Una vela para el diablo

Every movie is made up of a series of edits to what the filmmaker originally shot. This can turn a good film to bad and vice versa. The most famous is the very different versions that exist of Orson Welles' "Touch Of Evil". "Night And The City" and "Mad Wednseday"/"The Sin Of Harld Diddlebock" exist in two different version of the same source material. That is also true with "It Happened At Nightmare Inn" and "A Candle For the Devil". It is sad that IMDb does not see the difference in these very, very different cuts of the same source material. But the versions are all different from their counterparts.

"It Happened At Nightmare Inn" is not very good. The more sexually charged "A Candle For The Devil" is far more interesting. In 1973, "Candle" probably could not be shown in the U.S. The theme of sexual repression caused by religious fervor is very different from a couple of crazy ladies who like to kill young women.

Pass on "It Happened At Nightmare Inn". "A Candle For The Devil" is worth a look.

Two Spanish sisters run a hostel which they use to knock off the promiscuous (and, interestingly enough, mostly English)female tourists that come to stay there. The older sister is a truly deranged religious fanatic while the younger is simply very weak-willed (and, unbeknownst to her sister is herself carrying on with a man in town). The "star", English actress Judy Geeson is the one who finally solves the mystery of the missing boarders (although it should have been pretty obvious to anybody), but she is, curiously enough, relegated to the status of pretty minor character.

This is perhaps a very clever movie about the reactionary and conservative nature of rural Spain at the time, fed by Catholic idolatry and rural small-mindedness. Juxtaposing these two Spanish sisters against all these promiscuous English tourists might also be some kind of comment on hedonistic Swinging London (although most people today don't associate the English with loose behavior and free-wheeling sexual attitudes). I didn't know quite what to make of the ending though which is either intentionally very ambiguous (possibly suggesting the whole town is in on what the sisters are doing) or is merely incompetent. Given the impressive track effort of director Eugenio Martin ("La Ultima Senora Anderson", "Horror Express")I suspect the former, but this is a kind of cheap effort and perhaps not up to the standards of the director's other films.

Apparently, there are also some heavily edited versions floating around. The one I saw had A LOT of nudity and violence, including the disturbing murder of the mother of a young baby (who the sisters mistakenly believe was born out of wedlock). I would find this longer version (about 95 minutes)if you want to see this, but I would also be interested in just seeing this again in a better-looking DVD version. It may be an unappreciated gem in the Euro-horror genre, but it's kind of hard to tell.

I have no idea where the English title comes in and the movie is a little heavy handed and obvious but so very enjoyable. Moves at a good pace and if Geeson is a bit weak, the same could not be said of the killers or the kills. Set in a small Spanish village two sisters run modest hotel and take exception to the influx of mini skirted and hot panted 'dollies' from England. Murder seems a bit of a harsh reaction but with God on your side and the Catholic church much can be justified. Excellent performances by the mature sisters who seem harmless enough initially but then we learn one has secret liaisons with a youngish boy and the other takes to spying on boys bathing in the nude. So carried away does the most villainous sister get watching the kids splashing about that when she finally begins her return to the hotel there is an amazing scene where she is caught running through rough vegetation and she becomes almost ecstatic under the self imposed flagellation. Excellent stuff with time for shots of locals seemingly truly amazed at the scantily dressed invaders.

I couldn't help but think of Hostel, Frontière(s) and Vacancy after watching this film. It's not that this film is a rip-off or anything, how could it be? It was made 30 years before all of them, but it just inspires thoughts towards those similar titles because I saw them first, even though Frontière(s) and Vacancy were way better.

It Happened At Nightmare Inn was overall a very satisfying and fun film. It's about two sisters who run a family inn and they are secretly murdering everybody who they believe to be bad influences and or just bad people because of their religious beliefs, the sisters' beliefs, I mean. It's not the most profound plot, but who really cares about that with this kind of movie? The movie keeps you interested and it definitely entertains. The characters were good, plot was decent, acting was perfectly fine and the movie's atmosphere gave it that creepy, yet corny B-Movie touch that I felt comfortable with because I had felt this atmosphere before. This movie is pretty good for a low budget slasher and as a movie itself it is very enjoyable. Watch it when you get the chance, though don't be expecting too much and don't be too harsh on it if you have seen other, better, similar films.

Though obviously inspired by PSYCHO, this truly deranged Spanish shocker features several gruesome sequences which makes the film way ahead of its time. The atmosphere is quite sinister and very threatening. Judy Geeson(of TO SIR, WITH LOVE fame) does well in her role as the pretty blonde heroine, and Aurora Batista and Esperanza Roy are indeed the most menacing inn-keepers since Mr. Norman Bates. In fact, the film's only real drawback is the poor dubbing that makes it resemble one of those cheesy Euro-Hercules flicks. Available on video for the longest time only in an old edited television version, the missing footage has finally been restored to home video. The video title of the film is: IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN.