Happy Birthday Leon Klimovsky!

Yes, today would have been the 103rd birthday of Argentine director León Klimovsky, who made his mark in Spanish cinema partly by collaborating with the legendary, endlessly prolific and creative Spanish horror icon that we just LOVE to gush over here on Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies, Jacinto "Mighty Mighty" Molina, aka Paul "Fucking" Naschy.

"Of course I got to touch the pecs! I RULE!"

In celebration, please enjoy these reviews of some of Klimovsky's horror output, previously on MMMMMovies:

• The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman (1971)
• Dr. Jekyll and the Wolf Man (1972)
  
• The Dracula Saga (1972)
• Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)
  
• The Devil's Possessed (1974)

Also, go on over to the erudite, entertaining, and intimidating-with-his-intelligence Arbogast on Film to read a fascinating consideration of the lesbonic subtext in WWvVW (an acronym I never get tired of typing), as part of Arbogast's "31 Screams" series--which should be a daily click for horror geeks all through October:

Arbogast on Film: 31 Screams--Gaby Fuchs

So break out the Sangria, hire some gypsy dancers, and bid feliz cumpleaños a Señor Klimovsky!

MORE MADNESS...

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Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf (1972): or, You Can't Run, But You Can Hyde

Oh, Paul Naschy--have I told you lately that I love you?

That fateful day a couple of years ago, when I went down to my local dollar store and discovered the untold riches of Vengeance of the Zombies and Paul Naschy, is now justly famous in MMMMMovies lore. There's a reason that film was the first praised and enshrined on this site--for without it, this outpost of the Vicarage and the Duchy would almost certainly not exist.

What's lesser known is that in that same batch of movies was a werewolf double-feature bearing a copy of the 1972 Paul Naschy monster-mash Dr. Jekyll and the Wolf Man, directed by Paul's frequent collaborator, the recently lauded León Klimovsky. The sixth movie in Naschy's famous Waldemar Daninsky Werewolf Saga, DJvWM is sandwiched between the wild and woolly craziness of Fury of the Wolfman and the elegant artistic excellence of Curse of the Devil--and though it shares more in tone and content with the former than the latter, it's still got the childlike enthusiasm, go-for-broke kitchen-sink attitude, and flashes of almost-brilliance that make even a lesser Naschy flick an uncontrollable joy-storm--at least for someone like me.

We open in an opulent mansion somewhere in London, where late-middle-aged businessman Imre Kosta (José Marco) is hosting a dinner party and waxing nostalgic about his home town back in Transylvania. Having recently wedded trophy wife Justine--the ridiculously hot Shirley Corrigan, who would later appear in the more-than-decent Devil's Nightmare--he's decided to take her back to the old village on their honeymoon. Though his guests scoff at the idea and make fun of the old legends of vampires and werewolves, a blast of wind flings open a window and knocks over the bust of a satyr, obviously expressing supernatural disapproval at Imre's guests' lack of manners.

Next thing you know Imre and Justine are cruising the sheep-runs of outer Transylvania in their Rolls Royce, which you just know is going to draw the wrong kind of attention. It's the dead of winter, and once the snow starts dropping, the Rolls starts stopping. While Imre fiddles with the engine, Justine (working the pink-top/black-skirt ensemble under an AMAZING fur-edged coat) goes off to explore a nearby hovel, wherein she is horrified by the sudden appearance of a disfigured hobo! She flees back into Imre's arms, and soon they're off again, the hobo waving them a fond farewell.

What's pink, black, and awesome?

Soon they've arrived at the village of Baliavasta, Imre's home town where, as always, time apparently came to a stop around 1490. They get lodgings at the only Inn in town, run by Crazy Ralph-prototype Gyogyo (whose real name, Bernabe Barta Barri, is almost as fun to say). The innkeeper tells them the story of the hobo, who was apparently a wealthy pillar of the community until somehow popular opinion turned ("They even set his dogs against him!" goes Gyogyo) and the villagers burned down his house for some reason, rendering him a scarred homeless feeb "who wanders around the area like a living dead man!" When Gyogyo learns of Imre's plan to visit the old cemetery to pay his respects to his ancestors, he warns the businessman against it, and further tells him not even to THINK about visiting "The Black Castle" nearby. At a neighboring table, a group of unsavory looking villagers eyes the rich man hungrily, and we all know where this is headed.

At the cemetery Imre finds the family crypt (marked FEDALMATUNK, for some reason--maybe they sold ad space). The old cemetery is AWESOME, btw, with decrepit tombstones, wiry scrub growing on the graves, and skulls absolutely LITTERING the ground near the cemetery wall! Fire your caretakers, guys! I have to stop here and say that Justine arrives wearing another amazing outfit*, super-short skirt and over-the-knee high-heeled boots striking just the right somber note. (I can just imagine the conversation in their inn suite: "Yes, this is what I'm wearing. I want to pay my respects in the SEXIEST WAY POSSIBLE." God, I love Europe.)

*In point of fact, Justine's outfits are great throughout--Costuminatrix, you need to see this one! ;)

Yes, as any Naschyphile could have predicted, the ruffians from the inn have followed the honeymooners out to the cemetery and proceed to loot the Rolls. Imre runs to protect his property, ignoring Justine's frantic but eminently reasonable advice NOT to, and gets stuck like a pig for his trouble, expiring as his wife screams. The robbers close in around Justine with more than money on their mind, and it seems like she's doomed to a fate of death by sheepherder rape when--look, out on the plain! Is it a wolf? Is it an ox? NO, IT'S NASCHY TO THE RESCUE!

"Get ready for The Hurting, boys."

Say what you will about his plots, but my man Jacinto KNOWS how to make an entrance. He shows up out of freakin' NOWHERE, dressed in tight black pants and a tighter black turleneck. Like a superhero he leaps in to rescue the damsel in distress--but his rescue quickly devolves into a KILL-CRAZY RAMPAGE! He picks up one of the highwaymen and literally squeezes him to death, blood flowing from the man's mouth as Paul crushes him with his love. He then knocks another criminal to the ground, picks up a large jagged rock and drops it on the hapless robber's face! SPLAT! And he's not even a freaking werewolf at this point!

Having seen quite enough, the remaining highwayman, Otvos, turns around and hightails it back to Baliavasta, counting himself lucky that his internal organs are still internal. His work done, Naschy picks up the long-since-fainted Justine and totes her back to The Black Castle, which is of course Chez Daninsky.

Sometime later Justine awakens in a sumptuous bedroom, a candelabra flickering on the bedside table, just begging to be taken wandering through the darkened house. Wander she does, dressed now in a flowing black nightie that one can only assume Paul picked out and dressed her in. Seeing Imre's body laid out on the table in the dining hall and Paul pacing around it, Justine freaks and runs. Paul chases her into the crypt, where Justine is startled by her old friend the disfigured hobo, who I just knew was going to pop up again. Somehow they get Justine back to her room (a kindly old woman--Uswika Bathory, no relation--is there for the assist), and Paul and the hobo bury Imre in his native soil.

Meanwhile, back at the inn, Otvos is mustering a new gang in hopes of getting revenge on Paul for having killed his brother and for making him ruin a brand new set of underclothes. Gyogyo offers more helpful history, claiming that the witch Uswika "breastfed the monster who lives in the castle!" meaning Paul. They plan their vengeance, not being nearly as worried as they should that the night appointed for their attack just happens to be the first night of the full moon--a lack of foresight they'll soon come to regret.

After a dose of that famous sampled wolf howl and an extreme close-up of a stuffed owl outta nowhere, we join the highwaymen in the cemetery. Soon they're also joined by a slavering werewolf with huge pectoral muscles! Wouldn't you just know it? The shotguns, they do NOTHING, and the wolf man quickly makes mincemeat out of the gang, even stopping long enough to pull a strip of human jerky from one of their necks. Otvo is the sole survivor/escapee again, and as he leaves Paul breaks his shotgun in HALF and throws it down to show his contempt for conventional weaponry. Awesome.

"WALPURGIS NACHT, BITCHEZ!"

Back in the castle, Justine wakes up and is greeted by Uswika, who doesn't seem all that bad for a member of the Devil's La Leche League. She eventually tells Justine about the Daninsky family history, hinting that "Waldemar is...very ill." Just how ill becomes apparent when Justine witnesses his transformation from her balcony window, all done typically with shadows and convulsions--not too hi-tech, but it gets the job done.

Now that we've got THAT out of the way, Otvos is still thirsting for revenge, this time escalating hostilities by assembling a full-on torch-bearing mob to go after the werewolf. He whets the crowd's appetite for bloodlust by amazingly pulling Uswika's disembodied head out of a sack! ("I surprised her on the way over here!" he explains--I'll just bet!) Silver bullets are made and the villagers attack, though luckily for Waldemar they can't hit the broad side of a massive pec. Paul finally throttles Otvos--again in human form, he needs no claws to take out this garbage--pushes the murdered body of the disfigured hobo out of the front seat of the Rolls, and he and Justine take off into the distance, the mob satisfied just to let them leave.

You may have noticed that's an awful lot of plot without a single mention of the esteemed Dr. J, and it's not for nothing--at this point we're more than 35 minutes in to a 76 minute movie (my version is sadly cut) and so far it's been all werewolf, no scientist. But that's about to change as the newly widowed Justine takes the newly orphaned and homeless Waldemar back to London and gets proactive about his whole "lunar-triggered murderous man-beast" problem by calling in a solid from one of her friends.

Otvos gives the best head in the Carpathians

Turns out Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jack Taylor, veteran of Jess Franco joints Succubus, Jess Franco's Dracula, and Female Vampire, not to mention many other memorable 70s horrors including Satan's Sadists and the unforgettable Pieces) was one of the guests at the opening dinner party, a fact we had no way of knowing until we see him again behind an office door with a placard reading, helpfully, "Dr. Jekyll." Sporting another fabulous outfit, this time with an amazing 70s hat, Justine is obviously not going to take no for an answer. Dr. Jekyll agrees to help Waldemar and quickly develops a fool-proof plan. He will inject Daninsky with some of his grandfather's good/evil separator-elixir on the night of the next full moon; if Hyde is stronger than the werewolf, then Daninsky will transform into Hyde, and a shot of the antidote will wipe out both the lycanthropy and the Hyde-osity in one swell foop! There's a reason this guy graduated at the top of his class, you'll agree. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

(After Justine leaves, Mirta Miller as Dr. J's sexy assistant Sandra makes her appearance, and we learn that while she's in love with the good doctor, Doc is carrying a torch for Justine--the fact that she's moved from his friend Imre to this muscle-bound lycanthrope without making a stop at Jekyllville seems not to sit well...)

Brimming with Sexy

After a brief and obviously cut scene of Naschy and Justine making out (I can only assume it went further than that, as Naschy would never let it stop at just a kiss), we go with Waldemar as he travels to Dr. Jekyll's clinic on the big night. He boards a closet-sized elevator with a sexy, sexy nurse and starts up to the top floor lab, when--oh, cursed Fate!--the elevator gets stuck between floors, trapping him there on the WORST NIGHT POSSIBLE! What are the chances? Two hours of nerve-jangling suspense later they're still stuck--how they've spent the intervening time is left up to imagination--and the bad moon rises, Waldemar changes, and the nurse meets her undeserved fate. Mere moments afterward the technicians fix the elevator and the werewolf bursts into the lobby, terrifying the waiting room before dashing out into the foggy London night. A passing go-go-girl also falls to the swipe of the werewolf's claw, and a young Warren Zevon watches from his window and gets a great idea for a new tune.

Back at Imre's mansion--Justine's pad, now--Dr. Jekyll, Justine, and Waldemar go over the plan again. This scene is notable for showing one of the hazards of living in an unrenovated castle in winter, as during the conversation each actor's breath is CLEARLY visible. Brrrr! Having moved their operations to the spacious attic in Justine's house (really, this thing is so huge as to be almost German-Expressionistic), they strap Waldemar to a table, watch him change into the werewolf, and draw some blood while he rages against the leather straps. (Why he can't break them as easily as the tons of chains he's busted in his time I don't know; maybe Dr. J sedated him pre-wolf-out.)

Armed with a vial of all-powerful Daninsky Juice, Dr. J starts to get the kind of ideas one naturally gets when immersed in mad science and Naschy-musk. Somehow deducing that Daninsky holds "The key to control of the mind!" he plans to make Waldemar his guinea pig, and thus somehow gain Justine's love too. When Nurse Sandra comes on strong Dr. J gives her a backhand, which is SUCH the wrong thing to do. "Remember, Henry," she spits, glaring at him in a frighteningly evil and arousing way, "The very deepest love is easily changed into the very deepest HATE!" Too true, baby. Too true.

After Justine inflames Sandra's jealousy more by giving Henry a peck on the cheek amongst the bubbling beakers, the time finally comes to give Naschy the juice. A few patented convulsions and hey presto! Naschy notches another Classic Monster portrayal by becoming Mr. Hyde!

"Don't run. Don't even fucking try."

I'll just go ahead and state the obvious here: Naschy as Hyde == AWESOME. The bob haircut, the pale green skin, the glittering eyes, the eeeevil expression--Jacinto has thrown himself into this role with the same verve and joy he always brings to the table, and it's a joy to behold. Unfortunately and awesomely, before the experiment is complete Sandra pops up outta nowhere to BURY A DAGGER IN DR. JEKYLL'S BACK, proving that hell hath no fury of the wolfman. Hyde takes the opportunity to escape the lab and goes on a kill-crazy rampage of his own, shoving random strangers to their deaths in the Thames and later pushing Sandra onto a conveniently placed set of spikes, ending her wicked ways for good and all.

With that done, where does a vicious embodiment of the Id go? To a swingin' go-go club, of course! We get some great dancing in short short skirts and shiny shiny boots, and Hyde (in full anachronistic cape-and-cane regalia) charms a go-go girl back to his table for drinks. Before he can seal the deal, though, Hyde is affected adversely by the club's strobe-light and changes back to Waldemar! (That Jekyll formula is some strong stuff, apparently, as not only does Hyde change, but his wardrobe changes as well!) His lady companion barely has time to say, "Hey, wtf?" before the full moon changes Waldy into the werewolf! Clearing the joint with his growly awesomeness (and once again having changed shirts), the wolf man prowls back to the attic lab, his curse forcing him to hunt down the one woman he loves.

Back in the expressionistic attic (which has bales of HAY in it, for some reason--did Imre live in a barn?), Justine takes a gun loaded with silver that Dr. J had put aside "just in case," and the werewolf creeps toward her under the rafters. She tries to shoot, but with a swipe of his mighty paw Waldemar severs her jugular and sends her sprawling to the hay. Still, with her last bit of strength she gets off another shot, fatally wounding the werewolf, who falls beside her and changes back to her true love's form. They die holding hands, and the circle of tragic love is complete.

Classic Monsters, Classic Shot

Astute readers will quickly realize that DJvWM was made around the same time as VotZ, and shares some of the same personnel; in addition to Naschy and Klimovsky, Mirta Miller, who appeared as Krishna's associate priestess and gold-skinned idol in VotZ, is on hand again in the hot assistant role. In his excellent autobiography Memoirs of a Wolf Man, Naschy admits that while writing the script for VotZ, he "must have been on some controlled substance" (paraphrase). I'm not sure which came first, but I'm betting that the same substances were in effect when he wrote the screenplay for Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf. The story structure is loose to say the least, moving on from one development to the next with the speed and agility of a werewolf leaping from crypt to crypt in a graveyard. As a result things can seem a little out of control, but you never have a chance to get bored and the enthusiasm of all involved can leave you a little breathless, but happy.

Naschy is great as always, particularly as the evil Hyde, where he really lets his joy shine through. (The werewolf makeup here is not up to the usual standard, it has to be said, though a few shots in the transformation scenes where Naschy has obviously let his beard grow out for effect is the kind of low-tech ingenuity I fucking LOVE.) Mirta Miller is wonderful as the evil sexy Sandra, and Jack Taylor makes a passable Dr. Jekyll. Shirley Corrigan as Justine is SMOKIN' HAWT, and I hope that in the uncut version of this we get to see more of her talents.

Direction-wise, Klimovsky doesn't indulge in the flashes of visual brilliance I'm used to from him--no slo-mo, few really vibrant scenes (the attic set of the finale is the big standout), and again, the pan-and-scan, cut-up version of the film I watched doubtless obscured or obliterated some of his compositions and more than one story point. (In one scene, Justine shows up with unexplained scratches all over her face and chest--I'm DYING to know!) Suffice to say I'd be very interested to see a restored, uncut version. Are you listening, dvd companies? GET ON IT!

This is one of those Naschy movies that a non-Naschyphile will likely dismiss as incoherent, sloppy, and an out-and-out mess, but for me it was still a hell of a lot of fun, and the only Daninsky flick I've seen where he gets to be TWO monsters instead of one. If you liked Fury of the Wolfman (and I did, a lot), Dr. Jekyll and the Wolf Man almost matches it for sheer craziness and fun. 2.5 thumbs--give it a shot.

And never turn your back on a Spanish nurse. Just not a good idea.

OBEY!

MORE MADNESS...

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The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman (1971): or, My Love Affair with Naschy Begins

On the night of the full moon, a police inspector and coroner are conversing in the morgue over the recently slain body of Waldemar Daninsky, alleged werewolf. With two silver bullets in his heart, courtesy events in very wild and wooly previous movie (The Fury of the Wolfman--review soon), Daninsky is about as dead as a muscled-up Polish nobleman can get. There is some dispute amongst the conversants, however. The inspector, a village man, believes that Daninsky might in fact be a werewolf--after all, it took silver bullets to bring him down, and he does have El Marco del Hombre-Lobo, a pentagonal scar on his beefy chest. The coroner, a man of science, is having none of that poppycock. To prove it's all just superstition, stuff and nonsense, he removes the silver bullets from Daninsky's heart, reasoning that if he is a werewolf, he should come back to life, which is obviously impossible. Right?

No--he's predictably, tragically wrong. A couple of neck-rips and a snarling exit later, Daninsky is on the loose again, ripping the bodice and throat out of a passing buxom beauty as the credits roll. WHY do they always take the silver out? WHY WHY WHY?

Suddenly we're whisked away to a club in Paris, where Elvira is explaining to her boyfriend and the audience why she's taking an extended trip into the European countryside: she's doing research on the infamous vampire, Countess Wandessa, whose grave is rumored to be around here, somewhere. There's some spectacular flashback footage of the satanic countess holding black masses, sacrificing virgins, and being beheaded, intercut with some even more spectacular French hipster-dancing. Soon enough Elvira is on her way, her incredibly hot friend Genevieve in tow.

They arrive at the rumored gravesite, which just happens to be near Castle Daninsky, where the newly resurrected Waldemar is brooding over his curse. Like Lawrence Talbot before him, all Waldemar wants is release from his curse, even if it's the sweet release of eternal slumber. However, his lycantrhopy makes him effectively immortal, as we've learned. Unable to face another night of slaughtering the innocent, the good-hearted Daninsky is seeking the legendary Silver Cross, a holy relic rumored to have the power to dispel the powers of darkness and break curses. And where is this holy dagger? Why, in the grave of the satanic Countess Wandessa, of course, nestled snugly between her rotting ribs. When Elvira and Genevieve arrive at the castle and learn that Waldemar is seeking the same thing they are (though he keeps his reasons from them), they decide to search together. What are the chances, huh?

The Werewolf

Of course they find the grave and remove the dagger from the corpse's chest. In the process Genevieve is wounded, and some of her blood drips onto the dessicated lips of the Countess. Cursed Fate! Before long the Countess stalks again, and has added Genevieve to her ever-growing army of Undead Hotness. Waldemar goes on some more wolfed-out rampages, much to the detriment of the local villagers, and the Countess also takes a bite out of the population. Meanwhile Elvira is falling hard for Daninsky, which is lucky in a way, since he can only be truly killed by a woman who loves him. But first he must defeat the evil he has unwittingly unleashed, leading to a battle of monsters alluded to so subtly in the film's title.

If you aren't grinning with giddy excitement at the prospect of this battle, you may as well get off the train NOW.

This was my first real exposure to the famous Daninsky Saga written by and starring Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy (nee Jacinto Molina, his nom de plume for writing credits), and for me it was nothing less than a revelation. It's such a throwback to the Universal horrors that I absolutely worship, monster mashes like House of Dracula and Frankentstein Meets the Wolf Man (the latter of which Naschy freely admits was an inspiration and model for his film career) that might have been light on the scares but were always heavy on the fun. In an age when others were making films about mad killers and cannibal clans and rape-revenge stories, Naschy was turning his immense energy, creativity, and childlike joy to the classic monsters of yesteryear and giving them new life. And doing it on a shoestring, often making movies with less money than a concurrent Hollywood production would spend on catering.

The Vampire Woman

There's something about the kitchen-sink nature of Naschy's scripts (A werewolf! AND a vampire! AND a mad scientist! AND zombies!) that always makes me grin like an idiot as well--he's like a kid in a candy store, trying to pick a treat and in the end taking all of them. It's campy stuff, but it's just so damn much fun. So the effects are not always the greatest, the acting not always top drawer, the dubbing not always spot-on--Naschy's movies always had more vitality, heart and joy in every frame than can fit on your screen. And that, to me, is magic.

Which is not to say that it's all so-bad-it's-good stuff. Director Leon Klimovsky manages some great stuff here, particularly the dreamlike slow-motion effects on the vampire women, which really makes them seem otherworldly and weird in the old sense. And Naschy has charisma to burn, striking just the right balance between the tragic human side and the bestial, vicious werewolf. (If you can watch him bounding through the crypts and breaking chains and tearing down doors and ripping strips of human jerky off his prey without giggling, again, just get off the train NOW.) And the story, while admittedly silly, is never boring.

(There's some great, trademark Naschy stuff in his performance in WWvVW that you'll see flashes of in his later movies if you catch the fever: his obvious excitement and enthusiasm when loping through the woods or crypts in wolf form; the werewolf's copious drool; the aforementioned human jerky; and his patented LEAP ATTACK! fighting method. But my favorite moment in this film is right before the showdown with Wandessa, when Waldermar comes in carrying the deadly Silver Cross, having dispatched the Countess's servants. With a hairy swagger he goes to the door and buries the blade in the entrance, effectively preventing Wandessa's escape, as much as to say, "Only one of us is walkin' out of here, bitch, and that person will be covered with hair." AWESOME.)


It's hard for me to write about this movie, because I love it so much and I want everyone else in the world to love it too. But I know this is not the case. In my experience, you either "get" Naschy or you don't--and I don't mean by that to imply that there's some big intellectual secret that smart people watching the movies "get" and dumb people don't, but rather that there's just a certain attitude toward the enjoyment of films like this that you either have or don't. If you don't have it, you will never enjoy a Naschy film. You will get caught up on the admittedly bad acting, the ridiculous plot lines, the low-budget effects and the crazy music, and just shake your head disgusted by the whole thing. This is just not the type of movie for you.

C'mon, what else do you NEED?

However, if you can enjoy the passion that is brought to bear on every Naschy flick, his obsession with the old school Universal monsters , the kitchen-sink nature of the scripts, the sometimes surprising prrversity (naked Eurobabes are a staple), and yes, the camp factor, then you simply cannot have a better time watching movies than with a Naschy production. You'll laugh at him, you'll cheer with him, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the periodic successful shots or interesting, unique plot developments. Even his re-use of the Waldemar Daninsky character and plot elements in different films* adds up over time to a sort of tapestry mythology that is unlike anything else in film. No, I'm serious. It is.

*In the more than a dozen movies Naschy made in the Daninsky saga, only a few have any continuity with each other. Certain elements--the Silver Cross, attacks by highwaymen, the doomed love affair--are used again and again, but with different settings and situations. As Naschy writes in his wonderful autobiography, Memoirs of a Wolfman, Daninsky is "free to move throughout time and space"; sometimes modern, sometimes medieval, and once even turning up in feudal Japan!

Anyway, like I say, if you're not on Naschy's wavelength, nothing I can say will make you enjoy The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Women. And I feel bad for you, I really do. Because if you are on that wavelength, there aren't enough thumbs to rate it. So let's just set this at a suitably excessive 3 dozen thumbs and call it a day. To find out whether you agree, just watch it. Now.

Note: a few years back Anchor Bay put out a spiffy release of this under its original English title, Werewolf Shadow. This is a good disc, but I prefer the WWvVW edit--better music, and the film benefits in some scenes, I think, by not having the greatest print. But hey, that's just me. See for yourself.

MORE MADNESS...

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Vengeance of the Zombies: or, Groovy Ghouls and Naschy Rules

Everyone is looking for that one thing that will make him happy, that will provide him with the inner peace he needs to finally stop all his striving and struggling and just enjoy the mystery of being. For some, that thing seems to be money. For others, it's love. Still others seek achievement in a chosen field, such as voodoo or Eastern mysticism. And for others, the only thing that will let them truly enjoy life is the freedom from the worry of death. In the low-budget 1973 Spanish horror masterpiece Vengeance of the Zombies, we get a view into all these disparate but interconnected struggles, and in the end are left to question what we, the viewers, truly need in order to be happy.

Our story opens with two such poor, struggling souls, a middle-aged man and his wife who are the caretakers of a run-down London cemetery. They are not happy, for they have erroneously concluded that the route to true happiness runs through is Monetary Gainsville, and the avenue they have chosen to arrive there is grave-robbing. Give them points for leaving the beaten path there, anyway. But alas, as they bicker acidly at one another in a very well-furnished dining room about whether to rob the grave of a recently murdered socialite (just buried that afternoon), we can tell that their struggles are misdirected, money will not save them, and they will know only tragedy rather than true happiness. Sure enough, when they break into the tomb to steal the jewels from the fresh corpse, a mysterious villain locks them in the crypt and performs a strange ritual whose immediate effect is to raise the theft victim from the dead for a bit of posthumous vengeance on her would-be robbers. Not five minutes into the movie, and already one zombie has had her revenge. Score!

Next we meet Elvira, a naive-if-no-longer-young socialite, friend of the murdered and resurrected corpse from the first scene. Elvira, like so many of the idle rich, is seeking the deeper meaning of life through wacky mysticism. She and her friend (let's call him Antonio, I forget the character's name), a psychologist and expert in the paranormal who often works with Scotland Yard, are on their way to a seance held by an Indian guru named (what else?) Krishna, played by the inimitably handsome and beefy Paul Naschy.

Krishna offers Elvira inner peace and happiness through meditation and hot-coal-handling, but Antonio is skeptical. He hasn't time to talk his friend out of listening to the guru-or-charlatan, however, as he's very urgently needed offscreen. When later that night Elvira is attacked in her house by her dead friend and a masked assailant wielding an axe, in a massacre that leaves her father and butler among the dead (not counting the already dead among them), the stress and trauma convinces Elvira to travel to Krishna's country estate for spiritual cleansing and perhaps a little Kama-Sutra with the guru.

However, a helpful-if-not-Chamber-of-Commerce-mindful station agent meets her at the train to tell her the town she has come to is EEEEEVIL, and was once the haunt of Satanists who held their black masses and sacrifices in the very house where Krishna now preaches peace and love. Soon a fire-scarred henchman arrives to take Elvira to Krishna's house and silence the ticket seller. Mystery thicker than the Madrid...er, London fog abounds.

From there things only get more complex. Another horrible murder occurs in London, one more socialite down (after showing a rather bounteous if aged set of maracas). Elvira is plagued by 70s freak-out style dreams wherein Krishna-as-Lucifer and an undead station agent threaten her with pointy objects. A morgue attendant is murdered with a soda can (!) by his recently-risen charges, while the mysterious masked figure looms, apparently seeking his own bliss in a compicated vengeance/voodoo ritual that will somehow grant him immortality. Antonio is called in by Scotland Yard to help solve the mysteries of these socialites who keep getting murdered and whose bodies then disappear. A houseservant who wants to warn Elvira about something is disposed of in a most grisly manner. More zombies show up. Antonio, on his way to Krishna's to meet Elvira, runs down another bicycling houseservant of Krishna's and later ends up necking with her by the river over the broken remains of her bike. It all comes to a head in a genuinely surprising turn of events with the introduction of a motivation I admit I'd never have guessed. Even the deus ex machina is not your average machine and has a surprising combustion under in its pistons.

There's so much to love about this movie, but chief among its many virtues is its wildly entertaining 70s jazz soundtrack, doubtless one of the front runners for "most gleefully inappropriate movie soundtrack ever." An early ax-murder gives a taste, as the skull is cleaved to the tune of wicka-wicka guitars and Hammond organs. You'll be tapping your toes as you cover your eyes, and it just keeps getting better the longer it goes on.

Another thing worth note is the otherworldly atmosphere the director and cinematography give the zombies. Granted, the makeup is your basic white-facepaint with dark circles under the eyes, but the zombie women pull some convincing rigor-mortis grimaces that make them look incredibly strange and more than a little unnerving. Furthermore, the zombies are filmed only in slow motion, lending a unique alien quality to their movements and interactions with the other characters.

The cinematic highlight is the dream scene featuring Naschy as the devil, an episode that will haunt your nightmares. Biblical demons, Hindu golden women, undead train system employees, and the burn-victim henchman are just a few of the hellish components of this Boschian revelry. Effectively creepy while at the same time grin-inducing, you don't know whether to laugh or scream. And with his pointed nose, piercing eyes, and rock-solid eyebrows, Naschy makes a very convincing Satan, you must give him that.

I mean, seriously. Just LOOK at him!

As to the effects, it's mostly just buckets of blood poured down a face or spurting from a prop knife drawn across the neck, but there's one real show-stopping effect late in the movie that pulled an involuntary "Holy shit!" from my throat. You'll know it when you see it. There's also some great cinematography in a scene in a meat packing industries office-building/warehouse/ceo fuckshack, where a guard must go down a long hallway of colorful hanging meat, never sure what lurks just beyond the next carcass...

And then of course there's the unintentional comedy. In addition to the hilarious yet oddly compelling soundtrack, there's a host of other "they can't be serious" moments. For instance, apparently everyone in England decorates their homes with plaques displaying real weapons that their servants keep honed to razor-sharpness; grave-robbing pays well enough to keep a nice house with a tasteful china cabinet and place settings; station agents are the anti-chamber of commerce; if Kali worship is good, then voodoo AND Kali worship AND satanism's even better; soda cans are deadly weapons; Scotland Yard accepts the existence of zombies much more quickly than you'd think they would; car accidents are great ways to meet chicks--and many other bits of wisdom peppered throughout.

Other things to look out for:

• The most compliant strangling victim in history
• The shortest fatal strangulation by garrotte ever filmed
• A great "What? Oh shit, another guard!" take from the villain
• A blinking corpse (must be a muscle reflex)
• The "you thought I'd saved you, huh? You fools!" ending
• An early-career cameo by "V" from V for Vendetta!

Vengeance of the Zombies is a movie that truly has it all, a treasure trove of enjoyment from both the "so bad it's good" side and the "hey, that's actually pretty good" side. So in the end, as you ask yourself, "What is it that will make me truly happy?" the implied answer is unmistakable: "More movies like Vengeance of the Zombies!"

For filmic competence, 1.5 out of 3 thumbs. For sheer entertainment, 3 out of 3 thumbs. Average: 2.25, with another half point added for this being the movie that introduced me to the wonders of Naschy, for which I can never be grateful enough. , bringing us to a 2.75 thumbs rating. Don't delay, watch this one today. You'll be glad you did. So saith Krishna!

Word to the wise: Deimos Entertainment just released a slam-bang special edition DVD of this fun flick, available at Best Buy in a two-pack with the equally excellent Naschy flick Night of the Werewolf, a steal at $20 for the lot. If you're even slightly curious about Naschy, you need to pick up these DVDs NOW.

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