La malédiction du vampire

After viewing some of Paul Naschy's jolly Spanish horror flicks, I expected to enjoy this routine vampire flick. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed by the film which manages to add nothing whatsoever to the vampire genre, merely content with copying content from previous vampire films. The film strides hard to achieve a Gothic atmosphere, which it partially does through some nice castle scenery, but a lack of originality - and indeed, pacing, make this one a bit of a bore.

The stilted acting is to be expected, but the dubbing here is far worse than in many other Italian and Spanish films I've watched. Absolutely no attempt is made to sync the words and the lips together, resulting in a surreal viewing experience. The threadbare plot consists of women running around in negligees, and nobody else doing very much. There's some mumbo-jumbo about a aristocrat's son falling under a vampire's spell, but the film is so badly acted that you don't really care what happens next. The violence content is low, as is the bloodshed, somewhat surprisingly. As this is an exploitation film, I would have expected lots of gory goings-on a la Naschy, but instead the film makers opt for plenty of totally gratuitous and superfluous nudity to spice things up, which I personally could have done without.

The vampires in this film are some of the worst I've ever seen. With gigantic fake fangs sticking out of their mouths and funny expressions, they're laughable instead of horrific. You'll find together looking at the clock as this film trundles along, it feels like double the actual running time. And what's with the tacked-on dream-like ending which seems to have been added to up the nudity and violence content? Out of place, and a bit silly really. The best I can say about this film is that in places it builds up some atmosphere, such as in the surreal and spooky scenes where we see two vampires dancing around, but it's still a far cry from the Italian gothics of the early '60s. CURSE OF THE VAMPIRE makes for cult viewing, but set your expectations low to enjoy this one.

No doubt buoyed by the tremendous international success of Naschy's immortal 'werewolf Shadow' Spain began to produce a remarkably vivid series of lurid horrors and one of the more gratifying examples is 'Curse of the vampire', a gloriously giddy slice of sapphically-inclined Gothic horror that has no qualms about pilfering ideas from all in sundry and generously adding its own florid flourishes of idiosyncratic insanity!

'La llamada del Vampiro' myriad strengths reside not in its bold cinematic uniqueness, but in its plentifully unique strangeness and director Elorrieta's avid appreciation of the female form, and the film's not infrequent displays of aesthetic nudity, bared bloody fangs, bouncing bosoms has an appealingly ribald Jess Franco quality that does much to enliven the creaky Gothic frolics of this small isolated village, with its ancient shadow-steeped castle, the no less decrepit Baron and his profoundly demented son and heir who invites the beautiful Dr. Greta Materlick (Diana Sorel) and her stunning brunette nurse to stay at this benighted castle until his troublesome medical condition finally stabilizes. And it is while the pulchritudinous doctor and her delectably nubile nurse uncomfortably settle into this greatly unsettling, doom-laden domicile that all the truly monstrous machinations of the benighted curse that has fallen upon the vampire-fearing villagers is grimly revealed.

Being a sucker for full-blooded, voluptuously mounted, terminally titillating, erotically eerie Euro-cult sinema featuring salacious, sinful succubi and their nasty, nocturnal need to make their quarry bleed has driven me to dig ever deeper into the crepuscular celluloid crypts of forgotten fright to unearth this darkling B-Movie beauty! Nothing is tomb much trouble for inventive film-maker Elorrieta and his toothsome terror-flick 'Curse of the Vampire', as sublime, scantily garbed, graveyard haunting horrors abound gruesomely in their unholy quest to slake the uncommonly macabre, morbid lusts of the damned. Fangs of Jean Rollin's sensual succubi will have much to sink their teeth into with the lusty, fleshly-fabulous blood-spiller 'La llamada del Vampiro'.

An enthusiastic fan of European Gothic Horror productions, I was quite disappointed in the first film by José María Elorrieta I saw, the overall boring "Las Amantes Del Diablo" ("Feast of Satan", 1971), and my expectations for this film, "La Llamada Del Vampiro" ("The Curse of the Vampyr", 1972), were therefore considerably low. But while this film is pretty far away from being a masterpiece, of course, (in fact it is incredibly nonsensical and silly), at least it isn't boring, and I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the aforementioned other film by Elorrieta I've seen.

"La Llamada Del Diablo" looks quite amateurish, and mostly doesn't make the slightest sense, but it is entertaining enough for my fellow Eurohorror-fans to check out without feeling regret for the wasted time. The film is set in a remote village, which is haunted by vampires (though the mayor and a Baron living in the village are denying their existence). When the village doctor doctor dies, a new foxy female doctor (who goes by the beautiful name 'Dr. Materlick') arrives with an even foxier female assistant... there are also a bunch of weird characters, the weirdest being the Baron's son Carl (Nicholas Ney, who has never been part of another film). Then, the vampires begin to fill people's hearts with terror again... This may not sound like a proper plot description, but fact is that "La Llamada Del Vampiro" is a very confused little flick with an extremely incoherent storyline that hardly makes any sense.

Still, the film has a nice atmosphere at times (though it never gets even slightly creepy, let alone scary). The lack of sense is a likable one, and in spite of the incoherence, the film didn't bore me. The female cast members are entirely hot, the most prolific one being sexy Loreta Tovar, who plays a female vampire here, and whose filmography includes roles in Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's masterpiece "La Residencia" ("The House that Screamed", 1969), as well as the second part of Amando De Ossorio's "Blind Dead" saga, "El ataque de los muertos sin ojos" ("Return of the Blind Dead", 1973). Funnily, two of the female cast members (one of them Trovar) are suddenly fully naked for no reason, whereas the camera fades out when other female cast members strip for specific reasons (such as taking a shower). In nice early 70s tradition, some Lesbian Vampire action is thrown in.

Nicholas Ney, who gives his only performance here, plays one of the weirdest characters ever, who sports one of the weirdest hairstyles ever, which makes it even less understandable that a really hot chick would fall for him. The film was obviously shot on an extremely low budget, but director Ellorieta still managed to build up some nice Gothic atmosphere and throw in a bunch of stylish sequences (though none of them are remarkable).

Overall, this film isn't nearly as terrible as I feared it might be, and it is quite a bit better than "Las Amantes Del Diablo". Still, it is a bad, and very substandard example for Spanish Gothic Horror. My fellow fans of low-budget Eurohorror can give this a try, but if you're not too familiar with the genre I recommend to skip it, as there are about 5.000 European Gothic Horror flicks that are 5.000 times better. For good Spanish Gothic Horror Exploitation, check out some of the many films starring the late Paul Naschy, or any of the countless other European Gothic masterpieces. This one is just for my fellow Eurohorror-fanatics, and even those may well skip it unless there's really nothing else to watch.

Aka "Curse of the Vampire" bellow added to fulfill text rquirements: Overall, this film isn't nearly as terrible as I feared it might be, and it is quite a bit better than "Las Amantes Del Diablo". Still, it is a bad, and very substandard example for Spanish Gothic Horror. My fellow fans of low-budget Eurohorror can give this a try, but if you're not too familiar with the genre I recommend to skip it, as there are about 5.000 European Gothic Horror flicks that are 5.000 times better. For good Spanish Gothic Horror Exploitation, check out some of the many films starring the late Paul Naschy, or any of the countless other European Gothic masterpieces. This one is just for my fellow Eurohorror-fanatics, and even those may well skip it unless there's really nothing else to watch.

Curse of the Vampire is an enjoyable enough Spanish horror movie as long as one keeps his expectations in check.

Dr. Dora Materlick, a hot looking blonde, comes to a small Spanish village to investigate a strange outbreak of anemia. The locals believe it is the work of vampires. An ill baron asks Materlick to stay in his castle. Materlick and her assistant, a hot looking brunette, accept the invitation. There, they meet the Baron's son Karl, a morose man who speaks in riddles and longs for his cousin Margaret, who is now gone. The anemia stumps Materlick, so she calls in a blood analysis, who is (you got it!) a hot looking redhead.

The three ladies (and Margaret after she is resurrected) spend a good portion of the movie running around the castle in nighties (and sometimes less). As a horror film, The Curse of the Vampire comes up with one original idea. The vampires appear normal, going about in the day and living their lives, until a full moon rises. Then, they sport fangs and hunger for blood. The film cleverly reveals this when a character is looking at his reflection in a mirror and the reflection suddenly vanishes. That is a good scene, but the film saves its trump card for the end.

Many fans of Euro-horror love it when a film goes off the rails, throws out all coherency, and travels into psychedelic territory. Black Magic Rites (aka The Reincarnation of Isabel) comes to mind as one glorious example. In its final ten minutes, Curse of the Vampire does just that and ends up better living up to the title The Vampire's Night Orgy than the Helga Line movie that bears that title. Make sure one stays to the end!

Curse of the Vampire does occasionally suffer from that awkward pacing one finds in some Euro-horror during scenes where the plot dominates. The real "fun" does not start until about the halfway point (when the reflection vanishes from the mirror). However, as Spanish horror goes, I would say Curse of the Vampire compares favorably with most of the Waldemar Daninsky movies. It is not essential 70's Euro-horror viewing. However, fans looking for new thrills after watching Argento, Fulci, and company, will find that Curse of the Vampire scratches that itch.