Dr Satán y la Magia Negra – review

Director: Rogelio A. González

Release date: 1968

Contains spoilers

A Sequel to 1966’s Doctor Satán, this was a Mexican movie and was fun for the main reason that it pitted evil against evil. Sure there were some cops nosing around but they were simply cannon fodder at best or just plumb useless. No this is simply for the villains and so our titular hero Dr Satán (Joaquín Cordero) is actually no hero at all.

Joaquín Cordero as Dr Satán

It begins with the voice of the Devil King waking Dr Satán from his slumber. There is no eternal rest for this villain, for villain would be the correct descriptor as opposed to anti-hero, Devil King has a mission for him. He must track down the evil worshipper of Lucifer, Yei Lin. Yei Lin wants to get his hands on the Sorenson formula and Dr Satán must stop him and kill him.

Yei Lin appears

We cut to a group of henchmen, Marco, Sergio and Dea. Dea is looking at a formula and she ascertains that it is a fake. The men complain that they followed their orders to the letter. A crap bat appears at a window and flies in, transforming into the cloaked Yei Lin, for he is a vampire (though he is referred to as a wizard all the way through the film). He tells them that they need to intercept Sorenson, who is due to land at the airport the next day.

Sorensen does indeed land and is followed to his hotel by all the baddies (Yei Lin is not bothered by sunlight). They, in turn, are followed by Dr Satán , who is followed by the cops. All through the film the cops are after Yei Lin, a known criminal, but are befuddled by the identity of Dr Satán. That night the baddies break into Sorenson’s room, searching for his formula. He awakens and grabs a gun, getting a knife in his chest for his trouble.

procedure on Angelique

A group of women wait to have an interview for a position with a new doctor. The first one, Angelique, is led to the interview by a woman – later revealed to be called Medusa. Dr Satán looks over her papers, ascertains that she has no family and tells Medusa to send the others away. He eye mojo’s her, takes her to his secret lab, does a ritual and then injects her with a formula; she is now his slave.

never snack on a zombie

Both women sleep in coffins and, when they are sent out on jobs, they are impervious to damage it seems – a knife in the back or bullets do no obvious harm. Later, when Yei Lin visits them in their coffins and bites them, he is disgusted to discover that they are zombies. As for the Sorenson formula – it turns base metals into gold. Gold, we discover, was created by Devil King to ensnare men’s souls. With an unlimited supply, Yei Lin would capture the souls for Lucifer (though it has to be said that he actually seems to work for a crime organisation as well).

funky fangs

It his vampirism that we are concerned with, however. Dr Satán breaks into his home, determined to kill him by poison dart – which he fires at a sleeping Yei Lin. The dart does not kill him, he bears fangs and turns into a big rubber bat and savages Dr Satán’s neck (the zombie girls come to the rescue). Later Dr Satán says he knows what Yei Lin is, a type of wizard that can only be killed with a wooden stake to the heart – or a vampire as everyone else would refer to them.

the inverted cross

Later he has the girls back Yei Lin down with crosses. Interestingly, being a case of evil against evil, they use inverted crosses and these seem to have the same effect as an upright cross would have against vampires in other films.

As suggested at the head of the review, the reason this film is enjoyable is that it is evil against evil. Dr Satán has a funky lair and we even get a glimpse of Devil King at one point, giant wings and all. Not great cinema but absolute fun 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Blood and Bone China - The Vampire of the Villas

I hope that you are all aware of the web-series Blood and Bone China. The brainchild of director Chris Stone, the series was set in Stoke-on-Trent in 1897. One incident it used within its storyline was an actual event that took place in Stoke in 1972, which Chris Stone transposed to the Victorian setting.

the unfortunate victim

This is a short documentary about the Villas’ vampire case. On the 24th November 1972 PC John Pye was asked to go to a house on the Villas as one of the residents had not been seen for some time. When no-one answered the door to the lodgings it was broken down. The resident, Demetrius Myiciura, was unfortunately dead. In the room were bags of salt and crucifixes, excrement with garlic was outside the window. The unfortunate man was terrified of vampires and the cause of death was asphyxiation caused by a garlic clove that had lodged in his throat.

Lara de-Leuw

The documentary is hosted by Lara de-Leuw, who played the vampire Lady Victoria in the web serial, and is about the incident. I was already aware of the Villas’ Vampire, a famous case and if not the only, then one of the very few times vampirism has been cited within a British inquest. Another case, two years earlier in Winsford, Cheshire, when two girls claimed to have been visited by a vampire who sucked their blood and left them listless and lethargic – subsequently citing an Eastern European art student named Lazlo, is mentioned. This is much less famous a case, I hadn’t come across it before and there is only a little on the net.

vampires hit the press

What is interesting – aside from the fact that it would appear an abject belief in and fear of vampires led to Mr Myiciura’s untimely death – is the timing of these incidents. More the regime of the student of vampire folklore than it would be for me as a fan of the media vampire, it does strike that there seems to have been a spate of English incidents in and around the early 70s. Highgate in 1969-70, Winsford in 1970 and Stoke in 1972… It could make for an interesting exploration.

However, we are looking at Stoke here and Chris Stone lays the case out before us as you can see for yourself:

Honourable Mention: Vampire Prosecutor – season 1

This was a Korean TV series from 2011 directed by Kim Byung Soo and the first thing I have to explain is why this is an Honourable Mention and not a review. I purchased the DVD set of the series from ebay, and the set originated from Hong Kong. I suspect it might not be too kosher.

Why? Well despite the professionally printed discs in a box set with an embossed slipcase – all of which screams out professional – it is down to the subtitles. Let me first say that this is a police procedural show (that happens to include a vampire). The first 6 of 12 episodes were excellently subtitled and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. The next 6 were burdened with literal subtitles and were a chore to watch. Now normally, with poor subtitles – especially literal ones – you can suffer through and pick up visual clues as to the direction of narrative. Not so with a police procedure show, where you are trying to follow the narrative as they crack a crime!

bloody mouth

Of course, poor subtitles are an occupational hazard. However it is the radical change in subtitle quality that causes me to think that the set might have been a little less than kosher (that and the Korean TV watermarks still in plain sight!) However I don’t think it fair to review a show when half of it was difficult to watch.

funky veins around the eyes

The show begins 7 years before its primary timeframe, with a car chase. Prosecutor Min Tae Yong (Yun Jung Hoon) is chasing down a suspect in a vampire case (that saw his sister attacked and killed), but the suspect is chasing a petrol tanker driven by a vampire. There is an almighty pile-up and the person that Min was chasing is stabbed by the person he, in turn, pursued. In the confusion and flames Min is bitten. Seven years later and Min is still a prosecutor (think district attorney) and keeping his vampirism secret.

Min and Hwang

The only person, on the job, who knows the truth is Hwang Soon Bum (Lee Won Jong), a cop. He has Min help him with a case as Min can sense, from the blood, what has happened. There is to be a new team set up, a special prosecution team, made up of Min and a cop – he has chosen Hwang. Also assigned to the team is a young prosecutor called Yoo Jung In (Lee Young Ah) and a lab tech called Choi Dong Man(Kim Joo Young).

Kim Ye Jin as Soo Hee

As well as getting a sense of events in the presence of blood, Min can relive a dead person’s last moments by drinking some of their blood – this causes him pain after the vision. The samples of blood being taken are causing suspicion from the pathologist Soo Hee (Kim Ye Jin), but the fact that she has a thing for Min keeps that in check. Of course explaining how he knows certain things is difficult.

possible vampire attack

The first case involves a new vampire killing, like the rash of cases 7 years before. Min knows it isn’t a vampire case as the neck incisions are too deep (deeper than a fang could make) and down to the fact that some blood was left in the body, but he can’t say why he knows that. He also knows the actual killing took place in a room with French dolls, having seen the room when he drank some of the dead girl's blood, but can’t explain how he knows this. Some of his habits do cause a bit of tension with Yoo, but she has her own secrets (her father is an organised crime boss).

Park Jae Hoon is the bartender

The other person that knows Min’s secret is the mysterious bartender (Park Jae Hoon) at Club Blood. He supplies blood to Min – who has not killed anyone so far, though he struggles at times to maintain control – but also knows more about Min and his past than he is letting on. The vampires can go out in daylight, nothing is said about killing them but I would guess (through what we see) that excessive injury will do the trick. They have a vein and glowing blue eye thing and are much stronger than a normal human.

There are two ways to become a vampire. To be transfused with vampire blood or to be the first victim of a vampire – only the first victim is turned.

the vampire prosecutor

As I say, I really enjoyed the first half of the series. It was fascinating looking at another country’s justice system – and I assume it was based roughly around the Korean criminal justice system, with enough wiggle room for dramatic storytelling and do look forward to a time when I can watch the second half of the series with good subtitling.

At the time of this article there was no IMDb page.

Fright Night – review

Director: Craig Gillespie

Release date: 2011

Contains spoilers

The idea of a remake of Fright Night was potentially going to be fraught. I mean, I started my review of the original stating it was “a classic vampire movie from the eighties” and defying “any fan of vampire films generally not to adore this film”. So, a tough act to follow but, by the very fact that I am not already wringing my hands and crying woe to the world, follow the act they did.

They did so by changing the entire timbre of the film in the remake and making it its own beast. They kept the same basic storyline – vampire moves into neighbourhood, kid finds out, challenges vampire and looks to help from icon who is less than iconic – but they changed the character dynamics and general order of events (as we will see the vampire is already moved in at the start of the film). They also changed the general feel, gone is the campness that harked to horror films past, the comedy is more or less excised and the film feels all the more modern and “real” for it.

hiding in the slaughter

So, we begin with a suburban house in a conurbation just outside Las Vegas. On TV there is an advert for the show Fright Night, starring stage magician Peter Vincent (David Tennant, Dr Who, Smith and Jones). A dog sits atop a table naughtily snacking on food left out and then we see a boy, Adam (Will Denton), thrown. He runs upstairs as his assailant continues an attack in the room he emerged from. He gets to a bedroom and there are his parents; dead and mutilated. He hides under the bed, grabbing a gun from under the mattress and fishing the keys to the gunlock from his father’s pocket. He gets the lock off but never gets to fire a shot…

Charley and Amy

Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) can’t get his dirt bike working but consoles himself with a quick watch of his neighbour’s, Doris (Emily Montague), ass. This activity is spotted by his mother, Jane (Toni Collette), who seems more amused than anything else. She is less amused by the fact that her new neighbour has a dumpster in his yard – despite the fact that, as the realtor, she needed to get the house sold. Charley’s girlfriend Amy (Imogen Poots) picks him up for school. Jane makes a comment about his friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) having called again and, if he doesn’t want to speak to him to tell Ed. Charley comments that such an act would defeat the point.

Colin Farrell as Jerry

As he gets to school we begin to understand what has happened between Charley and Ed. Charley managed to get Amy and, as such, became accepted by the popular kids. Ed is a nerdy outsider, however he wants to speak to Charley. He tells him that Adam has gone missing – something Charley is dismissive of. Finally Ed resorts to blackmail (with information that will forever destroy Charley’s cool status) to get him to meet after school and check Adam’s house. Charley, of course, forgets and heads home with Amy, where he meets the new neighbour, Jerry (Colin Farrell). The dumpster was for renovation work in his basement and it hasn’t been moved as he works nights on the strip. Both Jane and Amy are rather taken with the neighbour’s rugged looks. A text reminds Charley of his promise and the impending release of an embarrassing video so he goes to find Ed.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Ed

They break in to Adam’s but – barring the fact that no one is home – nothing seems out of place. Ed tells Charley that his new neighbour is a vampire (leading to comments about Jerry being a poor name for a vampire and (the now almost obligatory) digs at Twilight). He and Adam had been tracking disappearances and Ed has evidence at home of Jerry’s undead status, though most of the information he has was gleaned from Peter Vincent’s website. So this is a major dynamic change, it is not Charley who discovers the truth and (at this stage) seeks help but Ed. Of course Charley does not believe him and the night cements the rift between the erstwhile friends.

Ed's last stand

Ed heads home and runs in to a local bully (and one of Charley’s new friends). Escaping him he ends up face to face with Jerry in someone’s backyard – Jerry knows that Ed has been watching him. Ed manages to break into the house but Jerry enters – he doesn’t need an invitation if the house is abandoned. Ed escapes by getting out of a bathroom window, much to the amusement of Jerry who sits in a lawn chair waiting for him. The boy makes a brave stand (cross in hand) in a swimming pool but is vampire chow.

Doris for dinner

The next day Ed is not at school. Charley ducks out and goes to Ed's house and his parents (who think Ed left early) let Charley into his room, where Charley finds video footage of Jerry – but the footage shows things moving on their own as Jerry doesn’t show up on camera. Getting home he meets Jerry, who wants to borrow some beer. Charley, very nervous now, does not invite the man in. In his room, with Amy, he is distracted by the fact that Doris is the lady Jerry was expecting and manages to upset Amy through said distraction. When he hears a scream from the house he calls the cops. They come to the house but leave happy. So, once Jerry leaves in his truck, Charley breaks in.

explode in the sun

He snoops round the house, taking pictures as he goes, including one of a coat of arms. He finds a variety of uniforms in a closet but Jerry returns home. Charley then finds a secret room with cell areas and Doris is locked in one. Charley hides and watches Jerry bite Doris then, when the vampire has gone, he breaks her out and tries to help her out of the house. The escape is fraught but – unbeknown to Charley – Jerry is perfectly aware the boy is there and allows him to escape. Jerry is amused, therefore, when they get outside and Doris steps into the newly risen sunlight and explodes – she was turning already.

David Tennant as Peter Vincent

From this point Charley goes to Peter Vincent and, whilst I don’t want to go into that in too much detail, it needs to be said that this is a very different character from the original. Drunk, arrogant and rock and roll, Vincent has collected vampire relics. The reason for the vampire orientated act and the collection is later revealed to be due to the fact that – as a boy – Vincent’s parents were killed by a vampire. He, however, lives in a denial and tries to build the idea of vampires as a fantasy thing. He kicks Charley out, accusing him of being insane, but relents when he notices the picture of the coat of arms, and that reveals the type of vampire being dealt with. His advice, however, is to run rather than fight.

a lot of teeth

Lore wise we already have sunlight being deadly and invitations being necessary (in occupied houses). This type of vampire is one of the worst and originated in the Mediterranean. They are earth dwellers and tribal in nature. A taste of their blood give the vampire control of the one who has tasted it. A bite seems enough to turn their victim – though they like to feed over time (the two things don’t necessarily gel and this is not explored further to illuminate the paradox). Death can come about through fire, staking through the heart and, as we have seen, sunlight. Holy water burns, touching a cross causes it to burst into flames and staking with a stake blessed by St Michael will free the vampire’s victims from vampirism.

Chris Sarandon as Jay Dee

The film itself works well and, as I said at the head, eschews humour to a pretty large degree. Jokes are still included but the film is not a comedy. There are moments included for the Fright Night fan, such as a cameo by Chris Sarandon – the old Jerry playing a victim of the new Jerry – and the line of “Your so cool Brewster” – which is overshadowed by its use in the excellent Bite Marks, I’m afraid. Also, a musical refrain is used from Bloodrayne. Both Yelchin and Farrell offer good performances, Charley coming across as a bit of an unthinking idiot who makes good.

Peter Vincent's stage persona

However the test, performance-wise, was always going to be David Tennant as Peter Vincent. This is a very different character but is excellently portrayed and becomes quite the show-stealer. He has managed to make “Midori me” a catchphrase and, having been worried about how this incarnation of Vincent would work out, Tennant provided us with a great character. All in all the film is not the classic film that the original is; it might be more “real” and more gritty but it lacks the same charm. However it is a good, solid vampire movie and was worth the remake. 7.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Vamp or Not? City of the Living Dead

City of the Living Dead is a Lucio Fulci flick from 1980 that does appear from time to time on vampire filmographies. Recently Leila examined it and concluded that it wasn’t a vampire film but suggested “there's grounds for argument.” Dutifully I picked up the mantle, as it were, and decided to look at the film here.

The film is odd, it does have to be said. Mixing hints of witchcraft, séances, the Book of Enoch, a Lovecraftian nod (the location is called Dunwich), zombies and some vampire lore sprinkled on top for good luck. The story is bereft of detail but Fulci makes it dreamlike enough that you don’t care and it has some of the best gore sequences from eighties horror. The arrow DVD set – as always – is a fabulous release.

death of Father Thomas

The film begins with a priest, Father Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine) in Dunwich graveyard. This is intercut with a séance in New York. Mary (Catriona MacColl), the medium, sees Father Thomas hang himself and knows the location through a gravestone that reads “The soul that pines for eternity shall outspan death. You dweller of the Twilight void come, Dunwich.” She sees a corpse rise from the earth, cries out about it being a city of the dead, has a seizure and dies.

Christopher George as Bell

Of course this brings the cops over, though Sgt. Clay (Martin Sorrentino), has little time for those there – especially main mystic Theresa (Adelaide Aste) who is connecting it all to the Book of Enoch. Even the appearance of a floating fireball doesn’t make him believe in the occult goings-on. Outside a newspaper journalist, Peter Bell (Christopher George), tries to get in to the apartment but fails.

Over at Dunwich a strange young man called Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) goes into a disused building, finds a blow-up doll and then sees something that looks like a worm infested, rotting baby. In the bar nearby the barflies comment about odd things since Father Thomas’ suicide as they speak a mirror breaks and then a crack opens in a wall. A woman called Sandra (Janet Agren) talks to a man called Gerry (Carlo De Mejo) – it seems like a psychiatrist session, that is interrupted by a girl who might have been Gerry’s other half, called Emily (Antonella Interlenghi). Emily says she is going to go and see Bob. After Emily leaves, Sandra talks about her mother being branded a witch – we hear a lot about Dunwich being cursed as it was built over the original Salem.

cracking scene

In New York, Bell goes to the graveyard in which Mary is being buried. He takes some notes at the grave (whilst dealing with two of the laziest gravediggers ever. We see, in the coffin, Mary awaken (clearly an autopsy wasn’t done on the young lady who suffered a sudden death in a mysterious situation). The next scene is really well done with her scratching at the inside of her lightly buried casket (the gravediggers put about three spades of dirt on and then left because of the time), ripping at fabric as her fingers shred. Bell hears something but is dismissive until she screams and he realises what is happening. Being a bit stupid, he goes at the coffin with a pickaxe and nearly puts it through her head three times (though it made for a good scene) before revealing her face.

Catriona MacColl as Mary

Back home (presumably after some time lapse) Bell is told that the events were foretold in the Book of Enoch and that, somewhere called Dunwich, one has been summoned whose “search for blood is never satiated.” This is the first vampire like clue then, though this is never repeated again. Somehow Bell is persuaded enough to help Mary find Dunwich – a town on no map. She tells him they have to close the gates of Hell, opened with the suicide, before All Saints Day or the gates will forever be open and the dead will never rest.

those old red eyes

Over in Dunwich bad things happen. Emily is looking for Bob but, instead, finds father Thomas. He grabs her and forces grave worms into her mouth – Emily dies of fright. In a car, teens Tommy (Michele Soavi, Black Sunday) and Rosie (Daniela Doria) are making out. Father Thomas appears, he looks at Rosie with an eye mojo highlight to his eyes and she starts to bleed from her eyes. This reminded me of Messiah of Evil, though the reasons for the eye bleeding were different. Rosie starts to vomit her organs, in a well-made and thus gross scene. She then grabs the back of Tommy’s head, breaking the skull and ripping the brains out.

back and looking rough

Long story shorter, the bodies are found but start getting up and moving around, attacking (and at times part eating) those they go after. Unlike your standard zombies, these are very rotten – more so than they should be at this stage – dripping with putrescence. They also have the ability to disappear into thin air and then mysteriously reappear. At one point Gerry is faced with Emily, closes his eyes and she vanishes. Why, I don’t know. Indeed part of their modus operandi seems to be to scare as much as to kill – given some of the activity.

maggot storm

They can manipulate the weather it would seem, as there have been dust storms since Thomas died and, as part of the causing fear aspect, the heroes are afflicted with a maggot storm at one point. We see, through Sandra (once she is killed and comes back), that they can eye mojo like Thomas can, causing their victim to bleed from the eyes and fixing them in fear. We also see Sandra stabbed in the stomach (was it meant to be the heart?) and fall down dead again.

fangs or a trick of the light?

It is with the final conflict with Father Thomas we see our most vampire like moments. Firstly there is a shot where he looks like he has fangs. Now I don’t know whether he has, or whether it was an accidental effect of lighting – but I am leaning towards the latter. We need to remember, of course, that he hung himself and suicide is a traditional path to vampirism. He is defeated by being staked (in the stomach, again, or perhaps even the groin) with a wooden cross. This causes him to rapidly decay (he was not decayed like the other dead) and spontaneously set on fire. This fire spreads to all the dead who are awakened.

Bob murdered

The film has, as I mentioned, some astounding gore. The murder of Bob, with a drill through the head, holds its own as an effect now – a truly masterful piece of horror/gore. The epilogue (if you like) is just bizarre. In Gerry we have one of the most sanguine, beardy heroes to grace a horror film and we have some moments that touch on the vampire genre: staking, use of the cross (as a stake), spontaneous combustion, ability to appear and disappear, eye mojo and, maybe, fangs. If I could be sure of the fangs I would be saying Vamp. As stands I am unsure, I really am. There is enough to go down a zompire line and it is most definitely of genre interest, as well of interest to Fulci fans. Despite its disjointed storytelling, which works hard not to tell you any background to the story whatsoever, it is worth watching.

So, what do you think on this one, Vamp or Not?

The imdb page is here.

Land of the Heads – review

Directors: Claude Barras & Cédric Louis

Released: 2009

Contains spoilers

This is a short animation and it is rather cute, though with its sung introduction I must admit that the Nightmare Before Christmas did spring to mind.

Emile in his coffin

The musical narrator of our little tale is the moon, glowing above the couple who lived in the tower by the sea. Their island is shaped like a skull – quite fittingly. On the island lived the vampire Emile and his wife. His wife despises wrinkles and so cut of her own head and now seeks a new head to rest upon her neck. With this in mind she raps upon Emile’s coffin, disturbing him from his Concertina playing.

the vampire wife

She hands him a knife and he has to cross over to the nearby island and the walled town there on. He cuts off the head of an unwilling donor, takes it back and hands it to his wife, but it is an ill fit. As the animation progresses she hands him bigger and bigger weapons with which to do the deed; an axe and then a chainsaw. With these he brings back more and more heads, but will he find one that fits and will the crow stop pecking the dome of his head?

a head donor

This was, as I said, rather cute. Bookended with verses by the moon the rest of the film is without narration, not that you need it. A nice, if macabre, way to spend 6 minutes, though the actual vampiric element is little more than coffin sleeping and fangs. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

This was a film that always struck me as seeming a wee bit too zombie for inclusion on Vampire Filmographies. However, appear it does and also it is one of the films on the DVD set Vampire Collection Vol. 2.

However, looking at the pedigree for a second, it was a 1972 film directed by Bob Clark. Clark would go on to bring us the zombie/vampire crossover film Deathdream. This does not have the same crossover qualities. It does, however, have somewhat of a vampiric opening – hence this is getting an Honourable Mention rather than a ‘Vamp or Not?’

fanged creature

It begins in a graveyard and a caretaker (Alecs Baird) walks between graves and trees. He sees a figure (Roy Engleman) up ahead, spade in hand, and approaches. The figure turns and lunges forward, his face looks decayed and he sports fangs. A second ghoulish creature (Robert Philip) appears, wearing a cloak. They pull the corpse from the grave and the fanged one lies in its place, closing the lid. The second fills the grave.

Alan Ormsby as Alan

A boat moors at an island. The people aboard are a theatre troupe, the director and owner of the troupe – Alan (Alan Ormsby, who co-wrote both this and Deathdream as well as having a role in Deathdream) – is somewhat of a despot. He has forced them, with threats to their contracts, to come to the island. They, incidentally, are Paul (Paul Cronin), Terry (Jane Daly), Jeffery (Jeff Gillen), Val (Valerie Mamches) and Anya (Anya Ormsby).

the troupe

He gives them a tour through the island like a macabre Barnum, telling them of the cottage and the graveyard. He shows them the graveyard, the paupers section were bodies are buried willy-nilly and the hallowed ground where, he claims, a man of unspeakable evil is buried. He takes them to the cottage and some of the troupe believe they hear something – unseen the cloaked figure follows them. At one point he mentions vampires whilst using a Lugosi-esque accent.

I have garlic

When they get to the cottage he explains that it has been empty for two years since the caretaker went mad and killed his wife and two children. Later he suggests there was a new caretaker hired but he hung himself. He intends – he has told them – to unearth a corpse. He reveals more. In his trunk he has a wizard’s robe, a rifle, garlic (as a bane to keep the dead away if necessary) and a grimoire. He reveals he intends to raise the dead as servants to himself. All through this section we get a lot of hokey dialogue, but it fits the larger than life characters. Each one is bitchy and flawed and they are all great fun – including the dislikeable Alan.

could it all be a joke

They head back to the graveyard and Alan picks a grave marked Orville Dunworth (Seth Sklarey) and we recognise the grave that the fanged creature usurped. He has Paul and Jeffrey unearth the coffin and open it up. He then suggests that Jeffery picks the corpse from the grave, dismissing his “Count Dracula appearance” as the weird things that decomposition does. As Jeffery goes to lift the corpse it grabs him and the cloaked one grabs a fleeing Terry…

Orville disrespected

Alan is in hysterics, the two creatures are other members of the troupe, Roy and Emerson, in on his joke. Here we leave the vampiric behind and whilst it is just someone acting as a vampire it is worth an honourable mention. From here on in we get Alan insisting on doing his ritual, using Orville as a ritual corpse. When it fails he insists on taking the corpse back to the cottage (there are comments about corpse beauty and a bizarre mock wedding between Alan and Orville – not to mention a comment, as he gazes at the corpse on a bed, about getting closer – all of which hint at necrophilia).

zombie, gut muching

However, his ritual (or perhaps Val’s, as she did a mock ritual, cursing Satan, when his seemed to fail) has actually worked but the dead are vengeful rather than under anyone’s will. They kill Emmett and Roy barely escapes, critically wounded. The dead also get the poor old caretaker who was tied up and gagged behind a tree. Then they follow Roy to the cottage and we get an under siege by zombies scenario. The question is, of course, will any of the troupe escape?

Despite the low budget and poor, poor lighting, this was a cracking little cult B. Ultimately a zombie movie but nodding its head to the vampire genre at the beginning. The imdb page is here.

;)Q