that make life worth living. I can't get it out of my head & I'm not going to tell you what it is so you can enjoy it for yourselves. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.157.91.38 |
I see these are available individually, but did you pick up any as part of a set (or sets), John? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.102 |
I got them all individually but I believe there's a Naschy box set coming out with five of the titles in the series. I also understand that sadly there aren't going to be any more, which is a shame as I'm starting to get into them now and the Spanish horror movie industry of the 70s is very Hammerlike in that they used the same personnel and cast members for most of these, eg of the above the music for WEREWOLF SHADOW is by TOMBS OFTHE BLIND DEAD's Anton Garcia Abril & sounds very similar in parts. Cast members from HORROR EXPRESS keep popping up as well. It's a bit like discovering a whole new subgenre that I previously knew very little about | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.184.109 |
My god, I imagined that Naschy was dead by now, but after checking IMDB I see he's not only very much alive, but still regularly making films with titles like COUNTESS DRACULA'S ORGY OF BLOOD and TOMB OF THE WEREWOLF! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.110 |
 He also does little filmed intros to the Deimos DVDs which are quite cosy. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.225.110 |
Where do you guys find those obscure items? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
There's a special shop that moves about in search of weirdos. "Why, I've never seen that shop before." You'll often hear them exclaim. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.225.110 |
Gotta catch that shop ere it eludes me. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.39 |
...still regularly making films with titles like COUNTESS DRACULA'S ORGY OF BLOOD and TOMB OF THE WEREWOLF!... ...Indeed, we need more titles like these in movies nowadays... TOMBS OF THE DEAD VAMPIRE BLOODSUCKERS HIRSUTE WEREWOLVES BY MOONLIGHT DEMONS FROM HELL |