Il terrore ha la pelle di donna

This is a real stinker. I can think of nothing to recommend this film. The film transfer is from a completely washed out print, the audio is muffled and muddy and the dubbing is out of sync. And that's just the technical problems. The story line goes nowhere. The acting makes those Mexican movies from the early 60's (remember 'K.Gordon Murray presents') appear to be Citizen Kane. For offering itself as a vampire movie I really don't recall seeing any blood in it. I think once or twice I did see someone bare their fangs-the five and dime store plastic variety. I picked this one up for $1.00 and boy did I get gypped. I forgot to mention this is part of a "drive in treasures" collection so there are intros and wrap-arounds with two unfunny individuals pretending they are sitting in a car at the drive-in. Even the intermission tag they use is faded and scratchy and appears to be about 10 generations from the original. This is a complete waste of time. Not even one of those so-bad-it's-good movies. Stay away.

I first read about this in Fred Olen Ray's fantastic "The New Poverty Row", so when I saw it for $5 at Grimsby Giant Tiger, I scarfed it up. And damned if it doesn't have Ray himself introducing the thing in a sexist intro that will do nothing for his Irving Thalberg Award campaign. As for the movie itself, well, there's not much to say. It's an example of the era's Filipino horror output - and not one of the best (!!!) either - mom is supposed to be dead but she's locked in the basement and has turned into a vampire, and bites her son, and quite limited action ensues, some involving locals in blackface as happy slaves. Dull and slow and not nearly as tawdry as the scene's rep.

This is a bad film. Its not a good bad movie, its just a bad movie.

The plot has something to do with the adult children of a family finding out that their mother hasn't really been dead, rather she was changed into a vampire and had been kept locked up by their father in a secret crypt.

I've run across this movie a under a couple of different names and under everyone of them its a turkey. Nothing in this film works. The acting is more like over the top soap opera spoof than any realistic. The aged Grannie who plays the vampire is more laughable than frightening with the result that you may hurt yourself from laughing at it all.

2 out of 10 for the occasional unintentional laugh, otherwise this is a movie to be avoided at all costs.

By imdb standards this is a "bad" film but the riffers at Cinematic Titanic transform it into a real pleasure to watch. To our eyes, the film is so ridiculous that it's the perfect set-up for jokes.

The thing to remember about the original film is that, in lesser-developed nations like the Philippines, unsophisticated people who live in the rural areas would find this film to be both frightening and entertaining. It would have been a big hit with that audience. In that context it is a "good" film.

Patriarch Don Enrique Escudero hides a secret in his crypt: his vampire wife. With such a terrible curse on his family, he forbids his beautiful daughter Leonore (Amalia Fuentes) from marrying her beau, Daniel Castillo (Romeo Vasquez). Soon after, Leonore's brother Eduardo discovers his undead mother in the basement and is bitten (the idiot having thrown away his crucifix). Pretty soon there are vampires everywhere!

After Daniel dies in a coach crash (the brakes sabotaged by Eduardo), he returns as a ghost to strike fear into his killer (who knew that vamps were scared of ghosts?). Daniel's spirit is unable to prevent Leonore from being bitten by her brother, but she is saved from eternal damnation by a stake through the heart. As the Escudero mansion and its undead occupants are engulfed in flames, set alight by torch-bearing locals, Leonore's spirit joins Daniel in the afterlife.

Heavy on the familial melodrama, Curse of the Vampires is more cheesy Filipino soap opera than it is horror; even when the fangs are out, the film delivers little in the way of scares, the lack of chills not helped by a cheap, garish aesthetic achieved in no small part by the terrible use of primary coloured lighting, with the actors followed by spotlights being particularly distracting. Brunette babe Fuentes is very easy on the eye, all heaving bosom and big brown eyes, and makes the going a little less painful, and the ghostly shenanigans are fun. Just try to ignore all of those Filipino extras in blackface playing the Escuderos' servants #awkward.