Uma Vela para o Diabo

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.

Two sisters run a hotel in some village in Spain, preparing meals for their guests, being hospitable and friendly, and killing young women whom they perceive as slutty, a perception that seems to include 99% of their young female guests, save for Laura, a conservatively clothed lady who is looking for her sister.

That'll be the sister who was accidentally killed for sunbathing topless on the roof of the hotel a mere five minutes prior to Laura arriving. The sisters tell Laura that her sister left early that day, which is an excuse she'll be hearing often regarding other guests. Slowly, Laura starts to figure out what's going on, but it could be that she's already too late to save herself...

This one has a kind of run of the mill plot but is saved by having two interesting murderers. One sister is a timid type who has a clandestine relationship with the young man who helps out at the hotel, while the other is the more aggressive type, constantly judging others while barely repressing her own sexual feelings, while her frustration manifests itself in murderous ways. There's a bit more depth to the two of them than just maniacal killers.

The major problem is not with the film itself, it's with the various presentations of it you'll potentially stumble over. Under the name of It Happened At Nightmare Inn the film runs for about 70 minutes, and it's recommended that you watch it under the name of Candle For The Devil, but there version I watched of that is also heavily cut. The Spanish version seems to be the most complete, because without that you'll have practically no idea of what's going on as such a hack job has been done on the film. While not over the top in terms of gore, you're still missing out on all the nudity and gore, so what's the point? The most shocking murder of the film is cut out almost completely, which harms the impact of the film greatly.

I've read somewhere that this is some kind of political allegory on the Franco regime, but I wouldn't have figured that out myself.

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.

Back in my youth, I was a big fan of late night horror flicks, particularly from back in the late 1960's to early 1970's. Judy Geeson was something of a regular in them and again gives a credible performance. So I caught this on a very late Friday or Saturday night, and rather enjoyed it. It was nothing great, and the dubbing wasn't good, but it was watchable and moderately scary. It's about this old hotel in Spain whose owners prosper from foreign tourists, but who are also offended by many of the tourists' morals. The actresses playing the two sisters/inn keepers gave performances worth watching. Aurora Bautista was genuinely frightening as the more fanatical and violent one, and Esperanza Roy was alternately scary and moving as her younger sister, who is conflicted about their crimes. It also delivers a convincing atmosphere of an old Spanish village which is torn between its seemingly simple past and the free-wheeling modern amorality. I say it's worthwhile for ardent fans of this kind of entertainment.

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.