A Noite dos Dêmonios

Never heard of this one! Gianni Garko, scratched, bloody, and having crazy visions, stumbles out of the woods and collapses. He is found and taken to the nearest nut house, where Dr Umberto Raho starts performing tests on him. Gianni is unresponsive and doesn't even seem to know his name, and only comes alive at night, where the darkness makes him really nervous. He REALLY comes alive when a mysterious woman shows up at the hospital, causing him to go completely insane and ends up wearing a nice comfy straightjacket while we witness a lengthy flashback.

You see Gianni was merely driving through the Yugoslavian countryside when a freak accident forced his car off the road. He eventually finds his way to a country house (not noticing the two men burying a corpse in a bloodied sheet), and finds himself in the company of a very frightened family indeed.

What we have here is another Italian film version of the Tosltoy novella The Family of the Vourdalak, and despite the other version being directed by Mario Bava and being great, this version holds it's own too. Basically there's a witch running around the woods who has turned that guy they just buried into a vampire and now the head of the family must go out and kill her. He warns everyone that if he returns after six o'clock, he must be killed on the spot, so naturally he comes back at that time...and all hell breaks loose in the family household.

This version takes its time to get to the chills, but still manages to convey the tension and horror that's needed. Those creepy kids help too, as does Gianni's mounting terror of what's unfolding around him. There's a thick atmosphere about the film too, with the animal skulls lying around and the reluctance of the family to explain to Gianni what's going on.

There's also a nice ambiguous ending too, just for kicks. Some gore and boobs for those that thought that was missing from Bava's version. Melting faces too, and who can hate a film where someone's face explodes?

Not I....not....I...

NIGHT OF THE DEVILS opens with a wandering man named Nicola (Gianni Garko) being taken to a mental institution after a traumatic event. From his hospital bed, Nicola recalls what happened to him through flashbacks.

After almost hitting someone, Nicola leaves his damaged car, only to stumble upon a house in the forest. Upon meeting the family that lives there, he spends the night, unaware of the horrors to come.

Loaded with grim, foreboding atmosphere and ghoulish goings-on, the superstitious dread is palpable. There are some genuinely chilling moments, along with wonderful, practical gore effects! The characters are memorable, especially the lovely Sdenka (Agostina Belli), her stolid brother Jovan (Mark Roberts), and the mysterious witch (Maria Monti). Whatever you do, don't miss the truly unsettling, blood-soaked finale! One of the best movies of its kind...

Based on a book I've never read (Aleksei Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak), Night of the Devils deals with the supernatural creature known as the wurdulac (also spelled wurdalak, vourdalak or verdilak), a type of Eastern European vampire that is compelled to drink the blood of its loved ones, thereby converting the whole family.

Lumber importer Nicolas (Gianni Garko) encounters such monsters in a Yugoslavian forest. After pranging his car, he sets off on foot to find help, eventually meeting a family who live in a house in the woods, where he is invited to stay the night. Nicolas is intrigued when his hosts barricade all of the doors and windows at nightfall; he eventually discovers that the family is plagued by a wurdulac that comes a-calling once it is dark.

With a very measured pace, this isn't going to be for everyone, but fans of atmospheric Euro-horror will be delighted by the creepy vibe throughout and some genuinely tense moments, the best being Nicola's frantic escape from the woods in his car (attacked by wurdulacs and mocked by ghoulish wurdulac children), and the gripping finalé, which packs a neat downbeat twist.

Meanwhile, those who enjoy a spot of gore and nudity will be pleased to know that are some juicy moments of splatter (a woman's face exploding, a beating heart removed from a body, severed fingers, and several bloody stakings, all courtesy of FX man Carlo Rambaldi) and a fair amount of T&A (ravishing Agostina Belli, as Nicola's love interest Sdenka, sheds all for her art, while Teresa Gimpera has her top torn open by one of the vampiric kids).

N.B. The wurdulac also appears in Mario Bava's classic horror compendium Black Sabbath, a film I've yet to see (I know, I know... and I call myself a horror fan).

An amnesiac man, haunted by memories of torture, is undergoing a rigorous psychiatric assessment after he was found wandering, dishevelled, close to the Italian border.

The medical team are trying to figure out who this man is, and what exactly happened to him. When suddenly, a mysterious woman shows up claiming the man's name is Nicola and that he works as a lumber importer. She says she hardly knows him, but when she confronts the man...he freaks out...before she seemingly disappears without a trace.

The memories of the man start to seep back to him in a flashback. It turns out he isn't an amnesiac at all. Rather, someone who has had an experience so traumatic, that all prior memories have become repressed- causing him to slip into a state of madness. Though, one that just may be warranted in his particular case...

He recalls taking a short cut through the woods and getting his car stuck on a stump after crashing it in an attempt to avoid a woman- who also just disappears after.

In an attempt to find help, he recalls wandering through the woods, where he happens upon a family of backwoods hick-types. They agree to help him...but not until the morning. They invite him inside, before proceeding to tightly bar all doors and windows...to protect themselves from what lurks outside at night.

It turns out that the family is being tormented by a cursed witch- actually a varadluk (or vampire). This woman had recently targeted the head of the family's brother- forcing them to euthanize him with a wooden stake to the heart.

Nicola has a hard time believing what he is being confronted with, but has- by this point- fallen deeply in love with one of the young women in the family- Sdenka.

After witnessing the disappearance and murder of more family members (while still suffering from cognitive dissonance), Nicola decides to flee for help- asking Sdenka to join him. But she cannot leave her family behind under the circumstances, so she requests that he return for her...and not go to the police, in the meantime.

He quickly discovers that the local townspeople are of no help (they suggest he forget about it). So, he returns to fetch Sdenka. Only to discover it's too late. So late, in fact...he has to fight and flee just to escape with his own life! An experience which has rendered him into his current psychological state.

Apparently Sdenka is the mysterious woman who suddenly shows up at the hospital, requesting to see him. Hence why he goes all crazy in her presence...knowing she has come back for the one she loves...him.

But is he truly a victim of a supernatural reality? Or is it all in his head?

While relatively basically constructed, this is a rather enjoyable vampire flick. The atmosphere is quite mysterious. And I love how the writers exploit a loophole in the legend to propagate the curse. The vampires- while simple- are quite freaky...particularly the children. There are some great traditional special effects thrown in there too. Older vampire films are so much better than the modern incarnations because simple just works better sometimes. As this film is a testament to.

6.5 out of 10

A great, obscure Italian gem from the 70's, directed by Giorgio Ferroni, "Mill of the Stone Women". It's based on the same story as the "Wurdalack" segment of Mario Bava's "Black Sabbath", and I consider to be about on the same level of the latter. It's much more mean-spirited and darker than Bava's version, and while it may not be as elegant and subtly creepy, this one is quite frightening and suffocatingly atmospheric in it's own right, with some surprisingly haunting and disturbing set pieces. The characters and the story were much better developed, and unlike "Black Sabbath", I actually cared for them. The actors also did a pretty good job, with some solid performances. Still, I thought the violence and nudity came off as gratuitous and were not really necessary, and Carlo Rambaldi's special effects didn't age very well, specially compared to his other works. Nevertheless, Ferroni's stylish direction and Georgio Gaslini's eerie, melancholic score more than make up for it's flaws. I also loved how the film is slow paced, but never gets boring, always keeping the viewers on the edge of their seats.