60's Foreign Horror Part Six

OBRAS MAESTRAS DEL TERROR

(1960)

Dir - Enrique Carreras

Overall: MEH

This Argentine version of American International Pictures' Edgar Allan Poe anthology movie Tales of Terror has director Enrique Carreras stepping in for Roger Corman and Narciso Ibáñez Menta filling the Vincent Price role by appearing in all three stories as well as penning the screenplay.  Obras Maestras del Terror, (Masterworks of Terror), itself was a television series that had previously run for three seasons, this full-length version being the theatrical tie-in that would also be re-released five years later in English speaking markets as Master of Horror, where it was dubbed and had the final "Tell-Tale Heart" segment omitted.  Though it is a fun showcase for Menta and features a few nice, diabolical touches along the way, it does not provide much of an interesting variation on the often-filmed source material.  The most severe issue is the two-hour running time as each installment could easily afford to lose at least fifteen to even twenty minutes, something that would obviously make for a tighter viewing experience.  Since such unnecessary padding is detrimental, perhaps partaking of the American version and then the last five minutes of the aforementioned "Tell-Tale Heart" will suffice.

 

LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE

(1968)

Dir - Jean Rollin

Overall: GOOD

Jean Rollin's debut Le Viol du Vampire, (The Rape of the Vampire, The Queen of the Vampires), established many of the fantastique motifs that he would continue to use throughout his career.  Originally commissioned as a short film by an owner of several local Paris theaters, it was expanded into a feature which explains it being broken up into two different sections and involving a barrage of characters who become increasingly difficult to keep track of.  The movie is anything but coherent, yet abstract storytelling is just one of the elements to most of Rollin's work, this one being his only in black and white as well as featuring a particularly fitting avant-garde musical score.  In addition to that, the usual components of beautiful women, evocative, on location scenery, minimal production qualities, and unprofessional actors whose awkward performances sit right at home with the surreal nature of everything else are also present.  The length is problematic at times yet despite the small budget, many of Rollin's later films would utilize an even smaller one which makes the results here somewhat ambitious, though not at all in a bad way.

EMBRUJADA

(1969)

Dir - Armando Bo

Overall: MEH

 

Depending on the source, Argentine sexploitation couple Armando Bo and Isabel Sarli's Embrujada, (Bewitched), was either released sometime in 1969 or 1976 and is one of the duo's numerous cinematic collaborations where Sarli is enormously naked throughout.  As per the course, the emphasis is on then boundary-pushing sleaze.  The synopsis has a kidnapped native woman who is made the wife of a brutal lumberyard owner that cannot get an erection, ergo sending her on a quest to have an Aryan, male baby with any man on earth that will lustfully satisfy here.  This bizarre set-up is treated as such throughout since Bo's no-budget filmmaking abilities mean that he is at the mercy of stock footage from one of his earlier movies, plus the editing is hilariously arbitrary and the look of a folkloric demon called Pombero is nothing more than a guy in wool clothes wearing a garish Halloween mask who is always shown in broad daylight to make him even less threatening.  Sarli's purpose seems to be as mouthwatering eye-candy as her character's lone personality trait is "horny", plus a significant portion of the running time is dedicated to gratuitous montages, almost all of which involve her in her birthday suite.  There is also a "blink and you'll miss it" homosexual scene that is never explained which could have been thrown in merely to rustle some conservative feathers.  In any event, this is a strange, Z-rent bit of Euro-trash if ever there was one.