70's Spanish Horror Part Two - The Blind Dead Series

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD
(1972)
Dir - Amando de Ossorio
Overall: MEH

The Blind Dead film that started it all, (La noche del terror ciego as it was titled in it's native country), Tombs of the Blind Dead still stands as the absolute definitive example of having a page long plot dragged out to around ninety minutes by way of atrociously plodding pacing.  This is really such a painfully unforgivable quality as it nearly could have been avoided.  Amado de Ossorio, (who would write and direct all four films in the series), has a genuinely ideal premise at his disposal as well as some fantastic sets, music, monster design, and cinematography to work with.  All of these valuable elements nearly warrant the film being recognized as favorably as it often is.  Yet hardly any horror franchise has aggravatingly made its steadfast component one in which every character at every opportunity moves as slowly and illogically as possible while their pursuers move just as sluggish.  Add to this some insulting "horror movie logic" that would be too embracing even for a Goosebumps episode, (a door gets easily locked from the inside only to find that thirty seconds later it is impossible to open from the inside by the same person for one), and completely pointless, awful characters acting equally as moronic and you get the idea.  The amount of dedication made to make the good stuff work only to have the complete opposite amount of effort spent on making all the bad stuff at least competent puts this very sadly in the "what could have been" heap.

RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD
(1973)
Dir - Amando de Ossorio
Overall: MEH

For the second molasses-leaking installment in the Blind Dead series, Amando de Ossorio basically slightly twisted his monster's cannon and threw them into a Night of the Living Dead-type scenario.  For Return of the Blind Dead, (Return of the Evil Dead, El ataque de los muertos sin ojos), the undead, blood obsessed, skeletal Knights Templar once again look and act exactly as slowly as they always do and once again everyone they come in contact with is a textbook horror movie moron who makes the worst, most foreseeable, asinine decisions at every opportunity.  Also rest assured, the laws of physics are continually ignored.  A chase scene transpires where people speed off away from the horseback riding Knights only to inexplicably get overcome by them a few miles away because we need the last act to take place while everyone is held up in a church.  Completely lazy storytelling mechanics like this make up every plot point where there is also a laughably untrustworthy hunchback who, (with virtually no effort), convinces a woman to abandon everyone and follow him into a tunnel.  Also, everyone assumes everyone is drunk on the phone and the fat corrupt Mayor of course tries to fuck over whoever he can to get away.  These are all just a scant few such annoying moments.  The gore level is amped up a bit more, (particularly in the non-English cut), and there is some nudity for this go round, but neither of these factors make the film anything more than a bottom barrel, pathetic genre excuse.

THE GHOST GALLEON
(1974)
Dir - Amando de Ossorio
Overall: MEH

Continuing to retcon his own mythos with each film, Amando de Ossorio ditched the crypts for a ghost ship in the third Blind Dead entry, reasonably titled The Ghost Galleon, (The Blind Dead 3, Horror of the Zombies, Ship of Zombies, The Ghost Ship of the Swimming Corpses).  As appropriate as it was to see the lackadaisically maneuvering Knights Templar emerge from their stone tombs and terrorize whoever stumbled upon them, utilizing that exact set up once again would have been very ill-advised.  So, thankfully the location at least has changed and what a marvelously horror-worthy one it is.  The ultra spooky pirate ship is laced with an unnatural fog and void of both sun and moonlight, has cobwebs galore, and even a giant skeleton head with horns mounted on a wall because why would you not have one of those?  Little to no backstory is given this time as that would hardly be necessary and also thankfully, the ending is rather splendidly if predictably done.  Yet since this is a Blind Dead movie, christ is it sluggish.  The first two acts are even slower to get over with than usual and the "plot" this time complies with no logic whatsoever.  Above even the first two installments though, the characters here are MORE obnoxious and make some of the dumbest decisions yet.  All of this complies with cliches left and right, with scantily clad women nonchalantly roaming the most macabre areas, (and preferring to stand still and scream as opposed to run away at full speed), the most deceitful character succumbing to his doom due to his treasure stealing greed, opposing sides using the words "superstition" and "nonsense" in the same argument, etc.  So basically the same shit...just now on a boat!

NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS
(1975)
Dir - Amando de Ossorio
Overall: MEH

Well finally everything is wrapped up in a nice, (boring), package with the conclusion to the Blind Dead series Night of the Seagulls, (La noche de las gaviotas, Don't Go Out at Night, and Night of the Death Cult).  Identical to all the other segments, there is good and not good to be found.  It is expected that the Knights Templar's backstory will be redone to fit the setting and it is basically only given a minor tweak.  Yet it is also rather a nifty one at that, with the Knights feeding a fresh heart to a Lovecraftian deity statue as they feast on the blood of their victims, only to terrify the inhabitants of a village, (who of course will not just pack up and move to another village), every seven years with a specific set of horror movie rules that totally work.  The monsters still look cool, still sound cool, and still ride cool-looking horses in slow motion.  They are also still so slothlike that even a cripple could skip past them with little trouble.  Alas, the actual plot, though perfectly suited and familiar to such fair, is repetitive and wearisome and very, very tiring to actually watch.  It is in part Blind Dead fatigue simply setting in as we know all the beats, but the combination of a new couple moving to a town where everyone is a scared, superstitious, and rude asshole, nobody coming right out and actually saying what is going on even though that would save so much trouble, a creepy village idiot, (again), and girls being willingly then screamingly sacrificed all just feels like a wasted time.  Also the ending is pretty silly as the boring "hero" couple just accidentally knock a statue down and whelp, that is all she wrote for the Knights Templar who then collapse to the floor and barf all the blood they ate.  Roll credits.

70's Jesús Franco Part Two

THE BLOODY JUDGE
(1970)
Overall: MEH

So many witch-burning films.  Jesús Franco sensationalized re-telling of the later days of Judge George Jeffreys in The Bloody Judge, (Proceso de las Brujas), could afford to be a little more sensational.  For starters, it contains probably the least exciting battle sequence ever filmed, mostly because it plays more like stock footage with just an endless see of horses, canons, and soldiers that have no names doing the whole war thing over dramatic marching music.  That is just one relatively minor and somewhat amusing blunder though.  Christopher Lee is very Christopher Leey as the stereotypical, ruthless Judge who coldly condemns every accused witch he comes across, of course has his own hypocritically lustful intentions, and gets his comeuppance at the end.  Though his preordained demise is anything but satisfying as he just kind of randomly faints to death after witnessing someone else get what is heading his way.  Even Franco's nearly mandated nudity/violence quota is also noticeably diminished.  The only really surprising element to the sub-genre here is that he forgoes abundant scenes of eye-wincing, dungeon-set torture.  We get a few of those, but really, (for a Franco film in particular), it is "disappointing" to instead spend extensive amounts of screen time talking politics, alliances, betrayals, and watching villainous brutes calling women "whores", "bitches", "wenches" and then smacking them around.

COUNT DRACULA
(1970)
Overall: MEH

On paper, this Dracula adaptation from Jesús Franco should work better than it does.  It has both Christopher Lee once again in the lead that he had already long made famous for Hammer Studios AND has Klaus Kinski ideally cast as Renfield a mere nine years before he would play the Count himself in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu remake.  Though the concept of vampires, a Gothic setting, and sexual overtones all seem ideal for such a filmmaker to take on, the results in Count Dracula are far from satisfying.  First off, Kinski is absolutely wasted as the would-be ranting and raving lunatic Renfield.  He instead spends all of his handful of scenes staring off into space and only utters a single word of dialog.  For his part, Lee gets to indulge in a rather faithful to the novel speech proclaiming his zealous, ancestral pride, but otherwise he is comparably dull when compared to even his phoned-in, later Hammer Dracula sequel performances.  He is off camera for large chunks of time and when he does show up, he pretty much just stares menacingly for a few seconds.  If you were expecting nudity at every opportunity, there is absolutely zero to be found.  Do not worry though, there is gallons of zooms, not even trying day for night sequences, and plenty of "people walking around" scenes.  The screenplay was credited to no fewer than seven people and it certainly reeks of having too many cooks in the kitchen.  Once the first relatively straight forward act is over, the movie waddles off at a snails pace and seems to lose all focus by the finale, the last twenty minutes or so coming off as if they were shooting it chronologically and were running out of film stock and money.

THE BARE BREASTED COUNTESS
(1975)
Overall: WOOF

There are pointless, meandering, and suffocatingly boring vampire films and then there is The Bare Breasted Countess, (Female Vampire, various others).  Three different versions under even more titles exist, (a "normal" horror one, a softcore erotic one, and a still soft yet more genitalia revealing pornographic one), but you would be very hard pressed to find any of them comprehensible let alone entertaining.  Franco's indulgences of combining the absolute bare, (har, har), minimum storytelling with tedious, uninteresting shots of people moving as slow as humanly possible through random terrains finds its apex here.  Other directors such as Jean Rollin come to mind in utilizing similar ingredients to their bizarre, seductive works, but Franco's images are so vapid that combined with the almost unwatchable pacing, the film is a mindless headache.  Lead actress/Fraco's eventual wife Lina Romay plays a mute whose only actions are to look into the camera, nod her head a few times, and thrust her body on anyone and anything that she comes in contact with.  Meanwhile there is a sort-of subplot with some doctors and inspectors not-really-at-all investigating her murders and Jack Taylor narrates a bunch of nonsense that until about halfway through the film leads us to believe that his scenes were taken from a completely different movie.  Franco seems to be intentionally dreaming up something artistically important here as he compared the film to Nagisa Oshima's far superior In the Realm of the Senses, but sadly this is just an amateurish mess that cannot honestly be enjoyed on any level.

70's Jesús Franco Part One

VAMPYROS LESBOS
(1970)
Overall: MEH

The praise granted to the music for Jesús Franco's seminal lesbian vampire film aptly titled Vampyros Lesbos, (Las Vampiras), is all levels of baffling.  Euro-horror in particular, (amongst its many traits), had a tradition of randomly inappropriate film scores and this one "delivers" in that category, nearly exceeding all others.  Only a few mere seconds at a time are the only breaks we get from the sitar-laced, psychedelic garage band score that is upbeat and jaunty at mostly arbitrary times.  It never once enhances any kind of disturbing or eerie mood and is consistently obnoxious and ill-fitting.  Considering that the music was co-written by Franco himself and was certainly not a misplaced afterthought, this leads one to conclude that it was knowingly meant to convey some kind of tone.  As a "horror" experience, the movie is unacceptable, meaning that it is more akin to the type of ethereal exploitation that Franco helped expose to a wider audience here.  Yet with the script being awful even for a Franco film and the direction bordering on inept, (with sluggish pacing, enormous plot holes, and haphazard editing), it is certainly avant, but more in a laughable, inadvertent way.  There are a select few almost memorable moments though and the completely wooden performances do in fact give it a successfully surreal quality of sorts.

A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD
(1973)
Overall: MEH

Infamously butchered with added pornographic scenes upon its release in France and Italy and then re-edited again with totally unrelated zombie footage shot by a hired Jean Rollin in 1981, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, (A comme apocalypse, Among the Living Dead, Christina chez les morts vivants, Christina, princesse de l'erotisme, Christina, Sex Princess, La nuit des etoiles filantes, Los suenos eroticos de Christine, and Zombie 4), is one of the filmmaker's very rare consistent offerings.  Well, at least in its original, Jesús Franco-cut, unmangled form.  Many hallmarks of Franco and Euro exploitation cinema in general are a plenty, with liberal amounts of nudity, a completely logic-defying script, terrible dubbing, bizarre performances, and tedious pacing.  Yet for once, all of these pieces seem to concoct a satisfyingly odd endeavor.  What barely qualifies as a "plot" is certainly confused, but it creates such an offbeat result that it becomes more interesting than boring as it goes along.  Rarely as well, the ending is downplayed in a very somber and bewitching way and provides the film with one of its strongest moments.  Often times in Euro-trash, (particularly Franco's generally embarrassing brand of it), dreamlike storytelling is fighting such an uphill battle that it is basically a wild dice roll if any of it ends up working.  This film occasional rides that fine line of tipping into inanity, but whether it rides it luckily or not, the outcome thankfully attains its goal.

JACK THE RIPPER
(1976)
Overall: MEH

Overtly gruesome in a few instances of course, Jesús Franco's West Germany/Swiss co-produced Jack the Ripper, (Der Dirnenmörder von London), seems to have the ideal casting choice in the title character, with Klaus Kinski in a roll he was practically born for.  Portraying very unnerved men who were brimming with inhuman amounts of rage just under their unwholesomely quiet and restrained demeanor was something that came all too natural to the German actor and he barely comes off as acting here.  That said, one certainly would not go as far as to expect him to rape women and cut their tits off right afterwards in real life.  Franco maintains his usual emphasis on nudity and vulgarity, that latter aspect of which provides the film with some crass humor at parts.  There is nothing particularly erotic here, but this seems to be intended as its unwholesome, sexual murder elements are meant to be repugnant.  Whereas the burlesque moments in front of cackling Brits all brimful of ale are equal parts exploitative, though relatively harmless.  Besides pacing issues which are to be expected, the unfortunate final act really falls apart in the logic department with a woman willingly putting herself in harms way, followed by easily one of the least satisfying endings that any slasher horror movie has ever had.  So it is ultimately a bit of a missed opportunity save Kinski's effortlessly spot-on performance.

60's British Horror Part Four

DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN
(1961)
Dir - Sidney J. Furie
Overall: WOOF

Grievously, the second color film on record to depict the modern day, badly decomposed, rotting corpse-like zombie is very lousy.  This is despite it featuring renowned scream queen Hazel Court and being directed by the man who would make the amazing The Entity two decades later.  Doctor Blood's Coffin was produced on the cheap and shot largely on location in the Cornwall county of South West England, both details of which are more exciting than anything that happens in the actual movie.  The script has deservedly been scrutinized as bordering on idiotic, but the real mishap is how boring of an experience this mad scientist playing god, lazy hodgepodge is.  There are no twists and even less suspense, plus the main title character, (the very manly shouldered Kieron Moore), behaves so obnoxiously self-centered that it is hardly believable that anyone acts surprised when they find out what he is up to.  Watch him go on romantic walks with a clueless, smiling nurse and try not to laugh at how he barely lets her get a word in as he endlessly rattles off his life story and how much he really, really cannot stand being told what to do.   Nice guy to date.  You will also have to wait until the very last five minutes to get any kind of a horror movie pay off, which is so little, so late, (and so lame), that it does the opposite of saving the previous eighty-seven minutes from providing you with an utterly pointless ordeal.

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE
(1962)
Dir - Sidney Hayers
Overall: GREAT

With one other adaptation before it, (1944's Weird Woman, with Lon Chaney Jr.), and a comedy version in 1979, (Witches' Brew, with Teri Garr), Fritz Leiber's novel Conjure Wife found its ideal, on-screen envisioning with 1962's Night of the Eagle.  Prolific horror screenplay writers Richard Matheson, (I Am Legend, The Devil Rides Out, several Edgar Allan Poe/Roger Corman vehicles), Charles Beaumont, (Premature Burial, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death), and George Baxt, (Circus of Horrors, The City of the Dead), all collaborated on this version and the result directed by Sidney Hayers is one of the best "skeptic verses the supernatural as premise" psychological horror excursions probably ever done.  Hayers' direction is particularly superb, with various subtle to not so subtle camera tricks, sound cues, and visual suggestions liberally splashed around everywhere.  By giving us virtually no details, the script expertly works on the viewer's psyche just as it does on the lead protagonist's Norman Taylor, (a perfectly cast Peter Wyngarde).  Even the usually annoying, stating the obvious voice-overs work in this context as they further convey his desperate, growing doubt.  Everything is feverishly brought up to the type of conclusion that clashes all logic with a bombardment of the uncanny, not one minute of which is wasted with any cinematic padding.

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS
(1967)
Dir - Roman Polanski
Overall: MEH

On the very impressive list of Roman Polanski's paramount works, (which also happens to include three other reputable horror films), his first in color The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck really is not one of them.  Written by Polanski and French screenwriter Gérard Brach, this is a premeditated farce of the Hammer horror films and one where the humor more often than not falls flat.  There are a couple of clever scenes, humorously hammy performances, and adept costumes and set design, but only a very small amount of chuckles to be had.  The slapstick is not so much tedious as it is awkward and dull, and the page-long, (at most), plot is not playful enough with its cliches to enthuse much laughter.  The main characters, (Polanski himself as a bumbling, whimpish sidekick and Jack MacGowran as the trivially goofy professor and self-proclaimed vampire hunter), are just kind of aimlessly inept and no opportunity is taken to even give a sprinkling into their mentor/pupil relationship.  Of course viewed today, the brash yet soft sexual overtones unfortunately come off as incidentally creepy what with Polanski's real life, infamous sexual misconduct scandal.  Though at the time, these are clearly meant to be yet another send-up ingredient to the Gothic Hammer films that reveled in displaying copious amounts of cleavage.  Ultimately there are better vampire, comedy, and Polanski movies out there though.

60's British Horror Part Three

THE CITY OF THE DEAD
(1960)
Dir - John Llewellyn Moxey
Overall: GOOD

Technically kind of not really the first Amicus production as it was made jointly by producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg two years before they would launch their film company proper, The City of the Dead, (Horror Hotel), has endured as an excellent British witchcraft foray.  Even if most of the British actors are intentionally and convincingly putting on American accents.  Prolific cinematographer Desmond Dickinson seeps every possible frame that takes place in the cursed, Massachusetts town of Whitewood with pitch black shadows and enough fog per shot to suite an entire rock band's arena tour.  The typical elements of dismissive skeptics, superstitious locals, and sinister, smirking villains that ooze amplified creepiness are all present and the backdrop of a small village cursed for centuries by witches has been done more than enough times to find no surprising twists here.  Yet director John Moxey (who would also later helm the first Night Stalker film), keeps everything moving cleverly and quite briskly, making it a smooth ride to be sucked up into all the genre tropes that were still standard and charming enough then.  Though only granted a small handful of scenes in a minor role, Christopher Lee displays the type of effortlessly menacing skill that he always had in front of the camera, making his presence a very welcome addition.

EYE OF THE DEVIL
(1966)
Dir - J. Lee Thompson
Overall: GOOD

Filmmaker J. Lee Thompson would end up being behind the lens for the last two installments in the original Planet of the Apes franchise, and for Eye of the Devil, he was a last minute addition after original director Sidney J. Furie was replaced by Michael Anderson only to have the latter fall ill.  Thompson's style here is rather elaborate with numerous dutch angles, quick cuts, and perhaps more zooms than any ninety-minute movie has ever had.  This keeps the viewer on edge most of the time as the mystery becomes increasingly cloudy.  It is a minor fault that through some of the editing, the plot ends up being perhaps unintentionally difficult to get a hold of.  Still, there is a well maintained level of unease with how very subtle the actual behavior of the cast often yet not always comes across, making what appears to be normal and far from malign occurrences seem much more sinister.  With everyone from Donald Pleasence, David Niven, David Hemmings, Deborah Kerr, and Sharon Tate in her first credited film performance, the cast is certainly recognizable and efficient.  As far as any gore or shock levels, Eye of the Devil is nonexistent in both, (which is not at all a handicap), but later masterpieces such as The Wicker Man particularly would revisit similar themes and excel tremendously more at them.

THE SHUTTERED ROOM
(1967)
Dir - David Greene
Overall: WOOF

Based off the short story by August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft, (and parodied either directly or indirectly in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VII"), there is casting, setting, dubbing, pacing, editing, musical, and logical problems in The Shuttered Room.  Shot in England with a primarily British cast, the film is set in Massachusetts and Oliver Reed's heavily distinct, manly-man-man voice almost sounds dubbed with his distracting, American accent.  This seems unnecessary since either cast someone else in said role or maybe switch the location to merry ole England so everyone can talk in their native tongue.  Hardly anything at all happens for the majority of the film's running time and several obvious cuts could have been made to move things along.  Yet when the editor is given liberty to leave stuff out of the picture in the finale, it becomes very sloppy as to convey what logically should be happening.  Which brings us to an all too common problem in that several times, characters do things that are aggravatingly ill-advised.  You and your wife have been continually harassed by a bunch of jacked-up and violent local yokels since you arrived?  Why not give one of them who is hitchhiking a lift the day after he and his pals attempted to rape your wife?  Makes perfect sense.  Lastly, the jazz soundtrack is completely inappropriate which ruins any suspenseful mood that could have otherwise been created.