El mundo de los vampiros

Count Sergio Subotai (Guillermo Murray) has a major beef with the Colman family, his ancestor having been staked by Julius Colman 300 years ago. Now Subotai only has three more Colmans to destroy, Señor Colman (José Baviera) and his two pretty nieces, Mirta (Silvia Fournier) and Leonor (Erna Martha Bauman). Pianist Rodolfo Sabre believes that music is the key to destroying the vampires...

The World of the Vampires is another Mexican vampire chiller (El mundo de los vampiros) dubbed into English by American movie maverick K. Gordon Murray. The film is a mix of the conventional -- rubber vampire bats, cobwebby catacombs, a hunchback assistant -- and the unusual -- there are strange vampire/werewolf hybrids, we get a bat with a human face, and the head vampire controls his army of the undead with music (played on an organ made from bones and skulls -- a Bonetempi, perhaps), but can also be repelled by the playing of certain tunes.

Unfortunately, for all of the film's more unique qualities. It's still a fairly humdrum affair, directed with little energy or verve by Alfonso Corona Blake, with verbose vampire Subotai seemingly attempting to bore his victims to death by incessantly talking to them.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for Rudolfo's 'Viennese fleas' joke, a sure-fire hit with the ladies, and for the pit full of sharp wooden stakes in the Count's lair, probably not the wisest thing for a vampire to have installed in his home!

Mexican horror films are bizarre, as many know. They mix a bit of German Expressionism with their Spanish legacy, add a touch of local folklore, and come out with something quite original, even if the execution is betrayed by small budgets. This is the case of this peculiar item of my 2014 discoveries, a film that turned out to be much better than expected. Produced by Abel Salazar, star and producer of many of those films (including the classic "El vampiro"), it exceeds in atmosphere, zaniness and pretty women, as usual, with a handsome vampire this time: Guillermo Murray had just arrived from Argentina and was given the lead in this tale of vampires fighting for world supremacy. Murray plays Sergio Subotai, a European count that wants to take revenge from the last member of a family that hunted the undead and killed his own family. To achieve his goal he uses the man's nieces, two sisters played by Silvia Fournier who takes the leading lady role, and ex-Miss Mexico Erna Martha Bauman as the wicked sister. What Count Subotai did not count with is that there is a guy in town who has the ability to disturb hounds, call the undead, and neutralize vampires with strange pieces of music. Unfortunately Subotai only has an army of inefficient ugly batmen and sexy vampire girls. As in many of these productions, the tone is ironic and different elements make up for the shortcomings, as the admirable underground sets in Subotai's castle, and the dark cinematography, thanks to old pro Jack Draper. The score composed by Gustavo César Carrión for Salazar's production of "El vampiro" is used one more time to good effect. A recommended horror film with quite decent amusement value.

Throughout vampire lore from film we have been introduced to the various ways in which to slay a vampire: direct sunlight, over-exposure to a Crucifix, destroying the coffin of the vampire, killing the head vampire, and, of course, the customary stake through the heart. Not the case in this cheap Mexican vampire film where just hearing a tune with certain notes on an organ or piano does the trick. This film is bad - just no doubt about it, but it is a fun, bad film that had me rolling from beginning to end. The film basically chronicles one vampire's quest to rid the remaining ancestors of the man that offended him so many years ago - the Colman clan. And hearing a suave-looking, highly accented "foreign" vampire just say the name Colman is a real hoot. But it doesn't end there but rather begins. This vampire goes into lengthy soliloquies on why he must get every last Colman. He gives these over-enunciated diatribes while using some of the most over-exaggerated looks from any film vampire. Throw in a bunch of other equally "talented" actors with a threadbare plot and you have the ingredients for a whole lot of unintentional hilarity. Guillermo Murray plays the offended Count with such a lack of subtlety that I could not take my eyes off him nor could I stifle my laughs. He must get the last three surviving relatives: a father and his two beautiful daughters who are being visited by a musician/composer played by Mauricios Garces(in the Van Helsing role - kind of). Throw out standard vampire lore here as this film invents all kinds of new lore - whether it be logical or more likely highly illogical. While a pretty amazingly bad film in many ways, it does offer some highly atmospheric shots in a cave/crypt, the Count playing an organ, and one neat for its time transformation shot. A whole lot of fun at any rate!

1960's "The World of the Vampires" (El Mundo de los Vampiros) was another collaboration between Mexican producer Abel Salazar and screenwriter brother Alfredo, this time for director Alfonso Corona Blake, soon to kick off the El Santo series. Here the cape is worn by the unimposing Guillermo Murray, his clean cut pretty boy looks lacking any menace when it comes to sporting his oversized fangs, more rubber bats adding to the silliness yet with variations that almost make it worthwhile, such as musical notes producing vibrations that can either summon or weaken the undead. A full 16 minutes are devoted to the opening in the crypt of Count Sergio Subotai, leader of an army of creatures who serve by the sound of a pipe organ adorned with skulls and femurs, a pair of unlucky travelers becoming his latest victims on the altar, men feted to be transformed into hairy werewolves, the women at his lucky pleasure. Every vampire must have an ultimate goal, and like German Robles as Nostradamus this one has a score to settle with the Colman family who staked out his ancestors, now reduced to one old patriarch (Jose Baviera) with two lovely daughters, eternally screaming Mirta (Sylvia Fournier) and all too willing Leonor (Erna Martha Bauman). The only other major character is their guest, Rodolfo Sabre (Mauricio Garces), whose expertise in tinkling the ivories makes him the Van Helsing equivalent, one passage luring the Count to make a rare appearance in the Colman home, the next designed to repel vampires, to which he reacts violently. Leonor swiftly joins the cult of darkness, subsequently putting the bite on a sleeping Rodolfo, who awakens with a serious case of 5 o'clock shadow on his left hand (only the males become werewolves). Since both Colman and Leonor have gone missing, Rodolfo and Mirta call at the Count's cobwebbed abode, meet resistance from his mute, Renfield-like manservant, and stumble below into the world of the vampires, only called out by night to serve their master. Why any self respecting vampire would build a pit full of wooden stakes goes unexplained, while Rodolfo's slow transition includes a more acute sense of hearing exemplified by a large spider walking upon the dusty stones. The cult itself wears immobile masks with large ears, but the most fascinating vision is seeing Leonor in rubber bat form, her tiny head superimposed on top for a truly bizarre apparition. In fact, beauty queen Erna Martha Bauman easily steals the proceedings away from the nominal lead, her indelible fanged image earning two related roles in Miguel Morayta's "The Bloody Vampire" and "The Invasion of the Vampires." With such a small cast, the pace simply drags without much happening, the climax adding another round of fisticuffs for a far too easy victory, poor Leonor proving herself down for the Count once he is reduced to a skeleton. Those who encounter these Mexican entries as a youth will be more forgiving of their low budget faults, others may not be so inclined.

Well, it seems like I spoke too soon about the superior quality of Mexi-Horrors vis-à-vis the Italian Gothics, as this is as goofy as they come – almost on a par, in fact, with the notorious THE BRAINIAC (1961; interestingly enough, directed by the helmer of the slightly better effort with which I followed it)! Anyway, back when the Casanegra DVD company folded, I had voiced my disappointment that their otherwise excellent line of releases would be no more. At the time, they had already announced the next two titles on the schedule and, in fact, they were the film under review and the Chano Urueta picture I was referring to earlier i.e. THE LIVING HEAD (1963)…so that I made it a point to somehow acquire them regardless!

As I said, however, the journey was somewhat more gratifying than the destination – this film in particular proving a veritable mess and enjoyable simply because of how ludicrous it was! First of all, this is one from the matinée idol days of the bloodsucker: as played by Guillermo Murray, the chief vampire here is so stiff that one expects to see moth-balls in his coffin! Besides, given the over-sized neck of his cape, one would not have been surprised to see him extract an electric guitar from some corner of his hide-out cave and break into a Glam Rock number at some point in the proceedings (after all, he frequently sits at his skull-adorned pipe-organ and summons his minions with some funereal sonata)!

Incidentally, music plays a pivotal role here: in fact, the hero is himself a gifted pianist with a great knowledge of how certain melodies can affect the listener (while hilariously looking like a dead-ringer for Clark Gable) – and the first time the two meet is at a party given by the descendants of the Count's sworn enemies (named Colman and with their eldest member played by Jose' Baviera from Luis Bunuel's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL [1962]!), where it transpires that the bloodsucker cannot stand old Transylvanian melodies (the grimaces he spontaneously makes at this are side-splitting)!

In any case, he manages to notch up a few victims along the way, beginning with a couple driving along a desolate stretch of road at night. Atypically, while the vampirization of the girl here has to follow a certain ritual (laboriously illustrated throughout the film no fewer than three times!), the male is mysteriously turned into a hideously hirsute creature (to take its place amongst the Count's deformed disciples)!! There is also the obligatory hunchback/mute servant who turns up long enough to be chastised for intruding on his master's 'meditation' and, later, to engage in a violent fisticuff with the hero!

By the way, the latter falls prey to the monstrous 'bug' himself but, since the transformation is gradual, only his hands ever sprout hair…but which does not prevent him from taking to the pipe-organ at the climax and bring down the vampire since, like I said, musical notes can just as soon drive the bloodsucker off-the-wall as serve the function of a 'clarion call' to his sub-human underlings. And, given that the Count's cavernous abode is conveniently supplied with a pit which has large spikes protruding from the ground, it is inevitable that he would ultimately get his come-uppance in this grisly fashion (with one of Colman's own daughters, similarly afflicted, joining him soon after)!