The Invisible Dead

Moody terror movie about a mad doctor and revolving around an invisible man . The newcomer Dr. Garondet (Francisco Valladares) is called for healing sick professor Orloff (Howard Vernon) , but people in his village are afraid of going to his castle . The insistent doctor asks for his whereabout but the feared villagers tell nothing . The newcomer Dr. Garondet reaches the castle and the servants send him to talk to Cécile Orloff, who is the daughter of the professor and is worried about the insane health of her daddy . Eventually , Dr. Garondet meets professor Orloff and he tells what happened to Cécile sometime ago . But results that evil scientist has created a murderous , invisible ape man-lookalike . Due to strange circumstances , Dr. Garondet has to spend the night in the creepy location and soon he learns there's a dangerous being stalking the castle .

Austerily eerie terror film that contains thrills , chills , fantastic events and being mostly set at a sinister castle . This so-so Spanish/French co-production is generally characterized by botcher images , sleaziness , nudism and contaning a symbolic attack on the ethics of science . Although the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1970 the nudism , grisly killings and the susprising rape by the invisible monster still caused controversy , existing a double version , both , a light Spanish and another hard French one . Being produced in short budget by Marious Lesoeur : Eurocine , Célia Films and Producciones Miguel Mezquíriz . Initial releases of the film were met with negative reactions from film critics , while the general critical reaction had been poor , however ,today is considered an acceptable terror picture . Nice acting by Howard Vernon as Doctor Orloff , his classic role who would repeat over and over again . As Vernon is brilliant as a demented researcher/scientific/surgeon haunted by a past tragedy. Functional acting by the Spanish Francisco Valladares as the doctor who figures out the mysterious events . By the time , Valladares getting big success thanks to his role in hit Spanish TV series as Ana Karenina and Diego de Acevedo . And secondary acting by the great Fernando Sancho , the Mexican antihero in hundreds of Spaghetti/Paella Westerns .The motion picture was regularly directed by Pierre Chevalier . He was a director and assistant director, known for Escuadrón pantera or Panther Squad (1984) with Sybil Danning , Pigalle carrefour des illusions (1973) and La maison des filles perdues (1974). He made various exploitation films , though in his starts he directed A-films with known stars , such as : Micheline Presle , Raymond Pellegrin , Fernandel , Gino Cervi or Eddie Constantine.

This is third entry on the long series about Doctor Orloff , a former prison doctor who tries to use skin of his victims to repair his beloved daughter's fire-scarred face and whose role subsequently to show up in various flicks mainly directed by prolific writer/producer/director Jesús Franco . The Orloff character starred a saga , using the same shots in more than one film ; some of his actors relate how they they were hired for one film and later saw their name in two or more different one . Orloff was habitually played by Howard Vernon who initiated the terrifying saga in ¨Gritos en la Noche¨ (1962) , the best of all them , also titled "The Awful Dr. Orlof" , considered to be one of the best films in his first period and deemed to be the first movie of the ¨Spanish Fantaterror¨. This vintage horror motion picture , a classic in some circles , was well directed by Jesús Franco who never considered the film to be a terror story , but instead felt it was tale of "anguish" . Here Franco established his uniquely poetic , stunningly filmed in black and white and expressionist darkness with visually striking style , including unforgettable images that owed a great deal to early cinema in general and German Expressionism in particular , though imitating to classy "Eyes Without A Face" (1960) , the masterpiece directed by George Franju , packing a haunting poetic fantasy . It's followed by ¨El Secreto del Dr. Orloff¨ (1964) aka "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll" - USA . It's gone on by " Orloff y el hombre invisible (1970) aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" , ¨Ojos siniestros de Doctor Orloff¨(1973) . Furthermore , ¨El enigma Del Ataúd¨ (1969) aka "Only a Coffin" and ¨El Siniestro doctor Orloff¨ (1984) aka "The Sinister Dr. Orloff . Finally, ¨Faceless¨ or ¨Depredadores de Noche¨(1987) in which Orloff appears as a secondary role and of course, performed by Howard Vernon.

I always assumed that it was Jess Franco who had a monopoly on this type of cinema, namely: the routine euro-exploitation flicks with an always-returning villain (Dr. Orloff), absurd story lines (invisible ape-creatures??), truckloads of sleaze and absolutely no logic at all. Every small detail in "Orloff Against the Invisible Man" has got Franco's name written all over it, so it was quite a surprise to find out that he actually hasn't got anything to do with it. But still Franco admirers don't have to fear that this will be a 'soft' film, because director Pierre Chevalier proves himself to be "Godfather of Sleaze" as well and his movie is delightfully trashy and nonsensical. Howard Vernon (normally a Franco-regular as well) stars as a totally insane man of science who created an invisible monster, supposedly for his daughter that got traumatized after being buried alive when she was 16. How exactly this creation helps the poor girl's situation is entirely beside the point, as are many other sudden twist in the script. Everything eventually revolves on the sexual aspect when the invisible ape-man goes completely berserk after graphically raping the housemaid (sickly illustrated by an overlong scene showing the poor woman struggling naked on a pile of hay). Every normal film-loving person will most likely detest this film, but for exploitation-fans, there is always the weird atmosphere and morbid set pieces to admire. Orloff's castle is genuinely ominous, with lots of dark cellars and secret tombs and Howard Vernon looks uniquely sinister again. Great entertainment for the slightly more demanding cult-freaks among us.

This Gothic horror film was released by Eurociné who were purveyors of cheap French exploitation movies. While it has slightly higher production values than most of the others released by this distributer, it's still a pretty bargain basement effort. It's one of a series of Dr Orloff movies. The character was a Euro horror alternative to Dr Frankenstein and seems to have fulfilled a similar role. The story starts when a new village doctor is summoned to Orloff's castle on business unspecified. The local populace are aghast that he would consider going to such an evil place. On arrival, it seems it was the doctor's daughter who has requested him secretly in an attempt to turn her father around from his dangerous experiments that she fears are endangering her life and his sanity. It turns out that Orloff has created an invisible man…

I think the chief problem with this one is that an invisible man makes for a very underwhelming villain. Aside from a few simple trick shots an invisible character involves very little effort to create. He is certainly a cheap alternative to a decent monster that's for sure. We are treated to floating drinks trays, pages of books turning by themselves, footprints in flour and…eh…invisible rape. The latter was clearly added to up the requisite sleaze factor that the early 70's Euro Gothic horrors were aiming for. There is quite a bit of nudity in general in the movie but it's never in danger of becoming erotic unfortunately. From the horror side of the fence, aside from the invisible man, there is a back story involving premature burial and grave robbery. Nothing of which is anything too memorable. Perhaps the single most original idea in the film is the fact that, for reasons never really explained, the invisible man appears to be a gorilla! The invisible ape…you couldn't make it up! Acting performances are generally dull but Howard Vernon (Dr Orloff) is always watchable.

Possibly the biggest challenge in watching this Spanish/French horror extravaganza is the dubbing. As is sometimes the case, less than a scrupulous translation of the dialogue can produce unintentionally hilarious results. Some would say that adds to the charm. Perhaps they are right.

You may be led to believe this is a Jess Franco production. I was. It is in fact directed by Pierre Chevalier who delivers a comparatively accessible yarn filled with genre cliches used to fairly good effect. Once again playing Orloff is the mighty Howard Verson (who had played the character for Franco before, and would do so again in the future), the hero-type is Dr. Garondet (Frances Valladares), and the vampy young lady of the piece is Cécile (Brigitte Carva). If you're ready, there's also an invisible ape who gets up to all sorts of nasty business - again, some of his vile antics do unintentionally (I presume) raise a smile.

The story seems to have bits and pieces from most of the horror classics thrown in. You might recognise elements from Dracula, and Frankenstein, and there are dark tunnels and a hero who delights in wearing a red-lined cloak. It's all here and is delightfully unconventional in places and darn right ridiculous in others.

Anyone encountering this film on VHS in the UK as the Invisible Dead, tag line; " god help us if they rise again" will find themselves utterly baffled or just ripped off by the content of the actual film. Not only have they been lead to believe that it's a zombie flick by the sleeve art but the film itself has been sliced and diced, presumably by the distributors following the 1982 video act,so that sleazy content of any kind is absent, and what we are left with is essentially 80 odd minutes of people wandering through corridors very....slowly.....indeed. As others have doubtless pointed out, none of the dialogue bears much relation to the action on screen, some of the soundtrack has been left blatantly undubbed, and that goddamn music clangs away throughout for all the world like a troop of drunken boy scouts assaulting each other with biscuit tins. Listing the inconsistencies and "what the heck?.." moments would take too damn long, but suffice to say that it's one of those eurosleaze offerings that manage to conjure up a surreal, dream-like atmosphere chiefly through being incoherent and flat out badly made.And judging by the speed of the opening doors and "magically" appearing footprints, the invisible ape-man doesn't really pose much of a threat to anyone who can move faster than a relaxed stroll.It's crap. I quite enjoyed it