1970s Paul Naschy Part Four

SEVEN MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD
(1971)
Dir - José Luis Madrid
Overall: MEH

Paul Naschy's first giallo Seven Murders for Scotland Yard, (Jack el destripador de Londres, Jack the Ripper of London), is a pretty dull one.  A number of screenwriters were credited including Nashcy and director José Luis Madrid, (who the actor would go on to make The Crimes of Petiot with next).  While the script appropriately keeps you guessing as long as possible and only shows the killers feet or hands as is typical, it is still a pretty "eh, whatever" reveal.  Most of the problem lies with Madrid's direction which is severely lacking in the proper gusto that Italian giallos were usually ripe with.  None of the murder scenes are remotely exciting and when it becomes crystal clear that every woman we see on camera is eventually going to get a knife stuck in their stomach, (usually within seconds of introducing them), it does not do much to keep the viewer invested.  Naschy for his part is rather wasted, spending the whole movie limping around and looking like either a sad or angry puppy, depending.  Worse yet, there is only one piece of music that is played in nearly every single scene and it grows increasingly obnoxious to hear the same funky bass line and hi-hat groove over and over again, despite what one may think.

LA MALDICION DE LA BESTIA
(1975)
Dir - Miguel Iglesias Bonns
Overall: GOOD

The eighth Waldemar Daninsky go-round for Paul Naschy was in La Maldicion de la Bestia, (The Curse of the Beast, Night of the Howling Beast, The Werewolf and the Yeti, Hall of the Mountain King), the last to be released in the 1970s.  The gimmick here was to switch the location to Tibet and have a wolfman fight a yeti, (though he was also bitten by one in the debacle Fury of the Woflman earlier in the decade).  This as well as a few other fresh ingredients such as a Daninsky getting transformed by two vampire women biting him, (?!?), Tibetan pirates, a sadistic witch, and a cure for lycanthropy involving a red flower and blood or something that actually works all heighten it a bit over others in the series which essentially recycled the same plot ad nauseam.  The nudity and gore are as on point as any other of Nashy's films and one particularly gruesome scene sees a woman getting her back flayed alive.  Most surprising of all though is how comparatively tight Nashy's own screenplay is.  It is still quite rudimentary, but despite the yeti being rather shoehorned in there and the almost fairytale-worthy, convenient ending, it follows a pretty coherent thread and the slew of nasty villains and wacky details typical of a Naschy film all help it transcend most of the actor's other fun yet still flawed works.

INQUISITION
(1976)
Dir - Paul Naschy
Overall: GOOD

For his directorial debut, Paul Naschy chose the much frequented witch trials of Europe as subject matter.  Though it takes place in a historically accurate setting, (16th century France), Inquisition is not based off of any specific events.  It may as well be as it hits the same beats as many, many other films of its kind that also dramatize that long, dark period where any and everyone could be tried and executed as having a pact with the Dark One and hundreds upon hundreds of people where indeed put to death over such nonsense.  As always, the "divine" acts of the church and Nashy's witchfinder are depicted brutally and despicably.  In this respect, one cannot say that the film does not deliver when it comes to horrific scenes of torture.  Whereas it is usually common for no satanic tomfoolery to be happening at all in these movies and they just act as horror via extreme religious paranoia, Inquisition actually has some fantastic scenes of sabbaths full of naked people, blood drinking, and Naschy himself as Satan equipped with a goat mask, red eyes, and horns while sitting at a huge banquet table, foreseeing his evil orgy.  What really elevates the movie though is Naschy's very strong, low-key performance and by incorporating actual supernatural elements and playing them seriously, it shows such real life events in a more fantastical way, making it far more interesting than just another incredibly depressing, witch-murdering movie.

1970s Paul Naschy Part Three

LOS MONSTRUOS DEL TERROR
(1970)
Dir - Hugo Fregonese/Tulio Demicheli
Overall: MEH

What could fairly be described as Paul Naschy's all time silliest movie, Los Monstruos del Terror, (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Reincarnator, Assignment Terror), must have been a euphoric experience for the actor who got to write and star in a Spanish version of all of his favorite Universal monster mash-ups.  While Naschy plays his trusty werewolf Waldemar Daninsky for the third, (though second to be released), time, he is joined by one of the lamest Draculas, a mummy, and a Frankenstein monster and also gets to personally duke it out with the latter of the two.  Naschy's part is comparatively small as is the budget which was originally to include more sci-fi elements as well as a golem.  This leaves most of the running time to none other than Michael Rennie, (Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still),  playing Dr. Odo Warnoff who was sent to earth with several other of his alien cohorts.  The story is beyond laughable and involves an alien takeover by means of first using a bunch of pretty girls because human men are dumb, (or something), and then resurrecting as many classic movie monsters as they can to make clones of, (or something), to repopulate the Earth, (or something).  The fact that the cast takes it all rather seriously is actually kind of a bummer since the plot is so absurd that everyone going full schlock would have probably helped.  When characters are not standing around and being boring, it is agreeably fun, but boy is it stupid.

THE HANGING WOMAN
(1973)
Dir - José Luis Merino
Overall: GOOD

In typical Euro-horror fashion, The Hanging Woman got released under enough titles to ensure proper confusion, including La orgía de los muertos, (Orgy of the Dead, not to be further confused with the embarassingly stupid, Ed Wood scripted "film" of the same name), as well as Beyond the Living Dead, Return of the Zombies, and Terror of the Living Dead.  Paul Naschy for this one is reduced to a supporting yet equally memorable role as a cemetery caretaker with a low IQ.  The main story is ripe with silly plot holes, laughably written characters, and even a Saw-worthy twist montage at the end that is better than one would expect.  Director José Luis Merino, (who also co-scripted the movie with Enrico Colombo), keeps the pace quite brisk and wonderfully stages enough actually spooky visuals and set pieces throughout to qualify it as successfully macabre and eerie.  Enhancing some of the strangeness, the "hero" is a preposterous jackass who is quick to violence and shouting.  In the span of about twelve hours, he goes from boning his uncle's widow, (who is also a witch), to making a servant girl cry by having her undress in front of him, to proclaiming that he intends to propose to the latter since now they are in love.  Creepy zombies, black magic, and graveyards though so, yay!

CRIMSON
(1976)
Dir - Juan Fortuny
Overall: MEH

Essentially a rather poor, contemporary gangster film with a mad scientist scheme rather haphazardly thrown in, Crimson, (Las Ratas no Duermen de Noche, Rats Don't Sleep at Night, Crimson, the Color of Blood), is as unmemorable as any of Paul Naschy's non-supernatural horror movies ever got.  The actor is wasted throughout, only given a very little bit to do within the last several minutes.  Before that, he is left unconscious in various locations while criminals and ladies from rival gangs fuss over him and each other.  There are other nods to some of James Cagney's well-renowned gangster films, (White Heat particularly comes to mind), and one cannot help but think of Quintin Tarantino possibly making something interesting out of the plot here where a handful of goofy, somewhat morbid details occur and pretty much all the bad guys end up dead, (spoilers).  Director Juan Fortuny, (in his only time working with Naschy), cannot muster enough laughs or any suspense out of the proceedings though as everyone plays it too stiff and dull, plus the back and forth plot just lumbers along to its inevitable conclusion.  For the Naschy completest, there are two dubbed versions with the French one offering up a minimal amount of extra nudity, but otherwise you get the same idea with the English dub as well.

1970s Paul Naschy Part Two

COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE
(1972)
Dir - Javier Aguirre
Overall: MEH

Another lovable yet remarkably flawed Paul Naschy ode to the Gothic horror of both Universal and Hammer, Count Dracula's Great Love, (El gran amor del conde Drácula, Dracula's Great Love, Cemetery Girls and Dracula's Virgin Lovers), sees the man in the title role crossing off yet another classic monster movie villain from his list.  The editing is bizarrely unfocused, (often scenes appear to change locations before a character has even finished delivering their lines), and the dubbing could not be worse with most of Nashy's vampiric dialog reading more like a narration as his mouth literally remains closed while he is "speaking".  None of this helps the "buh?" story from becoming anything close to coherent and most of the outcome is simply laughable because of it.  That said, Naschy is still admirable on screen even if it makes hardly a lick of sense that he uses an alter ego in Dr. Wendell Marlow for most of the movie, bones multiple women, inexplicably falls in love with one within mere moments of knowing her, (a love which goes both ways), and daftly portrays himself as being both a romantically tragic figure and a fiend who willingly tortures women while leaving his discarded vampire wenches to burn in the sunlight.  Visually, it is one of Naschy's strongest works though since the undead are portrayed rather creepy and the dark, fog-laden cinematography is pitch-perfect.

A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE
(1975)
Dir - León Klimovsky
Overall: MEH

Another Spanish giallo offering that is every bit deliberately Italian in style as humanly possible, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse, (The Vigilante Challenges the Police, Redkiller), sees Paul Naschy playing a police detective and the film's straight hero which in and of itself is unique.  The budget is typically small, the English dubbing typically abysmal, and Naschy and Ricardo Muñoz Suay's screenplay is typically all over the place though the red herrings are toned down more than usual.  The over the top details are readily available though, such as the killer's twisted passion to clean up the streets and target those he sees as unworthy to live, which are namely lowlifes, adulterers, homosexuals, sex workers, and drug addicts.  If this sounds a bit Seven-ish, the similarities don not stop there as there is also a package delivered with a severed head in it.  The scattered fascist symbolism gives it a mild, political layer and honestly the movie needs all the help it can get to keep one interested.  It is not very well structured as we watch Naschy and his department try and piece everything together, there are too many characters to keep track of, and the inevitable killer reveal is anything but interesting.

EL RETORNO DE WALPURGIS
(1974)
Dir - Carlos Aured
Overall: MEH

The seventh Waldemar Daninsky entry if you count the supposed second one Las Noches del Hombre Lobo which was never released or seen by anybody was El Retorno de Walpurgis, (The Return of Walpurgis, later put out in America as late as 1976 under the title Curse of the Devil).  As usual, all of the events of the previous Daninsky installments are ignored and the character is once again given another origin, be it a similar enough one to several others in the series.  On that note, the movie hardly brings anything new to Paul Naschy's beloved franchise in any respects.  It has another opening of a witch's curse, (which is actually the best part of the film, full of wonderful, blasphemous dialog and a bunch of Satan's servants getting brutally hung off a bridge), then the Daninsky line being of course cursed with Waldemar himself meeting his end at the hand of yet another beautiful woman he barely knows who falls madly in love with him.  The phrase "seen one you've seen em all" fairly applies to Naschy's werewolf movies and Walpurgis is not bad, but it is quite formulaic and makes one question its mere existence in the first place beyond just being for fans who like to keep seeing the Spanish wolfman terrorize a village in all his bloody mayhem.

1970s Paul Naschy Part One

DR. JEKYLL EL HOMBRE LOBO
(1971)
Dir - León Klimovsky
Overall: GOOD

Teaming up again with The Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Woman director León Klimovsky who he would go on to make a total of nine films with, Paul Naschy returns as Waldemar Daninsky for the surprisingly clever mash-up Dr. Jekyll el Hombre Lobo, (Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman or Werewolf depending).  Playing out in two parts, the first half is in rural Romania and follows the usual pattern of Naschy being cooped up in a castle with textbook, superstitious villagers who of course eventually rise up against him.  While this may confuse you as to whether or not you are watching the right Naschy movie, once things switch to modern, swinging London and we meet Dr. Jekyll's grandson who has the same first AND last name, (familiar Spanish horror face Jack Taylor), the movie gets far more interesting.  Naschy gets to wolf-out in a broken down elevator, a nightclub, and best of all gets to be two iconic movie monsters at the exact same time.  His script once more glosses over most of the details with barely written characters and nods to horror cliches that while done lovingly, are still as illogical as can be.  Yet the movie is quickly paced for a change and certainly mixes up the formula in a highly memorable way.

THE MUMMY'S REVENGE
(1974)
Dir - Carlos Aured
Overall: MEH

Sadly, Paul Naschy's lone mummy movie, (not counting the monster mash wet dream Los Monstruos del Terror from 1970), is a textbook example of both lazy, endlessly re-treaded mummy film troupes and typical sluggish, Euro-horror pacing.  The production is decent enough with some effective Egyptian sets and Naschy's Amenhotep makeup is rather excellent.  You also cannot say that the movie does not deliver when it comes to gore, with one hilarious scene in particular sticking out where Naschy's title character literally smashes a bunch of women's faces into bloody goo with his bare hands.  Everything else here is a drag, particularly in the Americanized version.  While Naschy plays two different characters well enough, the dubbing on Amenhotep is laughably atrocious.  When not sounding like a parody of a cartoon villain, he is grunting like an ape which is made all the more odd since his mummy has no problem speaking words yet because monster movies, they also wanted him to behave like a mindless brute as well.  The story is exactly what you think it is, (evil Egyptian comes back to life to be evil while finding his bride's doppelgänger), and scene after scene go on with him murdering women in the most boring of ways while other characters stand around and talk in rooms.  Also the clumsy ending will probably have you laughing out loud, which was probably not intentional.

BLUE EYES OF A BROKEN DOLL
(1974)
Dir - Carlos Aured
Overall: MEH

Credit where it is do, Paul Naschy and director Carlos Aured's script for Blue Eyes of a Broken Doll, (Los Ojos Azules de la Muñeca Rota, House of Psychotic Women, House of Doom), is certainly worthy of the most ridiculous of giallos.  Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on how silly one likes there Italian-styled slashers where the reveal of the killer cannot help but to come equipped with an audible groan from the audience who can barely keep up with all the red herrings thrown their way.  It would be incorrect to call it a masterpiece, but the simple fact that this is one of the rare, non-supernatural horror films from Naschy alone makes it rather intriguing and Aured's direction is fittingly stylized for such an affair.  The blood flows frequently and brightly, there are inventive camera angles galore, and Francisco Sánchez' cinematography is often pretty good, making wonderful, wide framed use out of shadows and whatnot.  The problems then mostly lie with the derivative, stylistic genre choices such as inappropriate jazz music in nearly every scene and more plot holes than you can begin to wrap your brain around.  Also Naschy's character is confusingly handled as he seems to be a tragic figure yet also a convicted rapist who cannot help but to be violent towards women, has no problem boning one sister after the other, and eye-humps any other girl he sees.  Also he has one of those pistols that magically holds forty-seven bullets without re-loading.

1970s Spanish Horror Part Four

THE CANNIBAL MAN
(1972)
Dir - Eloy de la Iglesia
Overall: MEH

The title is a bit misleading in Eloy de la Iglesia's The Cannibal Man, (La Semana del asesino, The Apartment on the 13th Floor), which could easily be confused as a braindead splatterfest since it opens with actual slaughterhouse footage.  Once we realize that our would-be title character works there, two and two could be easily put together.  While some of the unpleasantness one would imagine does go down, (kind of), the film is mainly de la Iglesia's metaphoric answer to an unhinged mind living under the Franco regime.  While this is a noble and interesting angle to be sure and certainly something to elevate it above pure exploitation, the problem is that the social commentary falls flat due to the underwritten story.  Vincente Parra's Marcos is completely unsympathetic since he immediately resorts to killing people, (mostly loved ones and those who are kind to him), while at the same time he goes about his business while being sociable.  He gets along rather great with a rich, homosexual character, but the relationship between the two of them never gets properly fleshed-out.  The potential is fairly here for a thought-provoking be it rather gory thriller, but none of the plot elements really come together as they should.

A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL
(1973)
Dir - Eugenio Martín
Overall: MEH

A year after making the superb Horror Express, Eugenio Martín directed A Candle for the Devil, (Una vela para el diablo, It Happened at Nightmare Inn), a very different and very inferior film all around.  This is another one where the premise is rather elementary yet the unfocused writing makes everything fall apart.  As two sisters run a small inn in a Spanish village, one of them is murdering any woman who shows any amount of skin, declaring that she is doing the lord's work when she is not putting on make-up, practically licking her lips staring at young shirtless men, and prancing around in a scandalous dress unabashedly.  Meanwhile the other sister is even more screwy since she is sometimes helping her sister willingly, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes arguing with her and breaking down into tears of guilt, and sometimes acting on her own accord and murdering for other reasons.  All the while, the movie just goes from one victim to the next as we wait for the sisters to be caught which only happens when they are pursuing their near-last victim at an absolute snails pace for no reason.  There are obviously religious themes here that revolve around repression and hypocrisy, but they just come off as confusing.  Plus, the tedious plot does not offer up any suspense or creativity whatsoever, making the whole thing easily forgettable.

THE NIGHT OF THE WITCHES
(1974)
Dir - Amando de Ossorio
Overall: MEH

From the mind of the Blind Dead creator Amando de Ossorio comes another silly film with slow, slow, sloooow moving monsters, more nudity than you can keep up with, and a script that someone who has gotten kicked in the head too many times would think is coherent.  The Night of the Witches, (La Noche de los Brujos, The Night of the Sorcerers), came out in between the first two and last two Blind Dead movies and features familiar Spanish horror faces such as Jack Taylor and Maria Kosti, the latter being the only female present who does not spend most of her screen time with her bare chest exposed.  As he was often able, de Ossorio comes up with striking visuals like zombie voodoo priests and priestesses rising out of their clumsily made, stone burial sites.  There are also amazonian-clad women running and exposing their fang-ridden grins in slow motion, because yeah there are vampires too.  When the soundtrack is not playing dated, out of place, wah-guitar music, it is actually pretty creepy.  The plot and its many holes are laughably dumb, (including the asinine ending), mainly due to how every single character in it consistently makes the most ridiculous decisions possible.  These things kind of enhance the fun, but the story is simple to a fault as pretty much the same thing happens each day as predictably as you can imagine.

1970s British Horror Part Thirteen

PERSECUTION
(1974)
Dir - Don Chaffey
Overall: MEH

When a thriller only poses a half-assed mystery at best and that mystery is not even the least bit interesting, you know you have a problem.  It is also not a very pleasant idea to open your movie with a young boy drowning a cat in milk before an excruciating "let's get on with it already" opening title sequence over children singing "Good King Wenceslas" that seems to go on for centuries.  More complications than this derail Don Chaffey's Persecution, (also released as Sheba, The Terror of Sheba, and The Graveyard throughout the years), which is probably one of the most lame-scripted, badly-paced psychological horror films ever made.  The plot is all over the place, having characters be conniving villains and then helpless victims at the drop of a dime with hardly anyone's actions making any sense.  Poor Lana Turner, (in a role she fairly considered one of her worst), is practically humiliated on camera near the end as she is forced to meow and behave like a cat.  It remains unfocused throughout the entire film though just what in the hell her problem is to begin with.  Because both her and on-screen son Ralph Bates are playing such poorly written characters, we feel absolutely nothing for either of them with the breakdown and torment of both just becoming straight-up boring to watch.

SATAN'S SLAVE
(1976)
Dir - Norman J. Warren
Overall: MEH

Norman J. Warren's first horror film and the first to be independently funded by his and former cameraman Les Young's production company Monument Pictures had a working, appropriate title of Evil Heritage which was changed to the more crowd-enticing Satan's Slave by distributors.  It is a common example of many occult themed, 70s horror outings where posh, upper class socialites act out their devil worshiping shenanigans, this time operating more on the traditional, "direct decedent" angle where sacrifices, resurrections, and blah blah blah have to be made.  The filmmakers chose to shoot additional, more ghastly scenes once the film was first cut, omitting much of the expository dialog that they found redundant.  This pushes Satan's Slave squarely into the exploitation vein as it is chock full of nudity, very nasty violence, and sadomasochism towards women.  Which are all hallmarks of such cinema to be sure.  Michael Gough was a sport and agreed to appear for less than his normal fee and it is certainly fun to see him giving praise to Satan while wearing a red robe and a wicked goat mask.  The script is rather juvenile as one would expect as it is easy to lose count of how many times the unnecessarily cockamamie scheme of Gough's character could have went wrong.  Plus Candace Glendenning's main heroine falls for the "I must've had a bad dream" ploy far too frequently and easily.  All that said, it would be a lie to say it does not present an adequate amount of unholy, goofy fun.

MURDER BY DECREE
(1979)
Dir - Bob Clark
Overall: MEH

The last foray that Bob Clark would take into semi-horror was with the unique Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper hybrid Murder By Decree, a co-production by both England and Canada that was based somewhat on The Ripper File by Elwyn Jones and John Lloyd as well as Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight.  It is a frustrating film that muddles its tone too much, features a ramshackle plot, and is way too long.  The latter element being the most prominent shortcoming as the unnecessary length only hurts the end result further. Clark makes wonderful use out of his small, fog-ridden, late 19th century London sets though and he still displays a knack for menacing visuals such as the Ripper's stone black eyes and mysterious, slow motion horse and cart.  The cast is without flaw as Christopher Plummer and James Mason make a fine Holmes and Watson when they are humorously playful with each other at least.  Elsewhere, Holmes is rather uneven and comes off bafflingly emotional at the worst times when the script is getting even more confusing.  The movie then goes on for twenty more minutes longer than it should have and only gets more "huh?" from there.  It is a shame as a more consistently funny, user-friendly adaptation would have worked far better from the evidence presented here.  Instead, all of the added ambition pretty much undoes what actually works.

1970s British Horror Part Twelve

DARK PLACES
(1974)
Dir - Don Sharp
Overall: MEH

Don Sharp was a bit uneven as a director, having made a couple of OK to good films in the horror vein plus a few unremarkable ones as well.  Dark Places is one in the OK variety.  A small yet fully recognizable cast starting with the top-billed Christopher Lee and Joan Collins, Czech born character actor Herbert Lom, (Hammer's Phantom of the Opera, Jess Franco's Count Dracula, Mark of the Devil, The Dead Zone), and Robert Hardy, (Berserk!, Psychomania, Demons of the Mind, and Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter franchise), the film has some potential with a simple plot device of a dead, rich guy who left all his money hidden in a haunted house that every character is after.  It is almost creepy in a couple of scenes, but Sharp does not film nearly enough of it in any kind of creative manner.  The textbook script just kind of goes along in a predictable manner even if the angle of jumping from past to present in a single scene is still a nifty idea.  It is not a poor production and the script by Ed Brennan and Joseph Van Winkle is fairly tight.  That said, it is just pretty ordinary and instead of building on a potential, spooky atmosphere, it plays the psychological elements too straightforward to really grab you.

LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF
(1975)
Dir - Freddie Francis
Overall: MEH

The smaller Tyburn Films scored Freddie Francis, Peter Cushing, and screenwriter Anthony Hinds for their rather unnecessary re-working of Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf, here changed to Legend of the Werewolf.  Both films were based off of the Guy Endore, 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris, feature nearly identical make-up design.  Hinds also scripted each one, making the similarities between this and the Oliver Reed-stared film from fourteen years prior unmistakable.  Each movie suffers from far too little on-screen wolfman time as well as a too familiar story that even tweaked significantly as it is here in some parts, still comes off as predictably as can be.  This is not to say that a decent production cannot be made out of wholly recognizable horror cliches as many of these British studios alone had been essentially making the same handful of movies over and over again for decades at this point.  While Cushing is always quite marvelous and gets enough to do here and Francis tries to spice things up with some red-tinted POV shots, the derivative and nature simply cannot elevate it above just being another OK werewolf movie.

TERROR
(1978)
Dir - Norman J. Warren
Overall: MEH

Shot independently with the revenue made from Norman J. Warren's previous Satan's Slave, (and utilizing one of the same locations from said film), the bluntly titled Terror was a deliberately stupid, supernatural giallo-channeling hodgepodge.  The film cannot really decide if it wants to be straight Gothic horror, a simple "who dunnit", a haunted house movie, or a colorful, extravagant Italian slasher so by attempting to be all of the above, it is assuredly messy.  It is no accident that it comes off as a second-rate Suspiria at times, with Warren and screenwriter David McGillivray, (who also worked with Pete Walker on House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin), intentionally borrowing as much surface level elements from Dario Argento's masterpiece as they can.  The result is thoroughly less successful of course, but Terror is the type of movie where if you give in to its utter disregard for coherency, it is passably enjoyable.  Still, everything is simplified to the point where it becomes rather silly.  Several scenes are pointless, hardly any of the murders are necessary, sometimes they appear supernatural and other times they do not, there are random characters that serve no purpose at all, the editing is confused, the cinematography uneven, and the ending falls a bit short of being as creepy as it was intended.