The Vampires Night Orgy

Cheeky little number involving a bus load of folks hired for some far off job travelling the Spanish countryside when their bus driver has a heart attack and dies. While stashing his body safely in the overhead compartment, they debate whether to head on to their planned destination or stop for the night at the sinister village that's just mysteriously appeared nearby. Being characters in a horror film, they of course choose the village.

Also, being characters in a horror film, they show no surprise whatsoever when they find the village deserted, but the local hotel's bar stuffed with booze, a roaring fire going, and loads of rooms ready to sleep in. They meet another traveller played by Jack Taylor, from every Spanish film ever made including Ghost Galleon, the hilarious Pieces, and ever Jess Franco film that's escaped to torment the public. He's also non-plussed about the deserted village, but he's tickled pink to find a hole in his hotel bedroom wall that allows him to spy on the pretty girl of the bus party.

After one of the bus party is secretly eaten out in public, screaming in agony while no one notices, everyone else gets up in the morning to find the villagers have returned. Turns out they were holding some sort of rave down at the local cemetery. They also serve the travellers a cooked human leg (donated by a reluctant villager) as they don't have any normal meat. As you have figured out the village is full of vampires and the travellers are all on the menu. Problem is, the travellers haven't figured it out yet.

While not overflowing with gore or nudity (although it has a bit of both), this one is quite well paced for a Spanish horror film and has a nice creepy atmosphere throughout. There's a ghostly kid who hangs out with a travelling kid, the countess who seduces one of the bus party, and the whole thing reminded me a bit of Messiah of Evil, what with the entire town turning up and silently descending on the victims. There's also a bit of humour, what with the vampire with axe having to villagers to 'donate' body parts.

As with most Spanish films, I have no idea if this is cut or not…but it's a good 'un

Atmospheric and creepy tale of a group of travellers whose coach is diverted to the uncharted Spanish village of Tonia, where the locals disappear at night and emerge later as something other than human. Prolific US-Spanish leading man Jack Taylor is central to the defence, taking the lovely Alma (Zurakowska) under his wing until they can conjure an escape. A mysterious Countess (Line) and her off-sider, the town's unofficial mayor (Guardiola) try to convince the travellers to stay in town and enjoy their hospitality, boasting the best "roast" in the region - as another reviewer remarked, 'finger-lickin' good - the origins of which are somewhat dubious to say the least.

Impressive sets and locations really depict a sense of isolation, and the quaint town and its characters are all effectively drawn in spite of some bizarre sub-plots. There's an axe-wielding giant ("I'm here on behalf of the Countess") who pays visits to unwitting blacksmiths for 'meat' collections, a psychopathic child with a murderous streak, and of course the aforementioned sultry Countess, the alluring and strikingly attractive German beauty Helga Line. The scene in which she passively seduces one of the weary travellers is great erotic-horror.

Plenty of little oddities to capture the imagination, despite the ungainly title, Klimovsky's film is well-paced, intelligently scripted and very entertaining. Only the conclusion is somewhat disappointing. I didn't expect much, and was pleasantly surprised.

Reminiscent of Piero Regnoli's THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE and Jean Brismee's THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, Leon Klimovsky's THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY finds a busload of disparate characters stranded in the middle of a desolate Carpathian countryside and forced to rely on the kindness of strangers... who turn out to be vampires under the domination of an Anne Ricean queen played by veteran Euro-cult actress Helga Line (the ill-starred foreign agent in Eugenio Martin's HORROR EXPRESS). Eschewing fangwork and the usual Gothic trappings of the vampire mythos, Klimovsky and his screenwriters (Antonio Fos had co-written Eloy de la Iglesia's CANNIBAL MAN and CLOCKWORK TERROR) return to European folklore to present shabby, homely revenants whose attacks, while relatively bloodless, effectively communicate a vibe of disgust and dread.

Rounding out the stellar international cast is American expatriate actor Jack Taylor (recently seen in Roman Polanski's THE NINTH GATE), Dianik Zurakowska (CAULDRON OF BLOOD, THE HANGING WOMAN), Manuel de Blas (ASSIGNMENT: TERROR, THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE), Luis Ciges (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES and Pedro Almodovar's LABYRINTH OF PASSION) and Fernando Bilbao (FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD, DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN).

Known mostly for war films and westerns, the Argentina-born Leon Klimovsky directed THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY during a period of exclusive horror filmmaking, which included the popular Paul Naschy vehicles THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, DR. JEKYLL AND THE WOLFMAN and the superior THE SAGA OF THE DRACULAS (which also featured Helga Line).

A Euro-cult classic, and well worth seeking out.

I haver to say that I quite liked this film. The story is a mix of Brigadoon, And then there were none and a vampire film. A busload of people off to work in a remote castle have to stop in a small village because their bus driver died. The town is deserted on the first night and the group take rooms in the local Inn which on the next day is normally populated. You may guess it: the inhabitants are vampires. In order to feed their guests they chop off their own limbs which leads to a scene that almost made me throw up although no gore was involved. It is simply showing the "giant" wielding the axe to chop off a leg and then a succulent joint of roast meat in the next scene. we all know what they are eating of course and they keep talking about that delicious special flavour. Amidst nudity the members of the group are then chased one by one. The story in itself is not original but the film is very atmospheric with an isolated mountain village in Spain being a fresh and interesting location. The version I watched was the one that was cut down to about 80 minutes. Unfortunatzely they cut the nudity but 80 minutes is actuall quite a good running time for that fairly thin story. So all in all, this is quite an entertaining film. I just find it amazing how many horror films were produced in Spain duriung the last years of the Franco dictatorship.

Like so many movies that are dubbed, there is a disjointedness to the dialog that gets in the way sometimes. I'm sure Europeans feel the same way about English language films. When things transpire, it's almost like one character waits for another to say something. It really louses up the suspense. This film begins on a mini-bus and its characters are stunned when a man dies and is put in the back, under a blanket. It gets late and they decide to put off going to their final destination and stop over in a little town. What they don't know is that there is a Vampire subculture living there, who not only feast off the innocent, but give up their own body parts for food if it will lead to more blood for them. There is a mistress of the dark who runs things and makes decisions for them. I won't go through the plot, but there is some humor, some terror, some bad decisions, and a host of pretty scary figures, closing in on innocent victims. It even breaks the movie rule about the killing of a little child. There is some gratuitous imagery, sexual content 70's style, but it's very tame. The movie does make an impression, and is better than many others of its era.