Shudder Day: Curse of the Devil (1973/4)

 Paul Naschy is finally back on this Website!

His Werewolf Film Series- aka the Waldemar Daninsky Series- has almost no real continuity.

As such, there's no issue covering the 7th Film now.

Here it is under the US Title (designed to market off of the success of The Exorcist)...

This is one of those Films with A LOT of setup, so bear with me...

Long ago, Waldemar (Naschy) kills a heathen and leads the execution of the rest of the evil clan.

The final lady curses his line before death.

What happens if you interrupt these curses?

Much much later, his descendant is hunting a Wolf.

When he finally shoots it, it turns back into a man (off-camera).

This apparently triggers the curse, meaning several Daninsky men led very normal lives.

The family of the Romani Werewolf killed is inspired to call upon the Devil himself (hence the Title) to make this Curse happen.

This involves a lady from the Tribe having sex with Satan (who is just a guy in a black bodysuit!) and then setting up a convoluted way to meet Waldemar.

He finds her on the road and brings her home.

In spite of his Maid's warnings, he falls for her and he gets Satan's sloppy seconds.

That night- on Walpurgis Night- she bleeds on a werewolf skull and 'bites' him with it.

Now he's beginning to turn into a Werewolf during the many, MANY Full Moons they have in this area.

However, there's also a feral-looking killer on the loose, so it is not clear that a Werewolf is Among Us (or Them).

Eventually they figure it out as the body count rises and the killer is eventually found dead from his wounds earlier (see above).

Can Waldemar stop himself before he kills his true love?

He can't stop before killing her Sister (who seduces him) and both of her Parents though.

There's also a Subplot involving the Village, who turn on the Sheriff-like figure and kill Waldemar's helpers.

I'm pretty sure you know how these Films work by now.

He kills just about everyone- including the 'Sheriff'- but can't attack his love.

She was given a silver dagger and ends his Curse.

Don't worry- we get Sequel Bait in the form of her and his Son (as she was pregnant days earlier).

The End.

This one is essentially a reset for the Franchise, even if the continuity doesn't really exist.

The previous Films got into stranger territory than this, including the previous Film where he meets Dr. Jekyll!

The best and worst thing about this one is just how familiar it really feels.

There's not much new here.  Many of the familiar tropes are here.

I will note that the Romani guy turned into a regular Wolf (as original Werewolves 'did') and Waldemar becomes a Wolf Man (not The).

I guess blame Satan.

The whole 'Killer on the Loose' Subplot does help to delay the inevitable Scene of the Mob trying to kill our Hero/Villain at least.
All of the extra steps to get there are kind of silly though.

Naschy's Werewolf Films are almost always fun.  I should finish these out, but I'll try not to get a head of myself...

I make no apologies.

A fun Film that didn't take many risks.  That said, the formula is still pretty good and the atmosphere is great.

Lost in Translation: Asylum (1972)

 Asylum was a fun, strange little Film.

While looking up Pictures to use, I found some alternate covers for it.

First up, Japan...

Kind of specific SPOILERS on this one, right?

Mind you, there are worse ones out there too.

Let's see what Spain did with it...

A Horror Film Poster that feels like Robert Crumb worked on it.  That or some other Artist who makes no sense.

Either way, it sure is odd, no?

Of course, I have more of these, but I'll share them later.

Compendium- The Exorcist Films (with Bonus Content)

 Since I did these in no particular order over the Years, let me put all of the Reviews in Order for ease of use.

1) The Exorcist (1973)- MONDO BIZARRO: Pre-Holiday Flix: The Exorcist (1973) (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

2) Exorcist II- The Heretic (1977)- MONDO BIZARRO: '70s Trash: Exorcist II- The Heretic (1977) (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

3) The Exorcist III- Legion- MONDO BIZARRO: Forgotten Three-quels: The Exorcist 3 (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

4) Exorcist- The Beginning (the cut released Theatrically)- MONDO BIZARRO: Renny Harlin Week: Exorcist- The Beginning (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

5) Dominion- Prequel to The Exorcist (the one released on DVD)- MONDO BIZARRO: Forgotten Prequels: Dominion- Prequel to the Exorcist (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

6. The Exorcist- Believer (2023)- MONDO BIZARRO: 2023 Catch-Up: The Exorcist- Believer (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

Bonus

1) Repossessed (the Parody Film)- MONDO BIZARRO: Holiday Flix: Repossessed (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

2) Legion (Book Comparison to Film)- MONDO BIZARRO: Fiction vs. Fiction: The Exorcist III (aka Legion) (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

3) Return of the Exorcist (the knock-off also called Exorcist III) (1975)- MONDO BIZARRO: Rip-Off Flix: Return of the Exorcist (1975) (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

4) Beyond the Door (the less-blatant Italian copycat) (1974)- MONDO BIZARRO: Clone Wars (The Exorcist): Beyond the Door (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

5) Exorcism (the blatant Spanish copycat) (1975)- MONDO BIZARRO: The Clone Wars (The Exorcist)- Exorcism (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

6) Abby (aka The Black Exorcist) (1974)- MONDO BIZARRO: The Clone Wars (The Exorcist)- Abby aka The Black Exorcist) (mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com)

Tubi Thursday: Night of the Werewolf (aka The Return of the Wolfman) [1981]

 A Werewolf, a Witch and some Vampires walk into a Bar.  
You don't want to be in that Bar!

You also don't want to be around Paul Nashy during...

A group of young Ladies are going to the Carpathian Mountains.

Seems like a harmless (and illogical) Vacation, right?

Well, it would be great (well...not great really) if it weren't for a few things...

For one, some Graverobbers accidentally revive Waldemar Daninsky (Naschy on his NINTH turn as the Character) from his tomb.

For another, the Leader of the Group is a straight-up Evil Witch who kills some people to wake up the other person buried there...

Elizabeth Bathory!

The Ritual works!

Now she's awake and making Vampires....since, why not?

She wants to control Naschy, but he's in love with the one living and non-evil girl in the group.

What's a lady to do?

Will evil triumph?
Will Elizabeth reclaim Waldemar?

Just how many random people will the Werewolf kill?

To find out, stream the Film now!

An enjoyable Film even if it is a bit much.  

Seriously, the Plot involves a Witch, Elizabeth Bathory (to be clear, she's not the Witch), her Vampire Ladies and the Werewolf.  

You know the expression 'A hat on a hat?'

This is, well, alot of damn hats!

Aside for that, this is a pretty fun Film.  For as overstuffed as it is with creatures/threats, they make for a constantly interesting experience.  It gets a bit convoluted towards the end, but it is otherwise quite good.

The Plot sure didn't win any Awards, but it was probably a fun Drive-In Film and enjoyable to Foreign Horror Buffs like myself.  

Naschy- even dubbed- is a joy to watch.

If you know what to expect here, you can enjoy it.  

Speaking of expectations, I did NOT expect to see this when I Googled this Film's Title, but here we are...

A silly, but self-serious Film.  It has everything Horror Buffs want, save for any real surprises.

*Not New* Streaming: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)

 After 29 years, a man's passion project was realized.  The result: applause at Cannes.
Not much response anywhere else.

Let's see if Gilliam's Film was worth the wait (and multiple Castings)…

In Spain, a struggling Director- Adam Driver- is trying to make a project based on Don Quixote.

I'd say that we're getting META, but we've only just begun.

Frustrated, he's given inspiration via a random guy selling a DVD Copy of a Film he made about Quixote 10 years ago.
Yes, he had already made the Film...and just forgot about it, apparently.

We see bits of him making the Film and, apparently, bangs make you look 10 years younger.  Free advice, ladies.

He goes back to the Village he shot that Film in, since he was mere miles away.  What a coincidence!

He sees that things aren't great for the people he left behind.
Whoops.

Through a series of events, he ends up back with his original Quixote Actor (Jonathan Pryce), who now believes that he's the real guy.

On top of that, Driver can't quite distinguish fantasy from reality himself anymore.

In lieu of SPOILERS, here's Promo Art for when the Film was supposed to Co-Star Michael Palin in the Pryce role.

I kind of want to see that now.

To see how it plays out, stream/rent the Film now.

An interesting Film that is 1,000% a Terry Gilliam Film.  That's both high praise and a warning, depending on how you are.

I stand by alot of his Films- specifically Time Bandits and Baron Munchausen- but the results can be mixed- like The Zero Theorem.  The man is genuinely-creative and aims for the stars.  Actually getting there...can be a tricky proposition.

I honestly wonder how much this one changed over the nearly 3 Decades since the original pitch.  In 2002's Lost in La Mancha (the Making Of that become a Not Making Of Film), the story seems to be a bit different.  I've seen the Film pitched as a Time Traveler going back to meet with Quixote, which sounds great.  That's what the version with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort was going to be, I think.

This version...has some good moments, but his penchant for adding realism and wanting to 'de-mystify' everything can be an impediment.  It works in Jabberwocky, since it is blatantly-telling you the 'real' version of a crazy Story/Poem, grime and all.  This version...is interesting to a point, but kind of lost me.

Speaking of lost, I originally tried watching the digital copy I had from 2019, but it was the Italian release.  While mostly-unchanged from the copy on Hulu (since it was shot 98% in English), one thing doesn't work there...

At this point, he goes to shove away the on-screen English Subtitles.

…which aren't on this copy.  Whoops.

A must see for fans of Terry Gilliam...but it's a hard sell to most other people.  At its worst, its vague and murky.

'90s Trash?: The Rift (1990)

 I might as well not put this one off!  

As part of my look at the Underwater Horror Films from 1989-1990, we have The Rift.  

It comes to us from the pair of Dino De Laurentiis, who Produced it, and Juan Piquer Simon, who Directed it.  

It made it fun for the Writer, it seems.  He wrote a Script and then someone had to translate it into Italian for Dino.  When he approved it, they then needed a SECOND translation of the Script into Spanish, so that the Director could read it.  

They should have just hired the guy who made Incubus (Leslie Stevens) and translated it into Esperanto for him!  

The Plot involves a missing Submarine, a ragtag Crew and some strange monsters.  It is the Horror Adaptation of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that I've been waiting for!  

The Cast is notable for including Ray Wise (who gets top billing) and R. Lee Ermey, as well as other people less worthy of mention.  

Supposedly, the impetus of this Film was Dino wanting to make a lower-budget version of his own Film- Leviathan.  You can see it, although they thankfully tweaked a bunch of it to not make it just a cheaper version of that Film.  

For all of the attention that DeepStar Six gets from people (myself included) for being similar to Leviathan, it's kind of ironic to see the origin of this Film.  

Can they solve the mystery hidden in The Rift?  To find out, read on...

A proper late-80s/early-90s hero- longish hair, stubble, smart and a bit grizzled- is told that his creation- a Submarine has gone missing.

He agrees to help find it after they both threaten to blame him for it failing...and tell him that a colleague is missing with the Sub.

He joins the Crew of the NEW Submarine- since making two Submarine Models is more expensive than making one- and gets lots of pushback.

An ex of his (naturally!) is part of the Crew and a stern Navy Commander (Ermey) is in charge.

It's not range to see Ermey as a Soldier, but he did go from The Marines to The Navy!

They follow a black box signal and create some false tension by deciding to drive *between* two chunks of Iceberg.  It's a big Ocean- go around!

As they get nearer, they get attacked by a strange creature.

My Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reference bears more fruit, as this kind of thing happened every other week in Seasons 3 and 4.

They end up very deep, nearly at 45,000 feet below Sea Level.

That's impressive, given that the deepest the Ocean Floor goes is 36,000 feet!

Yes, I did have to Google that.

They find a hidden area and go inside, since that works out well in every Film.

Meanwhile, someone is scheming and manipulating things on the ship.

Is it Ray Wise?
Yes, yes it is.

They get attacked by barely-seen Monsters and the Crew is whittled down quite a bit.

To further amp up the tension by having our Hero's Ex get separated.

She's a Military Officer with a career...but in a Screenplay, she's just there to give him a goal to achieve.

On the Ship, samples from the Lab start to mutate.

The plan here is something something Mutation something something Biology something something Genetics.

The whole thing ends with them *further* in the Lab and they must battle a Contamination-style giant monster.  That one's hydraulics actually worked though!

They blow up the Monster (of course!) and kill Wise for betraying them, vowing to reveal the truth.

They have two floppy disks, so that evil Corporation is going down!  The End.

Well, it sure ain't The Abyss.  

After 2 of these in a row, what else do I have to say?  

Well, the Sub Effects look decent.  The part where it is attacked by the strange creature is less, well, realistic looking than in probably should be.  

The actual on-screen Monsters look fine.  Like the other Films, you only get fleeting glimpses or odd angles most of the time.  

This one has a decent, if unoriginal hook to it.  We don't really get to know too much about *why* they are mutating people, plants and things though.  Something something profit, I guess.  It's also odd to see the first 2 guys not *actually* get any comeuppance directly.  Yes, they imply that it will happen, but where's the schadenfreude in that?!?  

The idea here is simple, as well.  We just need to get people in a Cave/Ocean full of Monsters- who cares why?!?  Evil Corporations are evil, so there we go.  

If you can accept that this is a fun, but fairly simple Film, you can have a good time.  It's not nearly as deep as the titular Rift in the Film is, but it can be fun.  

Given that I read that this was the one with 'killer moss,' it proved to be more interesting than that.  

Leave it to a Reviewer of the time to be a bit more negative (and give me a good closing to this look at the Underwater Horror Films of 1989/1990)…

Next time, I jump ahead to 2002.  We're sticking with the Ocean though, so don't put away those flippers just yet.  Stay tuned...

Rare Flix: The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983)

Werewolves and Samurais- rare do the two meet.  In this case, they do so in The Beast and the Magic Sword, a 1983 Film that is part of Paul Naschy's Werewolf Series.  Granted- this is the 10th one in the (unofficial) Series.  Why do this one now?  Well, it has a Werewolf (Naschy) and Samurais in it!  Why wouldn't I do it?  This one apparently never got a proper US Release and was never dubbed into English.  As such, my copy is in its Native Spanish (Castilian).  Well, it is the Native Spanish for *some of the Actors* at least.  This is a rare Film that happens to be Subtitled AND Dubbed, since the Japanese Actors are just dubbed into Spanish.  Of course, Naschy's Character shouldn't really be speaking Spanish either right- Waldemar Daninsky isn't exactly a Spanish name, right?  So, to summarize, I'm watching the Film in Spanish with Characters that shouldn't be speaking it AND it is translated back into English (mostly accurately) as Subtitles.  The Plot involves a re-summarizing of the Daninsky Family Curse and then a jaunt over to Japan to find a cure.  No, they don't explain why all of the Japanese people are speaking Spanish- thanks for asking.  With the Film's first U.S. Release coming in about a month, we might as well get a preview here now...

The Film moves around a bit in time and location, so try to keep up...

In the 10th Century, a Witch curses Waldemar's ancestor for personal reasons.  The curse is enacted by stabbing the pregnant Wife with a werewolf jaw, serving as a precursor that silly stuff from 1995's Werewolf.

After that, some pretentious writing appears to bring us to the Present...of the 16th Century.

This connects to the previous Films, even though they change Eras and he dies in all of the Films.  Continuity is more of a suggestion than anything else.

Now with that relative, trouble is brewing in Vague Area of Europe.  He can't find help for his curse without clearly-bigoted, religious zealots trying to kill him and those around him.

Time to go where a Christian can feel safe in the near future- Japan!

We now get to the weirdest parts of the set-up:

1) The time jump.  We learn that many attacks from obviously-a-Werewolf have occurred.  We know that they happen once a Month, so...um, how long have you been there not finding the guy who's name you were given.

2) Despite them trying to roughly nail down a real Time Period- by making Oda Nobunaga the Emperor- here, everyone just speaks Spanish.

I know I said it before, but it bears repeating.

The Film turns into a series of random Scenes at this point, but with a loose structure to hold it together (mostly).

First Scene- Waldemar killing people as a Werewolf.  These are all kinds of random, from battles in the Woods to indoor fights to, well, one I won't SPOIL yet.

Next Scene: this guy- the one they were told to find- offering to help them.  He drops in and out of the Movie at random & has his own Sub-Plot for some reason.

Final Scene: Random fighting!

The set-ups for this include Ninjas at an Onsen (below), guys in the Woods and Fight with Villagers that is just pointless Dream Sequence.

They look and feel nice, but really add nothing to the Story.

The final detour involves Waldemar seeking the help from a Witch, who turns out to be evil.  Pause for gasping.

He eventually escapes and kills her, but only after the blind girl who promised to look after in Act 1 is killed.

Oh yeah, he also FIGHTS A TIGER!!!!

Despite introducing the idea that the Samurai Doctor can fix his brain, it is immediately dropped.

Instead, he tries to kill him with a Silver Katana.  Waldemar dies when the Doctor's Sister- who's he suddenly in love with- deals the final blow, ending his curse...until the next 2 Films.  The End.

A weird mix of crazy and silly.  The Film has Samurais, Ninjas, a Witch, a Tiger and a Werewolf.  It somehow tries to mix into real history too, which is kind of hilarious.  Granted, the story of Nobunaga has been mixed into Video Games where he's been an actual demon, a shotgun wielding fighter or a...Pokémon Master?  It's weird.  This whole thing is just odd.  I like how it starts to have a story and then just keeps stopping for random fight scenes.  It's like 'I want to tell this story, but...I know the audience is too dumb, so here's a sword fight.'  They really didn't trust me...I mean, them to care about the story, did they?  Speaking of the story, our Hero arrives with the two ladies.  One- as mentioned- dies a dramatic death at the hands of the Witch.  The other accidentally activates a rope trap and is killed with some arrows.  Why?  Well, we have to rush to the Third Act and set Waldemar up with the Doctor's Sister, of course!  I'm sure that this is the full version, so it is less of a 'Footage Missing' situation and just weird writing.  One Scene of her 'feeling bad for him' and they are just in love when they next meet...for like the 2nd time!  The good definitely outweighs the bad here as it is more goofy fun than annoying/difficult to endure.  Again- Paul Naschy fights a Tiger!  How can you not love the insanity here?  Oh and I'm sure you were wondering about this Tiger.  Yes, it apparently is the same one from The Jungle Book (which was written more than 300 years after this is set)...

Next time, I cover another obscure Film.  This time, it is the most notable Film by one of the TWO Italian Directors I 'know' on Facebook.  Stay tuned...