Dir - Tomás Aznar
Overall: MEH
Tomás Aznar only directed five full-length movies and the only one to be in the horror genre was Beyond Terror, (Más allá del terror); a criminal-on-the-run hybrid of sorts with loathsome characters from front-to-back. The film's exploitative value is due to the icky behavior of a low-rent biker gang that murders everyone in a diner when their sloppy robbery attempt goes awry, only to kidnap a couple, beat an old lady, and then burn down her house with her grandson crying inside from the window. Both of their captors go along with such unwholesomeness with less complainants than logic would dictate, plus the female falls in love with one of the thugs that she was supposed to merely seduce. So as far as consistent character behavior goes, this is hardly the most plausible example out there, but at least the scumbag criminals remain awful, which is a shame since we are stuck with them for the entire duration. Aznar goes for an ominous mood once the second half settles in where everyone is held up at an abandoned monastery, but the pacing is comatose-inducing and supernatural occurrences are way too few and far between. There are some amazing looking undead monks or something that show up for a couple of seconds and ridiculous dialog like "You faggot, go feel up your mother!", but this is still subpar Euro-sleaze.
(1986)
Dir - Sebastián D'Arbó
Overall: MEH
A later staring vehicle for the Spanish Vincent Price Narciso Ibáñez Menta, El ser, (The Being, Ectoplásma, Psychophobia, Psychophobia: Der Killer aus der 4. Dimension), is absurd and convoluted, though possibly to the benefit of genre fans. Like many Euro-trash outings, the plotting is ridiculous and throws a number of arbitrary components into the mix. Here, a recently widowed woman starts to experience supernatural phenomena that could be the ghost of her dead husband, the outcome of living in a home where a Satanic cult once worshiped, or the result of her own skyrocketing stress levels manifesting themselves via destructive psychic energy. Some of these excuses/explanations are given proper pseudoscience break-downs while others are offered up merely in throw-away dialog, but there are also romance and financial drama plot points added to the mix. It makes for a goofy watch that at least keeps busy as to not become a monotonous bore, but the sum of its parts still ends up being messy to say the least. The performances are routinely melodramatic, (which is obviously intensified tenfold in its hilariously dubbed version), but Menta is his usual, respectable stuff even if he has the misfortune of delivering the most gobbledygook dialog.
(1986)
Dir - Claudio Fragasso
Overall: MEH
A missed opportunity was had with Monster Dog, (Leviatán), to deliver something wonderfully stupid. Directed by none other than Claudio Fragasso who would go on to helm arguably the most beloved worst movie ever made in Troll 2, his work here is subpar in a still strange yet less hilarious manner. The script is plenty asinine and there are laugh out loud moments of incompetence, but these are due to the usual culprits of cheap special effects and wretched English dubbing. While it is a plus that it contains two Alice Cooper songs recorded especially for it, (neither of which was released commercially until the 1999 box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper), it is obvious that the accompanying music videos for one of them was meant to be little more than padding since it appears twice and each time features the same relatively small amount of footage. The film itself drags endlessly and Cooper in the lead is hardly given anything to do besides talk in a voice that is clearly not his. With such a tiny budget, a generic and one-page script, plus a plodding tone that fails to take advantage of the inherent schlock value, the whole thing is a forgettable snore.
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