Vampire Cop Ricky – review

Directed by: Si-myung Lee

Release Date: 2006

Contains spoilers

This Korean film shares much, in a heritage sense, with Hong Kong movies and is a real mix of film genres. Obviously it is a vampire movie but it is also a martial arts movie, with romance and comedy. You can also add into the mix a cop/buddy movie and, to be honest, a touch of the superhero movie.

The film begins in Transylvania at a very gothic looking castle, the camera swoops through the decrepit, cobweb festooned halls, past statues and gargoyles until it reaches a coffin. The lid opens and a vampire arises.

We see the vampire then from a strange viewpoint and then realise it is the viewpoint of a mosquito that swoops down and bites the vampire. It avoids being squished and transforms into a supernaturally vampiric mosquito and, to the vampire’s enraged cries, flies out of the castle and straight into the windshield of a passing jet, which drags it along on its journey.

In Seoul a group of cops are getting ready to raid a cyber-gambling ring. One of the cops, Do-Yul (Su-ro Kim), is eager to get to the criminals and is being somewhat macho. Do-Yul is the Ricky of the title; I guess they used the name Ricky to make the film more commercially acceptable in the West.

When they get to the gambling den it is empty – someone has tipped the bad guys off.

We cut to the airport. The mosquito, none the worse for wear, flies off the windshield of the plane and gets stuck in the back of a DHL van.

In a karaoke bar Tack (Byung-ho Son), the head criminal of the film, is celebrating with the bent cop who tipped him off. It is Do-Yul, money exchanges hands.

Do-Yul picks up his girlfriend, Yeon-hee (Yeo-Jeong Jo), at the lingerie shop in which she works and drives her to a look-out point type place above the cityscape. He is somewhat amorous but she is having none of it. Later we seeing him driving alone and almost causing a crash with the DHL van. Whilst arguing with the driver another DHL worker checks the contents of the van and the mosquito escapes. It bites Do-Yul who then squashes the bug. Now, a little plot error rears its head here. The bug survived crashing into a jumbo jet in flight – presumably because of its new vampiric nature – and yet a man could squash it by hand. We’ll overlook that, however, as it is, in truth, a minor thing.

Do-Yul starts acting strangely but gets himself home. In his sleep he dreams of the Transylvanian castle. When morning breaks he does not awaken but simply pulls his foot out of the sunlight – though early in the movie sunlight is not a major issue for our fledgling vampire.

When night falls again he awakens and his erection has caused a tent effect in his boxer shorts. Now this may seem gratuitous but it really isn’t – I’ll explain soon. But, before I do let me mention that he goes to the bathroom and, in the mirror, notices that his eyes are yellow and he has fangs. He screams, ducks from the mirror and when he looks again his features are back to normal.

The erection is part of the on-running gag through the movie. Do-Yul vamps out for two reasons, we eventually discover. Great anger causes it but, more commonly, the source of his vampirism is sexual arousal or as he later explains, “I turn into a vampire every time I get hard.” Back to the plot…

Do-Yul goes to work and arrives at a murder scene. He explains to his boss, Inspector Kang (Ho-Jin Jeon), that he had not felt well, which is why he did not show up during the day. He does not see the face of the victim but, as the corpse is wheeled past him an arm falls from beneath a sheet and starts spilling blood which he catches in his hands but then lets drain away. Finding himself alone by the blood-soaked bed he can’t help himself and is on the floor lapping the blood up when Kang returns. Perhaps Kang would have mentioned his bloody mouth until he realises that Do-Yul has found the murder weapon also.

Essentially, at this point Do-Yul realises that he is a vampire. After nearly biting Yeon-hee he goes to confession (being in a church it becomes apparent that he can stand religious icons and enter hallowed ground) and tells the priest what he is. The priest calls a vampire hunter (Kwang-rok Oh) who at first wishes to kill him but, when he discovers that Do-Yul is not a full vampire, decides to help him become human again. Of course the murder was committed on Tack’s order and Do-Yul’s complicity comes to light.

The film then follows Do-Yul trying to redeem himself, not because of his vampirism but to make amends for his corrupt ways.

The vampirism seems to follow some of the standard rules. As a newly infected vampire, he only vamps out as described above. He likes to sleep through the day but sunlight is not a killer. He does heal rather quickly. However he is killed later on and revived by the hunter, through the hunter’s blood. At that point he can walk on ceilings and sunlight burns. When he vamps he is quicker and stronger than a human and develops martial arts skills. The hunter tells him that if he drinks blood one more time he will never be able to revert to human. We can also note that most of the time, when he vamps, his eyes turn yellow. However, if the transformation is caused by anger they turn red.

The seaside-postcard comedy works rather well. One particular scene stands out. Do-Yul is raiding a drugs den. Before he goes in he nips in the toilet to watch some porn on a hand-held video (amusingly the breasts of the girl are pixilated for our benefit). When he leaves the place he is attacked and tries to watch the porn again (whilst on the run) but drops and breaks his machine. He sees a girl up ahead and chases after her. She bends over, giving us an up-skirt shot and he vamps out. Then she turns around and she is incredibly unattractive (potentially even male) and he losses his ardour and thus his vampiric traits.

The comedy also takes in slapstick elements that are reminiscent of the Hong Kong movie scene. In fact, if I didn’t know this was a Korean movie I’d swear blind it was a Hong Kong movie.

The film looks luscious and it is clear that a decent amount of money was spent on production. The various genre elements work well together and mean that you are never bored.

The actors all perform well, although the English subtitles on the Hong Kong DVD I have are a little too literal and detract slightly – this needs a proper translation producing.

What is really nice, and somewhat unusual, is that this is ultimately a film about redemption. This is unusual because the vampirism is the path to redemption, not the thing to be redeemed. The vampire, in this, is the hero of the piece. When Do-Yul was human he was without morals. He was a letch and, because of his new sexual reactions, he has to control his baser instincts (in quite a nice moment the Hunter suggests that if he canot control his sexual urges he should cut it off). He was also a bent cop; the vampirism allows him to make amends for his criminal ways. This also takes the movie down a super-hero route with Do-Yul actually wearing a mask when he vamps and making an exclamation at one point about super powers.

All in all this is an excellent, genre busting movie that has obvious openings for a sequel. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.
 

Free streaming Vampire Films on google

I have recently found the following films on google for free streaming, some via other blogs and some by trawling through google videos itself. Please note that some of these films are also available at the archive.org for full download. If there has been a review or 'Vamp or Not?' (ie the film title is linked) you’ll undoubtedly find a link to the archive page, if one exists.

The films I’ve discovered available are:

Nosferatu (1922), there are several versions of this, one is here and a sepia version with colour added to the dialogue cards is here.

Werewolf Vs the Vampire Women is here.

The Vampire Bat is here.

The Last Man on Earth is here.

Vampyr is here. unfortunately not subtitled.

Black Sunday is here.

Viy is here, unfortunately not subtitled.

Lugosi’s Dracula is here.

Nightmare Castle is here.

Finally Sorority House Vampire from Hell is here.

Happy viewing.

(John Carpenter’s) Vampires – review

Directed by: John Carpenter

Release date: 1998

Contains spoilers

This vampire movie by horror master John Carpenter was based (very loosely) on the book “Vampire$” by John Steakley and owes more than a passing nod in mood and feel to the earlier modern western vampire movie “From Dusk til Dawn” (1996).

The film is set in New Mexico and begins with a group of vampire slayers, led by Jack Crow (James Wood) and his partner Anthony Montoya (Daniel Baldwin). For reasons that will become entirely evident we will not ponder upon the rest of the team. They are at a farm house, which Crow believes to contain a nest of vampires. The vampires themselves are separated into two classes: goons, weaker servant vampires, and masters. Wherever there is a nest they expect to find a master.

As the team prepares to enter we see the camera cutting to Crow, closing in on his eyes, and to the door, similarly closing in. It is reminiscent of a spaghetti western. The team go in and search the house, very carefully. We see them fight against two of the goons in detail, enough to make us realise that killing these things – even the weaker ones – is difficult. They shrug off bullets, a stake in the head means nothing. We will examine the powers of these vampires later but, essentially, we are talking stake through the heart and sunlight.

To ensure that they are exposed to sunlight the slayers use an ingenious crossbow with steel rope and winch on the jeep system, using the winch to drag the creatures out into sunlight. The resulting reaction is somewhat spectacular.

By the end of the clear-out they have killed nine goons but found no master. We are led to understand that this is unusual and, as the slayers pull away, we see a pair of hands shoot from the ground nearby.

The slayers are staying at the Sun God Motel and a party is in full swing. Local law enforcement have provided them with liquor and hookers. We hear that the payment for the job has been wired to the Vatican, for these slayers are on the bank-roll of the Roman Catholic Church. Crow has hooked up with a whore, we later discover to be called Katrina (Sheryl Lee), and has sent her to his room whilst he goes to get drinks.

We have seen a tall man approach the hotel and, as she enters the room, she fails to notice him. Well he is on the ceiling above her. He drops down and bites her thigh, causing an ecstatic reaction with her.

Suddenly he has crashed the party and it is a slaughter. He cuts through slayers and hookers like a dose of salts. Crow and Montaya are able to escape and Crow bundles a very dazed Katrina into the van. However, before they escaped, the vampire - who we later discover is called Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) - revealed he knew Crow’s name. As they try to escape we discover something else about these vampires. They move with great speed, so fast that Valek is able to catch the survivor’s speeding van. A bullet to the head throws him from the van and allows them to escape.

As the sun comes up they crash the van and so walk to a gas station and steal another car. Returning to the motel, Crow sends Montaya away with the girl and then stakes and decapitates his dead team, burning the motel down and burying the heads some way off. He then makes a phone call asking for a pick-up, saying that the whole team is dead. He is taken to a house to meet Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell). Alba tells him to return to Monterey to rebuild his team and assigns archivist priest Father Adam (Tim Guinee) to him.

Jack has other ideas; he wants Valek and will use the psychic link between Katrina and the vampire to track him. Valek himself, we later hear, is searching for a certain black cross that can be used to perform a ritual that will allow him immunity to the sun.

The best way to describe the hows and wherefores of the vampires in this is to quote crow: “first of all, they're not romantic. Its not like they're a bunch of fuckin' fags hoppin' around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody in sight with cheesy Euro-trash accents, all right? Forget whatever you've seen in the movies: they don't turn into bats, crosses don't work. Garlic? You wanna try garlic? You could stand there with garlic around your neck and one of these buggers will bend you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata while he's suckin' the blood outta your neck, all right? And they don't sleep in coffins lined in taffata. You wanna kill one, you drive a wooden stake right through his fuckin' heart. Sunlight turns 'em into crispy critters.”

The film also has some rather cool looking moments, such as when the vampires rise from the ground, where they have waited out the sun and yet it does fall flat. There is a whole heap of violence but the story feels somewhat lacking, especially when compared to the novel. According to the imdb trivia the studio cut the budget for the film by 2/3 just before production started and the filmmakers has to re-write the story to fit the monies. Steakley has said that the finished film contained much of his dialogue and none of his plot.

The entire black cross thing seems a little too airy-fairy given the gritty way the film is generally handled and then we get to the characters and the cast. Crow is fantastic and Woods performance works very well indeed. We buy into the character, who killed his own father when he turned into a vampire and bit his mother, and then was raised by the Catholic church as a slayer. Okay he is a foul mouthed maverick, but that is what he would be given the amount of death and horror he has witnessed. On the other hand Katrina is entirely under-used as a character being little more than a psychic compass. It was great to see Sheryl Lee, as I have always had a soft spot for her, but there was little she could do with what she was given.

This makes the romance between her and Montaya seem ridiculous as the character of Katrina was too out of it to actually get any sparks going and as for Montaya, well all things being fair he should have been too busy hunting vampires to think about romance but actually it is the fact that Daniel Baldwin seems to sleepwalk the role which really kills that off. The development of Adam as part of the team also seemed much curtailed.

We do not particularly get too much in the way of dialogue from Valek, at least until the end of the movie, mainly seeing him in action. However Thomas Ian Griffith certainly looks the part and carries an air of dark menace that works nicely. Speaking of dialogue, there is a fair amount of profanity but it is just not as well written as the Tarantino scripted "from Dusk til Dawn" - the earlier film carried a wit that this cannot hold a candle to.

I like this movie, it is certainly better than its two sequels, and yet – as much as I enjoy it – I cannot help but see the flaws. Having read the novel doesn’t help (though I would recommend you do so). It is a shame that there was a great movie here that failed to emerge - and for that I blame the moneymen at the studio first and foremost. That said it remains, despite faults, an above average movie and I’ll score it at 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Music: Desmo Donté

The combining of Goth and funk may not seem like the obvious mix but Hollywood based goth/funk band Desmo Donté proved it worked back in 1997 with a line-up including Riccardo Boccanegra on vocals, Watts Yoshizawa on drums, Killjo on guitar, and Torin Monahan on bass.

Unfortunately now defunct as a band, at least with the line-up that Torin Monahan was part of, you can get a demo album - “Divinity, Soul, Ritual” - from Monahan’s time with the band for free at Monahan’s website. Well worth a listen.

They recorded a song, included on a Dracula tribute album, entitled “Into the Sun”, which is the first track on “Divinity, Soul, Ritual.”

The chorus takes in some of the major players from the vampire genre, both major genre actors and historical figures tied into the genre:

“Vlad the Impaler, Christopher Lee
Bela Lugosi was coming for me
Elizabeth Báthory was something to see
When she was only 103”

Vamp or Not? The Roost

The main reasons, having read much about the 2005 film The Roost, for investigating it for a Vamp or Not? were two fold.

Despite coming across as a standard zombie flick it was listed at Upcoming Horror Movies as a vampire flick (as well as being in their misc and zombie categories), and they are normally accurate in their categories, plus there was much play made about bats on the DVD blurb, specifically vampire bats.

The film has an interesting false midnight horror feature aspect, with well made, corny looking black and white sequences at the beginning and end (plus part way through) where the film is introduced by the Horror Host (Tom Noonan).

The actual flick itself sees four friends, Trevor (Karl Jacob), Allison (Vanessa Horneff), Brian (Sean Reid) and Elliot (Wil Horneff) taking a back road on their way to a wedding and crashing their car. They go to get help at a farmhouse but we have already seen that nefarious things are happening.

There are bats in a large nearby barn which have attacked the farm owners, Elvin (Richard Little) and May (Barbara Wilhide). However, once killed by these bats the victim comes back as a zombie. Throw in a cop (John Speredakos) and at the most you have four zombies at any given time. However, judicious use of darkness, good music effects and the fact that the human characters are also trying to avoid the bats and the director, Ti West, has created quite a tense little horror film.

So far, no vamp, however. The use of bats is interesting but I am not one to subscribe to the theory that a bat attacking a person makes a film a vampire movie. Essentially this is just a zombie movie with some creature action thrown in. The zombies, as well as being created by bats, propagate in the standard bite and you’ll infect way.

Things, however, are not as straight forward as they seem. With two survivors left and only one zombie we hear a zombie use words and laughter to try and lure a victim. Not normal zombie behaviour. Up to that point the zombies have been killed the normal zombie way – head wound. This zombie, it appears, is killed by stake through the heart, not a normal method of zombie disposal (though not unheard of as I mentioned in the review for Dracula – the series).

This complicates matters slightly. Vocally zombies only moan and a stake through the heart is mainly reserved for vampires. Yet I do not believe this is enough to classify this, in any way, as a vampire movie. So, not vamp.

The link to upcoming horror movies at the head contains a link to a trailer and the imdb page is here.

Concilium Sanguinarius - novel has been reviewed

Forgive me my ego, but I have just read the first customer review of my novel on lulu and wanted to share.

"Not just another Vampire book.

"Forget the tortured lone vampire living in the dark and enter the world of the Concilium. The author has created an entirley fresh look at the world of the vampire where, instead of being the lone, tortured soul hiding in the dark, they are the pre-eminent force on this planet capable of destroying mankind at their whim.

"Being shrewd they choose not to but, instead, through their Concilium, they guide and shape the day to day lives of their "cattle".

"There is no doubt that this is an adult novel. Sexuality drips off the pages and violence is usually only a paragraph away but the work does not suffer for this. These potent forces are skilfully blended by the author to give disturbing but accurate portrayals of the two, deeply flawed, main characters.

"This is a waltz through time as well as emotion. The plot leaps back and forward from the modern day to ancient Rome, Sherwood Forest and the Carpathian mountains (to name but a few). Whilst the main plot in the present day tears on at furious pace, the characters' back stories are filled in as a clever counterpoint.

"I don't often say "I couldn't put this down" but, I couldn't put this down. It is a real page turner as you try to see where the characters came from and where they are going to.

"Despite wanting to side with the heroine, Danaan, one cannot help but be seduced by the pathos of the anti-hero, Ymochel.

"If you like your horror dark, violent and erotic this is for you. If you just want a damn good read, this is for you too. Best of all it has a barnstorming ending which leaves the door open for further books.

"Encore!"

Dracula: The Series – review

Directed by: Various*

First aired: 1990-91

Contains Spoilers

*Directors listed on imdb are: Allan Eastman, René Bonnière, Allan King, Randy Bradshaw, Allan Kroeker, Jess Woolnough, Joe Dea. The series spans 21 episodes and the whole thing comes in at around 460 minutes.

This is a kid’s TV series and carries the problems, for an adult, inherent in that very fact but we will look at those later.

The story centers around a family unit. Max (Jacob Tierney, who would go on to play Snake in the Hunger vampire episode Nunc Dimitis) and Chris (Joe Roncetti) are kids from Philadelphia. Their mother, Eileen (Lynne Cormack), works for a bank and is often in Europe and so moves the kids to Europe so she can be nearer to them, placing them in the care of their Uncle Gustav Helsing (Bernard Behrens) who also looks after a young lady called Sophie (Mia Kirshner).

Max is, in the first episode, obsessed with vampires and decides that Gustav is a vampire and so seeks help from the billionaire businessman whom he met at a reception with his mother, Alexander Lucard (Geordie Johnson). Of course Max has got it about face and Lucard is actually Count Dracula. They keep the pretence of A. Lucard not being an obvious anagram for the first episode only. The anagram is cracked, so to speak, when Sophie – trapped by the vampire – declares, “You're Dracula”. Dracula gets some great lines and Johnson relishes them, in this case his retort is, “No, I’m Milli Vanilli… Of course I’m Dracula!”

The series then sees the children and Gustav pitting their wits against Dracula, from episode to episode with recurring characters appearing from time to time. One of these is Klaus (Geriant Wyn Davies, who went on to play Nick Knight in the series Forever Knight), a particularly vicious vampire who is also Gustav Helsing’s son.

We also meet a vampire named Nosferatu, a rival of Dracula and of course named for F W Murnau’s Classic Film. Not looking exactly to the silent movie form, this is none the less an excellent character who, unfortunately, only appears in one episode. The first confrontation between Dracula and Nosferatu leads to a fantastic exchange in the dialogue with the cracking line from Dracula, “You were a third-rate bungler when you forgot to wake up Hitler on D-Day, and nothing's changed.”

The series introduces a lot of vampire lore, some traditional and some not, some works and some doesn’t. We see the vampires move in the daylight, this at first delighted me as I assumed that the producers were following the precepts introduced by Stoker. I was less impressed when I discovered that Dracula had ensured his scientists had invented an effective sun-block for vampires. That said the series does hold true to the concept that, during the day, the vampire’s supernatural powers are curtailed.

Crosses certainly hold the undead at bay and the Helsing house has a holy relic, the Cross of the Magyar, which prevents a vampire from entering his home – thus ensuring that the characters have a safe area from which the series can continue (unless, that is, the vampire is invited in when the cross is rendered useless). Holy water stuns the vampires and makes them smoke, ingesting it kills them. They can move as sparks of light and transform into a flock of bats (animated). We see Dracula transform into a dog and one bungling vampire of low power transforms himself into a white rabbit by accident (to a derisive aside from Dracula of “Amateurs”).

Vampires cast no reflection but this is a gradual process their reflections (and ability to be photographed) diminishing as they come into their powers and they have telepathy. Staking through the heart is a sure fire method of destruction. A circle of holy water around the vampire or being shut in a casket sealed with a silver nail will trap the vampire.

The concept that a vampire’s buried treasure gives off a blue flame on St George’s Eve is held but they also introduce the idea that if it is a full moon on St George’s Eve the vampire must return to his or her own grave. Wild Roses placed upon a grave will stop a vampire rising.

There seems to be a variety of effects of a vampire’s bite. The victim, if they die, will either simply die or rise as a vampire by the will of the vampire. If they survive they might just have amnesia, or simply be weak. They may also find themselves under the vampire’s control. Holy water on the wounds will destroy that control, removing the wounds.

Several of the characters are vampirised in the series. There is a potion, with a virtually extinct herb as part of the ingredients, that can restore a person’s life and humanity if taken before the transformation is complete – this is used in one episode. Love can, on rare occasions, restore humanity. In one episode, "Bad Blood", Dracula bites someone with a rare blood type that contains an antigen poisonous to vampires, only the water from a certain spring contains a cure. When Sophie is vampirised by the person who poisoned Dracula, thus who had that blood type, it seems that the spring will cure her. (Incidentally, in the episode during which Dracula is poisoned we meet a vampire doctor named Varney - obviously after Varney the Vampyre.)

Dracula also makes zombies, though these seem more like revenants and, whilst stupid, are only killable via the stake in the heart method. Another interesting character was the vampire who despised his condition and so developed a split personality – the human personality eventually wanting to be a vampire.

Some of the additions, such as the vampire sun-gun, seem a little silly however. This brings us onto the cons. Whilst the vampire fang and eye effects are effective, the early cgi used to animate dusting for example looks bad now-a-days. The bat animations jar a little as they are obviously animations.

There are no viewed bites, this is kids TV after all, and there is no real blood to see (bar from a hip flask in the last episode). Of course we also have to deal with kids, though as the series progressed it seemed to concentrate on the adults a bit more.

The biggest problem came from the nature of this being a series. Lucard is a powerful vampire and a billionaire. If he wanted to wipe out the family it would be done, of course that would have led to a very short series. As such the plot is contrived so that the main characters will always get away but Dracula always survives. Tied in with that is the fact that the episodes are rather short, so expansion of a concept in an episode can be curtailed. That said the length also ensures that there is no room for adding in things as filler elements.

The acting can be patchy. For a series set in Europe there are an awful lot of US accents. Some of the additional characters seem poor or much too kid’s TV for taste. The kids themselves were great, for child actors, and whilst they could be annoying at times it had more to do with script than their performances. That said there two stand-out performances. Behrens performance as Helsing is superb in turns making his character desperate and haunted yet also putting across a warmth and mischievous aspect that would really make him a favourite uncle.

Johnson makes a great Dracula. There is an arrogance to him that really works and he has some great lines only enhanced by his great delivery. Some of the stand-out ones were:

Gustav Helsing, trying to save an old friend under Dracula’s control cries out, “She’s not a vampire yet, until you kill her you only control her mind – not her soul.” Dracula’s great response, “Don’t quibble.” Whilst closing a factory Dracula dictates a letter, “And although I'm aware of the fact that closing the plant in Arvennes will put hundreds out of work, and perhaps kill the town, one must realise that... it was an ugly little town, anyway.” The last one I’ll mention, whilst contemplating Government corruption, Dracula muses, “Democracy. The worst political system in the world... except for all the others.”

One of the episodes towards the end, “I Love Lucard”, builds some real depth to the Dracula character bringing us away from the standard two dimensional villain, as Dracula is too often portrayed in the inumerate films about the character, and showed some intricacies that were exceptionally fascinating. There is a dialogue between Dracula and Helsing in the episode “Fall of the Romanian Vampire” that showcases the talent of Johnson and Behrens.

The series ends on a cliff-hanger that will never be resolved as it only ran for one series (Actually the cliff-hanger is at episode twenty, the final episode is a clip-show unfortunately). However, the bottom line is that this, even for an adult, is fun and it is great to have something that, as an adult vampire fan, you can safely share with your kids – knowing that there is an edge of darkness even within the silliest excesses of the show that the kids will love. This really is family entertainment vampire style. 6.5 out of 10 for the series as a whole, though the episodes towards the end of the series veer to perhaps a 7.

The imdb page is here.

Count Dracula’s Great Love – review

Director: Javier Aguirre

Release Date: 1973

Contains spoilers

Another from the Elvira’s Movie Macabre series and another bad transfer, though not half as bad as The Devil’s Wedding Night.

We begin with two men delivering a crate to an old castle (actually an abandoned sanatorium). They complain about the weight and the fact that they have to take it into the cellar. Not getting all the way to their destination they decide to abandon the crate in a side room when one has the idea of opening it. It contains a coffin and so they open that and find nothing but a skeleton. Somewhat depressed they decide to case the rest of the building for valuables but it is an abandoned wreck. Suddenly they are attacked by a cloaked man, face unseen. One is bitten. The other has a hatchet buried in his head.

Imre (Victor Barrera) is in a coach with four young ladies - Karen (Haydée Politoff), Senta (Rosanna Yanni), Elke (Mirta Miller) and his illicit love Marlene (Ingrid Garbo). He regales them with tales of the area. They are in the Borgo Pass and it is here that Jonathon Harker and Abraham Van Helsing finally killed Count Dracula. He points out the abandoned sanatorium. It once belonged to a Doctor Kargos, a man killed when it was discovered that his patients were dying of anaemia and he was suspected of taking their blood and using it in bizarre experiments. It has recently been purchased by a Doctor Marlow (Paul Naschy). The coach looses a wheel and whilst he and Marlene search for it the horses spook, kicking the driver in the head and killing him. The horses then run off. When Imre returns they decide they have little choice but go to the sanatorium and see if anyone is there.

They are greeted by Doctor Marlow and offered hospitality but he has no transport and no one is due to make deliveries to the sanatorium for a week. That night Karen is woken by a noise, whilst investigating she comes face to face with the deliveryman, who is now a vampire, but is quickly bundled up by a figure. Back in her room we see it is Marlow, who claims that she must have seen a tramp.

The next day Marlow cannot be found – he has left a note to say that he has gone to check his traps in the woods. Now, given that he must have seen the vampire the night before and yet covered it up and he has vanished during the day we, the audience, are left in no doubt that he must be Dracula. Let’s face it Naschy is credited as such. During the day Karen, Elke and Senta investigate the house and find the diary of Van Helsing – Senta reads a bit of it but it is Karen who becomes interested.

That night Karen is reading the book in bed and, with a rather nice sequence in negative (presumably to hide the identity of Dracula - which was a bit pointless, but I reiterate that it did look good), we hear more of the plot from Van Helsing’s research. Dracula is resurrected regularly but not at full power. To regain his power he must be loved, by natural means – no supernatural seduction, by a girl who is a virgin. He will then use her blood to resurrect his daughter (the skeleton in the coffin). It is all a bit convoluted, in truth.

Following this Imre is attacked by the deliveryman and he, in turn, attacks Marlene. The vampire effects are rather good, with plenty of blood and weird looking eyes. Meanwhile Marlow and Karen get to know one another and we suspect a blossoming of romance, as does eavesdropping Senta who wants the doctor for herself in a gold-digging kind of way.

Of course, the next day Marlow is out looking at his traps (allegedly) and Imre and Marlene cannot be found. Senta manages to step in a trap and injure herself, a wound which is treated back at the sanatorium by Marlow but his reaction to the blood on the wound is a vision of barely suppressed desire – which the girls take to be squeamishness, an odd trait for a doctor.

Once in bed Elka hears her name called, investigates and is bitten by Marlene, whilst Senta uses her injury to try and seduce the doctor. Post sex and Marlow is obviously disappointed, Senta was no virgin. She also realises that he was thinking of Karen.

Karen, however, has received a visitation from Imre and it is Marlow who saves her. The fight seems desperate, rather than staged, and in the finale Marlow throws Imre from a window where he lands on spikes, neatly staked. Karen, of course, now realises that vampires are real but Marlow suggests he never realised…

I’ll leave the plot there, but will mention the ending (briefly) later. The film is sadly disappointing. The location and photography gives this a really gothic feel and the film does drip with atmosphere. We get a scene later of Elka and Marlene devouring Senta and it is wonderfully erotic without being too explicit and yet the film falls flat.

The short reason is it is rather dull. This might have something to do with the atrocious dubbing but I feel it has more to do with the direction and the pacing. We see plenty of vampiric action and there are several very beautiful girls (with, for a Euro-horror of its time, very little flesh on show) and yet the film feels lethargic all the way through. You can watch the DVD with or without the Elvira interruptions but at one point she mentions that we are in a lull in the lull – a harsh description of the film, perhaps, but ultimately accurate.

It is also confusing. Dracula and Marlow are one and the same but we are never sure as to whether Marlow is actually more mortal than vampire – until he fully turns after Karen submits to his charms (well you didn’t think she’d hold out did you – that isn’t the ending by the way). The vampires serve the Prince of Darkness and yet they seem unmanageable at times. It is made clear later that Karen’s blood was off the menu and yet Imre attacks her as does both the deliveryman and Senta. All three are despatched by Dracula but was this a ruse to make him more appealing or were they actually going to defy the Count? It’s never answered. We do see the vampire Elka and the deliveryman go for each other with some gusto, so I’d air on the side of out of control.

The ending is just bizarre and the actions at the end seem utterly out of character. I won’t spoil it but I really didn’t see it coming. Perhaps if there were a Spanish version of this, with English subtitles, it’d work better but I think the pacing would still be off. As it is I can only really give the film 3 out of 10. A damn shame as it drips with atmosphere but that is never really exploited.

The imdb page is here.

Concilium Sanguinarius - sample chapter

Just to let folks know that I have uploaded a sample chapter on my sister blog Taliesin Writes the Vampire.

The book is available via lulu - click the book cover on this post to get there.

The Devil’s Wedding Night – review

Directed by: Luigi Batzella

Release Date: 1973

Contains Spoilers

The version I watched for this review was the Elvira’s Movie Macabre DVD and the first thing to say is what an awful print. Green lines score the screen all the way through, becoming a haze of green from time to time and there are some pretty horrendous jumps in the film. The colour is so washed out that things seem to dissolve into a faded pink in many of the daylight scenes. Not that a pristine print would have helped this cheesy Eurohorror sexploitation flick. Though in its favour there are some impressive visuals very occasionally.

The story is a real mismatch of concepts and sources, and I can not really explain the film without running through it fairly thoroughly – actually I don’t know if I’ll be able to explain it even then. We start with Karl Schiller (Mark Damon), a bookish archaeologist researching a ring that gives the wearer strange and evil powers. His twin, and libertine, brother, Franz (also played by Damon), enters and quotes Poe’s the Raven at him. Karl explains that he thinks he has discovered the location of the Nibelungen ring (of Wagnerian fame). This gold ring set with a ruby like stone not of this earth (from a meteorite that crashed in the Carpathians is the theory Karl expounds) gives the wearer dominion over mankind. It’s location, Transylvania. Franz points out that Transylvania is the land of vampires, creatures alive without life and dead without death. Karl is not afraid of vampires, even if they exist, as he has an Egyptian amulet (!) that protects the wearer from all supernatural evil. He’s going to donate the ring, when found, to the Karnstein museum (Karnstein as in the vampire’s familial name in Carmilla.)

Franz is not a very nice man. He readily admits he has gambling debts. He nicks the amulet and sets off ahead of his brother. He stops off at the village inn near Castle Dracula (yes Castle Dracula, the mix of concepts keeps on coming) and orders a beer and a bed. In the inn is a strange man (Gengher Gatti) who appears often through the film with no explanation of who he is - but he’s obviously evil. Franz is shown to his room by Tanya (Enza Sbordone) the innkeeper’s daughter. She tells Franz that the next night is the night of the Virgin Moon. A night that occurs once every fifty years on which five virgins are summoned to the castle and never seen again. Franz makes sure that such a fate will not befall Tanya – the dirty dog.

The next day he goes to the castle, posing as a researcher of archaeology, and is shown in by Lara (Esmerelda Barros) and told to wait for the Countess (Rosalba Neri). Now the Countess has a name that I didn’t really catch but is quoted in the credit’s as Countess Dracula – given Hammer’s film of the same name, one cannot help but think of Erzsébet Báthory and this characters actions, later, support that idea. Franz suddenly realises he has lost the amulet; it is under his pillow in the inn and found by Tanya. As night falls he gets bored and wanders outside. There is a screech and he finds Lara dead in a coffin. A shadow flits past. He chases it to the crypt and then he’s back in the drawing room and facing the Countess who shows him that Lara is very much alive. They eat (he doesn’t seem to notice that her plate is empty) and then he quickly beds her (told you he was a dirty dog) and, during, she becomes a bat – more on the bat later.

Karl turns up at the castle looking for his brother. The Countess informs him that his brother has left (in reality Lara has cracked Franz over the head and rendered him unconscious). Karl is asked to stay the night and given wine, served by the mysterious man, a sip and suddenly the mysterious man is Lara, Karl is laughing hysterically and we hit a psychedelic scene that is beyond description. During the sequence we do get a rather good blood bath sequence (hence the Báthory suggestion) as well as a gratuitous lesbian scene and Franz entombed.

Not worse for wear despite his bout of uncontrollable hysteria, it seems, Karl is taken to a room for the night and then locked in. He manages to get out and searches the castle, heading (to the sound of a heartbeat, which brings Poe to mind again) unerringly to the tomb where he finds his brother – not before he is attacked by a vampire (Xiro Papas) who is rather easily knocked out and has the most amusing lop-sided fangs. Anyhoo, Paul drags his brother out of the crypt and we see that Franz no longer has a reflection. Amusingly when we see Karl with his brother he struggles along with him, when we see the reflection version he no longer seems to be burdened and walks with ease!

Anyway, it seems that the Countess’ plan has been to turn Franz and let him be possessed by Count Dracula. Using the ring to summon five virgins, she plans to have a black mass wedding. What she hadn’t counted on was Tanya nipping up to the spooky castle with the amulet (well who would have expected a frightened village girl to go traipsing up to the vampire’s castle at night). What we hadn’t planned on was Tanya getting caught despite the amulet – which seemed pretty useless in the main – luckily Karl conveniently finds it where she dropped it when grabbed.

He’s still not aware that his brother is a vampire and thinks Franz is playing along with the Countess. That is until Franz grows fangs and attacks. Having defeated Franz, Karl takes his place at the black mass and is asked to sacrifice Tanya (so virgins are not required for that bit of the ritual). His ruse is discovered as he has a reflection. A mass fight ensues following which he chases after the countess who is chasing after Tanya.

Tanya is cornered on the roof and the Countess bats out again. Look at the screenshot and the size of the bugger would you. No wonder Franz screamed like a girl when it loomed above him in bed. It seems a shame because, for once, it had seemed that a film (by using footage of a live bat) had got the nocturnal critters right and then they spoil it by having this giant thing created with some bad superimposing! Anyway, Karl appears and suddenly the amulet is working. The Countess backs of and he chops her hand off. She vanishes. Fin.

Not quite. We have the coda. First of all Karl stakes and buries his brother. He then leaves the amulet on the grave to protect Franz in death. Getting in a carriage with Tanya she has a look at the ring and then… well what a shock, despite being daytime, she sprouts fangs and bites him, causing him to drop the ring into the hand of the mysterious man who drives them away whilst invisible… But wait, its not yet over for we see Franz’ hand emerge from the grave and, in quite an aesthetically pleasing shot, take the amulet. Phew….

As you can see a real mismatched set of ideas that is coupled with poor dialogue and, in the main, poor cinematography. That said the hand from the grave and the bloodbath both really look very good, stand out gems you might say. Another plus is the soundtrack, really cheesy but great fun.

The acting is not good and the run of events absolutely implausible though there is a fair amount of gratuitous nudity as one would expect from a 70’s cheap European horror movie. The film is simply bizarre. The mismatch of concepts boggles the mind and I forgot to mention (speaking of the overdose of concepts) that the Countess jokes that Lara has the demeanour of a zombie and in the credits she is called a zombie – another concept to add to the list and thus an early example of a vampire and zombie softcore lesbian sex scene!

A final mention regarding the mysterious man, I do wonder if he was meant to be based on the mysterious man in the earlier (non-vampire) movie “The Devil’s Nightmare” (1971), if so that would essentially make him represent the Devil. There was just a similarity to the characters, at least to my thinking.

I’m giving this film 2.5 out of 10, and part of the score is for the bloodbath scene, which really did work well.

The imdb page is here.