La Invasion de los Vampiros/The Invasion of the Vampires (1962)

‘You do not make tribute to the hospitality of Mr Marqués disturbing his habits.’

An alchemist is sent by his master to a remote region to investigate reports of vampires. When he arrives, he finds the populace in thrall to tales of the spirit of the murdered Contessa Frankenhausen, who lures young men from the nearby village down to the lagoon of death…

This is a direct sequel to writer-director Miguel Morayta’s previous film ‘El Vampiros Sangriento/The Bloody Vampire’ (1961). Abel Salazar’s ‘El Vampiro’ (1957) was a recent box office bonanza, and Mexican movie theatres rang with the cries of ghosts, monsters and werewolves, but, most of all, with vampires.

The full moon rises and brings with it not the howl of the werewolf but the ghostly shade of the Contessa Frankenhausen (Erna Martha Bauman) in a see-through nightgown. Young bucks in the local village seem unable to resist following her down to the isolated shoreline where she disrobes, and they end up dead with a telltale love bite. Handsome young occult scientist Dr Ulises Albarrán (Rafael del Río) arrives just in time to see the latest would-be lothario being carried back home by torchlight, a pale, lifeless cadaver.

Our young hero is a disciple of the Count Cagliostro, who has sent him to the region to investigate these strange happenings. He comes with a letter of introduction to local bigwig, the Marqués Gonzalo Guzmán de la Serna (Tito Junco), an old friend of his master. Junco lives in the rambling ‘Villa of the Spirits’ with old retainer Frau Hildegarda (Bertha Moss). Some years before, he married his daughter Eugenia (Erna Martha Bauman) to the mysterious Count Frankenhausen (Carlos Agostí). The newlyweds left for the city as soon as their daughter Brunhilda was born, leaving the child in Junco’s care. Recently they returned, but Agostí vanished, and Bauman’s corpse was found at the lagoon. Since then, she’s haunted the woods nearby, and villagers have been dropping like flies.

Further investigations convince del Río that the family hacienda holds the key to the mystery, especially after he encounters Bauman one night in the library. Junco tries to put him off but eventually comes clean; the supposed apparition was the grown-up Brunhilda (Bauman again, of course). She’s kept under lock and key because he fears she has inherited some unfortunate tendencies from her father. Meanwhile, Moss keeps a comfy coffin available for Agostí in a secret room in the hacienda, where he rests in his animal form as an outsized rubber bat.

Despite the familiar setup, Morayta adds a few welcome wrinkles to vampire lore, although they are mainly carried over from the first film. Victims of the vampire remain in a cataleptic state, only rising after their master is staked. Something may have been lost in translation because this doesn’t fit with Agostí’s talk of conquering the world with his hordes of the undead. This expansion of the vampire’s usual mission statement beyond drinking the blood of village maidens is a tiresome cinematic cliché now, of course. Still, it’s refreshing to see it expounded in such an early example of the genre.

Most pleasingly, del Rio proposes to defeat the vampires using science, or what passes for it anyway. Explaining that staking a vampire isn’t always enough, he clashes with the village priest, Father Victor (Enrique García Álvarez), when he proposes to burn the bodies of all Agostí’s victims. Threatened with ex-communication from the church, the alchemist backs down and decides to inject them with Boric Acid instead. This chemical can be synthesised from black mandrake, a rare variation of the plant root that ‘grows only on Vampire Lands’. No explanation is offered as to why it only grows there, and this is confusing when it stands in for the more traditional garlic later on in the film. Credit to Morayta for his new ideas, but a little clearer definition would have helped.

The film’s other strong aspects include Morayta’s ability to conjure a spooky atmosphere, especially with the fog-wreathed exteriors early on. The scenes where the vampires (with stakes in place!) wander about and surround the hacienda at the climax are also oddly reminiscent of George A Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968). The sound design is excellent, too, with Luis Hernández Bretón expanding on his work in the first film and delivering a score with even more emphasis on discordant music. The music helps to reinforce the separate, other-worldly feel of the drama and the isolated location where it takes place.

There are a few less impressive aspects of the production, however. Agostí’s animal form bears a passing resemblance to Lugosi’s ridiculous creature from ‘The Devil Bat’ (1940) and is about as convincing. Agostí also gets far less screentime. Whether this was due to problems with the actor’s availability or was an effort to heighten suspense is unclear, but he does seem strangely absent from the action at times. Our hero is also saddled with the inevitable ‘comedy sidekick’ in the form of a cowardly villager, Crescencio (Fernando Soto), although his presence is thankfully limited. Curiously, several of the principal cast from the first film do not make an appearance. Villains Agostí and housekeeper Moss are present and correct, Bauman plays her original character’s daughter, and mute servant Lucero is here, but none of the heroic protagonists. Ultimately, this is a good thing as del Rio makes a far more convincing leading man than his equivalent in the first film, and Bauman is a more appealing heroine.

The original film did an excellent job of foreshadowing the events of this sequel, but Morayta assumes a little too much prior knowledge of the story here. An audience unfamiliar with the first chapter could be forgiven for being a little confused by the setup here, particularly regarding Junco’s relationship with granddaughter Bauman. Apparently, he’s been keeping her hidden in the hacienda for her entire life and, in a passing aside, mentions that he’s been feeding her on a diet of blood! This history is never developed further, beyond an inference that Boric Acid can wash away her dodgy inheritance. All I can say is that she seems like a remarkably well-adjusted young woman, given that kind of an upbringing!

Overall, this is a stronger film than the original with more depth to the conflict, even if the ultimate brawl between del Rio and Agostí falls prey to some laughable monster FX. Why Agostí needs to hypnotise Bauman to pose as her mother and act as a honey trap for him is also a puzzle. Is he too lazy or incompetent to hunt down his own victims? Considering that his housekeeper procured servants to become his brides in the first film, perhaps he is that hopeless.

Bauman was a former beauty queen who had a short career on the big screen before switching television in the late 1960s. However, her credits include several notable genre pictures, including René Cardona’s take on the legend of ‘La Llorona’ (1960) and ‘El mundo de los vampiros/The World of the Vampires’ (1961). She’s also assigned an uncredited bit in Cirio H Santiago’s ‘Vampire Hookers’ (1978), but, as that was filmed in the Philippines and she was all but retired by then, it’s quite possibly a misidentification.

Another tale of Vampires South of the Border with enough interest points to engage a receptive audience and stand out from the crowd.

El Vampiros Sangriento/The Bloody Vampire (1961)

‘Ah, and a bit of Venus’ navelwort, so they have good dreams.’

Count Cagliostro studies vampires in secret, always searching for the family of Frankenhausen, whose bloodline is cursed with the taint of the undead. Meanwhile, the housemaids of a neighbouring Count are prone to sudden disappearances…

After Abel Salazar’s ‘El Vampiro’ (1957) was a runaway success, Mexican film producers hurried to embrace the supernatural, particularly stories involving the undead. Few of the wave of vampire movies that followed strayed far from the 1931 Lugosi template, which Salazar had adopted, but occasionally some new flourishes and ideas emerged.

Meet Count Valsamo de Cagliostro (Antonio Raxel), a descendant of the original occult scientist whose fame spread throughout the royal courts of Europe in the 18th Century. Although history doesn’t record his run-in’s with the undead, it was a large part of his work, particularly after his second wife was burned at the stake after an encounter with the notorious ‘Vampire of the Moon’. Raxel has dedicated his life to tracking down this creature, establishing that vampirism is a curse passed down to each first-born son of the House of Frankenhausen. Aiding him in his quest are his own ‘Scooby Gang’; daughter Inez (Begoña Palacios), her betrothed, Dr Riccardo Peisser (Raúl Farell) and chamberlain, Justus (Pancho Córdovam, here billed as Francisco A. Cordova).

One of their near neighbours is Count Siegfried von Frankenhausen (Carlos Agostí). He has kept his invalid wife, Countess Eugenia (Erna Martha Bauman), locked up in the house since their marriage and return from the country, leaving daughter Brunhilda behind to be raised by her grandfather. But getting good help seems to be their main problem as housekeeper Frau Hildegarde (Bertha Moss) spends most of her time procuring new housemaids from tavern owner Lupe (Lupe Carriles). The only qualifications they need to possess are good looks and no close family ties. No red flags there, then.

Coincidentally, it turns out that Córdovam’s best drinking buddy is Lazaro (Enrique Lucero), the personal servant of Countess Bauman. When she has a funny turn one night, he fetches Doc Farell, and the gang realise that Agostí just might be the vampire that Raxel’s been looking for all these years. Unfortunately, the occultist is off on a trip somewhere, so they decide to investigate themselves. Fortunately, Córdovam and Lucero drink in Carriles’ bar (it’s a small world!), and it’s an easy job to get Palacios installed as the Frankenhausen’s new housemaid.

Writer-director Miguel Morayta was a veteran filmmaker with no prior credits in the horror genre. However, he does bring some new ideas to the table. There are two kinds of vampires; the ‘living’ and the ‘dead.’ Agostí is an example of the ‘living’ kind, active and feeding. The ‘dead’ are his victims, laying in their graves in a cataleptic state, rising only when their progenitor is despatched. This is an interesting concept if a little awkward. Despite having less than a handful of vampire brides, Agostí talks of wiping out humanity with his army of bloodsuckers. Yes, I guess everyone has to start somewhere, but given that his followers can only take up arms once he’s been finally staked, it seems strange that he’s so enthusiastic about the idea.

Raxel also advocates a scientific approach in eliminating the waiting dead. According to his research, their blood contains a substance called Vampirina that destroys red blood cells, which need to be replenished for the creature to survive. This substance can be eradicated with Boric Acid, made from the roots of the black Mandrake. This notion is a neat tie-in to folk myths about the plant, addressed in the film’s opening sequence when the Scooby Gang harvest the roots from the ground beneath a hanged man. None of this informs the main action in any significant way, but it’s nice to see such attention to detail in the script and an effort to put a new spin on such familiar lore.

What drags the film down is the second act when Palacios goes undercover in the Frankenhausen household. The gang spend an awful lot of time trying to establish Agostí’s bloodsucking credentials. This is a problem because the audience knows he’s the vampire from the get-go, and it’s not that exciting waiting for our heroes to catch up. Also, it’s so blindingly obvious! Bauman as good as tells them so, but Farell prefers to entertain Agostí’s contention that his wife is mad. And just how many ‘Frankenhausen’ families are there in Mexico? Is the name the country’s equivalent of ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ then?

Morayta excels when sowing the seeds for the sequel ‘La Invasion de los Vampiros/The Invasion of the Vampires (1962), providing just the right amount of information, so it’s not clumsy or obvious, but pays off in the next film. There’s also good cinematography from Raúl Martínez Solares, which helps mount an impressive introduction to our supernatural antagonist. While on their expedition to collect the roots, our heroes are interrupted by the passage of Agostí’s horse-drawn coach. The vehicle passes in slow-motion and silence; not an original idea by any means, but stylishly handled, and Morayta doesn’t make the mistake of returning to the device again and again. There’s also an unusual soundtrack from Luis Hernández Bretón, who mixes discordant music with passages of choral singing to produce an unsettling effect.

Morayta began his directorial career in the 1940s but hit his stride with the social commentary of ‘Vagabunda/Tramp’ (1950) and biblical epic ‘El mártir del Calvario’ (1952). Work in many other genres followed, such as comedy, romance, adventure and musicals before entering the horror arena. Later on, he delivered the memorable escapades of ‘Dr. Satán’ (1966) and horror-comedy ‘Capulina contra los monstruos’ (1974) featuring the popular Mexican comedian. He left the industry in the late 1970s and died in 2013 at the age of 105.

While it may observe genre conventions pretty faithfully, moments of invention and professionalism make this offering a definite cut above many of its contemporaries.

They Have Changed Their Face/Hanno cambiato faccia (1971)

‘Can you show me the way to the Villa Nosferatu?’

An engineer working for a motor company gets an unexpected invitation to meet with the firm’s secret owner. Travelling to the remote mountain villa where he lives, the eager employee finds himself thrust into a strange adventure where he is forced to confront the true nature of the society in which he lives…

Unusual Italian update of the ‘Dracula’ story from director and co-writer Corrado Farina that uses vampirism as a platform for some surprisingly prescient social commentary. Some sources list this film as a Giallo, but it has nothing in common with that sub-genre of twisted horror thrillers beyond the country of origin and year of production.

Young engineer Alberto Valle (Giuliano Esperati) is doing good work for the M Motor A. He has his own office, a secretary and a busy work calendar. Still, he’s more than a little surprised when a series of meetings with the chain of senior management culminates with an invitation to visit the company’s owner, Giovanni Nosferatu (Adolfo Celi). Esperati didn’t even know he existed, let alone that he was a recluse living in a luxurious, isolated mountain chateau. Running out of petrol on the way, he finds the inhabitants of a local village predictably unfriendly to strangers but does pick up free-spirited hitchhiker Laura (Francesca Modigliani).

Arriving at the villa, he goes in alone and is met by Celi’s right-hand woman, Corinna (Geraldine Hooper). Despite her absence of eyebrows, she seems friendly enough and informs her that his host won’t be coming down for dinner (no surprise, there!) Yes, this is a modernised take on Jonathan Harker’s visit to Castle Dracula in the first few chapters of Bram Stoker’s world-famous novel, but this is far from a straight adaptation. Rather than live as a recluse content to snack on the occasional passing tourist, Celi has turned his wealth into a vast business empire.

To his profound shock, Esperati is offered the CEO position at his company and, with a burgeoning relationship with Hooper, everything couldn’t be better. The edge comes off a bit when she tells him that it’s her job to have sex with any guest but that she does like doing it with him more than anyone else. Further disappointment follows when he finds a nursery of babies in the depths of the building. It’s weird, and things get more bizarre when he opens the register of infants. There’s his name and his baby photographs, along with his life history so far.

The analogy of vampirism to capitalism, the consumer culture and the resulting abolition of free will is a very interesting idea. Given developments over the past half-century, the concept seems remarkably on point. It’s just a shame that a modern-day audience will probably find much of the material rather obvious now and lacking in subtlety. Naming Celi’s character ‘Nosferatu’ gives an idea of how ‘on the nose’ the film can be. Of course, it’s probable that recognition of the name would not have come so readily to the majority of viewers at the time, and the evil machinations of global corporations were not such common knowledge as they are now.

The corporate world provides the opportunity for some fine satire when Celi’s fellow conspirators assemble for his company board meeting. One team member gets in trouble because workers at his plant are reading books on the toilet during their breaks, and reading is banned. Another because two workers at his contraceptive factory have been filmed having sex. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but the woman has become pregnant as a result. Copulation is permissable, procreation is not. Finally, Celi’s solution to the poor sales of a detergent not popular with the public due to environmental concerns is not to rejig the ingredients as suggested but to repackage the exact same product with an eco-friendly design, name and marketing campaign.

So, the script by Farina and co-author Giulio Berruti is intelligent, witty and has something to say. Where the film falls a little short is with story development and structure. Unfortunately, very little happens after Esperati reaches the villa. Holding back revelations regarding Celi’s true nature is only effective if the audience is unaware of them. A halfway knowledgeable one will know what he is almost from the start. If it’s not the ‘Nosferatu’ name, then the sequences of Esperati asking for directions in the peasant village also reveal the secret. The villagers won’t speak, old women cross themselves, and a priest tells him to get out. Again, it’s not subtle.

The structure becomes a problem when almost the entire second act asks us to invest in the developing love affair between Esperati and Hooper. It’s just not very gripping, and there’s a sudden disconnect when Celi’s 10-minute board meeting arrives in one solid lump towards the end of the film. Hooper may be taking the minutes, but Esperati is absent, having apparently given his apologies. These issues are reflected to a lesser extent elsewhere and result in no consistent narrative flow or sense of escalating threat, and the conclusion when it comes, although smart, is a little too predictable.

However, there’s still a lot to enjoy. Rather than bathe the screen in the gaudy rainbow of colours favoured by Italian movies of the time, cinematographer Aiace Parolin casts everything in a pale, washed-out half-light. This is particularly effective in the brief scenes that take place in the fog-wreathed mountain village. Celi’s mansion is also pleasingly minimalist with spartan, sterile interiors and furniture and utilities that play audio advertisements when used. That might not make much sense, Celi explains that it’s for market research, but it’s undeniably clever and funny. The script also gives us a dialogue exchange when Esperati threatens to expose Celi’s secret, but the tycoon isn’t concerned. He owns all the newspapers and the government.

Neither Farina nor Berruti had a long career in movie making. The former directed mostly short subjects and documentaries, his only other feature being cult horror ‘Baba Yaga’ (1973) starring former Hollywood starlet Carrol Baker. Berruti worked as an editor more often than a writer but fulfilled both script and directing duties on two films, the second being the controversial ‘The Killer Nun’ (1979) with Anita Ekberg. Hooper also has less than ten credits, with her only featured roles apparently being in this film and as a supporting player in Dario Argento’s ‘Deep Red/Profondo Rosso (1975). Of course, Celi will always be celebrated for a long, starry career in European cinema, particularly as Bond villain Largo opposite Sean Connery in ‘Thunderball’ (1965).

An unusual slice of horror and social commentary that manages the neat trick of being strangely prescient and oddly dated. Worth seeking out if you fancy something a little different.

The White Reindeer/Valkoinen peura (1952)

‘Some graveyard soil…the balls of ten bull moose…’

A free-spirited young woman marries a reindeer herder in their small, Lapland village. Frustrated and lonely due to his long absences from home, she goes to the local wise man, hoping that he can concoct a love potion that will make her irresistible to all men. However, the ceremony also awakens her own supernatural powers…

Unique and striking horror fable from Finland that combines elements of shape-shifting, vampirism and witchcraft into a highly unusual brew. Shot on location in Lapland, it was the first Finnish film to be shown at the Cannes film festival, winning a Special Jury Prize and belatedly picked up a Golden Globe award in 1956 for Best Foreign Film.

Wilful young orphan Pirita (Mirjami Kuosmanen) marries reindeer herder Aslak (Kalervo Nissilä) after a short courtship and settles down to married life in their remote Lapland village. Unfortunately, his work with the animals means long episodes of separation, and it’s pretty clear she’s not satisfied with him anyway, exchanging flirtatious glances with another man while he’s still at home. When he leaves on another expedition, she’s straight off to the local wise man Tsalkku-Nilla (Arvo Lehesmaa), asking for a love potion that will attract other men like bees to a honey pot. Lehman is happy to oblige but, during the spell-casting, he realises that Kuosmanen is a witch herself.

Undaunted by this revelation, Kuosmanen sets out to follow the wise man’s instructions; which involves killing the first living thing that she meets on the way home. This turns out to be the white fawn that Nissilä gave her as a present when they were newlyweds. But, no matter, she takes it with her to the ‘stone god’, a pillar of black rock crowned with a reindeer’s skull and makes the sacrifice. The spell is successful, but it turns her into a supernatural creature. Seemingly unchanged, she returns to the village to resume her everyday life but now she can shape-shift at will into a white reindeer. The fabulous animal lures men from their campsites into the snowy wastes, where she changes form again, this time into a vampire to finish off her prey.

This is probably the only film based around the beliefs of the Sámi people, often referred to as Laplanders in the English-speaking world, although some find this term offensive. They live in the Northern regions of the Scandinavian countries and the Kola Penisula, which is a part of Russia. The film opens with a prologue; a young mother (played by Kuosmanen, again) being found in the snow with a young baby. One old belief is that a vampire is a soul that reincarnates in a newborn when the original body dies young or violently. Spiritual significance is also given to unusual land formations, known as sieidis, which are often used as places of sacrifice. This finds realisation in the film as the ‘stone god’ which is surrounded by antlers, sticking out of the snow like small, broken trees.

 

 

 

Director Blomberg and star Kuosmanen were married at the time and wrote the film together. Aarne Tarkas was initially slated to direct, but cinematographer Blomberg replaced him. Whatever the reason for that, it proved to be a wise decision. Blomberg was primarily a documentary filmmaker and his approach to the everyday scenes of life in the village ground the film’s more fantastical elements in concrete reality. It’s even possible that some shots were taken from his previous short ‘With The Reindeer’ (1947). His matter of fact approach also scores with the settings, allowing the camera to linger on long takes of the bleak, snowy wastes, beautiful yet barren, almost like timeless postcards from another world.

Much of the film is dialogue-free, and there was probably no facility to record synchronised sound in certain locations as some of the action is accompanied only by the haunting score of Einar Englund. Rather than be a drawback, however, this emphasises a dream-like quality, which sits in stark contrast to the more realistic scenes of village life. Blomberg also tips his hat to FW Murnau with a shot of Kuosmanen’s shadow moving across her cabin floor. Framed by window bars in the shape of a cross, it brings back memories of Max Schreck’s dark form ascending the stairs in the final scenes of ‘Nosferatu’ (1922).

 

The film does have a few flaws, though, some probably caused by practical difficulties. The most notable is that Kuosmanen’s reindeer lures her victims repeatedly to the same location. Also, some moments of action are delivered via a quick cut to their consequences, so we don’t see what happened, just the aftermath. Kuosmanen’s transformations to the reindeer are also rendered similarly, although the absence of SFX is probably a good thing. Blomberg’s film is going for the subtle, rather than the explicit. Run time is only 68 minutes, which makes for a refreshingly lean presentation but a little effort to create significant supporting characters would have been nice.

But the success of an enterprise like this falls mainly on the shoulders of the leading actor. After all, she is rarely off-screen. This is Pirita’s story, from first to last. Thankfully, Kuosmanen is terrific, delivering a powerhouse performance as she deteriorates from a joyful, exuberant woman into a haunted, almost fragile, wraith, but one still driven by her overwhelming physical appetites. The correlation of sex and vampirism is an old as Bram Stoker’s original novel, and it had lost none of its potency in the half-century in between, Kuosmanen expertly suggesting the frustrations and needs that drive her character and decision making.

A very unusual setting, combined with some stunning visuals and an excellent central performance make this one well worth seeking out.

Blood of The Virgins/Sangre de vírgenes (1967)

‘It’s supposed to be empty, but people see things.’

A beautiful young woman marries the man favoured by her parents, even though she is in love with a mysterious stranger. On her wedding night, the lover reveals himself to be a vampire and attacks the newlyweds. Many years later, a stranded group of tourists take shelter in the remote lodge where it all took place…

Want to see an Argentinian vampire movie? Well, here’s your chance. Buenos Aires-born writer-director Emilio Vieyra gives us his take on the undead two years before he delivered the naughty horror/science-fiction shenanigans of the ‘The Curious Dr Humpp’ (1969). Does he bring anything new, or notable, to the lore or cinematic history of bloodsucking fiends from the grave? Not really, no. Unless you count the seagull.

Beautiful blonde Ofelia (Susana Beltrán) is happily in love with older man, Gustavo (Walter Kliche). However, he refuses to meet her parents and they are keen for her to marry a man they have chosen. She reluctantly complies, but married life gets off to a shaky start when Kliche arrives uninvited in the bedroom on the crucial night, bringing his living dead vibe and pointy teeth. I guess no amount of guidance counselling is going to sort that one out.

‘It’s a stone cold groove, man.’

Fast forward an unspecified number of years, and we’re straight into a seven-minute montage of some bright young things fooling about at a ski resort. It looks more like some kind of tourist board advert than the introduction of the main protagonists in a feature film. There’s no dialogue or synchronised sound, just groovy music and some very questionable camera angles, and the sequence seems to go on forever. The couples snog, drink, fool around on the slopes and drink some more at a party where one of the girls takes her top off. No judgement here, but aren’t ‘Virgins’ mentioned in the film’s title? It hardly seems as if these young ladies are following an abstemious lifestyle!

In fact, there’s not even any signposting that these are going to be our main characters. None of them is even referred to by name until about half an hour of the movie has passed! And that’s only when the girls go missing, and the guys are calling for them. In that spirit, I believe that their nerdy tour guide is played by Orestes Trucco because the IMDb lists him in the film’s credits as ‘Man of group with beard’. All told, it’s not exactly a textbook way to set up your principals and engage audience sympathy for their plight. None of them has any recognisable character traits or back story either. There’s the handsome one, Raul (Rolo Puente), his girlfriend Laura (Gloria Prat), and then there are their friends who might just as well be designated as ‘generic vampire fodder.’

‘I’m sorry, dear, I appear to have missed your neck again…’

Trucco’s silly tour guide is present to provide some vague comedy relief (he trips over a couple of times), so it’s no surprise when the group’s van runs out of petrol in the ass-end of nowhere. Of course, it’s the middle of the night, the wolves are howling, the weather’s a bit iffy, and the only nearby shelter is the abandoned old lodge where ‘people see things.’ Arriving there, they find food and drink apparently prepared by the zombie-like servant who no-one sees but Puente. After everyone is drugged, Kliche drops by for a midnight snack, but Puente has wandered off. He runs into Beltrán which provides the director with ample excuse to give us a lengthy sex scene starring her naked breasts. When Puente wakes the next morning, the girls are missing and all a search turns up is one of Prat’s shoes.

Heading to town to report the matter to Comisario Martinez (played by director Vieyra), they get stuck behind another car, which turns out to be driven by the strange servant with Kliche appearing briefly in the back seat. Where is he supposed to be going? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe he likes going out for a drive in the morning? I don’t mind that all this takes place in the daytime; the notion that vampires are destroyed by sunlight is almost entirely a modern one, traditional folklore suggesting mostly that the undead appeared by night because that was their preference. Other mythical creatures were said to be affected by the light, however, so it’s not hard to see how this became a common trope in our modern take on the legend. In the context of this film, though, the sequence is entirely pointless.

🎵 Me and my shadow…🎶

There are some other puzzling aspects to the development of the story as well. At one stage, Puente is called to police headquarters because they have detained someone as a suspect in the disappearance of the girls. When he gets there, he finds the station surrounded by an angry mob. There has been no indication that the case is even public knowledge, let alone that it has inspired a crowd to seek vigilante justice. The rabble-rousers beat the suspect to within an inch of his life (I thought he’d been detained?), but it doesn’t matter because we never find out who he is and he never appears in the film again. When Prat suddenly turns up at Puente’s door (I guess she escaped?), she’s put straight to bed, and he calls a doctor. Kliche turns up instead, impersonating a medical man, and gives her an injection of something or other. Why he does this is a complete mystery.

It’s also a curious choice to introduce a new major character with barely half an hour of the film remaining. Tito (Ricardo Bauleo) is Prat’s brother and, despite being only in his early twenties, I assumed that he was going to bring some special skills or knowledge to the table, but no, he’s just a regular dude. Why the climactic scenes feature him as Kliche’s main antagonist, instead of Puente who we might reasonably have come to regard as the film’s hero, is just another in a long line of questions that will probably never be answered. The most obvious of these is: what’s with the seagull? The constant cutting to scarlet-tinted shots of a seabird in flight is a bit of a head-scratcher. Ok, I get that the colour represents blood, but what has a seagull got to do with it? If anything, shouldn’t it be a bat? Perhaps vampire mythology in Argentina is a little different from everywhere else in the world.

‘That is the last time I’m sleeping in the wet patch.’

Technically, the film is serviceable enough, but the viewer is left with a distinct impression that little attention was paid to either plot or script. There is no back story to the vampire, who is cut from the familiar Lugosi cloth but inhabits a film more reminiscent of Hammer’s take on the genre (with added breasts). The film runs less than 80 minutes, so there may be an extended, more coherent version out there somewhere, but it’s just as possible this was a quick cash-in where the focus was more on what edgy scenes could be put in the trailer than creating a polished final product.

A very minor slice of international horror that ticks all the usual boxes in all the usual ways while feeling severely undeveloped and more than a little rushed.

El Mundo De Los Vampiros/The World of the Vampires (1961)

‘The circle formed by your wives will soon see you reach the cabalistic figure.’

A vampire lord and his disciples snare a young couple on a lonely road. He turns the woman, planning to use her in his vendetta against the descendants of the man who originally killed him…

For many decades, international horror cinema was fixated on the image of the vampire as a handsome, dinner jacketed matinee idol, the legacy of Bela Lugosi’s unforgettable performance as ‘Dracula’ (1931). Plots also tended to follow the Stoker template, with the two beautiful women menaced by the vampire next door and the menfolk hunkering down to protect them. Although this Mexican effort from director Alfonso Corona Blake starts in a different vein, it’s not long before it reverts to type.

Anna (Yolanda Margain) and her husband (Carlos Nieto) find their quiet midnight drive interrupted by the sudden appearance of Count Siergo Subotai (Guillermo Murray) in the middle of the road. Even honking the horn doesn’t just shift him and, after being attacked by the usual rubber bats on strings, the couple finds themselves at the mercy of the Count and his undead legions in his underground lair. He bites Margain, so she is ‘equipped with the eyes of the spirit’ and ‘can see through time and space’. This way she can spy on the activities of the present-day members of the Colman family, the ancestor of whom was the ‘Magus of Transylvania’. He knew the ‘secrets of the alchemists and the language of the stars’ and was responsible for Murray’s death. What are his descendants doing? Why they’re having a few friends round for cocktails, of course.

🎵 Goodbye Norma Jean…🎶

The targeted family are patriarch Senor Colman (José Baviera) and his two beautiful daughters, Leonor (Erna Martha Bauman) and Mirta (Silvia Fournier). Bauman is the ‘one who laughs’ and Fournier is ‘the one who is sad’. In other words, Bauman is the flighty party animal, and Fournier is the innocent good girl. We’ve no real evidence of Bauman’s sins; just a glint in her eye and a twist of her lips, but, hell, that’s enough to condemn her, isn’t it? It’s the hoary old cliche of ‘the madonna and the whore’ held over from Stoker’s original, and very Victorian, novel. So, it’s no surprise when Murray targets Bauman first, and she’s more than willing to entertain his advances. Meanwhile, Margain never appears in the film again, but husband Nieto remains chained to a post in the cave, turning slowly into a werewolf. I think.

It’s shortly after this setup that we discover that Murray is actually a recognised member of local society. He can just pop along to Baviera’s house party if he wants to because he has an invite. So why he needed Margain to check out the situation with her newly acquired psychic abilities first is a complete mystery. His frequent praying to the unseen ‘Astaroth’ is also a bit of a puzzler. Apparently, the recruitment of the last of the Colman family into the ranks of the living dead will afford this unseen demon some kind of transcendence. This will enable Murray to ‘open the door’ and bring about the end of humanity. How and why? It’s never explained.

‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn what you think.’

Now, we’ve already seen Murray go all ‘Lon Chaney’ on a bones and skull pipe organ back in his lair, so it’s no surprise when he’s drawn to Baviera’s party by the piano stylings of guest, and old family friend, Rodolfo Sabre (Mauricio Garcés). Rather conveniently, this cut-price Clark Gable lookalike knows his old, Transylvanian folk tunes, including ones that the peasants believe can summon the dead. This device proves to be the film’s equivalent of Edward Van Sloan catching Lugosi with the mirror in ‘Dracula’ (1931) as Murray is not a fan of this little ditty. Haters gotta hate, I suppose. However, this proves to be the film’s most interesting idea. There didn’t seem any obvious point earlier to Murray’s frenzied keyboard solo when his minions rose from their tombs, but we come to realise that this is how they are controlled: through music. This fresh concept isn’t exploited to any great length, but it does inform the unusual, if not particularly well-executed, climax.

Indeed, this is quite a mixed bag in terms of quality. Garcés finds he needs to start shaving his hands the morning after he is bitten by Bauman while asleep, bringing to mind the ongoing transformation of the imprisoned Nietes in the cave. This mash-up of vampire and werewolf lore is a little confusing and completely underdeveloped. It could have been a nod to the relationship between Lugosi and lycanthrope Matt Willis in ‘Return of the Vampire’ (1943). What it does do is endow Garcés with heightened perceptions and, in a quiet and highly effective moment later in the film, he hears a spider walking. Director Blake also manages some excellent and creepy shot compositions, and the interiors of Murray’s ruined house are well realised. Although he really needs to hire some domestic help. He also has a pit of spikes like the one favoured by Francis Lederer in ‘The Return of Dracula’ (1958) which is a nice feature to include the brochure if he ever thinks of selling up and moving back to the old country.

‘Please, Miss, can I go to the toilet?’

Unfortunately, there’s a lot to stack against the film’s better elements. For a start, there’s Murray. He is adequate as the vampire Count most of the time, but there’s more than one moment where he chews the scenery rather than remaining controlled. The somewhat exaggerated costume doesn’t assist with the character’s credibility either. Similarly, his legions of the undead are desperately unconvincing; extras draped in bedsheets and wearing masks that wouldn’t look out of place at a children’s Halloween party. But the ladies can take some essential makeup and lifestyle tips away with them afterwards if nothing else. Being turned into a vampire gives you an instantaneous new hairdo, plumps those lashes and makes you a real killer in the boudoir.

There’s also a hilariously corny exchange during the party scene where one unnamed woman confides to another that Murray is that nobleman who lives nearby; you know, ‘in the ruined house next to the cemetery’. The SFX are all of the basic stop/start the camera variety, but there is an amazing shot where we see Bauman’s tiny head on the top of a rubber bat. Yes, it’s completely ridiculous, but it’s oddly disturbing too!

‘He might live in a house by the cemetery, but I saw him first!’

Director Blake took this experience with the undead into ‘Santo vs. the Vampire Women’ (1962) and tag-teamed with the great man again on ‘Santo In The Wax Museum’ (1963). Fournier had her own bout with the ‘Man in the Silver Mask’ in ‘Santo vs. the Villain of the Ring’ (1968) but it’s Bauman who has the more interesting subsequent credits. She played Countess Eugenia Frankenhausen in ‘El vampiro sangriento’ (1962) and Brunhilda Frankenhausen in ‘The Invasion of the Vampires’ (1964). She was also the President of Venus in ‘Los astronautas’ (1964). Much later on, she had an uncredited bit in the semi-porno ‘Vampire Hookers’ (1978) starring John Carradine.

There is little to make this stand out from the legion of Lugosi ‘Dracula’ imitators that haunted the big screen in the decades after he first came down the stairs at Castle Dracula. However, there are a few moments of note and a couple of interesting ideas that make it worth checking out if you’re a denizen of the dark, international byways of vintage horror cinema.

The Return of Dracula/The Fantastic Disappearing Man (1958)

‘The flesh is only an illusion. The heart beats only when it is drunk with blood.’

Fleeing from vampire hunters, Count Dracula crosses the ocean to the United States, taking the identity of an exiled painter. ingratiating himself with the murdered man’s relatives, he begins planning a new reign of terror, but his pursuers are not far behind…

There’s little doubt that this modest b-picture from United Artists was rushed into theatres after Britain’s Hammer Studios hit box office gold with their new version of ‘Dracula’ (1958) a few months earlier. After all, this was the first time an American studio had revisited the character since John Carradine turned to dust in ‘House of Dracula’ (1945), the last of Universal’s Classic Monster Cycle. If you ignore the time he tangled with Abbott and Costello, of course!

Here the Count turns up in the person of Prague-born actor Francis Lederer, who vanishes from his cemetery crib somewhere in Europe just before our wannabe Van Helsing (John Wengraf) turns up with his stake, a cross and the forces of law and order. A quick spot of ‘light lunch’ on the train, and our toothsome hero is appearing out of thin air at a train station in small town USA. He’s met by Greta Granstedt and her family, who believe him to be her cousin Bellac Gordal. They haven’t seen him in many years (which is handy) and he’s also had the foresight not to label any of his luggage as belonging to ‘Count Alucard’ so his deception is a complete success!

‘This will stop you biting your nails…’

What follows is a predictable series of developments from screenwriter Pat Fielder. Lederer shows more than a fatherly interest in daughter of the house Norma Eberhardt while blind brunette Virginia Vincent serves him as a quick appetiser. The complacent Granstedt accepts Lederer’s reclusive behaviour with indulgent smiles, while baking apple pie in her kitchen and gently scolding irritating young brat Jimmy Baird.

Of course Eberhardt gets her head turned by the tall, dark stranger and becomes increasingly frustrated with insensitive boyfriend Ray Stricklyn, who drives an open top jalopy and probably plays on the high school football team. Yes, all the clichés of 1950s American life are here but it’s noticeable how little they affect the story, which could just as easily be taking place in Victorian London or 19th Century Europe. Still, to the best of my knowledge, it’s the first time the Vampire King appeared in the modern day and it does avoid any clumsy attempts to ‘update’ the legend, such as demonstrated in Hammer’s unfortunate ‘Dracula A.D.1972’ (1972). The one concession the film does makes to its contemporary setting is to have two high school teenagers as the hero and heroine, but this sign of the genre’s future is not as groundbreaking as it might have been. Eberhardt was 29 at the time of shooting and Stricklyn was 30!

What we get instead is a fairly unambitious, minor project but not one without points of interest and some things to enjoy. For a start, there are the performances. Lederer is a very persuasive Count, oozing an oily, old world charm that softens the stateliness of Lugosi’s portrayal and the removed, noble bearing of Lee. Lederer is a vampire who has moved with the times, learnt how to blend in and hide in plain sight. Perhaps he’s a little too refined to be an impoverished artist, but his conduct and behaviour attract little suspicion at first. He’s likeable, if a little remote. Although only boasting a brief movie career, Eberhardt holds her own in their scenes together, which is crucial to maintain audience investment in her fate. The other players, particularly the suave Wengraf, also provide solid support.

The film’s other main virtue is the Hollywood hills. Although it seems unlikely as a venue for such a tale, the bleak landscapes and abandoned mine workings prove to be an unusual and engaging backdrop. Director Paul Landres also exhibits some nifty camera moves, and conjures a notable scene where we’re not sure if Eberhardt is dreaming of Dracula or getting bitten (and I’m still not entirely sure!) The SFX are small scale but efficient and it’s nice to see a vampire making a kill in the form of a large white dog, instead of as a plastic bat on a wobbly string. However, some of the ‘day for night’ shooting is a little unconvincing and we do briefly catch a glimpse of Lederer’s shadow on the ground.

Smoking in bed was a dangerous habit…

The main flaw is the lack of originality and there are also some moments that strain credibility. Wengraf is an agent of the ‘European Police Authority’ (whatever that is!) and one flash of his badge seems to be sufficient to get everyone in authority believing in the undead almost without question.

Additionally, the family crypt containing Lederer’s new bride is surprisingly spacious and, by the looks of it, has a very efficient cleaning crew. Finally, Eberhardt finds all of Lederer’s canvases are blank when he’s supposed to have been out painting all day. Apart from one that shows her lying in her coffin! It doesn’t make any real sense and it’s a pretty cheap shot, but I guess it looked good in the trailer.

Overall this is only a rather modest and mildly diverting picture, but it is anchored by an excellent central performance and a decent supporting cast.

Cave of the Living Dead/Night of the Vampires/Der Fluch Der Grünen Augen (1964)

‘I’m working as secretary to the professor up at the castle.’

A police detective is sent to a remote town where half a dozen young women have met mysterious deaths over the previous six months. These events have all been accompanied by unexplained power cuts, and, as the detective reaches the edge of town, his car dies and all the lights go out…

There’s little joy to be had from this tedious and perfunctory black and white co-production between West Germany and Yugoslavia, unless you want to play a game of ‘count the cliché’. For a start we have ruggedly handsome, top detective Adrian Hoven, whose about to enjoy a well-earned holiday when he’s shanghaied into ‘one more case’ by his bad-tempered boss. Packed off ‘undercover’ to the town in question, he’s rescued from his automobile mishap by blonde hottie Karin Field, who has spent the last few weeks temping for Professor Wolfgang Preiss at the local castle (every town should have one). Most of her duties have involving catalogue his experiments with blood, so nothing suspicious there, then.

Taking a room at the local inn (which doesn’t seem to have a barroom or any customers), he’s woken by the local constabulary the next morning when Maria the maid (Erika Remberg) is found dead in the room next door. These policemen obviously aren’t too quick on the uptake; in fact, they are almost played as the comic relief, but that’s as half-hearted as the rest of this sorry enterprise. Misunderstandings are averted when Hoven reveals his true identity, thus rendering the whole ‘undercover’ business completely redundant within the first ten minutes of the film.

But onto the case! The local sawbones (Carl Mohner) reckons the death is ‘another case of heart failure’ and when Hoven points out the bloody bite marks on the girl’s neck, he dismisses them as ‘scratches.’ Not surprisingly, when the corpse disappears, everyone else tells Hoven that vampires are to blame and even where he can find them! So with half an hour gone, there’s no detecting left for him to do and the script has played all its cards.

‘What do you mean it doesn’t look like bunny rabbit?’

From there, we get a trip to local witch Vida Juvan who has a charm that can turn a vampire back to human, Remberg takes a deep breath when she wakes up as a member of the undead, and more of those pesky power cuts which are never explained. We guess they’re supposed to be supernatural because even Hoven’s battery-powered torch fails when he gets to town!

There’s also a completely pointless subplot about Thomas the Deaf One (Emmerich Schrenk), a local thug who steals a infra-red device from Hoven’s car. Our hero gets it back after a fight, but it has no significant role to play in events anyway. The initial attack on Maria in her room actually has a couple of creepy and effective shots, until you notice the reflection of the vampire’s hands in the opening windows. Maybe the director was subverting the form? No, the chief vampire definitely casts no reflection later on…

The Italian horrors of the period may not have always had the tightest or most coherent of scripts, but they nearly always looked great and managed to conjure a genuinely unsettling atmosphere from gothic locations and interiors. Beyond a couple of impressive caves, this efforts manages little in that department either, being delivered in the flat, disinterested style of a director who seemingly couldn’t wait to get onto the next setup and then break for lunch. Even the climax of the film is dusted off in less than two minutes flat!

Hoven had moved behind the camera by the end of the decade, doing uncredited direction on cult hit ‘Mark of the Devil’ (1970) before taking full credit for semi-sequel ’Hexen Geschéindet Und Zu Tode Gequalt (1973).

This isn’t a terrible film by any means. It’s competently crafted and performed, even if the script is a little sloppy. But it’s hard to get invested in such an incredibly generic, undistinguished, run of the mill production.

Onna Kyùketsuki/The Woman Vampire/The Lady Vampire (1959)

‘What’s this about castles and monsters?’

A young reporter is late for his fiancée’s birthday party when his cab seemingly hits a woman in the road, but there is no trace of her body afterwards. Later, the party is crashed by the long-lost wife of his prospective father-in-law. She disappeared 20 years earlier, but doesn’t look a day older than when she vanished…

The Far East isn’t exactly famous for its vampire mythology. Cinematic excursions have been few and far between; with the cute hopping undead in Hong Kong comedy horrors like ‘Mr. Vampire’ (1985) and Japan’s alien bloodsucker ‘Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell’ (1968). But that nation had already given us a touch of the Nosferatu with this production starring Shigeru Amachi as a wannabe Count Dracula. Typically, it doesn’t stray too far from the Bram Stoker template with our undead hero twirling a mean cape and holing up in his own castle in the mountains. And that verb is pretty accurate as the mighty edifice is completely underground!  This is convenient both for his repair and maintenance bills, and for the movie’s budget.

So what’s it all about then? Well, early on, we find out that Amachi kidnapped Yòko Mihara two decades before by drugging her with the cunning combination of a smelly flower and his landscape painting skills. lt’s all because she’s descended from his old squeeze, the Princess Katsu, who apparently came to grief at the hands of some rampaging hordes, whose very brief appearance obviously comes courtesy of another movie. This historical flashback mostly takes place on a darkened set dressed with a few odd items from the prop department. So when Mihara escapes, he’ll stop at a nothing to get her back.

Apart from the lack of budget (which isn’t too much of a problem at first), it’s the film’s somewhat nonsensical mythology that seems to be its main failing. Amachi is petrified of moonlight (rather than the sun!) but, instead of killing him, it triggers his transformation into a demented bloodsucker! Kind of like a werewolf really. But extended exposure to lunar rays turns him into an old man sporting some kind of white afro frightwig! Additionally, his reflection appears in mirrors, and he keeps his ex-wives as statues, each frozen in place by a gold crucifix, which doesn’t bother him at all! It’s a little confusing, to say the least.

🎵I’ve got chills down multiplyin’ and I’m losing control…’🎶

Certain aspects of the production are quite professional. Takoshi Wada makes for a likeable hero, Akira Nakamura does a good job as the old man who finds his young wife mysteriously restored to him, and Amachi is decent as the villain. However, the presence of his ‘familiars’ is probably a mistake; his dwarf assistant being so incompetent that he can’t even draw a pair of curtains properly. But there’s some good shot composition and camera movement, and proceedings aren’t burdened with any cheesy SFX.

The problems really come home to roost in the film’s concluding scenes. There’s been an early warning with an episode in a café, where the action is ineptly staged, and a split-second nip from Amachi’s fangs is enough to deliver instant death! But worse is to come. At the climax, we find out that he’s the worst movie swordsman of all time, as he and Wada lurch drunkenly around the set, trying desperately not to hurt each other. The paved floor moves beneath their feet in the way that stones don’t normally tend to do, and we can hear the echo of their footfalls on what sound suspiciously like a wooden stage. The resolution comes courtesy of an accident to a minor character, who only shows up in the film for the last 15 minutes! The whole sequence looks like nothing so much as an amateur stage production.

Director Nobuo Nakagawa was actually a veteran film director with a career in the Japanese industry stretching back over a quarter of a century to the early 1930s. He’d recently delivered a couple of well-regarded supernatural pictures, ‘The Ghost of Yotsuya’ (1959) and ‘The Ghost of Kasane’ (1957) both of which featured several of the same cast members appearing here. But he was extremely prolific, turning out an average of four pictures a year at this point, so perhaps it’s no great surprise that the quality of the projects was a little variable.

A picture that never really comes to life, thanks to a muddled screenplay, financial constraints and a desperately shoddy finish.

Thirst (1979)

‘An ancient evil is now a modern industry.’

A brotherhood of vampires kidnap a successful young businesswoman because she is the direct descendant of the notorious Countess Elizabeth Bathory. At first she refuses to embrace her deadly heritage, but they isolate her at their secret facility and try to persuade her otherwise…

Unusual Australian cocktail of blood sucking and science fiction that never really develops beyond its intriguing initial premise, which was quite original for the time. These vampires have adapted to the modern world, running an isolated ‘Blood Farm’ to ensure a constant supply via live donors, and testing the quality scientifically to ensure they only get the finest vintages. This cutting edge approach is combined with a suitable reverence for tradition, with organised rituals and an obsession with their unholy lineage. This last matter is actually a little bit of a problem here as the real life Elizabeth Bathory was most definitely not a vampire, despite Ingrid Pitt’s appearance as the character in the misleadingly titled ‘Countess Dracula’ (1970). Instead, she merely bathed in the blood of virgins in an effort to retain her youth. Which is obviously far more reasonable.

Although this isn’t an insurmountable problem, it does highlight the film’s main weakness: the script. The whole story revolves around the brotherhood’s efforts to turn Chantal Contouri to the dark side, but we never really find out why. There’s some references to ‘reuniting two great houses’ but that’s as far as it goes, and if the original intention was to bring Dracula into the mix, it never happens. So there seems little motivation behind events, and the underdeveloped characters are simply one note ciphers. These include British actor David Hemmings as the strangely sympathetic lead scientist and U.S. ‘rent a villain’ Henry Silva, who appeared memorably in mainstream hits like ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (1962) and ‘Oceans Eleven’ (1960). He was also pretty much a fixture on the cult movie circuit, thanks to films like ‘Alligator’ (1980), ‘Bronx Warriors’ (1983) and the disastrous ‘Megaforce’ (1982). There were also many TV roles in shows such as the original 1960s version of ‘The Outer Limits’, ‘Mission: Impossible’, ‘Buck Rogers In The 25th Century’ and ‘Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea’.

Do you come here often?’

The film actually does have some good points, with the scenes of the ‘blood cows’ lining up to make their regular donations being particularly effective. There’s also a very good performance from Shirley Cameron as the sadistic head nurse who is determined to break Contouri’s resistance by any means necessary.

Unfortunately, events play out in a rather unconvincing manner, and there’s not much of a climax. Even with a couple of crude shocks and some bloody scenes, the whole thing has the feel of something made for television, rather than the big screen. There’s also a terrible stunt double in a helicopter sequence, which is so silly that it’s more comedic than horrifying.

After a long career in Australia, director Ron Hardy packed his bags for Hollywood in the 1990s where he ended up working extensively in television, helming episodes of ‘The X-Files’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (the new incarnation) and ‘Doll House.’ He also brought us ‘Nick Fury: Agent of Shield’ (1988), the TV movie that featured David Hasselhoff as the title character, long behalf he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the person of Samuel L Jackson.

A passable horror with a few interesting ideas, but with characters that lack depth and a story that’s never fully developed.