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Category: Manuel de Blas

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Plot: busload of migrant workers is terrorized by vampires in a remote village.

A good title can mean a great deal of things. It can make or break your movie, or function as a succint summary of its premise. Ostensibly the worse fate that can befall a horror feature is not living up to its title. La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (or The nightly orgy of the vampires, released internationally simply as The Vampires Night Orgy) is one such instances. It works wonderfully as a pastiche of gothic horror and the rest of the time it’s a veritable patchwork of well-worn clichés, conveniences, and contrivances. Worse however is that it never lives up to its sensationalist and porntastic title. Apparently it only has attained any sort of cinematic longevity on the back of its all-star Spanish cast. More Necrophagus (1971) or The Witches Mountain (1972) rather than any of Spain’s enduring fantaterror gems The Vampires Night Orgy is the sort of thing that should have been directed in Italy by legendary provocateurs and all-around madmen Renato Polselli or Luigi Batzella. If only it was as sleazy as its title would suggest or have you think.

It’s fair to say that León Klimovsky was off to a flying start when he filmed his first macaroni western in Spain in 1966. His alliance with domestic horror pioneer Paul Naschy was, of course, legendary for the mad creative synergy between the two and the forging of a veritable classic or two in the process. Having made Vengeance of the Zombies (1973) and The Dracula Saga (1973) fatigue was expected and bound to set in. For The Vampires Night Orgy Klimovsky’s direction was on autopilot and without much of his usual visual flair. Don’t come in expecting aristocratic decadence and opulent smoke-filled interiors of The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (1971) nor the macabre playfulness and amiable insanity of Doctor Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972). Thankfully by the following year’s The Devil’s Possessed (1974) León Klimovsky was in fine form again. Truth be told, everybody was kind of tired of the vampire shtick here. Yeah, even American import Jack Taylor, Dyanik Zurakowska, and perennial LWO favourite Helga Liné. Taylor had found steady employment in continental European shlock. Memorable roles of his around this time can be found in his brief tenure with Jesús Franco with Succubus (1968) (with Janine Reynaud), Count Dracula (1970) (with Soledad Miranda), Nightmares Come at Night (1970), and Female Vampire (1973) (where he had the chance to prod Lina Romay).

Dyanik Zurakowska was a veteran of macaroni western and Eurospy but is known around these parts for her role in the first Waldemar Daninsky El Hombre Lobo epic The Mark of the Wolfman (1968). Other notables include the Spanish giallo The Killer Is One of Thirteen (1973) and the gothic horror The Orgy of the Dead (1973). In 1973 Helga Liné was very much in-demand. In just 12 months she appeared in 9 (!!) movies, five of which were horror (or fantaterror adjacent). The Vampires Night Orgy was the last of those five and it showed. Helga looks visibly tired. After the brooding Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973), the oneiric fantastique The Loreleys Grasp (1973), the swelteringly atmospheric The Dracula Saga (1973), and the campy Terence Young peplum breastacular The Amazons (1973) something had to give. That something was The Vampires Night Orgy. To say that The Vampires Night Orgy is not remotely on the same level as Horror Express (1972), Nightmare Castle (1965) or even The Blancheville Monster (1963) would be putting it mildly. Far from her worst Helga’s able to elevate material that is otherwise bland and below her usual level and elevate it above the mires of mediocrity. It might not rise to the glorious heights of the genre, but The Vampires Night Orgy is far from the worst Spanish gothic horror has to offer.

A group of seven weary passengers – Ernesto (Gaspar 'Indio' González, as Indio González), Godó (Luis Ciges), César (David Aller) and Alma (Dyanik Zurakowska, as Dianik Zurakowska) as well as a family consisting of Raquel (Charo Soriano), Marcos (Manuel de Blas) and their eight-year-old daughter Violeta (Sarita Gil) – en route to an aristocratic family in Bojoni in the Carpathian mountains in Hungary (and not Romania where Transylvania actually is) where they have been contracted for employment. The passengers find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere after their bus driver (L. Villena) suddenly collapses from a heart attack and dies momentarily after. As a man of action Ernesto takes the wheel and opines that the best solution is to travel to the nearby village of Tolnai, a mere 10 kilometres away. After some much-needed food and rest they can then continue their journey to Bojoni, 110 kilometres from their current whereabouts, and still be on time to commence working. In the mysteriously abandoned Tolnai the group takes refuge in the local tavern. There they run into American tourist Luis (Jack Taylor) who’s also mystified by the complete absence of any inhabitants in the village of Tolnai, a ghost town by all accounts. As everybody retreats to their lodgings for the night, Ernesto decides to stay on guard.

The following morning the group is treated to a veritable feast of a breakfast with more fresh food and coffee than they’ll ever be able to consume. The villagers have also returned and the travelers are welcomed by village mayor Bruno (José Guardiola). Before embarking on their voyage to Bojoni the mayor is gracious enough to invite the group to the village’s famous roast, an offer they gladly take him up on. Marcos explains that they don’t have means to compensate the expenses of such hospitality. All expenses will be paid for by The Countess (Helga Liné), a beloved member of local nobility who has the entire village enthralled – but will never be named, her only wish that the group stay in Tolnai a little while longer. The Countess sends out her hulking servant (Fernando Bilbao) to gather the meat for the promised roast, by any means necessary. As you would expect neither the bus, nor Luis’ car, have any intention of starting and the group has no choice but to remain in the village until further notice or until reparations can be made. Whichever comes first. Either way they will be staying in the village longer than they had anticipated. César immediately catches the eye of The Countess and she invites him to her luxurious abode under the pretense of reciting to her the works of Shakespeare, Browning, and O'Neill. Violeta meanwhile has made friends with a local boy named Niño (Fernando E. Romero, as Fernando Romero). As one by one members of the group disappear under mysterious circumstances Luis and Alma conclude that something is very wrong in Tolnai… When they do finally escape and are able to contact authorities in Bojoni, law enforcement officials can’t seem to find Tolnai on the map and dismiss it as a figment of their fevered imaginations.

The plot is a recombination of several classic pulp vampire movies. The bus breaking down is straight out of The Playgirls and the Vampire (1960) and The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960). The characters looking for petrol and repairs in a desolate village was liberally borrowed from Hammer’s The Kiss of the Vampire (1973), the town being inhabited by cripples was an element from Klimovsky’s earlier The Dracula Saga (1973) and Helga Liné pretty much mirrors Erika Blanc in The Devil’s Nightmare (1971) or Delphine Seyrig in Daughters Of Darkness (1971) as the undead sanguine seductress. The abandoned village is something straight out of The Witches Mountain (1972). What truly makes The Vampires Night Orgy interesting as a gothic horror genre piece is that it, at least in part, is the earliest Spanish zombie movie predating Jorge Grau’s The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974) by a single year. While the shambling villagers technically aren’t zombies in the George Romero sense, they do act as such and serve the same sentinel function as the non-carnivorous zombies of the pre-The Night Of the Living Dead (1968) variety. Having the third act play out as a zombie movie was a genius decision on Klimovsky’s part. Liné’s involvement is only peripheral amounting to that of a “special guest star” and that is either to the movie’s advantage or to its biggest detriment. Dyanik Zurakowska isn’t given much to do either – and it’s more than puzzling that the two biggest stars are so little overall narrative importance. Perhaps Cristina Galbó, who was just starting her giallo tenure, would’ve been a better fit instead of Dyanik Zurakowska. Derivation worked to the advantage of The Dracula Saga (1973), but it didn’t here. The schizophrenic score from José María San Mateo - a strange and uneven mix of funky soul/jazz, rustic folk rock, choral and orchestral segments and electronics – is overly cheery one moment and oppressively dark the next. To say that it barely fits a production of this kind is putting it very mildly.

Whereas The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (1971) and The Dracula Saga (1973) were both highly atmospheric in their predilection towards aristrocratic decadence and sweltering Mediterranean eroticism, The Vampires Night Orgy on the other hand goes for a completely different kind of atmosphere. The very opposite of what Klimovsky’s earlier entries in the vampire genre had aimed for. The Vampires Night Orgy isn’t pretty to look at – and that’s exactly the point. Everything here is decidedly colorless and decrepit looking. The entire production bathes in shades of black, grey and brown and is thoroughly pervaded by a sense of muck and earthtiness the way only Spanish productions tend to be. The presence of both Helga Liné and Dyanik Zurakowska notwithstanding The Vampires Night Orgy is, despite its international English language title, deeply and decidedly unerotic. So unerotic that even the obligatory foreign market nude scenes feel needlessly tacky and tacked on. Clearly the psychotronica/psychedelia of Vampyros Lesbos (1971) was a thing of the past and leagues better than plotless brainfarts as Female Vampire (1973). Klimovsky on a bad day is still better than Jesús Franco at his best. The Vampires Night Orgy works because it defies expectations and conventions. It’s a vampire film that plays out as an old-fashioned zombie movie. That it’s generally closer to The Fury of the Wolfman (1970) than to The Dracula Saga (1973) only works to its advantage. The Vampires Night Orgy is only moderately animated and nowhere near the best Iberian horror.

The Vampires Night Orgy is a decidedly ugly looking affair. The eye-bleeding color and verdant landscapes that usually are rampant in Spanish horror is notably absent here. This lack of sprawling colors encompasses every aspect of the production. The entire feature is kind of drab and not even the pairing of Liné and Zurakowska, neither of which are shy about baring skin and putting out, can liven up this quaint little genre exercise. The most interesting aspect of the feature are the vampires themselves. When they are initially introduced they seem to abide by the classic conventions, but once the plot progresses it becomes increasingly evident that they aren’t your typical bloodsucker. While they do sprout fangs they can withstand the light of the sun and move in herd-like packs in the way the cinematic living dead tend to do. The premise in itself is interesting enough as often with vampire movies there’s always a nearby hamlet where superstition reigns and who will warn travelers of the ominous undead threat. In The Vampires Night Orgy that nearby sleepy farming village, frozen in time somewhere around around 1490, has been vampirized in its entirety. Instead of the undead, often (but not always) members of nobility and the upper class, having to ensnare their desired victims here the entire town bends to The Countess’ will.

Klimovsky would return to the nebulous world of the undead with the vastly superior Strange Love of the Vampires (1975) (with Emma Cohen) lighting up the screen. In The Vampires Night Orgy the twilight world of the undead isn’t the usual decadent, gaudy feast of sweltering eroticism and sanguine appetites – but instead it is rather drab, colorless and dank looking. It pretty much is Spanish horror without its usual vitality and phantasmagoria of bright color and the reddest of blood. Which doesn’t make any less enjoyable or entertaining. Nor Dyanik Zurakowska nor Helga Liné raise the temperature despite baring an equal and gratuitous amount of flesh and Jack Taylor, his usual suave self and the obligatory American star, was in far better movies both before and after. The Vampires Night Orgy isn’t your typical Meditterranean potboiler but it isn’t some overlooked classic either. It isn’t even a sub-classic. It’s closest counterpart is the ill-fated Paul Naschy El Hombre Lobo feature The Fury Of the Wolfman (1970), a potentially good concept marred by a suboptimal production design and direction. Klimovsky, ever the professional, wasn’t able to liven up what charitably could be called a serviceable but otherwise uneventful gothic horror throwback. Spain has offered the world far better gothic horror revivals than this rather daft looking romp.

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Plot: alien lifeform plans to conquer Earth by preying on mankind’s oldest fears

The box office success of The Mark Of the Wolfman (1968) demanded a follow-up to cement Paul Naschy’s reputation as the new promise of Spanish horror. That follow-up came in the form of Assignment Terror (released domestically as Los Monstruos del Terror and in North America as the heavily-cut Dracula vs Frankenstein), a pulpy showdown of epic proportions in the tradition of House of Frankenstein (1944). As an Italian/German/Spanish co-production it passed the hands of several directors, and was the swansong performance of veteran Hollywood actor Michael Rennie. Assignment Terror is a lot of things, but for the most part it is campy. It is, in all likelihood, the least conventional of Naschy’s enduring Waldemar Daninsky saga. It has everything. Aliens, mad scientists, vampires, mummies, and Waldemar Daninsky in what amounts to a supporting role - Assignment Terror has it all, and none of it makes any sense.

Assignment Terror was the swansong effort of producer Jaime Prades and the beginning of the darkest period of the El Hombre Lobo saga. Prades produced the historical drama El Cid (1961) as well as the Biblical epics King Of Kings (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). Assignment Terror was the first Waldemar Daninsky installment to follow the elusive (and believed to be largely fabricated) French co-production Nights Of the Werewolf (1968) of which allegedly no prints survive. Assignment Terror had a larger budget than The Mark Of the Wolfman (1968), but most of it was squandered as a host of directors came and went and costs spiraled out of control. The sequel The Fury Of the Wolfman (1970) didn’t fare much better either with director José María Zabalza being in a state of constant inebriation, forcing star and scriptwriter Paul Naschy to handle direction in his absence. Despite the difficulties Naschy managed to rope in an assortment of Spanish, German and American stars for the second El Hombre Lobo feature, one that initially was known under the working title El Hombre que Vino de Ummo, or The Man Who Came from Ummo.

To save their highly-advanced race from extinction two delegates from the planet Ummo are teleported to Earth to prepare said planet for imminent colonization. To facilitate their plans they take corporeal form with the bodies of a pair of recently diseased scientists serving as their host. Odo, the leader of the alien colonists, possesses the body of the aging Dr. Varnoff (Michael Rennie) whereas Maleva overtakes biochemist Melissa Kerstein (Karin Dor), primarily chosen for her dark eyes and luscious curves. The two reanimate Dr. Kirian Downa (Ángel del Pozo, as Angel del Pozo), a young war surgeon killed in the field, for his surgical prowess. The aliens figure that the easiest way to conquer Earth is to prey upon mankind’s oldest fears and superstitions. To that end Odo decides that a visit to the local temple of knowledge, the library, is in place. Upon leafing through the pages of the Anthology Of the Monsters by professor Ulrich D. Varancksalan, an old tome depicting age-old horrors, Odo’s mind is suddenly illuminated. They will resurrect a number of literary, historical and folkloristic monsters from pages torn, quite literally at that, straight out of the arcane tome.

The aliens do not come upon this idea immediately, but only after witnessing a gypsy sideshow fortune-teller attraction at the local carnival. In a scene directly lifted from Universal’s House of Frankenstein (1944) the duo come across the vampire as part of a carnival exhibit. Maleva is instructed to use her comely charms on the male half of the duo while Odo will manipulate the gypsy woman (Helga Gleisser, as Ella Gessler) into removing the stake from the skeleton of the famed vampire Count Janos de Mialhoff (Manuel de Blas). Bolstered by their initial victory Odo and Maleva resurrect Varancksalan’s Monster (Ferdinando Murolo), and interred Polish nobleman Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy, as Paul Naschi). With Daninsky’s considerable wolven strenght at their disposal the aliens travel to Egypt to disentomb Tao-Tet (Gene Reyes), an acolyte of Amun-Ra, in the Valley of the Kings. The recent deaths of two prominent scientists and the disappearance of a librarian (Diana Sorel) pique the interest of inspector Henry Tobermann (Craig Hill) who promptly opens an investigation into the strange going-ons. His search for clues brings him into the orbit of go-go-boot-wearing Ilsa (Patty Shepard, as Patty Sheppard), the daughter of Judge Sternberg (Peter Damon), who had his own encounter with werewolves as a young man in Germany a generation earlier as was depicted in The Mark Of the Wolfman (1968).

American actor Robert Taylor had expressed interest to Naschy in doing the picture, but it would be an aging and deadly ill Michael Rennie who landed the part. As before Paul Naschy (as Jacinto Molina Álvarez) wrote the screenplay and slated to direct was Hugo Fregonese, a Spanish national that had directed several western and adventure films in Hollywood in the 1950s and 60s. Fregonese lasted only a few weeks into production, and Argentinian expat Tulio Demichelli took over. Persistent hardships during production eventually took their toll on Demichelli and the naturalized Spaniard soon departed the production as well. Following Demichelli’s defection Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi stepped in allowing the troubled production to be completed. Allegedly German producer Eberhard Meichsner had a hand in directing too. With four people occupying the director seat at various points the jarring tonal shifts are all but expected. Director of photography Godofredo Pacheco lensed The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962), an atmospheric low-budget take on French production Eyes Without A Face (1960) and in all likelihood the only Jesús Franco film worth seeing. Naschy’s love for pulp was well-documented and Rennie’s character name is probably a tribute to horror legend Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood’s science fiction yarn Bride of the Monster (1955). Special effects artisan Antonio Molina has a diverse resumé that includes high-profile offerings as Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother (1999) and Live Flesh (1997), but also Jess Franco’s Devil Hunter (1980), the blaxploitationer Shaft in Africa (1973) as well as classic and not-so-classic Spanish horror ventures as Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973), Necrophagus (1971), and The Wolfman vs the Vampire Woman (1971).

The biggest name on the bill is Michael Rennie, a respected Hollywood veteran known for his role as alien Klaatu in the Robert Wise genre classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and for his roles in the big budget peplum Princess of the Nile (1954) with Debra Paget, and the historical war epic The Battle of El Alamein (1969). Towards the end of the sixties Rennie was, like many of his contemporaries, forced to act in continental European low-budget schlock as Antonio Margheriti’s The Young, the Evil and the Savage (1968), León Klimovsky’s Commando Attack and Surabaya Conspiracy (1969). Karin Dor was a Bond girl in Lewis Gilbert’s You Only Live Twice (1967) and figured into Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz (1969). Dor was a muse of director Harald Reinl and in that capacity she appeared in the Karl May adaptations Winnetou: the Red Gentleman (1964) and Winnetou: the Last Shot (1965), as well as several Edgar Wallace krimis.

Greenville, South Carolina’s Patty Shepard would get her own El Hombre Lobo feature with the León Klimovsky directed The Wolfman vs the Vampire Woman (1971) and later would turn up in the gothic horror throwback The Witches Mountain (1975) from Raúl Artigot. Diana Sorel would turn up in José María Elorrieta’s The Curse of the Vampire (1972). Assignment Terror was one of the earlier roles of Manuel de Blas, husband of Shepard and an institution in Spanish cinema and television. Ángel del Pozo was an exploitation regular that appeared in the Alfonso Brescia spaghetti western The Colt Is My Law (1965), Eugenio Martin’s gothic horror ensemble piece Horror Express (1972), and Terence Young peplum breastacular The Amazons (1973), among many others.

The first El Hombre Lobo excelled in rustic gothic horror atmosphere. Assignment Terror on the other hand is pure, unbridled camp. The premise is completely ridiculous and its appallingly bittersweet to see an ailing actor of Rennie’s caliber forced to lower himself to cinematic tripe as this. Karin Dor, Diana Sorel, Helga Gleisser, and Fajda Nicol are all easy on the eyes as Naschy seldom disappoints in his choices of female talent. Daninsky is much more of a supporting role with the attention squarely on the Universal Horror monsters. The all-but-expected “emotion vs intellect” subplot emerges once the aliens begin to succumb to the fleshly desires of their corporeal form. Dr. Warnoff catches Maleva in flagrante delicto in between the sheets with Kerian, and promptly sends Varancksalan’s Monster to murder his accomplices. For maximum shock footage of a grisly real-life open-heart surgery was included for Naschy’s resurrection scene. It just as tasteless and unnecessary as it sounds. Naschy is only the sixth-billed in the cast despite being the hero of the piece, but he has the obligatory bosomy blonde that falls in love with his vertically-challenged character.

The Golem, who briefly appears in the Anthology Of the Monsters, doesn’t materialize for budgetary reasons. Not that it would have improved Assignment Terror in any way. The screenplay by Naschy (as Jacinto Molina Alvarez) is a convoluted mess that is frequently hard to follow and nigh on borders on the incoherent, despite the apparent simplicity of the premise. The selection of these specific Universal Monsters probably served as pretext for Naschy to portray them at a later point. After all Naschy would play Dracula in Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973), the Mummy in The Mummy’s Revenge (1975), and Frankenstein’s Monster in Howl Of the Devil (1987). More importantly it gave Patty Shepard a taster of the El Hombre Lobo universe before starring in her own feature with The Wolfman vs the Vampire Woman (1971). In its defense, at least some of it had a point. The special effects by Antonio Molina are good for the time and the budget and Assignment Terror doesn’t shy away from the grue. Emblematic for Spanish horror at the time several scenes seemt to suggest the existence of a more nudity-heavy print for the international market. In the beginning of the decade several Italian horror productions already pushed the envelope in terms of eroticism. However it would never see domestic release with the repressive Franco regime still in power.

Assignment Terror is pulp of the purest variety. The El Hombre Lobo franchise worked best as loosely connected gothic horror genre pieces, and that would be what Naschy would return it to. All of the subsequent sequels would follow the formula, with each focusing on whatever was most marketable at that time. The Fury of the Wolfman (1970), The Wolfman vs the Vampire Woman (1971), The Return of Walpurgis (1973), and The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) all are vastly superior to Assignment Terror for wildly different reasons. While there’s little to connect all installments besides the presence of Daninsky there were certain standards Naschy strived for. Assignment Terror was the first El Hombre Lobo installment to miss the mark. Thankfully the franchise would return to prime with the swathe of sequels that soon followed. In between El Hombre Lobo sequels Naschy continued working on other projects - some which were at least as good, if not better - than his most enduring creation.