A sorcerer (Paul Naschy) and his mistress (Helga Liné) are executed in the fifteenth century for their crimes, but not before they curse their executioners, including the sorcerer’s brother, and promise vengeance on their families as well. In the current day, a group that includes the descendant of the sorcerer’s brother (Paul Naschy again), dabbling …
Read the full post →“<em>Horror Rises from the Tomb</em> (1973)”
A mad scientist abducts and kills women to perform experiments using their blood, in a quest for immortality, but he is captured and pays the penalty for his many crimes. Many years later, his grandson becomes obsessed with his grandfather’s research and begins his own crime spree to revive his ancestor. Fairly slow-paced, but occasionally …
A young woman (Erna Schurer) inherits a castle from her uncle but is urged to sell it, and various creepy — or simply odd — happenings, including murder, follow, in this fairly atmospheric Gothic thriller, also known as The Doll of Satan. Certainly not the best of this sort of movie, but a decent lead …
A disfigured former professional wrestler, El Murciélago (the Bat), driven mad by his condition, lives a life in hiding, scheming for opportunities to best other wrestlers — he has henchmen kidnap them and bring them to his secret lair for that purpose — and obsessed with a beautiful singer. Fortunately for the world, the masked …
Read the full post →“<em>La sombra del murciélago</em> (1968)”
Masked wrestlers Blue Demon and Superzan come to the aid of a young woman trying to obtain a cursed treasure so that she can make restitution to the descendants of those harmed by her ancestor and thus break her family’s curse. To achieve her end, she must pass three tests, including finding a scepter and …
Read the full post →“<em>La mansión de las 7 momias</em> (1977)”
The third entry in Daiei’s Yokai trilogy, also known as Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts, is rather more action-oriented, with a gang in pursuit of a clever little girl who witnessed their murder of her grandfather, and a wandering swordsman (Kôjirô Hongô) taking a hand while the girl searches for her missing father. The supernatural …
The Yokai monsters (Japanese spirits and demons) return in the second of Daiei’s late-1960s trilogy, also known as Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare. Here, the creatures battle an invader, a powerful Babylonian vampire-demon that comes to Japan and slays and replaces a local nobleman. The viewers’ sympathies clearly lie with the defending Japanese creatures in this …
Local Japanese spirits — weird creatures such as an umbrella monster that range from the cute to the creepy — take vengeance on an evil official who even resorts to murder in order to acquire a tenement and a shrine to destroy for his own purposes. Some of the spirits, or monsters, are puppets, some …
Read the full post →“<em>Yôkai hyaku monogatari</em> (1968)”
This entry in Spanish star Paul Naschy’s series of werewolf films, also known as The Beast and the Magic Sword, is set, unusually, in the sixteenth century. This time around, Count Waldemar Daninsky (Naschy), fleeing from the Inquisition, heads around the world to Japan in search of a release from his curse by means of …
Read the full post →“<em>La bestia y la espada mágica</em> (1983)”
Killings take place at an old castle in this slow-paced Italian thriller: Could the troubled heiress of the house be to blame? What’s going on is fairly obvious in broad outline, and the details aren’t particularly compelling. Lawrence Tierney has a small role but doesn’t contribute much. Not particularly recommended. Otto thinks you should avoid …
