Taliesin meets… …Antonio Curado

Antonio Curado (Madrid, 1974) is a Latin and Greek teacher in a High School. He works in a laureate about the Petronius' Satyrica, exploring the symbolism within the bizarre world of the Roman novel. He has published several texts about the horror tales inserted in the Satyrica, including a lycanthropic one. His interest in these horror tales led Antonio to direct his first short movie, which was the adaptation The Vampyre by John W Polidori, based upon the classic vampire tale, with his friend Alejandro Ballesteros.

Last year I stumbled across the film. This was only the second film I can think of that was based on the story, the first being the loose adaptation The Vampire’s Ghost.

My post on the blog led to Antonio contacting me and he kindly sent me the short on DVD and we corresponded for a while. I am pleased to say that he consented to being interviewed for the blog. Just to note, at Antonio’s request, I have slightly edited his answers due to the fact that English is not his first language. However the edits are light indeed, firstly because Antonio’s English is very good but secondly because I didn’t want to change the voice or timbre of the answers.


Adaptations of The Vampyre are, sadly, few and far between. What inspired you to adapt the story?

Well, as far as I was concerned, I thought that there wasn’t a real adaptation of Polidori’s masterpiece. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure about it, but almost sure. I have always loved the tale and, since I was at the High School, I wished to make a movie with it. It’s just a case of love for a specific genre of literature. It would be hard stuff, really. And when my friend and co-director, Alejandro Ballesteros, suggested that I make a short movie, I didn’t have a doubt: The Vampyre. I started to investigate and discovered The Vampyre Ghost, but it’s hard for me to find the echoes of Polidori in it. I noticed that there is actually a script from 1973, which was never shot. And the most peculiar thing about it, the first appearance of Lord Ruthven (or a monster with its name…) in a movie occurs in a bizarre American movie with Paul Naschy, Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood, by Donald F. Glut. Since Paul Naschy became later involved in our project, it’s a curious coincidence.


How familiar where you with Polidori’s story before the project began?

I read Polidori’s tale for the first time when I was around sixteen. And it was disturbing stuff to me, really. By the same time, I watched the Spanish film Rowing in the Wind, which portrayed the legendary night at Villa Diodati, and the dramatic personality of Polidori (rolled by Jose Luis Gómez) had a profound impact in my young psyche. I have returned to The Vampyre often since. It’s probably one of the literary pieces I know the best. The romantic passages, the travelling around the places I love the most, just like Rome and Athens, mean too much to me. I’d read Ernestus Berchtold too (I think this is the tale that Polidori wrote actually in the Diodati competition).


The film, by its length, does summarise the story. Would you wish to do a full length film of the story, and if so how likely is it that the film will come to fruition?

I wish, I wish, but it’s not easy for me to even imagine it. You know, we are amateur directors, with no money, and outside of the common places of Spanish cinema. We are real outsiders. The Vampyre is a short piece, but you can make a long movie with it, just like Roger Corman made with the short stories of Poe. There is a good bunch of places, situations, roles…you know, Andy, we have tried to summarise the situations, and it wasn’t easy, really. We had a lot of problems doing it, and the first reason was the money. We had no money at all, and I don’t think we’ll ever have access to enough money to make a full length movie with The Vampyre. Who knows, but I don’t think so. Our first attempt making a short movie was too big by the subject and the people we have involved in it. We learned a lot, and we suffered a lot too.


What was Paul Naschy like to work with?

It was a dream firstly. Two guys with no experience convince a living legend to work with them. He’s a great man. He worked for nothing, he really believed in our project, but this added an additional set of responsibility we didn’t have when we started to think about making the movie. We didn’t want to disappoint him. The filming was hard, till late at night, with rain and cold weather. And he never complained. To me, Paul was a real legend. I admire his work and his choices, doing a kind of work not usual in Spanish cinema through the years. Then you know the man and it’s curious when you start to have some friendship with him. I have learnt a lot with him and I’ll never forget what he did for our project. He’s the first Lord Ruthven, pal, the original vampire on the screen for the first time. And we made the point. It’s an object of pride, isn’t it?


Are there any on set anecdotes you would wish to share with my readers?

Well, I never told this before, but something funny happen without our knowledge. It could have been dramatic. The vampire fangs were hard to find. We talked with a make-up expert in order to get them by the cheapest way (some people asked us for too much money). We went to a Madrid make-up office where a great professional took measurements of Paul’s teeth and did the fangs as best and as cheap as he could. So we made the movie. The sharp fangs weren’t too comfortable for Paul, and sometimes it really became a nightmare to me. I mean, I thought that I have no legitimacy making a man like Paul Naschy suffering like this (I’m exaggerating…). By the end of the filming, when it was all over, the girl in charge of the make-up (Consolación Guerrero, who did a really great job), confessed to me that the fangs were broken since the first day. She stuck the false teeth with strong glue and was praying all through the shoot that we didn’t notice. We had luck and now we can laugh about it. But if it would have happened…


I noticed several nods towards Dracula in the movie. In the dialogue you had a line about not drinking wine, Naschy seems to emulate Lugosi at one point (in his hand movements) and you use Swan Lake, which famously was used in the Todd Browning version of Dracula. How deliberate were these references and why did you choose to reference the later story?

Absolutely deliberate. You have noted that the movie is a great tribute to the classic horror films, and at the end of the credits you can see that it’s dedicated to Murnau, Browning and Whale. We have used a lot of common gimmicks of the genre, like the circles on the screen (we used them to cover some imperfections too). Of course, Swan Lake is a Dracula nod (and it’s like a miracle, because the first time we put the music on the scene, it fitted perfectly with the entire sequence, even the apotheosis was all along with the music: it’s the sequence we are proudest of, and it was so hard while we shot it…), and so the ‘drinking wine’ line (although in our movie it is said ‘I never….drink wine’, and Lugosi says ‘I never drink…wine’). It’s a freak nod for the fans, obviously. The way Paul move his hands is pure Lugosi: as a matter of fact, my instructions directing were specifically ‘to move the hands like Lugosi’. And Naschy was happy making a tribute to the great Bela. As you noted, it’s an anachronism because The Vampyre is before Dracula, and the logical thing was that Lugosi imitated Naschy playing Ruthven…but it was pretty difficult for obvious reasons, so we put a lot of Lugosian stuff into Lord Ruthven. It’s our tribute to the classic horror movies we love so much.


Some time ago we corresponded and you mentioned that the film might be an extra on an upcoming DVD release. Has this happened and, if so, which DVD will the film appear on?

A long time ago we had been told that The Vampyre would appear as an extra content to the BCI/Deimos edition of the Naschy movie Human Beasts. They asked us for a Beta copy, and we sent it to them, and waited for an answer. Since that moment, we had no word about it. And look, Andy, this seems magical: while I’m answering your questions, my friend and co-director Alejandro, calls me and tell me that Human Beasts is out on the street with The Vampyre in it! It’s not a joke. We couldn’t believe it, I mean, they could have told us something about it. But they didn’t even mail!! I suppose that we have to be grateful, and obviously we are, but I have a strange sensation. Why didn’t they tell us anything? Well, if somebody wants to buy Human Beasts, he’ll buy The Vampyre by John W. Polidori too. The BCI/Deimos editions are really impressive and I’m sure that they even have improved the quality of the image. I have not watched it yet. I’ll buy it too…


Do you have any current projects you’d care to tell us about?

Yes, we have a new project. It’s a short film too, less pretentious, I think. It’s called Sacamantecas. It’s difficult to translate the title. It tells the story of a man who falls into a hypnotic trance and sees a bizarre scene where an old witch tries to convince a man to kill a young boy and rub his body with the lard of the kid in order to recover his health from a horrible pain. It’s an old story based in real events; a Spanish psycho killer, you know. There was a few ‘Sacamantecas’ in Spain, and it could be a curious experiment. It’ll star Eugenio Gómez, the same actor that plays the role of Aubrey in The Vampyre by John W. Polidori. He’s a great actor and a better guy. He has become our actor fetish. Well, Andy, thanks for your interest and I wish to greet to all the friends of Taliesin meets the Vampyre. This is a great webpage for all the fans!!! Good blood.


Many thanks for your time.



The diemos release of ‘Human Beasts’ referenced in the interview is available





Or





Plus all good DVD retailers.

Horror Rises from the Tomb – review

Directed by: Carlos Aured

Release date: 1973

Contains spoilers

This is a Paul Naschy film that, to be honest, very nearly went under the auspices of ‘Vamp or Not?’ but, having watched the film and despite there nary being a fang in sight (werewolf or vampire), I decided this was Vamp enough to go straight to review.

In itself, that is somewhat of a shame as this is far from the best film starring Naschy but it is almost difficult to pinpoint where the problem lies. Is it the writing? The script was written by Naschy under his name Jacinto Molina and, storywise, it perhaps fails. The general story simply treads over very familiar ground, as we will see, but the actual lore is very unusual. He has eschewed the werewolf and vampire mainstays and created something that was so atypical that it might, almost, have been a Bava concept. Then again he also throws in the kitchen sink, when it comes to concepts, which is where it stumbles.

It might also be the direction and cinematography. There is a procession at the head of the film that had some of the worst camera angles in 70s Euro-horror and the pacing is languid to say the least and yet there is a zombie sequence that is remarkably effective. Of course watching a dubbed version isn’t going to help my impression of the film, but dubbing is not going to change the problems with the direction.

It is 15th century France and a procession takes a pair of prisoners, Alaric de Marnac (Paul Naschy) and Mabille De Lancré (Helga Liné), to be executed. A voice over tells us about the fear of Satanists that is sweeping the lands. Alaric has been denounced as a Satanist, cannibal, vampire and lycanthrope (nothing like covering the bases) by his brother Armand (Paul Naschy) and Andre Roland (Víctor Alcázar). Alaric is to be beheaded, head and body buried separately and Mabille is to be tortured and executed. They curse their tormentors.

Modern day Paris and Hugo de Marnac (Paul Naschy) visits his friend Maurice Roland (Víctor Alcázar). Maurice is a painter and Hugo hasn’t seen him for a few weeks as he has been working on a painting he just can’t get, all he can see in his mind’s eye are dark eyes. However Paula (Cristina Suriani), the love of Maurice’s life, is back and is with Sylvia (Betsabé Ruiz), Hugo’s girlfriend. The four go out for the day.

When they get back a couple of friends are there and mention a medium they are seeing. Paula really wants to go but Hugo is sceptical of such things. Now I have to say that Hugo was rather unsympathetic – but he himself says he is an egoist. Hugo realises that he could ask where the body and head of Alaric are buried and if there, as no one knows the answer, it would prove the medium to be real. Sylvia seems interested in Mabille. Maurice refuses to go.

The medium makes contact with Alaric, though Hugo remains sceptical. Maurice, whilst the séance takes place, starts painting and it becomes de Marnac holding his own severed head. The painting then starts bleeding and Maurice stabs the canvas to destroy it. He refuses to tell the others what happened and it is decided to go to the mountains and search out Alaric’s remains. Suffice it to say mishap follows them.

This includes car jacking, murder, body disposal, Hugo revealing he has only ever loved Elvira (Emma Cohen) – the daughter of the caretaker, Gastone (Juan Cazalilla), of his family estate – betrayal, hypnosis, a slasher type murderer and undead creatures that bear a passing resemblance to vampires, plus the zombies I mentioned. As I said the script throws in the kitchen sink when it comes to concepts (yet somehow the film remains languidly paced) and I don’t intend to look at it too deeply – however our lore needs exploring.

The head of Aleric is found at first and the casket it is in states that his sustenance is human hearts. Indeed we do not have blood drinking but heart eating. However he is clearly capable of a mesmeric gaze and soon has cast members doing his bidding. His bidding leads to his head being reattached and Mabille being resurrected. Mabille is just bones, he puts a victim above her and (after some booby fondling) cuts her and lies atop the victim. When he rises the victim is bones and Mabille is back.

The two are meant to be powerless during the day – though he is quite capable of performing some magic, when needed, it seems. However they do spend the day sleeping in coffins. They are also able to vanish and reappear at will. Strangely crosses are not mentioned but the de Marnac family have a protective pendant depicting Thor’s hammer. This wards the undead off, can break mesmeric trances and, if pressed to the forehead, will kill the creatures. Why a pagan symbol would effect a Satanist is beyond me.

We see Alaric warded by the pendant at one point and he does the genre standard cloak over the face and then turns into mist – very vampiric. The other way to kill one of them, as listed in the film, is by stake through the heart – but again this is not genre standard. The stake must be a silver needle and it must be wielded by a woman of pure heart. If this occurs, however, the undead will rapidly turn to bones.

I mentioned zombies and we do get an attack on the house by the victims (whose bodies have all been dumped in a swamp nearby, by the heroes, in a fit of non-logical pique that made no sense what so ever). However these are not your Romero standard zombies. Whilst they shuffle and moan they can also speak – family members asking for admittance. They are impervious to shotgun blasts but scared of fire and they can be immolated.

If anything saved the film for me, however, it was the dourness that creeps into the film. There is a bleakness within the general story and the ending that is refreshing in its desolation. When a key hero is shot dead with 30 minutes of the film to go you know that the screenplay is playing with our expectations. I’m not altogether sure that it succeeded in its goal as the baseline story – executed evil dudes come back for familial revenge – has been done so many times as to be vanilla, but Naschy’s understanding of the genre does shine through.

When you couple that with some, for the time, excellent effects it gets close to hitting. Effects wise I am thinking the initial beheading is really well done, the actual head in a box sequence is clever as well as being one of the best done of such sequences I have seen and a removal of the heart with bare hands actually works rather well. With some better direction (and a few less kitchen fittings story wise) this could have been something special. As it is, the film is definitely of interest if flawed. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: the Beast and the Magic Sword

It feels sometimes that I will forever be finding "just one more" Paul Naschy film to feature on TMtV. The truth is, of course, that it can’t be... but, for now, turning over the cinematographic rocks and finding these euro-horror films amounts to little bubbles of joy in my life (even if the films aren’t that great sometimes).

The Beast and the magic Sword was a Japanese/Spanish co-production from 1983 and was written and directed by Naschy. In truth, though it was the V word that brought it to my attention, it nearly didn’t qualify for even an honourable mention. Vampires are literally mentioned in passing and their mention is at the head of the film.

Paul Naschy as Irineus Daninsky

The king Otton the Great (Gérard Tichy) is in a quandary. He has defeated the Hungarians and captured their leader Bhulcho. However, despite the fact that they died like any other men, the people believe that Hungarians are “Devils – insatiable vampires who seek out victims to steal away their blood and souls.” They are thought to bring plague and ruined harvests. Indeed if Bhulcho is executed, rather than die in single combat, it is believed he will return from the dead, as will all the Hungarian soldiers who have been killed. To solve this thorny problem, Otton invites the Polish knight Irineus Daninsky (Paul Naschy) to challenge the Magyar to single combat.

defeating Bhulcho 

The fight happens and Daninsky wins. To make absolutely sure, Otton orders the Magyar’s heart to be pierced by a silver cross and his remains burned. However Bhulcho’s mistress is a witch and curses Daninsky’s pregnant wife so that all their descendants will become beasts if born the seventh son on the full moon (and it did strike me that such curses are a bit too specific to be overly effective). Thus it takes six hundred years for one of the line, Waldermer (again, Paul Naschy), to become so cursed. He goes to a wise man for help but when the inquisition’s thugs kill said sage as a heretic, Waldemar is forced to seek help from a Japanese wise man called Kian (Shigeru Amachi, Onna kyûketsuki).

wolfman

So it is a werewolf in feudal Japan and vampires are never mentioned again. I did learn, however, that if a woman is pierced in the breast by a shuriken she will immediately die and we do get a fight between a wolfman and a tiger – filmed using real tigers. The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Curse of the Devil

Regular readers will know that we do like a Paul Naschy film here at TMtV, so when friend of the blog Ville contacted me and suggested I looked at this 1973 Carlos Aured directed movie starring the Spanish horror movie great I was a tad confused as to why I hadn’t already looked at it.

Checking it made it very clear that I had seen the film and, as Ville points out, it does feature María Silva as Elizabeth Báthory and that would normally guarantee a feature. All I can think is that her role was so very small in the film that I then overlooked posting – a terrible omission and one that is being rectified with this post.

Bathory's head

It begins with two knights facing off, one a Báthory and the other Irineus Daninsky (Paul Naschy). Irineus states that the magic that Báthory is known for will not aid him against Daninsky’s sword and this proves to be true. Watched in secret by Elizabeth and her companion, Daninsky fairly and squarely beats Báthory and then cuts off his head. Elizabeth heads back to the castle, though she knows that Daninsky will come for her.

Drinking blood

At the castle she indulges in a black magic rite that involves blood sacrifice and drinking of said blood. Just as she’s taking a gulp from the goblet one of her guards comes in, an arrow in his back, closely followed by Daninsky and his men. The companion escapes but Báthory and her handmaidens are captured and executed – they by hanging, her by being burnt at the stake. Before she dies she offers one of those convoluted curses to the effect that when one of Daninsky’s descendants draws blood from the firstborn of one of her descendants then that Daninsky and all his issue will be cursed.

The wolfman

That is the last we see of Báthory but when, centuries later, Waldemar Daninsky (also Paul Naschy) shoots at a wolf (with a silver cartridge his servant puts into the gun) but finds the body of a gypsy, he sets the curse into motion. The gypsies ensure that Waldemar is cursed to live the living death of the werewolf. However we don’t get the ghost or revenant of Báthory showing up and hence she has only a fleeting visitation in the film and this is the honourable mention of that visitation.

There

The Borgo Pass

is another aspect that genre fans will like, however, and that is the proximity of Daninsky’s estate, in this, to the Borgo Pass – highlighted only by a road sign to that effect. There is also a scene of the corpses of victims being treated and about to be cremated to prevent a possible return – but they don’t return and so whether this would have been as werewolves, vampires or zombies is not actually touched upon in any meaningful way. However, standard werewolf myth be that only survivors become werewolves in turn.

The imdb page is here.

The Night of the Werewolf – review

Director: Paul Naschy

Release date: 1981

Contains spoilers

This is, on DVD, another Deimos Entertainment film and, as always, they have done us proud. The print of this is superb, it is dubbed and subtitled, plus has lots of extras. Deimos certainly know how to pull a nice DVD package together. As for the actual film…

Well it is a well produced Naschy werewolf vs. vampire flick with some nice effects, comparatively. It’s just, well we’ve seen it before as the film pulls heavily from other sources. Our werewolf, Waldermar Daninsky (Paul Naschy), owes much in temperament to Larry Talbot. There are scenes reminiscent of Hammer and even Black Sunday moments.

None of this is too bad – it is more referential than anything. The biggest problem is that the plot, with a few character twists, is essentially the earlier Naschy vehicle Werewolf Shadow and, whilst the effects are certainly more professional in this, Naschy as director cannot draw the same thick atmosphere as León Klimovsky did in his film.

The film begins in Hungary in the 16th Century and the trial of Erzsébet Báthory (Julie Saly). Convicted of witchcraft, vampirism and dealings with the devil, Báthory is to be buried alive. She curses at the officials, saying she will return. Her cohorts are to die in a variety of ways – we are more concerned with the cursed nobleman Daninsky who bears the mark of the pentagon (note pentagon, not pentagram). He will be forced to wear the mask of dishonour and then pierced through the heart with a silver dagger.

Modern day and Karen (Azucena Hernández) and Barbara (Pilar Alcón) are by the pool discussing their upcoming holiday to Transylvania with a couple of lads. They mention how their friend Erika (Silvia Aguilar) has contacted the spirit of Báthory. As for Erika, she is round at her professor’s home, played by Narciso Ibáñez Menta, and asks to take the medallion of Astaroth – said to be able to bring Báthory back. When he refuses she admits she is a student of the dark arts and strangles him. Meanwhile a couple of grave robbers have stumbled over Waldermar’s grave and remove the dagger from his corpse to be immediately killed.

The girls get to an inn and are trading to get a car. The man tries to dissuade them from their route but the conversation is overheard by three bandits who intend to rob and rape the girls. The girls drive through the countryside but a tree (actually more a large branch) falls before them in the road. When they stop the bandits come. Erika tries to grab a gun but it is knocked from her hand. We see a crossbow in the woods and the three bandits are taken care of. The girls, after Erika slaps some calm into Barbara, drive on.

They reach the ruins and explore. Karen comes face to face with a woman with horrific burns, Mircaya (Beatriz Elorrieta), and runs from the ruins. Outside she sees Waldermar and falls into a pit, sinking into unconsciousness. Meanwhile Erika and Barbara find Báthory’s tomb.

The film then cuts to a dinner party with Waldermar – using an assumed name – and we wonder how the girls met him. We piece this together but it is not good exposition and seems quite a jar in the plot’s flow. However we discover that Karen is being cared for, Erika keeps her find from Waldermar and Mircaya is Waldermar’s servant. How he found a liveable castle is beyond me. Erika has realised who he really is and knows he can truly die by being stabbed through the heart by the dagger on the night of the full moon by the hand of one who loves him. We cut to some werewolf action.

Mircaya has foreseen that Karen is the one who can kill Waldermar (something he truly desires) and the couple begin to fall for each other. Meanwhile Erika waits for the right time to raise Báthory and Barbara seems oblivious. One night Karen hears noises and we cut to a rather too protracted change scene, with Naschy chewing up the acted agonies of transformation. Karen comes face to face with her new love changing and is saved by Mircaya holding the werewolf off by means of the silver cross. He leaps through a window and when he returns, after some mayhem as a wolf and transforming back into a man, they embrace.

Meanwhile Erika raises Báthory. The scene is fantastic and worth the entry fee to the film. Firstly she hypnotises Barbara with the medallion and then strings her up above the tomb. She gets a dagger and slits her friend’s throat, allowing the blood to pour onto the tomb top. This is, of course, reminiscent of the raising of Dracula in Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Smoke pours from the tomb, then the lid levitates off and Báthory sits up. She immediately puts her fangs into Erika in a well shot bite sequence. Of course this is what Erika wanted but, unfortunately, the effect of vampirising Erika means that in the remainder of the film she is sidelined from an interesting villain to just another vampire woman as Báthory takes centre stage.

Báthory then turns her attention to a nearby grave. With a flick of her hand her brother, Otvos, explodes from the earth as some sort of zombie, mummified corpse creature. Báthory wants the werewolf back under her control (she wants his power but also, we suspect, she fears the creature that can kill her) and sends Erika to seduce him. Meanwhile Karen and Waldermar search for the vampires. The game of cat and mouse is on…

Lore wise things seem standard, with a couple of changes for the story’s sake. Certainly the vampires have no reflection and have eye mojo at their disposal. Báthory also seems to have some form of telekinesis. They fear sunlight, though these vampires are not stupid enough to get caught in the sun, and someone killed becomes a vampire, whilst just bitten becomes their thrall.

The cross (standard) burns and the burn mark remains. The special silver cross, however, is able to ward both vampires and the werewolf. A stab from its pointy end will kill a vampire stone dead and through the heart of the werewolf (in the circumstances described) will kill him. In some respects they merged a lot of vampire lore into the werewolf lore here and Naschy acknowledges that when his character dreams of being staked (by wooden stake) by Báthory.

I’m not sure exactly what Otvos was meant to be (we’ll stick with zombie) but the cross will kill him too. In fact he was a fairly pointless character who attacks once and is quickly despatched. The film does jump a little, relying a little too much on the viewer’s expectations of such films. That is almost understandable as the film is so referential but annoying nonetheless (bear in mind that the Deimos DVD is the most complete and uncut release of the film).

Everything looks good but, as I said at the head, we’ve been there before. However, this is an above average night’s entertainment. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.