La noche de los brujos

OK, this is not a good film. But I think it is somewhat underrated, while the director Amando Ossorio's more famous "blind dead" series is somewhat overrated (especially the last two). Instead of undead Teutonic knights, in this film we have a tribe of living voodoo-practicing Africans. Of course, voodoo sacrifices have been practiced historically in places on the "dark continent", but this bunch are little more than cartoon stereotypes (all they need is a big pot to cook people in). I suppose it doesn't help that the tribe exclusively captures white women, whips all their clothes off, rapes them (at least in one case), and then decapitates them--which somehow causes them to become undead "panther women", prowling half-naked through the jungle in slow motion (and WITH their heads). But is this the only film of the 1970's to portray black Africans as "primitive", or to play on the illicit thrills of interracial sexuality? Hardly. All those who call this racist and/or sexist really need to see more European exploitation films of that era. This is actually pretty weak tea.

It's also a very typical low-budget Spanish horror film--short on a logic, long on atmosphere, extremely confusing but with a generous helpings of nudity and violence (at least in export prints). It's certainly more incompetent than Ossorio's best films, but I'd put it on the level of a mediocre Paul Naschy flick, and it has the same scruffy charm as a lot of those. There's also a couple of recognizable actors among the European characters who come to a bad end at the hands of the African voodoo cultists and "panther women", including Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor, as the expedition leader, and the slinky and sexy cubana Kali Hansa as the "half-breed". It's out on DVD now and is worth a rental, if maybe not a purchase, for fans of Spanish horror.

No Horror fan can doubt that Spanish director Amando De Ossorio deserves great praise for his absolutely awesome "Blind Dead" series, which he began in 1970 with "La Noche Del Terror Ciego" ("Tombs of the Blind Dead"). These four films enjoy an enormous (and well-deserved) cult status and the eponymous undead Blind Templars range among the creepiest creatures ever to appear on screen. "La Noche De Los Brujos" aka. "Night of the Sorcerers" (1973) is sadly a weaker film in Ossorio's repertoire, as this little trash offering makes no sense at all and furthermore tends to get quite boring.

In 1910, a tribe of savages in an African country behead a hot woman, who then turns out to be a female vampire... Decades later, two scientists (Simón Andreu and Jack Taylor) and three hot babes travel the country in order to take photos of endangered animals and happen to come to the exact same spot...

In spite of a better cast (frequent Giallo leading man Simón Andreu, Exploitation regular Jack Taylor and sexy Spanish cult-siren Bárbara Rey, who also was in "Ghost Ships of the Bind Dead") "La Noche De Los Brujos" reaches neither the creepy atmosphere nor the suspense or entertainment level of any of the 'Blind Dead' films. This is not to say that "La Noche De Los Brujos" is completely without qualities, however. It is, to a certain extent, fun to watch. The female cast members are entirely hot (especially Bárbara Rey and the maroon-haired Kali Hansa), and all take their clothes off at some point. Also, in typical Ossorio manner, the gore-effects are very well-made. That's about it though, as the film is sometimes unintentionally funny and the storyline is flawed and full of holes. A Horror film doesn't necessarily have to be 'realistic', but it should have a certain inner logic, and the story-parts should connect, which isn't really the case here. "La Noche De Los Brujos" isn't a complete disaster, but its definitely not very good, and there are far better films by Amando De Ossorio to check out. 4.5/10

1973's "The Night of the Sorcerers" (La Noche de los Brujos) emerged from writer/director Amando De Ossorio, best known for his quartet of 'Blind Dead' chillers ("Tombs of the Blind Dead," "Return of the Blind Dead," "The Ghost Galleon," "Night of the Seagulls") but first emerging in 1968 with Anita Ekberg's ultra timid "Fangs of the Living Dead." By contrast, one might view this Spanish picture as definitely full blooded, fangs sported by gorgeous young vampire women dressed in leopard skin bikinis who hop through the African jungle in slow motion like demented Easter (or is that Playboy?) bunnies, a definite improvement over his previous non scary outing. The arresting opening captures everything on full display, Barbara King's wide eyed missionary tied between two trees, her clothes whipped off her naked body before the African natives cut off her head with a machete for a blood sacrifice to the leopard god, after which the entire tribe is mowed down in a hail of bullets...while the young woman's head screams and bares her crimson fangs. Alas, nothing else comes close to topping it, the next 40-plus minutes drawn out by dialogue scenes in only two locations, outdoor shooting at Madrid's Aldea del Fresno and the indoor clearing set for the initiation rites. A tiny cast of five lunkheads arrive to research the absence of elephants in the region, learn about the voodoo worship of leopards and how their undead followers roam as cats during the day before regaining human form by night. Jack Taylor ("The Mummy's Revenge") is the lone scientist, Simon Andreu ("The Blood Spattered Bride") nothing more than a gun carrying guide, Kali Hansa ("The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff") his spitfire girlfriend, afraid of the jungle but jealous of the bodacious blondes on safari, Lorena Tower ("It Happened at Nightmare Inn") as photographer Carol, Maria Kosti ("Night of the Seagulls") as filthy rich layabout Liz, her father financing the ill equipped expedition. The monotony of their interactions is only broken by an exact replica of the pre credits sequence, Carol the new victim with camera left on the ground, the once frightened female missionary now a snarling seductress sporting her new leopard skin adornment, cracking the whip herself before putting the bite on their helpless captive (we see how the severed head has been reattached to the body with an adhesive strip that, when removed, effectively kills the vampire). Another 20 minutes conducting a never ending search sets up poor Liz as the next victim, both vamps indulging in a little bloodletting after drowning the ineffective scientist in his own developing liquid. Andreu repeatedly lets his guard down as all this goes on, but with everyone else missing he heads out to the clearing with his rifle to await the nightly ritual, his lover the only female left to be targeted, a series of bad decisions guaranteed not to bring 'em back alive. Fortunately, the iconic imagery makes up for its numerous dull stretches, the director conjuring up slow motion reminders of his greatest triumph with sadistic relish.

Oh come on -- I think the majority of the folks posting to this comment thread are kind of missing the point: This movie is NOT "serious" cinematic art, but kitschy, kinky, perverted, immature & juvenile JUNGAL SLEAZE: A skinflick masquerading as a vampire film, in turn disguised as a torture show. A Playboy fantasy for white men circa 1974, with an emphasis on the sadistic.

Plot summaries say as much as thesis statements sometimes so here we go. THE PLOT: A group of white European photographers "documenting the extintions of the rare species" happens upon the one clearing in Africa that a tribe of leopard worshipping natives used to hold their sacrifices [before being "completely exterminated" by a group of colonial soldiers], and decide it would make a great place to set up camp for a few days and be the focus of a horror movie. One by one, the two pretty blond girls are lured off by a leopard bikini'd vampire babe leopard witch [created from a missionary woman during the last blood rite] and sacrificed by the resurrected dead bodies of the local version of Templar Knights, who put on ceremonial masks and head dresses to make them look different than THE BLIND DEAD. At the end, the great white hunter contracted to protect the group throws his belt of rifle ammunition onto a ceremonial fire and the undead zombies & witches are all "completely exterminated" in a hail of random lead.

The End.

This is the story around which director Amando de Ossorio -- great on visuals but never too strong with plotting -- hung two of the most barbarically effective set pieces in erotic 1970's Eurohorror: The initial sacrifice of the pretty missionary, and the subsequent sacrifice of one of the blond girls [the other one takes place off-camera]. The catch is, you HAVE to find the uncut version of the film to really appreciate just how off the wall these two sequences are, and if this kind of stuff makes a movie for you NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS is close to a masterpiece: Both women are dragged screaming & kicking into the ceremonial clearing, lashed to trees and then have their clothing bullwhipped from their bodies as they scream in fear or pain, or a sort of near sexual ecstasy sounding groan that could be the result of the dubbing to English. The first woman is then ceremonially raped [the second merely vampirized], both are wrapped in a leopard skin, stretched out onto a goofy looking ceremonial alter and decapitated by means of a huge, phallic machete. Their heads bounce into a sort of collection resevior where the blood all pools up, turn to look at the camera and scream with feral vampire fangs bared.

Actually, the heads kind of bounce up all on their own and THEN scream -- just how I have no idea, but the point is made that the sequence defies an adequate verbal description. It is sadomasichism depicted in a manner of which is totally unprecedented in western cinema: the whippings themselves are all too convincingly staged, as the women's clothing is whipped strip by strip from their bleeding flesh. While that may not sound arousing to most people to lovers of torture films like MARK OF THE DEVIL and it's ilk will be absolutely stuck to the ceiling at the end of both rituals. The ceremonial rape of the missionary woman doesn't do much for me, but she is a babe [Maria Kosti, I believe] and seeing her strung up like that does something ...

And what it does is fulfill THE NEED FOR SLEAZE -- I would love to find out how or why Ossorio set about making this film [contractural obligation?] because it is SO riduclous that if you see the "uncut" prints the others are almost pointless by comparison, unless you are a collector of expensively priced video tapes.

Euroman Simon Andreu [the sleazy husband from THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE] has an extended lovemaking scene with a mulatto woman with amazing thighs, and cult favorite Jack Taylor gets to wear a safari hat & vest and turn into a zombie before being lit on fire, but other than that nothing else really happens in the movie. The visuals in the set pieces -- especially the images of the "rock men" coming back to life with their graves spewing dry ice fog and a funky Hammond organ musical theme churning -- speak to me of perhaps a seperate production that ran out of money, or perhaps they just ended up having to shoot the outdoors stuff on the cheap. But the fact remains that the "fantasy" jungle sections filmed on soundstages carry an other-worldly feel to them that the "outdoor" footage [probably shot in Ossorio's native Portugal] never meshes: They feel like different movies.

Which leads me to the skinflick conclusion of what this movie is really about -- Like Joseph Larraz' BLACK CANDLES, NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS has no deeper meaning or considerations to it's artistic integrity beyond what is depicted onscreen. Sex, blood, and boobs, broken up by conversations, arguments, ridiculous history lessons and a lesbian sponge bath [well two women are present, even though they do not interact]. Look deeper than that and you will find a very racist, sexist, cheavnanistically Eurocentric attitude that is mocking of African culture [at one point the local trapper admonishes a group of goggle eyed natives to "go back to your people"], was shot on unconvincing indoor sets that make Hammer's PREHISTORIC WOMEN look authentic OR utilizes day for night photography that was very poorly conceived: Both of these characteristics speak for a motivation for the film that has little to do with the rich vocabulary of Ossorio's BLIND DEAD films. It looks like it was done on the cheap to satisfy the nead for quick thrills -- because the film was made by a master of the visual it amounts to more than the sum of it's parts. The two sacrifice scenes have given the film an aura of mystery and forbidden fruit, if you will, that is bigger than anything that takes place onscreen at other times.

Cut them out and the movie is BORING -- trust me, I have about five different forms of it on VHS.

The ones to score are a Dutch subtitled print popularized by cult favorites Sunrise Tapes of Holland [now out of print and fetching upwards of $75 easily from collectors who know what it is], which has the distinction of being the ONLY commercial release of the movie in an uncut form available at retail [even if it was just in Holland], and a MUCH better looking print with Japanese subtitles that is readily available from a well-known underground outlet easily found with any search engine & a few clicks of the mouse button. Hint: If you find a tape that does NOT have subtitles and is in English, it is cut. If you find one in Spanish, call me. If it is in English and no subtitles, though, it is chopped of almost 12 minutes of footage in some forms [I think SWV's is 68 minutes long, though their color is GORGEOUS] and you are NOT seeing the version the ravers like myself are raving about.

But when you do find it you will know, because six minutes into the film your jaw will be hanging open in awe of the utterly base, unredeemable sleaze you have just witnessed. The film sadly never manages to top those first six minutes, though it comes mighty close, and I give Ossorio an A for effort. Or, more precisely, for knowing that he was making 80 minutes of utter garbage that would be out of the theatres in two months and forgotten by the end of the year. Because he was making it, though, it has become the stuff of legends, and when you find it your quest will be greatly rewarded for a change.

Happy Hunting?

Amando de Ossorio's La Noche de los Brujos has one of the most entertainingly trashy pre-credits sequences ever...

Bumbasa, 1910: natives perform a ceremony in the jungle, tying a beautiful woman to a tree and flogging her until her blouse falls open. She is lashed some more until her underwear falls off (these guys have got some serious whip skills!). The natives dance while the chief rapes the poor woman, after which she is placed on a sacrificial altar and beheaded with a machete. As the tribe smears themselves in her blood, a squad of soldiers arrives and shoots the lot of them. Suddenly, the woman's decapitated head springs to life, baring a mean pair of fangs - she's a vampire!!!

All of this was so insanely over-the-top that I decided to watch the whole film despite discovering that my copy was in Spanish with no subtitles.

The rest of the film takes place in Bumbasa in the present day. A group of people - two men and three sexy ladies (a brunette and two blondes) - set up camp by a river; before long, the women are strutting around in varying degrees of undress, which is nice. The brunette has some sexy time with her one of the men in the river, while one of the blondes spies from the bushes and takes photographs (without using the flash, which means that the pictures would be rubbish). Meanwhile, deep in the jungle, the natives that were killed in the opening scene rise from their graves as zombies (or ghosts, or zombie ghosts)

The next day, the blonde with the camera (who looks muy tasty in a denim mini-skirt) wanders off into the jungle, where she encounters the zombies and the vampire woman, who grab her and tie her up. The vampire whips her, and blondie's top comes open. The vamp pulls the woman's skirt off, bites her on the neck, places her on the tribe's chopping block, and hacks her head off with a machete. Again, the severed noggin comes back to life with fangs. The whole whipping/decapitation/vampire thing was great the first time around, but the same routine repeated is less impressive. So when it happens for a third time, with the second blonde, I was not happy.

The film ends with the brunette almost getting the whip and machete routine, but being rescued by her lover in the nick of time, the man destroying most of the zombies and vampires by throwing his bullet belt into their fire.

Given the amazing opening, the rest of the film, with its repetitiveness, has to be deemed a bit of a disappointment.

5/10. I nearly docked a point when the roll of film in the blonde woman's camera is developed, and all the pictures come out fine, but a gratuitous naked washing scene easily made up for that.