When I was a kid I read an article about this movie in Famous Monsters of Filmland, remembering the sexy-vampires-in-fur-bikinis thing. Now I’ve gotten a chance to look at it, and it certainly has some goofy charm to it, if that’s primarily what you’re about. Others may find the oft tepid pacing (typical of Spanish director Amando de Ossorio) a bit of a chore.
We open in Africa in 1910, in a ‘clearing’ that is pretty patently a set. Some natives wearing the sort of African masks one may acquire at Pier 1 Imports during African-American History Month dance (sorta) and then drag, yep, a screaming White Woman in. They tie her up and proceed to whip her both bloody and, more importantly, naked. Meanwhile, British troops approach. Sorta. They are actually outside, and the extremely bad day-for-night filtering ill matches the extremely dark lighting on the set. In fact, when I first saw the soldiers, I thought it was supposed to be the next day.
The natives then haul their victim over to a stone alter. Will the soldiers arrive in time to save her? No. C’mon, it’s a European ’70s horror movie. The woman is decapitated and the natives enthusiastically rub her blood on themselves. At this point the soldiers finally arrive and shoot them all down. Then the woman’s head jumps up of its own accord (!) and, now oriented towards the camera, hisses at the audience and reveals big ol’ vampire fangs. (!!)
After that, we basically follow the template of such *cough* revered films as Oasis of the Zombies. It’s the modern day, and a small party is conducting an expedition into Darkest Africa. (Or maybe a safari park in Madrid. One of the two.) They naturally ignore the danger they are in to a ludicrous extent (there really doesn’t seem to be any much reason for them to stick around this particular locale), and begin falling victim to the voodoo/zombie/vampire shenanigans. It’s like they couldn’t decide what sort of horror movie they wanted it to be, and so decided to toss everything into the plot. There’s even a lycanthrope element, although it never actually plays into anything.
The expedition consists of two guys; professor-type Jonathon Grant and the manly guide, the well-named Rod; and three women who, to be fair, actually do have clothes on more than half the time. Not much more, but still. Two of the women are blondes, and one a red-head who sort of reminded me of Donna on That ’70s Show. Assuming Donna was naked much of the time. I will say this, from the evidence supplied during these scenes, either it was extremely cold out when they were filming this movie, or else the actress was well designed by nature to be a coat rack.
Sexual tensions naturally hold sway. Rod is doing it with the exotic redhead Tunika (who I only much later released isn’t supposed to be ‘white’). For her part, Tunika is extremely jealous of the attentions paid her man by the two blondes; ambitious photographer Carol and rich bitch Elizabeth. For whatever reasons, presumably contractual ones, Elizabeth doesn’t get nude herself (that I remember, but then there’s a lot of nudity, so many she did). She does prance around in bras and panties and such, however. And in one deliriously hilarious moment, she has a flashback to a conversation with Carol, which JUST HAPPENED to take place when Carol was sitting in a chair giving herself a sponge bath.
Meanwhile, Grant has the hots for Tunika, too. You wouldn’t think hot blondes would have so much trouble getting some action, but that’s the case here. Even when another party attempts in the inevitable Euro-movie rape scene, Tunika is the victim.
A mysterious guy named Munga shows up, and takes Jonathon and Rod on an expedition to the (of course) nearby site of the aforementioned massacre. The altar is still there, now surrounded by the cairns of the voodoo followers. Munga warns that ceremonies still are held there. However, of the party, only Tunika (because, I guess, she’s a native, or half-native, or something) believes that Evil is Afoot. The Europeans only laugh off these concerns. This is one element among several that are copied from the director’s “Blind Dead” series.
So while Rod and Tunika get it on during Rod’s watch shift that night (way to keep a look-out, dude), Carol sneaks off to photograph anybody who shows up in the altar area. She does pause on the way, however, to get some, er, action shots of Rod and Tunika. Needless to say, bad things happen when she arrives at the altar, only to find that the zombies of the voodoo tribe are rising from their fog-spewing cairns, a sequence that is pretty much an exact copy of similar scenes in all four of the Blind Dead films.* She attempts to flee, but meets up with the big-haired, fur bikini-clad Vampire Woman from the beginning of the film. Carol naturally suffers an exactly similar fate: Whipped and stripped, bit, beheaded, newly befanged.
[*Another humorous continuity issue: During this scene, the zombies physically push their way out from their cairnes. Later in the film, however, they are seen to simpy materialize their way atop them. Huh?]I think you can take it from there. The two vampire ladies now literally bounce around in slow-motion, hissing and hunched over with their clawed fingernails thrust in front of them, all in their adorable outfits, which include little leopard-skin capes. (!!!) The slow-motion is way overused, and again entirely Blind Dead-esque. That de Ossorio cat really needed a couple of new tricks.
There’s a pleasing amount of goofery here, including some moth-eaten and utterly unconvincing stuffed leopard heads that periodically are show lurking in bushes; the aforementioned laughable day-for-night photograph; some primo continuity errors, and whatnot. A favorite moment is when the hero at the end tries to shoot the zombie, with little effect. Then he tosses his ammo belt in the campfire, and every bullet immediately finds a target, and for some damn reason now kills the zombies or vampires they hit. Huh? Meanwhile, anybody who doesn’t see the movie’s final ‘twist’ coming a mile away hasn’t seen many ’70s vampire movies.
The DVD is by Deimos Entertainment, a company currently in the process of releasing a nice slew of Euro-horror titles, mostly Paul Naschy stuff. The film often looks quite beautiful, almost despite itself. Extras are scant (and include the ‘clothed’ reshoots done for TV, which probably aren’t going to interest many), but for fans of this sort of material, this is definitely worth a look.
