Euro Horrors #1
  Slaughter Of The Vampires is a much maligned little Italian fang fest.
Sure the dubbed dialogue is cheesy and the movie ends five minutes after it should.
But this is a little bit more than what it appears on the surface. This is a film
about sex.
  An unnamed vampire secretly moves his coffin into the wine cellar of a young couple who have restored a castle. In the good vampire tradition he begins to vampirize the wife Louise who is a major hottie. She'd look good cross eyed and even with hairy armpits. The husband finally coming to his senses goes to Vienna to bring back a vampire hunter. But is he too late?
  One look at the vampire and you know this guy is horny.As soon as he hits the castle grounds he is lust personified. The camera almost throbs with his moves. He is a boner in an opera cape. Not only is he going to do the wild vampiric thing with your wife, but also her friends and companions.He's eyeing some of the livestock as well. He may have taken a fancy to you in your natty silk pajamas as well. Seems like you can't do a thing about it either except cry all over yourself as this caped cad steals your women. And the women
flit about the castle grounds with some serious cleavage bouncing about. Its a wonder somebody didn't lose an eye!! All kidding aside there is a ton of sexual subtext in this flick. The shooting location is great, most of the women are pleasing to the eye and the music score is nice. Not a bad way to spend 75 minutes.
  Terror In The Crypt aka Crypt Of Horror aka Maldicion de los Karnstein is another matter completely. Count Karnstein is afraid that his daughter is being slowly being possessed by the spirit of a vampiric ancestor. So he sends for an expert
to help him sort out the truth at his remote castle. The bodies begin to pile up and it looks like that the Count's daughter may be a monster after all. Or is it someone else? If you stay awake through it you still might not care.
This movie does have a few things going for it. A lush and strange musical score to set you on edge and Christopher Lee as the Count.We actually get to hear his voice and he is quite good in the role of a concerned father. The castle itself is lovely and the crypt scenes are very well done. There is a depressive atmosphere and also some
lesbian subtext as Karnstein's daughter gets awfully fond of a new lady friend in a hurry(after all this is loosely based on Carmilla).
   However there is no pacing and characters literally pop out of coffins that you haven't seen before to explain plot points. Laura (the daughter) is really whiny and a little of that goes a long way. The young man is dubbed badly and some scenes seem to drag on forever. If you haven't seen too many Euro horrors this is not the film to start with.
  Castle Of The Walking Dead aka The Snake Pit & The Pendulum aka The Torture Chamber Of Dr Sadism is worth seeking out. This German film has several stars of the Edgar Wallace krimis & Dr Mabuse films (Karin Dor, Carl Lange, Deiter Eppler, Lex Barker) and is directed by Harald Reinl.Count Regula (Lee) has drained the blood of 12 virgins and is interrupted by the authorities before he can do #13. After being arrested he has a mask pounded onto his face and he is drawn and quartered. Flash forward
several years later and his henchmen have lured the ancestors of the judge who condemned Regula and the daughter of the almost 13th victim back into his clutches. Regula returns from the dead and straps the male (Barker) under a razor pendulum and
dangles Dor over a snake pit in preparation of draining her blood to make himself immortal.
  This is a movie about a journey and the scares and chills are from going from one place to the next and encountering evil in many forms. In fact the trip takes up about a third of the movie.The trip is made through a twisted foggy forest wherein naked human bodies are impaled in trees and hanging from branches; hands and arms stick out of trees. We're treated to dank nasty caves whose passages are lined with skulls and human bones with ravenous vultures controlled by evil forces and servants who are the walking dead. I even noticed a few musical cues from the krimi Creature With The Blue Hand on the soundtrack..
  There are several versions of this available. I would avoid Castle Of The Walking Dead on vhs or dvd as it only runs about 70 minutes. The best bet seems to be the Magnum vhs Torture Chamber Of Dr Sadism which runs close to 84 minutes. The movie has a better narrative flow and deeper characterization in this length.
What's New
Site Map
Archives
Home