1970s Foreign Horror Part Seventeen

THE MONK

(1972)

Dir - Ado Kyrou

Overall: GOOD

 

Long in the works as a project for Luis Buñuel, The Monk, (Le moine, Der Mönch und die Frauen), finally came to fruition some years later under the direction of Greek filmmaker and Buñuel's personal friend Ado Kyrou.  This was the first proper cinematic interpretation of Matthew Gregory Lewis' 18th century Gothic novel The Monk: A Romance and it adheres to many of the tropes of the era concerning the psychological price paid for temptation within the confines of extreme religious servitude.  Franco Nero plays the disgraced title character that is both devout and seemingly unshakable in his faith while enforcing it in a draconian manner, that is until he increasingly succumbs to a demon woman in disguise and her sexual devotion, an act which only leads him further and further into the arms of damnation.  Nero is appropriately over the top when necessary but also aghast and speechless at later intervals as if he is persistently comprehending the extent of his fall from grace.  There are touchy elements to the story, (namely that it involves the lustful desperation towards an underage girl), but Kyrou could have gone much further exploitative wise both with this and the eventual arrival of the inquisition, something which is generally ushers in gratuitous torture scenes that are thankfully lacking.

 

THE OVAL PORTRAIT

(1973)

Dir - Rogelio A. González

Overall: MEH

 

Shot in Canada by a Mexican director, written by a South American screenwriter, and co-financed by the low-budget American company Northwest Motion Picture Corporation, The Oval Portrait, (Edgard Allan Poe's The Oval Portrait), is an obscure, internationally produced Gothic horror outing.  Sadly, it is also not very good.  The presentation is squarely in line with TV movies from the era, with incessant, overblown music playing almost constantly and everything being shot in fully lit interiors sans a few exceptions where the handheld camera goes for wacky closeups as the thunder and lightning blares outside.  Enrique Torres Tudela's script takes as many liberties with Poe's source material as any other adaptation of the author's works, but the structure is clunky where the entire second act is a flashback which makes the rest of the narrative half-baked.  Even with super imposed spirits, poltergeist activity, ghostly laughing on the soundtrack, and a guy dancing with and making out with a corpse, the presentation is so melodramatic and the performances so hilariously dreadful that the entire thing becomes an unintentionally goofy mess.

 

SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN

(1976)

Dir - Michel Lemoine

Overall: WOOF

 

A star vehicle for writer/director Michel Lemoine, Seven Women for Satan, (Les week-ends maléfiques du Comte Zaroff), is Euro-trash of the most tortuously boring variety.  The title is misleading in most respects since there is no occult angle whatsoever to a story about the descendant of The Most Dangerous Game's Count Zaroff being just some businessman who hallucinates a couple of scenes involving women either being killed, sadistically treated, made love to, or just running around in their birthday suits.  There are about three pieces of music played over and over again, plus the plot is so utterly barren that it almost seems to not even be there.  As is usually the case with low-budget sleaze such as this, the naked moments slow what is already a detrimentally unengating presentation down even more, though the movie does not solely belong in the softcore pornographic realm since such exploitative gratuity takes up a comparatively small portion of the running time.  Lemoine does attempt a surreal atmosphere, but he does so awkwardly after too many sluggish bouts of absolutely nothing of interest taking place.  Some slow motion/funky synth/wah-wah guitar music, fog, and soft focus photography hardly provides enough jolts of faux-artiness to make any kind of a difference. 

1970s Foreign Horror Part Sixteen

THE INVISIBLE DEAD

(1970)

Dir - Pierre Chevalier

Overall: MEH

 

Howard Vernon returns with another Dr. Orloff vehicle The Invisible Dead, (Orloff Against the Invisible Man, Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster, Orloff and the Invisible Man, La vie amoureuse de l'homme invisible), the only one in the official series not to be directed by Jesús Franco.  Not that one would notice since Pierre Chevalier utilizes many of the lackluster hallmarks that Franco movies repeatedly indulged in, meaning wretched pacing, gratuitous nudity, women writhing around for minutes on end while the camera incessantly zooms in on their genitalia, various genre cliches, unintentional humor, and embarrassing plotting.  On paper, the concept of a mad scientist making an invisible ape man because science is nothing if not absolutely ridiculous, but the film never leans into such moronic material with a spoofing agenda.  Instead, it is all played dreadfully straight and dull, with Paco Valladares making one of the least charismatic leads that anyone is likely to see and Vernon doing little besides sitting in a chair to spin some incredibly boring exposition.  The finale throws flour on the guy in a gorilla suit while he makes cartoon noises, at which point Vernon shows up to announce that said gorilla set the house on fire and refused to obey him off screen, but even these hilariously inept moments are hardly enough to save the rest of the production.

ONE MINUTE BEFORE DEATH

(1972)

Dir - Rogelio A. González

Overall: WOOF

 

The first of two similarly themed Canadian/Mexican/US co-productions by director Rogelio A. González that were shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, One Minute Before Death is a dreadfully dull reading of the will/old dark house/premature burial melodrama with more cliches and despicable characters at its disposal than you can wave a stick at.  Utilizing the same crew and much of the cast for the following year's also lackluster Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Oval Portrait, this one starts off with a weak scare and only gets weaker from there as Wanda Hendrix spends nearly the entire thing stuck in a bed, fully conscious as her odious relatives voice their disdain for her and/or reveal their diabolical plots to inherit her vast fortune.  Most of the proceedings are told via flashback as the romantic musical motif endlessly swells over it and without exception, everyone we meet is either a backstabbing and bitter curmudgeon or some poor fool who "never meant" to fall in love with another person to excuse them for their shady behavior.  All of Hendrix' pleadings of still being alive have been done to much creepier effect in other productions and the finale's attempts at beyond-the-grave comeuppance is yawn-inducing in its hokiness.

 

THE LAST WAVE

(1977)

Dir - Peter Weir

Overall: GOOD

As his follow up to Picnic at Hanging Rock, Australian filmmaker Peter Weir delivered the ultra-moody, Aboriginal supernatural mystery The Last Wave, (Black Rain) which creates some evocative atmosphere while remaining comprehensibly void.  The frustrating nature of the narrative is directly addressed though as Richard Chamberlain's Sydney attorney tries in vain to gain any direct answers from the Indigenous people that he is trying to defend against a mysterious murder charge, with his clients either remaining completely silent or speaking cryptically.  Chamberlain suffers from a series of premonitions which relate just as vaguely to the local, ancient concept of Dreamtime which somehow paint him as a decedent of mystical spirits, yet none of this gets either he or the audience any closer to pragmatic conclusions.  Weir adopts a severe tone, omitting humor almost entirely and letting the didgeridoo soundtrack work its ominous magic.  The cultural juxtaposition between the Aboriginal people's otherwordly, ancient customs and the established Victorian settlers contemporary set of laws and leisure remains a driving undercurrent.  It all might be too impenetrable to connect  in an emotional manner, but as more of a sensory, imaginative experience, it is chillingly successful.

1960s Mexican Horror Part Five - (Rogelio A. González Edition)

THE SHIP OF MONSTERS

(1960)
Overall: GOOD

Director Rogelio A. González first of two-back-to-back horrorish comedies from the 1960s and the more overtly goofy of them, The Ship of Monsters, (La nave de los monstruos), also fuses science fiction, Westerns, and musicals together in a daft hybrid that is unlike any other campy, Mexican B-movie from the era.  Singing cowboys, alien babes from Venus who are also vampires apparently, an assortment of different monsters that are held captive and also all speak Spanish, and a clunky robot all somehow manage to co-mingle in a story that is just as ridiculous as its ingredients hint at, with the scantily-clad Venus women sent on a mission to abduct the most handsome Earth men in order to mate with them.  While its camp appeal is undeniable, it works best as a hilarious mix-mash of desperate elements that are each not taken seriously yet also not delivered in an aggressively moronic fashion. Eulalio González is likeable as the gun-slinging serenader, the tacky set and monster design is charmingly D-rent, and the whole thing is intentionally ridiculous enough to keep the viewer's interest.  More "What the hell am I watching?" than conventionally funny, but any fan of genre trash will delight in watching several variations of it fight each other for screen time.

 

SKELETON OF MRS. MORALES
(1960)
Overall: GOOD

A delightfully macabre black comedy from Mexican director Rogelio A. González, Skeleton of Mrs. Morales, (El Esqueleto de la señora Morales), is notable for the country's time period, both for its unwholesome subject matter and the expertly handled presentation of it.  Made in an era where Aztec mummies and luchador heroes supplied most of the ingredients for genre movies, this adaptation of Arthur Machen's 1927 short story "The Islington Mystery" offers up its disturbed scenario with its tongue in cheek instead of overbearing the audience with low-rent, laughable camp.  Though González' take on the material is humorous, the film never lets its comedic elements become overpowering or obnoxiously goofy, instead focusing on a dysfunctional couple that seems to have ensnared itself due to the devoutly religious dogma followed by Amparo Rivelles's crippled, mentally unstable wife.  While Rivelle's character is clearly meant to be the domineering one and Arturo de Córdova is set up as the carefree husband whose relatable demands on his marriage are reasonable by comparison, both are self-loathing, selfish, and flawed in their own respective rights, though degrees certainly vary.  This makes the final act ghastly and tragic, yet also in keeping with the kind of morally uncomfortable hilarity that only the best twisted comedies can deliver, since we root for the inexcusable actions while chuckling at everyone somehow meeting their maker in the end.

 

DR. SATAN VS. BLACK MAGIC

(1968)

Overall: MEH

 

A color sequel to Miguel Morayta's Dr. Satan, Dr. Satan vs. Black Magic, (Dr. Satán y la magia negra, Dr. Satan and the Black Magic), finds Rogelio A. González taking over as director, though the results have similar weaknesses and strengths.  Another mad scientist/supernatural horror/crime movie mash-up, the title doctor, (once again played by a stone-faced Joaquín Cordero), squares off against an Asian practitioner of the mystic arts who also happens to be a vampire that can walk around freely in the sunlight yet still shapeshift into a rubber bat while wearing a Dracula cape.  Both parties are after a formula that can create gold, (a formula that Lucifer himself has tasked Cordero with obtaining for whatever reason), and the entire movie plays out as a game of one-upmanship between them.  Some of the particulars are quirky and fun like Dr. Satan utilizing two mind controlled women zombies and Noé Murayama's kind-of-undead opponent meeting his doom after upside-down crosses are shown to him instead of the traditional upright ones.  The structure is monotonous and grows less exciting as it goes on, with long, unhurried talking scenes making up the bulk of the proceedings.  Still, it has occasional moments of atmospheric campiness to admire as did the first entry in the series and it is at least not a complete narrative re-hash.