Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Spanish Vampires



THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY-1974-A busload of workers traveling to a castle make an unplanned stop in a strange village after their driver dies. The village is devoid of people but the weary travelers decide to stay in the cozy empty inn anyway. One person does show up though, a guy named Luis (the ubiquitous Jack Taylor) who says he got lost while driving around. When Ernest, one of the group goes out for a smoke he's attacked and killed en mass by some weird looking vampires. The next morning the remaining members are greeted by the town folk. A sort of town leader name Boris, who everyone calls Major (Jose' Guardiola) explains that the reason no one was around the previous night was that they were all attending a funeral. When the guests want some meat with their breakfast a big bearded cook chops off a villagers leg and it's serves it to them. One of the travelers goes on and on about how “different” tasting the meat is, much to the amusement of Boris. ”In no other place will you find a roast like this"...
















Around this time a pasty faced Ernest shows up and later their bus won't start. Stranded with no money the visitors must accept the hospitality of The Countess (Helga Line', from several Paul Naschy movies), an aristocratic beauty who promptly seduces the young school teacher in the group, bites him on the neck and throws him to her hungry minions. Later the hairy cook hacks off a villager's arm (while a child watches) to serve as dinner. Luis suspects trouble (“There are too many strange and dangerous things going on”) and tries to save the remaining passengers including Alma (Dyanik Zurakowska from FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR) who finds a severed finger on her dinner plate! For some reason the one child, a girl passenger goes off with a mysterious boy and gets trapped in the cemetery. After her mother is killed the boy tries to save her the girl but winds up killing her instead. Luis and Alma flee in his car with the bloodthirsty villagers in hot pursuit. They escape but like in HG Lewis' 2000 MANIACS (and BRIGADOON) the evil village disappears once the pair bring back the authorities.













Director Leon Klimovsky made several films with Paul Naschy. He usually provides a lot of atmosphere and action but this Spanish production is pretty standard and way too dark. The vampires are strange enough but some things are left unexplained. Star Jack Taylor (from Oregon in the USA) made (and is still making) many Euro-films including some with Naschy and some for Jess Franco.






  Thanks for reading!

2 comments:

The Bloody Pit of Horror said...

I actually liked this one, as well as many of the director's other films: Strange Love of the Vampires, Dracula Saga and I Hate My Body are some favorites. VNO very, very badly needs remastered, though. You can tell the writers had seen HG Lewis' Two-Thousand Maniacs!

CavedogRob said...

I like most of Klimovsky's other stuff too.