The People Who Own the Dark (1976)

More than fifty years on and the influence of Night of the Living Dead can still be felt in modern day filmmaking.  Certainly, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend novel came first and was a source of inspiration for George Romero and other filmmakers to adapt the story.  It’s pretty apparent, however, that NOTLD had a larger and more direct influence on genre-cinema following its release.  There must be a countless amount of films that were either influenced by or shamelessly ripped off from NOTLD and the range of their quality is as wide as Romero’s influence on the horror genre.  The People Who Own the Dark is an example of a film that wears its influences on its sleeve but does enough different to stand out from the rest of the imitators.  Clearly, it takes as much from Omega Man, a more direct adaptation of I Am Legend, as it does from NOTLD, but the Spanish setting and distinct touches made by director León Klimovsky give this film its own identity.

The film is slow to get out of the gate.  We’re introduced to each of the characters one by one as they go about their day-to-day lives.  Each of the characters are preparing to attend a party later that evening, hosted by a pair of wealthy socialites.  The location of the party takes place at a hillside castle in rural Spain.  The castle setting adds to the gothic mood of the film and works perfectly once the siege starts to occur.  I should mention that I watched the 82 minute US cut of the film.  The Spanish release, apparently, runs 94 minutes with additional scenes of dialogue.  Even at 82 minutes, the film does feel slow at times.  Especially for the first act, when all of the characters are being established and the introduction to the party occurs.  If you stick it out through the initial setup, I think most will get something out of the remainder of the film and be glad they stuck with it.

Director León Klimovsky’s subtext and social commentary within this genre-film begin to reveal themselves once we learn exactly what kind of party is taking place.  It seems these members of the social elite have a taste for decadence and have arranged a masquerade party where they may indulge in their most animalistic desires with the female partygoers, who turn out to be paid prostitutes.  Anything goes, as long as it’s out in the open in front of the rest of the guests.  Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut definitely came to mind as this scenario played out.  Before any kind of orgy can breakout, the castle starts to shake and the partygoers believe they have just experienced an earthquake.  The partygoers return from the cellar to discover all the housemaids who remained on the ground level are now blind.  After a trip into the local village where it’s discovered that everyone on the earth’s surface is now blind, the partygoers realize they’re dealing with something much worse than an earthquake.  It’s deduced that a nuclear explosion has occurred and the survivors must leave the area to avoid any fallout.  They decide to return to the castle but not before one of them turns paranoid and stabs one of the blind villagers.  This act of violence triggers the socialites’ gradual demise and sets up Klimovsky’s commentary on class division and unrest between the working class villagers and the wealthy elite.

This is the point in the story where it starts to feel like a real horror film.  The blind villagers swarm the castle much like the zombies in NOTLD trying to enter the farmhouse.  In some ways, the situation in The People Who Own the Dark feels more terrifying than NOTLD.  Because the threat are actual people and not undead, shuffling zombies, the danger that the partygoers find themselves in feels more real.  To add to this, the blind mob work together and are able to strategize as how to besiege the castle.  They come through the ceiling, they’re able to drive cars, they start fires, and they’re capable of using firearms.  This makes them feel more threatening than any braindead zombie.  As is usually the case in these kinds of films, characters start turning on one another as the situation turns dire.  Spanish cult film star, Paul Naschy, is amongst the cast playing a Harry Cooper type character.

I certainly don’t want to spoil the ending of this film, but let’s just say that it’s bleak as hell!  There’s an excellent use of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony during a bus ride at the end of the film.  As I’ve discovered more of these Spanish horror films from the 60’s and 70’s, my appreciation for their quaintness and leisurely paced storytelling has really grown on me.  The first act of the film could certainly stand to move more briskly but the third act finishes so strongly that I was able to overlook that.  The Spanish horror films from this era would be a nice bridge from some of the Hammer horror films that came out of England in the 50’s and 60’s to the more extreme horror films produced in Italy during the 70’s and 80’s.  On the surface, The People Who Own the Dark may look like just another adaptation of I Am Legend.  Personally, I think director León Klimovsky brings enough originality and subtext to the production that it makes for an interesting viewing experience.

MVT: León Klimovsky

Make or Break Scene: The bus trip with Beethoven’s 9^th playing on the radio.

Score: 6.75/10

Count Dracula's Great Love (1974)

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**

I’ve never been big on Dracula or vampires, in general.  I’m all for women with heaving bosoms coming under the thrall of a vampire, and the scenes of “consummation” can be a lot of fun.  Back in the day, I loved watching the Hammer Dracula films on television on a Saturday afternoon, because they were so different from the staid portrayals of vampires up until then (but, hey, isn’t that why Hammer became so popular to begin with?).  I still love Horror of Dracula, largely because of that absolutely kickass ending, and some of the later Hammer films, when they incorporated Satanism into the mix, are a joy, as well.  The 1931 versions of Dracula (Spanish and English language versions) are great stuff (the former especially elides the cumbersome elements of Browning’s take, and it doesn’t hurt any that Lupita Tovar is absolutely ravishing).  That said, the romance angle that so many films hang their coats on does nothing at all for me.  Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula bores me to tears, this despite some fantastic effects work (all done practical and very, very old school).  I’ve never wanted to watch John Badham’s Dracula with Frank Langella even a little, and stuff like Twilight are as far away from the mark for me as you can get.  Give me Nosferatu (1922 or 1979; I’m not picky), or Near Dark, or Martin, or Shadow of the Vampire, anything with either something to dwell on intellectually or respond to viscerally (sure, sex can be considered visceral, but I like monsters, and blood and sex is more interesting to me than sex and sex).  Aren’t you glad I didn’t say, “give me something with some bite?”  Javier Aguirre’s Count Dracula’s Great Love (aka Cemetery Girls aka Dracula’s Virgin Lovers aka El Gran Amor Del Conde Dracula) gives me so much of what I want, but still flubs it.

A carriage carrying Imre (Victor Alcazar), his secret love Marlene (Ingrid Garbo), and three other chicks, Karen (Haydee Politoff), Senta (Rosanna Yanni), and Elke (Mirta Miller), throws a wheel in the middle of the Burgo Pass.  Seeking shelter for the night, and since the coachmen is dead from an ill-timed horse hoof to the head, the gang make it to the old sanitorium, where they are taken in by Dr. Marlow (Paul Naschy).  From there it isn’t long before the blood and boobs start flowing.

I have a weakness for many of Naschy’s films, because, like the man himself, I have a weakness for the classic Universal monster movies.  His Waldemar Daninsky character is a true member of the lycanthrope hall of fame, though my all-time favorite film of his (and Aguirre’s) is The Hunchback of the Morgue (reviewed previously on this site).  He loves his monster mashes, and he’s not afraid to tackle multiple characters in a film (witness: Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf).  He even managed to inject some life (man, the puns are flowing tonight) into the Mummy (The Mummy’s Revenge).  Naschy was fantastic at playing the physicality of monsters, incorporating his background as a bodybuilder to give his performances a kinetic energy.  His films have a concrete atmosphere that plays with the gothic trappings of the classics of the Thirties through the Fifties.

It is entirely possible that Naschy’s Dracula could have been all the things I look for in a vampire film.  The problem is that the movie follows its dopey, half-baked love story to the point of schmaltzy sentimentalism.  The film does have some fine moments for any exploitation/horror fan.  The actresses are all willing to get naked.  There is enough blood to make things pop here and there, and it’s often intermingled with female flesh.  Naschy gets to tussle with other men often, showcasing his Shatner-ian slugfest skills.  The male vampire makeups include these great contact lenses that really give the monsters an otherworldly, creepy mien.  There is just enough sadism to please fans of whippings, and some sleazy moments are mixed in with them (the lady vampires suck the blood from the wounds incurred during a lashing).  There are even some “what the fuck?!” elements, such as the knife sticking through a character’s throat like Steve Martin’s old arrow-through-the-head bit.  

That said, the filmmakers are infinitely more interested in the love between Dracula and Karen, and even that they get wrong.  Much ado is made about how the only way for Dracula to regain all of his powers and resurrect his daughter Rodna (yes, Rodna) is for a virgin to fall in love with him of her own free will.  Now, you may recognize this plot device, as it’s the exact same one used in every one of Naschy’s Daninsky films, and it’s handled in the exact same way (as is the film’s structure).  The women in these films fall in love at the drop of a hat, all for the sake of the tragic endings these movies have to have, and it feels like it.  Karen is not only no different from any other Naschy heroine (and I really hesitate to use that term to describe them) in this respect, but the boundaries of just how much love can forgive is stretched past breaking.  After giving of herself physically and emotionally to the Count, he promptly cuts Karen open as part of Rodna’s resurrection ceremony.  Then he throws her into a cell for what must be a couple of months (he keeps having to inexplicably wait for another full moon to complete the next step of his little ritual), where she sleeps on a straw bed and shouts for help.  During all this time, he keeps begging her to love him (I’m confused; didn’t she already say that she did?).  

Before the “finale,” Dracula and his lady vamps bounce around the countryside, attacking peasants, thither and yon (these sequences are actually entertaining, and had there been more of this, the film probably wouldn’t stink as bad as it does), and Dracula continues to pontificate about this, that, and the other thing and plead with Karen, who remains as emotionless here as she does in the rest of the picture.  The filmmakers then give up on any semblance of reason or narrative in one of the most anticlimactic endings you’re likely to see.  There are so many “WHY?!” instances in the film, it really deflates the bits that work well (because they do work so well).  I can’t say I recommend Count Dracula’s Great Love, but goddamn it, I want to.

MVT:  The elements that deal with the more graphic aspects of the story, both red and pink.

Make or Break:  Dracula’s monologue in the third act, that seems to go on for over twenty minutes and not make a lick of sense.

Score:  4/10

The Hunchback Of The Morgue (1973)

I went to a local Oktoberfest event exactly one time, and I can honestly tell you that I have no burning desire to go to another one.  It was held at a casino, with the tents and concessions set up on a racetrack outside.  Parking was insanely horrible.  Everything was exceptionally expensive.  Everything had to be purchased with tickets, like it was any day but Dorr-Oliver Day at Angela Park (if you were never there the joke is lost, but it’s my introduction, so…), and they were a pain in the ass to get.  Then there were the beer tents.  The wait in line was thirty minutes minimum (maybe I just blocked out anything after thirty).  The lines weren’t actually lines so much as gaggles, which of course lend themselves to assholes cutting in front of you.  The serving wenches were nice, I’ll grant you, and the beer was good (the one pitcher I bought), but the wild inconvenience of the whole thing put me off in a big way.

Don’t misread my frustration as surprise.  I half-expected this to suck but held out hope it wouldn’t (part the hopeless romantic in me, part confirmation bias, perhaps?).  Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a man who craves instant gratification, and I have no problems waiting my turn for anything.  But some things are simply more trouble than they’re worth, and this was one of them.  Now, if they had serving wenches floating around the place with giant steins like in Javier Aguirre’s The Hunchback Of The Morgue (aka El Jorobado De La Morgue), maybe this little affair wouldn’t have been such a cluster fuck the first go round.  It’s possible things have improved in subsequent years.  I know I won’t be finding out one way or the other.

Wolfgang Gotho (Paul Naschy) is the titular character who hangs around his small German town at night watching students get plastered in the local pub before returning to the hospital.  There he dotes on the lovely Ilse (Maria Elena Arpon), the only person to ever show him kindness (everyone is exceedingly cruel to our protagonist, with even a group of children hurling rocks at the poor bastard while they taunt him).  But Ilse is a terminal case (tuberculosis?  Dr. Tauchner [Victor Alcazar] mentions her lungs being destroyed, but that’s all we get), and once she goes, life for Gotho doesn’t just go off the track; it sticks its tongue on the proverbial third rail.

Out of all the classic “monsters” made famous primarily in Universal’s golden years, the hunchback occupies a special place.  Normally relegated to assistant status for the requisite mad scientist, this knotted up little man (or woman; let us not dismiss Jane Adams as Nina in 1945’s House Of Dracula) is inherently sympathetic.  This is not to say that they can’t be evil.  Dwight Frye’s Fritz was a sadistic little fellow.  Bela Lugosi’s Ygor was bent on vengeance.  Still, audiences are predisposed to gravitate toward those who are tortured and lonely, the most famous of these being Quasimodo from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, perfectly embodied (for me, at least) by Charles Laughton in William Dieterle’s 1939 adaptation.  We, most of us, cannot truly fathom what going through life with a deformity such as that is like, and even though the person with the humpback may think nothing of it, it makes us uncomfortable, and so we feel bad for them.  We pity them for them.  It reinforces our sense of kindness and makes us feel better about ourselves in the most selfish of ways.  I think it could be safely argued that no one plays on that sympathy more than Naschy and company here.  Not only is Gotho reviled by every single person he comes across (with two exceptions) for his physical malformation, but he is also mentally handicapped on top of it all.  It’s a one-two punch for plucking at the viewer’s compassion.  

Yes, Gotho is unjustly hated, but he is earnest, and it is his simplicity which leads to much of the film’s violence and its more grotesque aspects.  While picking flowers for Ilse, Gotho is teased by some med students, and this leads to an altercation where the hunchback whoops ass on all of them (or just most of them).  After Ilse’s boyfriend Udo (Fernando Sotuela) dies in a drunken stupor, Gotho delights in hacking pieces off his body in the morgue.  When two attendants try to steal the necklace from Ilse’s corpse, Gotho reaches for a handy axe.  Dr. Orla (Alberto Dalbes) has convinced Gotho that he can create a new Ilse if Gotho will bring fresh corpses and victims for his experiments.  It’s this twisting of a simple mind which should prompt our deepest emotions, and to some degree it does.  Nevertheless, it also marks Gotho as a character who must be punished.  His actions are not accidental (though it could be argued that they are born of emotional outbursts more than anything), and even while he does not fully understand what he is doing or why, he does it all the same.  Gotho’s story was never going to be a happy one.  If you’ve ever seen a Naschy film, you knew that already.  But here you get the feeling that he is being punished not only for the evil he commits but also for simply being born the way he was, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  There’s little room for monsters of any stripe in the cinematic world of Paul Naschy.

The film also deals to some extent with aspects of manhood.  The students who mistreat Gotho are always getting drunk and carousing in pubs.  In fact, the film opens with Udo and a couple of friends seeing who can drink the most beer fastest.  Naturally, Udo wins.  Not only is he cock of the walk in the pub, but he has the heart of Ilse, thus making him top of the heap in the masculinity department to Gotho’s mind.  Even after Udo is gone, Gotho can’t measure up (he is, after all, intimidated by children).  After running into Dr. Elke (Rosanna Yanni), the hunchback grovels at her feet, hardly cutting the most dashing of figures.  And yet Elke loves Gotho, no matter how improbable this pairing may seem to audiences (and how little screen time is devoted to it, but (again) that’s a Naschy film for you.  She explains the attraction with the line, “once in a while, faithfulness and love surpass beauty.”  And if you believe that one, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.  Of course, once Gotho does stand up and do what’s right, the damage has already been done and is irreversible.  Ultimately, this hunchback never quite discovers his inner man.  He just discovers his inner human (and the difference between the two could arguably be the film’s central theme).  That it had been there from the beginning makes it all the more tragic.

MVT:  If all you heard of this film was its title, you would likely think it was a pretty tame affair.  It is anything but.  There is a perverse, sadistic streak a mile wide running through every frame of the movie, and the filmmakers never shy away from the gore.  Juicy.

Make Or Break:  The Make is the scene where Gotho takes a couple bits off Udo’s corpse.  The glee he shows sawing away at his rival’s extremities tells us all we need to know, if not about Gotho’s character then certainly about the screws loose or missing from the heads of this movie’s creators.  And I haven’t even detailed the more outré portions of this gem.

Score:  6.75/10