Placer sangriento

A man in a mask injects herion into a gaggle of girls in between bouts of organ playing in this boring late 60's film. It was on the same disk as the superior "Night Of The Bloody Apes", so I felt what the hell, ya know? And every film I watch I feel the need to review. Even the VERY horrid ones. This is futher proof that Emilio Vieyra should have never gotten into making movies. Everything I saw of his is putrid, he's like the Argentian version of Indy-feces director Micheal Legge. YES that bad.

Something Weird Dvd extras: Outakes; Combo trailer; TV spots; comic art gallery; Short subjects: 'Gorilla and the Maiden', 'world's championship women's wrestling contest', 'Artist's Paradise', and 'White Gorilla'; Trailers for "the Deadly Organ", "Face of the Screaming Werewolf", "the Flesh Eaters", "Fleash feast", "Invasion of the Flesh Hunters", "Shiver Shudder Show", and "Tender Flesh". It's on a double bill with "Night of the Bloody Apes"

Easter Egg: Trailer for "the Curious Dr Humpp"

My Grade: F

I can't blast Placer Sangriento like everyone else on this board. I liked it. It reminded me of early Franco as did Vieyera's later effort, Dr. Humpp. The black & white photography is very atmospheric and moody, the girls are very sexy and the storyline is sleazy enough. Like a lot of horror films of that time, the police procedural footage is dull. I've often wondered if these scenes were meant to be for restroom breaks when they played theatrically. The ominous, memorable central music theme reminded me of the sensational main theme by Allesandro Allesdandrini in a film made years later, The Devil's Nightmare. Placer Sangriento is currently playing in a 20 minute version on Comcast on Demand in the Something Weird section (they sell the full version on DVD).

The only horror director of any fame to come from Argentina, Emilio Vieyra ("The Curious Dr. Humpp"), made the first of his low budget genre films with this minor shocker. Mauricio De Ferraris stars as a police inspector named Ernesto Lauria, who must solve the case of a masked maniac who injects women with heroin, and also uses organ music to turn them into zombie slaves.

Don't look for a particularly coherent story with this one, but you can expect a fair amount of black & white atmosphere. You can also enjoy a decent serving of sleaze, a steady assortment of sexy young women, and the creepiness of the villain. The mask he wears may be the most noteworthy thing about him. The performances are not great but they are adequate. The mystery to be solved is not all that difficult to deduce. The music is the work of a man named Victor Buchino, who also composed the song performed by one of our suspects in a nightclub. Pacing is efficient enough, resulting in a movie that wraps up in just over 70 minutes.

"Feast of Flesh" a.k.a. "The Deadly Organ" (as it is known here in North America) is no great shakes, but lovers of foreign B horror may appreciate its sense of weirdness and its ambience.

Five out of 10.

Feast of Flesh (1967)

** (out of 4)

Argentina horror film about a masked killer who stalks women so that he can inject them with heroin and make them his slaves. Originally rated X when it was released to American drive-ins, this thing now is rather tame in its violence, subject matter and nudity but it's a shame the direction is so incredibly poor because we might have had a pretty good film otherwise. The look of the masked killer is the film's strong point but the rest of the film, while interesting, is rather dull due to the direction.

Yes, well... Any reason why I might recommend anyone seeing this? The black and white photography is crisp and attractive, as are most of the girls and the Les Baxter like music has some appeal. My disc has the ambiguous title of The Deadly Organ on it but it is almost universally known as, Feast of Flesh and with this title accompanies, Night of the Bloody Apes on the Something Weird label. To be honest The Deadly Organ is more appropriate but this is a tale with a monster, some girls and a lot of police guys doing a lot of chatting and no story at all. The night club scenes are OK because we get some silly dancing and the passable music but I must mention here that we also get, apropos nothing whatsoever, a striptease and it is the worst I have ever seen.