scotch pissed.

Day 2 of the whole 31 Days of Horror thing and it's time to break out the big guns.

And by big guns I mean man boobs.

Stop....Naschy time!

La orgía de los muertos (AKA Orgy of the Dead, The Hanging Woman, Beyond the Living Dead, Return of the Zombies and Terror of the Living Dead among others, 1973).

Dir: Jose Luis Merino.

Cast: Stelvio (Stan Cooper) Rosi, Aurora de Alba, Maria Pia Conte, Gérard Tichy, Dyanik Zurakowska, Pasquale Pasile, Gérard Tichy, Isarco Ravaioli, Carlos Quiney and Lord Paul of Naschy.

For the Squeamish ... Keep Repeating ... It Can't Be True ... It Can't Be True ... It Can't Be True ... It Can't Be True ... It Can't Be True ...

Our tale begins in 19th century Scotland (played here utterly realistically by Skopje in Macedonian) where sexy blonde-bobbed bloke around town Serge Chekov (Council estate Jason King, Rosi, billed as Stan Cooper for reasons beyond our comprehension) and his porn star 'tache has just arrived from 'the London' for the reading of his late uncle Brian’s will. 

And I mean late as in dead, not that he was shite at timekeeping.

With the train guard telling him that no taxis go to the nearby town of Yaweebam after dark due to rampaging Kappa-trackie demons, Serge has no choice but to proceed on foot.

Well technically that's not true as he could stay at the local hotel till morning if he wanted but obviously it's a short film so he wants to get down to the actual plot as soon as possible.

Which is fair enough.

Taking a short cut thru' the local graveyard he's shocked to come across the body of a young girl swinging from a tree and is soon running around in a fairly girly manner, banging on doors and screaming for help only stopping when he gets to his uncle's house.

The fact that he doesn't recognize it or realize that the corpse is that of his cousin Mary (de Alba from Raise Your Hands, Dead Man, You're Under Arrest and Frankenstein's Bloody Terror among other classics) till someone tells him makes me think that they're not that close a family.

Or that he'd actually any idea as to where he was heading.

But heyho, that's early 70s Spanish horror films for you. 

Well this one at least.

"Are you the farmer?"

 

It's not all bad tho' as Serge soon discovers that he is to his inherit the entire of his uncle’s estate, much to the chagrin of Brian's widow Nadia (Conte, from Spasmo, The Labyrinth of Sex and your dad's bed) a foxy temptress who, when not shagging Ivan the butler (Quiney from shedloads of stuff, none of it any good tho') or having crafty cunnilingus sessions with Igor the gravedigger (Sir Paul of Naschy - the reason we are here)is busy performing black magic rites in her nightie. 

Which is nice.

Add weirdy beardy Professor Leon Droila (Spanish cinema god Tichy) who had been tasked by Brian to find a cure to death via the reanimation of disco-dancing frogs and his harsh daughter Doris (Zurakowska, best known for the classic Vampires Night Orgy and having a really wide face) to the mix and you can see why local police detective and pie expert Jeff Tidybeard (Spain's very own Noel Edmonds, Basile from Julius Caesar Against the Pirates) is convinced that something more sinister than a late night graveyard suicide is afoot.

He suspects murder and is pretty sure that Igor is to blame, especially since they've discovered his love of sniffing (dead) ladies underwear and his habit of sticking his engorged member into female corpses.

Which to me sounds like he's definitely a bit of a wrong 'un,  tho' others would no doubt say he's stunning and brave whilst demonizing and de-platforming anyone who would question the mental health of a person sticking their cock in a corpse. 

Probably.

"Is it in yet?"

Anyway back at the plot and Nadia is relaxing with a wee bit of voodoo hoodoo (you do, remind me of the babe that is) before following Serge to his room with offers of 'the sex' in the hope of her fantastic blouse persuading him to let her stay in the house.

She will not be the last person to try this trick on Serge during the remainder of the film.

Knocking her back on account of her having 'Knees like me mum', Serge bids her goodnight and - in a scene of unbridled eroticism - slowly strips for bed only to be confronted by Igor falling out of a wardrobe shouting "I'm no a bad 'un really, I just shag corpses! It's everyone else who's wrong!" before trying to stab Serge in the face and escaping thru a secret passage behind the toilet.

Hearing the commotion coming from Serge's room Nadia bursts in to help but only succeeds in hitting poor Serge on the head with a chamber pot resulting in him getting knocked unconscious, luckily Nadia manages to convince him that the best cure for concussion is a shag in her dead husbands bed.

Being a wee bit unsteady on his feet and mildly confused Serge agrees.

Cue ten minutes (or is it hours?) of twirling cut price sexy psychedelic shagging, which would be OK if the whole saucy sense of sexiness wasn't ruined by the cast's dirty feet.

Oh and by Rosi's really hairy arse.

Or was that Conte's?

Obviously Ivan the butler is fairly upset by this turn of events and tries to exert his manliness by refusing to serve Serge an extra crumpet at breakfast which results in our hero shouting - in his best Alan Sugar voice - "You're fired!" at him before punching him in the face which Ivan counters by pulling out a switchblade and trying to stick it in Serge.

Five minutes of slow fighting - and one broken banister - later and Serge has booted the big-haired badboy out of the house with a threat to shoot him in the face if he returns.

Ivan announces that he knows what's going on before storming off into the night.

And with that out of the way everyone retires to bed.

Except me obviously as I want to see how everything plays out.

That's your Mum that is.

With a fairly short running time to fill, the next morning Serge has no sooner finished breakfast when Professor Leon Droila walks in to beg our hero to continue funding his experiments and not chuck him and Doris out into the streets.

Which is fair enough I guess.

He has nowt to worry about tho' as Serge has money to burn and no intention of chucking the Prof and his daughter out on their arse, especially after witnessing an amazing reanimated frog experiment in the downstairs laboratory.

In all the frog-based excitement tho' no-one thinks to tell Doris the good news so she takes in on herself to - uncomfortably - strip down to her pants in front of Serge in the hope of him allowing the pair to stay on the payroll and being the joker he is he doesn't mention it till she's tearfully about to let him put it in her.

What a card.

And with that the pair decided to figure out for themselves what's going down.

Apart from scarily abusive misogyny obviously.

Baby Spice is taking the divorce well.

As their investigations continue, Serge comes across his late niece's diary which leads him back to the family crypt (well it was either there or the chippie - it is a very small town) where he discovers that his uncle's body has vanished, luckily Nadia is on hand to perform a seance in order to contact the count and ask him what the fuck is going on.

Unfortunately for her rather than knock over candles and bang on the table he actually turns up in the (slightly peeling) flesh and strangles her.

To death!

 

Less is there anyone here, more is anyone fucking interested.

So is Serge's uncle alive or dead? 

 

Well Inspector Tidybeard reckons that they may have just missed him in the crypt what with it being dark and all, so everyone heads back for a second look.

 And guess what?

Not only is the count's body is back where it should be but poor Igor is there too, bricked up in a wall and covered in blood, egg and shit.

And he's left them a clue scrawled in his own blood.

Or it might be paint.

With the film lurching toward a climax and with nowt of any consequence happening on screen save a few scenes of nudity and Naschy's sweaty man-tits, Serge and Doris head into the catacombs below the house only to discover a horde of zombies awaiting their orders.

But who is controlling them?

And why?

No, really, why cos none of this makes any sense.

 

Whilst better known for his action/adventure output (including the classics Slaughter on the Khyber Pass, Battle of the Last Panzer and Zorro, Rider of Vengeance) director José Luis Merino had already - if not flirted - then at least given a furtive reach-around to the horror genre with his 1970 offering Scream of the Demon Lover, the terrifying tale a young and beautiful biochemist, Ivanna Rakowsky who falls in love with her employee Baron Janos Dalmar. Little realising that at night he transforms into a demon intent on making her its love slave.

Reading that back I'm kinda wondering why I didn't review that instead.

Oh well.

 

A strong wumman does some science yesterday.

To be fair tho', what this film lacks in demon-based lusting it more than makes up for with its heady mix of (junior) Cluedo style hi-jinks (albeit with added panty sniffing), a genuinely - at times - creepy atmosphere, Voodoo, zombies, mad scientists and lashings of nudity and gore.

Plus a guest appearance by Paul Naschy that he did as a favour on the proviso  that he could flesh out his character, sleep with the leads (both male and female), write his own dialogue and wear his own trousers.

It's just a pity then that none of it actually holds together in any way whatsoever.

The 'plot' - what there is of it - is equally over-complicated and under developed; at one point screeching to a halt so we can 'enjoy' a ketchup soaked autopsy, the characterization (save for Naschy) is sketchy at best, especially with our 'hero' Serge who goes from well meaning nice guy to predatory creep at the drop of a hat and the fact that there are a fair few characters that don't even have names - even tho' the village seems to only have about 8 inhabitants.

Lucky for us then that just when you think about turning it off Paul Naschy appears at random intervals clad in an Alvin Stardust wig, Benny beanie and with an eggy beard randomly touching up a corpse and saving the whole film in the process.

And for that, as ever we salute him. 

Oh and the scenery is quite nice and whilst The Hanging Woman is no way the best Spanish/Italian co-production featuring a zombie frog ever made it's really not that shit and is a fairly pain-free way to spend an evening.

And if that's not damning with (very) faint praise I don't know what is.

Be seeing you.

bad monk house.

 

It's day 1 of this years fang-tastic 31 Days of Horror where I attempt to get more (any?) readers to pay attention to my inane ramblings and I'm starting with a good 'un.

Yup it's all downhill from here.

 

Haunted House of Horror (aka The Dark, Horror House, 1969).
Dir: Michael Armstrong.
Cast: Frankie Avalon, Gina Warwick, Jill Haworth, Julian Barnes, Mark Wynter, Carol Dilworth, Richard O’Sullivan, Dennis Price, George Sewell, Robin Stewart, Veronica Doran and Clifford Earl.

"the way you dig blood you'd think you were a vampire."

It's 'swinging' 60s London and what better place to start our story than the hip 'n' happening Carnaby Street where the girls are all dishy dolly birds and the guys are all groovy go-getters.

And every single one of them looks like they're just the wrong side of their 30s.

Well it's either that or they've all had fucking tough paper rounds.

In the midst of all this mod-ish madness we meet the raven haired temptress Sylvia (Warwick - not the castle but an actress who once played a librarian in The Champions) who inbetween fixing the wigs on a variety of shop window dummies is desperately trying to find a way of convincing her OAP ex-beau, the sinisterly named Uncle Bob (Sewell on his day off from UFO) that she doesn't fancy him any more.

You see it seems that since the pair split up poor old lovelorn Bob has been following her about in his car whilst telling Sylvia that she'll never get away from him.

Obviously back in the 60s this kinda thing was just seen as playful flirty bantz and not the kind of behavior that, today, would get you locked up.

Ah more innocent times.

To add to her woes it also appears that the fella she actually does want to have stick something in her is actually dating another girl.

Enter - roughly and from behind - the boy in question, the swoonsome Gary (ex-popster Wynter)who is currently enjoying a coffee with the aforementioned girlfriend Dorothy (Dilworth who scarily looks just like Lucy Porter if drawn from memory which was quite disconcerting I can tell you and not just because I have a fairly unhealthy crush on her*) whilst discussing the party being held that evening by their American pal Chris (Avalon taking a break from all those Beach Party flicks by spending his days off in rainy Ealing, each to their own).

Unfortunately Gary remembers that he has a stag do that evening so Dorothy will have to go without him, tho' he promises to turn up late and not be drunk.

Porter - Cabin.

Later than evening and very drunk, Gary finally arrives at the party (after an incredibly realistic stag party that consists of 4 guys standing around a piano singing sub-Blur ditties whilst cradling glasses of bitter) and proceeds to collapse into a bed whilst his pals - including Peter (Robin's Nest star and Brit TV royalty, the late, great O'Sullivan), his girlfriend Madge (Council estate Wendy Padbury Doran) and Henry (Stewart from Legend of The 7 Golden Vampires and Bless This House) - cover for him.

Dorothy meanwhile and none the wiser that her beau is back continues to stand in the corner licking piss off John Nettles.

Back at the creepy sugar daddy stalker subplot, Sylvia has also just arrived at the party thanks to a lift from Bob and almost immediately attempts to snog Gary but being a nice man - OK being really drunk - he refuses, offering instead to maybe shag her tomorrow when he's sober.

What a guy.

With Sylvia onto a promise she excitedly leaves the bedroom to enjoy the happening party atmosphere only to realise that everyone is sitting around bored senseless and getting totally shit-faced in an attempt to alleviate the boredom, you see it turns out that Chris' party is in fact utter wank and everyone is quickly losing the will to live.

Tho' to be honest I'm not too surprised seeing as they do only seem to have one record and then the only real entertainment seems to be watching Madge creepily undulate in what looks like your gran's babydoll nightie.

Luckily the sinisterly fey Richard (Barnes who you may recall as Jeff Gilbert in Crossroads for a few episodes in 1976) has a plan to add a wee bit of excitement to the proceedings - both on and off screen - and to this end suggests that they take the party to a nearby haunted house and tell spooky stories.

As you do.

So the (main) cast grab a few crates of booze and head out, much to the annoyance of Chris' girlfriend Sheila who, it turns out doesn't dig haunted houses.

Tho' she does like blood.

Which is fair enough.

So off they drive to the infamous - and deserted - Baldpate Manor ready to party, unaware that Uncle Bob is following them.

Thanks to the American producers interference this doesn't actually happen in the film, instead we get a shot of a fat lass dancing. Cheers!

It's not too long before the pals arrive at the rundown mansion and have soon broken in and settled onto some handy blankets to hear Richard's spooky story regarding the house, you see it seems that 20 years ago a member of the Baldpate family went mental, chopping up everyone else in the house with an axe before killing himself.

Tho' to be honest it'd be pretty difficult to do it the other way round.

Anyway it also turns out that the killer's ghost is supposed to haunt the old house.

This has an odd effect on Henry who excitedly exclaims "To hell with the drinks, let's all have an orgy!" before looking at a by now smiling Madge before quickly changing his mind and suggesting a seance instead.

A lucky escape there methinks.

Sylvia, being much more 'mature' than her friends (and by that I mean nearly 40) decides she's had enough of such childish things so elects to go home, Gary offers to take her as far as the front porch and with a kiss waves her off into the night.

With Bob in hot pursuit.

Which judging by his 3-piece suit, woolly overcoat and porkpie hat must be very hot indeed.

Don't get too concerned tho' as she's soon hitched a lift home leaving the pervy oldster to go back to furtively smoking behind a tree.

At least some lights are on.

It's all go back at the house tho' the rest of the gang ready themselves for the seance but upon realising that they have absolutely no clue what to do decide to just wander around the place looking for the ghost instead so off they trot into the dark for what seems like hours of folk popping out behind cupboards shouting "Boo!" whilst dropping their candles.

But not their knickers alas.

All this tomfoolery soon comes crashing to a close however when, out of nowhere, Gary is messily stabbed to death by an unseen assailant which kinda puts a damper on the whole evening.

Meeting up in the drawing room and with hysterical ladies slapped and sitcom star vomited (nice gag acting from O'Sullivan) Chris steps in to decide what to do and, after assuming that the killer is 'one of them' (as in a member of the gang not a homosexualist), reckons that rather than call the police and report a murder they must hide Gary's body in a field a few miles away and just forget it ever happened.

No, really.

Thanks to the power of the slow dissolve it's now 3 days later and the local police - led by the inappropriately named Inspector Manley (An obviously sozzled Price) are investigating the disappearance of poor Gary.

The reason that they're so interested in his whereabouts is due to the fact that the year before Gary was involved in a drugs bust where the police found 8 stone of crack in Madge's pants so assume it must be related so to this end they pull the gang in for questioning.

Meanwhile poor old - an I do mean old - Bob is in a right tizzy seeing as Sylvia appears to have lost the cigarette lighter he bought her and it maybe at the old house.

No, me neither.

"And this is all the fucks I give."

With a grumpy shout of  "If they find it it could finish us both!" he stomps off to his car and drives back to the house in order to find it.

And by find it I mean get stabbed.

To death.

As the pals show signs of cracking under pressure, Chris calls a meeting where Peter stiffly suggests that the only way to sort things out is to head back to the house and re-create the night in question.

But with less killings obviously.

And maybe a pot plant in the place of Gary.

Maybe.

Will our groovy gang discover the killer's identity before it's too late?

Is the missing lighter anything at all to do with the murders or just a way to off a cast member to keep viewer interest with a subplot that makes no sense?

Will Dennis Price appear in any scenes where he's not clutching a desk for fear of falling over?

And will the climax make any sense?

Edgar Allan NO more like.

From the pen (and eyes) of cult film royalty Michael Armstrong - amongst other things he's given us the Udo Kier classic Mark of the Devil (1970), the sight of David Warbeck's pert arse thrusting atop Diane Keen in The Sex Thief (1973), the Katy Manning starring sex comedy Eskimo Nell (1975), the Black Country based bad man movie The Black Panther (1977), the Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine classic House of the Long Shadows (1983) he also worked as an uncredited script doctor on LifeForce (1983) as well as writing and directing the David Bowie short The Image - comes his first full length feature - from a script called The Dark - he wrote when he was 15.

I'll let that sink in, I mean what were you doing when you were 15?**

Exactly.

To be fair he did rewrite it 7 years later so any goodwill we could have is kinda pissed up the wall cos frankly it's pretty shite.

Tho' if you delve into the story behind it you get a tale way scarier - and much more depressing - than anything on screen.

Something about 'thighs' and 'limits' possibly.

Originally pitched as a story that explored "The dark psycho-sexual themes reflected in the current cynical underbelly beneath the superficial 60s culture." and with David Bowie penciled in to play the killer, the script was recommended to Witchfinder General and Repulsion producer Tony Tenser who immediately set up a deal with American International Pictures (famous for their Vincent Price starring, Roger Corman produced Poe movies) who after much thought and bags of potato chips insisted that it be shot (cheaply) in the UK, have a couple of American actors in it for 'international appeal', feature way more sexy stuff and star Boris Karloff.

Karloff would have played the role later taken by Dennis Price and not the sexy male lead obviously tho' being close to death at the time he turned it down.

Which was a blessed relief for him seeing as he got to make the slightly more entertaining Curse of the Crimson Altar instead.

Even tho' it was the year before.

I probably just mentioned it as no-one seems to have read my review.

Anyway for that part Armstrong suggested Ian Ogilvy but American cash meant an American lead so to this end Frankie Avalon was cast, scuppering any chance of an appearance by David Bowie in case the pair "didn't get on".

Tho' it was more likely that Bowie wouldn't have been seen dead in the collection of ghastly turtlenecks (topped off with a  nice mustard coloured V neck sweater) that Avalon is forced to wear.

Seriously he looks like the shittest Captain Kirk kissagram ever.

Even more so than Chris Pine.

Ask yer mum.

Further rewrites ensued as more and more saucy sex stuff was added and then removed (alongside most of the plot) until all that remained was an essence of the original psycho-sexual slasher hobbled by reams of stilted dialogue delivered by plum-mouthed posh types, one fairly gruesome murder scene and Gina Warwick in a pretty frock.

Which let's be honest isn't really enough to recommend it.

Plus the house isn't even bloody haunted.

What a swizz.

Saying that tho' there is - allegedly - a version where Gina Warwick (and Mark Wynter unfortunately) get sweaty and naked but to be honest I'm not that desperate.










*Lucy Porter that is, not Carol Dilworth, I mean she's old enough to be my gran. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**And no, your mum's best friend doesn't count.