Paul Naschy has a very qualified level of fame. His name is celebrated among those who are fans of 70s Spanish horror movies beyond the Blind Dead films, which is a pretty scant level of fame indeed. Even by that low measuring stick, his fans are mostly devoted to his seemingly endless number of werewolf movies, leaving this so far behind that I suspect I may even have more readers on this blog in a month than see this film in a year. Despite all that, it manages to be one of his more entertaining films, giving us a nice tale of revenge beyond the grave (not unlike the plot of the Blind Dead movies, actually), complete with blood, nudity, and zombies.
The film opens in the Middle Ages, with Naschy and his mistress (Helga Line) tied to trees and accused of witchcraft, vampirism, and lycanthropy, because clearly all of those are thoroughly interchangeable terms. After the pair are condemned to death by Naschy’s brother (also played by Naschy), he places a curse on his brother, condemning his descendants to all be killed by his hand, for he will be back! After his head is ordered separated from his body so he can never return, we cut ahead to the 1970s, where we once again meet Naschy (the guy gets around) as the descendant, who along with his friends is attending a séance. Because that’s what people did for fun back in the day. Just look at Family Plot if you don’t believe me. Anyway, they accidentally summon the spirit of his ancestor, who mentions that he wants his head and body restored again, and present day Naschy decides to visit his family’s ancestral castle with all of his friends just to prove that the medium was a fraud.
Of course, once we get to his ancestral home (seriously, who owns a castle and just never visits it?) the real fun starts, as they swiftly dig up his ancestor’s head, which is of course still very much alive, and his ancestor wastes no time in hypnotizing everyone he sees and turning them into his zombie minions. It’s a surprisingly convoluted plot after that, involving magic talismans and Thor’s hammers get thrown in somehow and they sleep in the lake and I don’t really know what happened but it was brilliant.
I freely admit that this is a terrible movie. However, it is terrible in the best possible way, in that it manages to transcend its own lousiness and become something borderline awesome. I’d hesitate to call it outright good, per se, but it’s certainly fun and enjoyable, complete with all the violence, nudity, and gloomy scenes of crypts and woods that you could want in a film. The music is nicely subtle and not at all over-the-top too, featuring nothing but an organ and some sound effect that sounds kind of like one of those noise makers you get at a carnival. It apparently also spawned a sequel called Panic Beats, which I haven’t seen, but I can only hope it’s every bit as delightful as this one was.
Rating: ***
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Horror Rises from the Tomb
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Hanging Woman (a.k.a. Return of the Zombies, Orgy of the Dead, etc.)
If there’s one thing you can always depend on from old European horror movies, it’s a great atmosphere and setting. Now, while a distressing number of them don’t actually manage to bring anything beyond that to the table, this one fortunately manages to maintain that atmosphere while throwing a plot at us so thick and convoluted that you start to wonder how they’re finding time for all the shots of graveyards and spooky castles.
The film follows a man named Serge who comes to an unidentified European village following his uncle’s death so as to inherit his uncle’s castle. After being tipped off by some villagers that bad things are about, he stumbles across a woman that’s been hanged by the cemetery, and is soon embroiled in a series of murders, seances, feuds, gunfights, chases, and attacks by zombies. I’d also mention the mad scientist and the women’s love of nudity, but that almost seems like too much at this point.
It’s got all the required goofy moments and crazy camera work that one would expect from a film like this. At one point a woman is murdered, and Serge announces “It was my uncle that did it. And I think I know where to find him!” before taking off at a full gallop across what appears to be two counties, dragging on for so long that it starts to become like that ponderously lengthy scene in Ali where he just goes running until he’s had the chance to run past every single person in Africa. He also gets to show off his badass side later on, when he and his girlfriend discover a secret passageway, and he decides that as her protector he must stab a corpse to make sure it’s dead, open fire on a skeleton hanging on a wall, and then start a massive brush fire by throwing a lamp at some passing zombies (okay, that last bit may have been somewhat justified). It doesn’t quite raise itself up to that higher level like Suspiria or similar Euro horrors, but it’s definitely worth watching.
Rating: ***
