La Nuit des vampires

In practically every vampire movie that I've seen, and they're quite numerous, the plot attempts to add a strange characteristic or gimmick to the myth of vampires. Usually these are very common things that are closely connected with the traditional characteristics (garlic, crucifixes, sunlight, …) but some movies truly exaggerate and come up with the downright craziest things. In this West German/Yugoslavian goth-horror production "Cave of the Living Dead", for example, the vampire attacks are accompanied by the loss of electric power! That's actually how the police knows there has been another murder. How do you explain that? I really don't see the connection between sucking the blood of a virgin and causing the lights to blackout.

Apart from this curious little anecdote, "Cave of the Living Dead" is actually a rather decent and entertaining early 60's Gothic horror movie that can easily compete with the better Italian and Spanish efforts from that era. The story and execution are very straightforward, but there are more than a handful of memorably suspenseful highlights, a good cast of characters and a beautiful homage to the greatest German silent horror movie ever made; Nosferatu. The film stars Adrian Hoven, who might be better known amongst horror fanatics as the director/producer of films "Castle of the Creeping Flesh" and the notorious "Mark of the Devil" movies. Hoven is terrific as the slick Interpol inspector (and bona fide cool guy) Frank Dorin, assigned to solve a series of strange and horrifying murders in a remote German village. During the past six months, seven beautiful young girls aged between eighteen and twenty-two years old have been found dead, and the only explanation the local doctor can come up with is heart failure. The petrified and superstitious villagers believe in vampires, and they're right of course. You don't need to be a very intelligent inspector to figure out the first murders coincided with the arrival of the mysterious Professor Von Adelsberg. The professor is allegedly occupied with his experiments all day long and his castle is build on a giant cave full of bats and coffins. Hmm, I wonder who's the vampire in this town… "Cave of the Living Dead" is quite fun to watch, especially to spot all the clichés and stereotypes, like village witch and the hysterical black guy. The atmosphere is often unsettling and most of the filming locations, like the titular cave and the well, are outstanding. The film is fairly explicit for its time and there's even some enticing nudity I totally didn't expect to see.

I have to say some of the cinematography is outstanding - deeply and eerily Gothic. At times it reminded me a bit of Nosferatu (1922). The way the vampire came creeping into the bedroom, black magic, the grotto and the spirits dancing around the fire for examples.

The film plays out like a horror mystery rather than pure horror. It is more or less a detective story and not a bad one. Of course this detective has a witch helping him get to the bottom of the mystery. In a lot of ways it's your average vampire story: do vampires really exist, some believe it while others don't, a search for the vampires, etc. So it's not a bad watch.

Curse of the Green Eyes, Night of the Vampire or Curse of the Living Dead -- some the names you can find this film under.

6/10

Good story and characters, snappy dialogue, suspense. A few goofs that added nothing to the story, but on the whole, a solid good time for anyone who likes a good old-fashioned vampire movie. Recommended!

Released and Presented by Richard Gordon (who had absolutely nothing to do with the production of this film) in the U.S. as "Cave of the Living Dead". The police cannot solve the mystery of the seven murders which have alarmed the local villagers. They call in Inspector Doren (Adrian Hoven) of Interpol,and the only clue the Chief Constable can give his young and famous (it says here) is the fact that, each time a murder was committed, the electric lights in the whole neighborhood went out.

The locals believe that the killings of the young girls are linked to the vague shadows in the caves under the local castle and to the mysterious Curse of the Green Eyes. They distrust the young-and-famous inspector and offer no assistance when still another murder takes place in the village inn---in the room next to that occupied by the young-and-famous inspector---and the body disappears.

There are may suspects: the chattering innkeeper; the servant John (John Kitzmiller); the deaf-and-dumb Tom (Emmerich Schrenk); and the inscrutable doctor, Profesor Adelsberg (Wolfgang Preiss) who has been issuing strange death certificates.

Doren moves to the castle where Professor Adelsberg is carrying out some scientific studies. There, he meets the Professor's pretty assistant, Karin (Karin Field.) She is marked as the next victim, and would have been if the young-and-famous Interpol Inspector hadn't managed to discover the secret of the caves of the living dead and unmask the culprit.

This is a German/Yugoslavian production distributed by Richard Gordon in the U.S. and released as a double-bill with the Italian TOMB OF TORTURE (1963), which I watched recently and was disappointed by. Though issued separately on R1 DVD (albeit both through Image as part of their "The Euro Shock Collection"), they were reviewed in tandem by the "DVD Drive-In" – where it was reported that TOMB was the better effort which, therefore, meant that I went into CAVE with virtually no expectations whatsoever (except for the Expressionist touches which were singled out for praise in the assessment)!

In any case, having last watched THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING (1971) – which saw the involvement of two crew members from SUCCUBUS (1967) – I opted to check out CAVE soon after, since it starred one of the actors (Adrian Hoven) from that same superior Jess Franco picture! Having mentioned bloodsuckers just now, the film under review is also known as NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRES – a title far more appropriate than the one it got stuck with, given that "The Living Dead" are generally associated with Zombies! At the very least, it should have been dubbed "Cave Of The Undead" (in view of the fact that a grotto plays a major part in the narrative)...

Now, after this lengthy intro, let us get to the matter at hand: those NOSFERATU (1922)-like nightly prowlings are indeed creepily effective and, undeniably, the best thing about the film…but it must be pointed out that the whole is a lot worthier than the goofy TOMB OF TORTURE! Hoven is a crack Police Inspector (whose womanizing ways and quick action tactics, as was pointed out by the review I mentioned earlier, seem to be patterned after the "Euro-Spy" fad which emerged in the wake of the James Bond extravaganzas!) assigned to investigate a series of female deaths on a remote island that have occurred over a period of six months and always during an electricity black-out. To be honest, the latter is as much a throwaway oddity (ditto for the presence of a hulking deaf-mute) as the underground resting-place of the chief bloodsucker!

Guessing the latter's identity proves to be child's play, but nobody seems to connect the start of the attacks with the arrival on the island of this particular character; that said, the local cops are depicted as buffoons, which is exactly why Hoven was sent for! Even so, while it is clearly stated that the 'plague' already numbered seven victims, when the vampire (played by Wolfgang Preiss, the ex-Dr. Mabuse himself, and another definite asset here) is eventually cornered, only the latest member of the 'cult' is ever seen by his side! Incidentally, it takes ages for the examining doctor (whose practice should, by all accounts, be steeped in superstition) to be brought around to accept that the supernatural is behind this crime-wave, whereas our hero from the big-city (eventually befriended by the doctor's black manservant) goes to consult an aged witch virtually the moment he arrives – WTF?! The look of the film deliberately harks back to the golden age of horror – which is certainly commendable – but, unfortunately, the end product in this case is mainly listless and, thus, miles removed from the classics of yesteryear (if not unenjoyable per se...