CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957) / THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (1958)

As you may remember from the first movie in the Aztec Mummy series (which I reviewed many years ago), Dr. Krupp is a criminal mastermind known as The Bat, and something of a Dr. Moreau type who did horrible experiments on animals. He was jailed after his attempt to steal an ancient Aztec breastplate and bracelet, discovered by Dr. Almada, which is thought to be the key to finding Aztec gold. CURSE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY begins as Krupp's gang helps him escape, and Almada and his girlfriend Flor fear he'll return for the breastplate. In a flashback sequence from the first film, we see how Almada had put Flor under hypnotic regression and discovered that she is the reincarnation of Aztec princess Xochi. Now the freed Krupp does indeed return to kidnap Flor. Krupp and his men will have to deal with Almada, his cowardly sidekick Pinacate, Almada’s young brother Bobby, and Popoca, the Aztec mummy whose job is to protect the breastplate. But this time, Krupp will have to face a new enemy, the masked wrestler called the Angel (pictured at right), whom Bobby can call on at a moment's notice. Near the climax, as Krupp tries to make Almada translate the markings on the breastplate, Krupp throws the Angel into a snake pit and the Angel has to call on Bobby to be saved. Eventually, the Angel is unmasked as Pinacate and the shambling mummy tosses Krupp into the snake pit and leaves with the breastplate and bracelet intact. Despite the title, the mummy does not play a big role in the proceedings. 

But wait, there’s more! THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY begins with a statement that this film is based on fact (verified by testimony of a notary public!). Set years after the conclusion of CURSE, we get at least twenty minutes of flashbacks from the first and second movies to bring us up to date. By now, Almada and Flor are married and we learn that Krupp managed to escape the snake pit and has invented an atomic "human robot" that he plans to use to battle Popoca, the mummy, in order to get the breastplate. He has the typical mad scientist dreams of world domination with an army of these robots, put together like the Frankenstein monster with a human brain inside, and needs the riches of the hidden Aztec treasure to bankroll his plans. Flor is hypnotized to reveal the location of the breastplate, and Almada gets involved in the climactic battle between, yes, the Robot and the Aztec Mummy. Oddly, the sidekick Pinacate is back but he doesn't have a masked wrestler alter ego, or at least he doesn’t show it, and the flashback to the previous film doesn't depict him in his outfit. The final battle goes on for four minutes of not terribly thrilling action and this time, the mummy makes sure to kill Krupp.

Supposedly all three of these Aztec Mummy movies were filmed back to back, and, like The Empire Strikes Back, CURSE feels a bit like a placeholder between movie #1 and movie #3, even though it has more "new" action than the third movie. The inclusion of the flashbacks is annoyingly repetitious if you sit down and watch these films over a weekend, but they also allow a viewer who has allowed more time to pass between viewings to catch up. Your enjoyment of these films will depend on your tolerance for low-budget English-dubbed horror movies. I liked CURSE best, largely because of the weird and semi-kinky masked wrestler aspect—interestingly, the Angel is mostly ineffective until the end battle—though I must admit that the Robot is a pretty cool construction considering the genre. No one spends a lot of time critiquing the acting in these films, though I will say that Luis Aceves Castaneda is nicely hammy as Krupp. Ramon Gay and Rosita Arenas are fine as Almada and Flor. Crox Alvarado gets to shine in CURSE as the mild-mannered sidekick and the wrestling Angel. These are fun movies for a weekend matinee or a midnight showing with beer and popcorn, but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to give Wrestling Women Vs. the Aztec Mummy, related but without the same main characters, a shot. Pictured at left are Alvarado and Gay. [DVD]

VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972)

Count Mitterhaus lives in a castle in the village of Stetl and is rumored to be a vampire, responsible for the disappearance of several young women of the village. Albert Mueller discovers that his wife Anna, under the count's power, has taken their daughter Jenny into the castle to serve as a blood sacrifice to Mitterhaus. He gathers several villagers together to attack the castle and manages to drive a stake into Mitterhaus, but with his dying breath, the count curses the village and sends Anna off to find his cousin Emil who is with the traveling Circus of Night. Fifteen years later, though the Count's castle has been destroyed, a plague has spread through Stetl, leading nearby villages to block their roads to stop its spread. When the Circus of Night comes to Stetl, the villagers embrace the gypsy troupe, with its dancers and acrobats, its animal performances and hall of mirrors, as a way to forget about the plague. We soon discover that evil lurks beneath the surface: a pair of acrobats seem to turn into bats high in the air, and the darkly handsome Emil, Mitterhaus' cousin, is a shapeshifter—he can turn into a panther—and a vampire. Emil and the circus members plan to resurrect Count Mitterhaus. While a town doctor heads out to get medicines for the plague, the circus folk begin terrorizing the village, mostly the children (some of whom disappear in the hall of mirrors) and the doctor's son Anton and his girlfriend Dora are left, with only crucifixes as weapons, to fight the vampire plague. 

This Hammer film is colorful, stylish, and a little sexy, and it's nice to see them leave the Dracula movie formula, which they used for years to the point of overkill, behind and try something a little different. The whole thing has a folklore feel to it, and the concept of the Circus of Night is intriguing, though it ends up not being exploited as much as it could be. Characterization is minimal; when we discover that a gypsy woman with the circus is Anna Mueller from the opening, there is no real impact. The atmospheric look of the movie is its biggest selling point, with the circus at times conjuring up Ray Bradbury’s sinister circus in his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. Adrienne Corri, usually an asset in her movies, is mostly wasted here. John Moulder-Brown and Lynne Frederick are fairly bland as the young heroes Anton and Dora. Anthony Higgins (Emil) doesn't really have a lot of acting to do—he just has to look mysterious or menacing—but he certainly looks the part of a sexy and evil panther man. The animal transformations are a welcome addition to the Hammer template. Recommended. Pictured are Corri and Higgins. [Amazon Prime]

THE EVIL (1978)

Old handyman Sam is trying to clean up the Vargas house, a Civil War-era mansion that has been empty for years. He gets freaked out, first by all the cobwebs then by weird sounds that lead him to the basement where a fireball shoots out of the furnace and burns him to death. Next, the house's new owners show up: a psychiatrist (Richard Crenna, at left), his wife (Joanna Pettet), and a teacher (Andrew Prine) who are planning to open a drug rehab center in the house. They've brought a group of students and former rehab patients to help out and they're all pretty gung ho about pitching in to work, but odd things begin happening right away: Pettet sees a demonic statue turn its head to face her, and a dog that belongs to one of the students wanders down to the basement and goes nuts, attacking his owner (Cassie Yates) then disappearing into the bowels of the house. Crenna is a strict rationalist so he has problems when his wife, who is of a more spiritual bent, starts seeing blurry visions of a ghost that she soon figures out is the original owner, Vargas, trying to warn the group to leave the house. Unfortunately, Crenna, poking around in the basement, sees a trapdoor in the floor, held shut by a huge metal crucifix. He pulls the cross out and, literally as we will eventually discover, all hell breaks loose. The doors and windows slam shut on their own and the film becomes a haunted house slasher movie as one by one the mansion's inhabitants wind up attacked (one woman is sexually assaulted by an invisible presence), injured (Prine slices into his own hand with a circular saw) or electrocuted. In the end, Crenna and Pettet go through the trap door and discover the devil (Victor Buono, below right), something of a dandy decked out in white. Can the two manage to lock Satan back up with the crucifix?

This overlooked and underrated B-movie is one of the better haunted house films. It’s not quite in the same rank as The Uninvited, The Haunting (1963), or The Amityville Horror, but it certainly is as good as other second-rank films like Burnt Offerings or The Sentinel, and it's way way better than the awful Haunting remake from 1999. After a few introductory scenes, it all takes place in the house, a very effective setting which combines some gothic set design with large empty rooms which become quite scary. The first part is a bit of slow burn, but by the time of the dog attack, around the 22-minute mark, things pick up and never let go. The acting gets better as the story goes along, with everyone going balls-out in the last half. Crenna, Pettet and Prine are professionals who might feel like they're slumming but they try not to show it. George O'Hanlon Jr. is good as a cocky clowny fellow who provides a nice fake scare early on, and Lynne Moody is equally good as the woman who is assaulted. The director, Gus Trikonis, started out as a dancer, played one of the Sharks in West Side Story, was married for a few years to Goldie Hawn, and wound up in a long career directing B-movies and TV shows. He provides some nice stylistic touches here, mostly in the scenes of menace. 

Even critics who love this movie usually point to the ending as a major mistake. After spending the whole time in the dusty old mansion, Crenna and Pettet end up in a bright white room with the chortling and chubby Victor Buono as the devil. He looks nothing like any depiction of the devil that I've ever seen, though Mick Jagger's description of him as "a man of wealth and taste" in "Sympathy for the Devil" might be what the director was going for here. As the scene continues, his face takes on a more satanic look, complete with horns. Buono underplays and comes off as slimy rather than truly evil. I don't think anyone who has written about this movie actually likes the ending, with most reacting with laughter rather than terror. For some, it ruins the whole movie. I have to agree that I would have liked to have seen a more traditionally dark and Satanic climax, but if you just accept it, it works OK. (The first time I saw this, I admit the ending made me laugh, but this time around, maybe because I was prepared for it, I didn't really have a problem.) There are rumors that some prints of the film left out the entire scene with Buono, but I've never seen that confirmed and it's unclear how the movie would have had a satisfying ending. As a solid B-horror film, I recommend this. [YouTube]

EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (1958)

Truck driver Jack Flynn is heading home one night with a bracelet he bought as a birthday gift for his teenage daughter Carol when, just outside the small town of River Falls, he hits a thick sticky rope stretched across the road and something attacks his truck: the last we see of him is blood spurting from his slashed face. The next day, a worried Carol gets her boyfriend Mike to search the roads. They find the sticky rope and the wrecked truck with her gift inside but no dad. Entering some nearby caves to see if Dad wandered into one, they find some skeletons and fall into a huge sticky web spun by a giant tarantula. They escape and contact the police who investigate, with the encouragement of Kingman, the science teacher, and manage to kill the spider with insecticide. Kingman has the spider taken back and stored in the high school gym so he can study it, but it turns out it’s not quite dead, and when a rock band enters the gym to rehearse for a dance, and a bunch of students follow them, the stage is set for giant spider mayhem, though it’s less Earth vs. the spider than River Falls vs. the spider. This was made during the heyday of horror and sci-fi movies which focused on teenage characters. Gene Persson (Mike) and June Kenney (Carol) were both in their mid-twenties and could more or less pass for students, though Troy Patterson, as Mike's buddy Joe, was 35 and looked it. Their acting sort of passes muster, but it's the special effects that people watch these movies for, and the giant spider is handled pretty well. Mostly we see real spiders photographed up close with a fake background or, most effectively in the gym scene, a split screen effect (pictured at left). Too much time is spent on Carol insisting on putting everyone in danger to get her bracelet back, which she lost in the spider cave. Produced and directed by B-movie royalty Bert I. Gordon; there are references here to two of his other films, ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. Also released as THE SPIDER. A fine Chiller Theater watch. [DVD]

BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT (1971)

Southeast Asia, 1946. U.S. Army deserter Joseph Langdon, on the run in the jungle while leaving behind a trail of dead bodies, is confronted by a serpent who calls him evil. The serpent transforms into a chubby, loinclothed Satan who makes a deal with him. If Langdon will give up his soul, Satan will give him eternal life, reincarnating Langdon at the point of death, remaining evil in each new identity and "awakening the latent evil" in the people he comes into contact with. Some 25 years later, Philip Rogers, horribly mangled in an industrial accident, has died, or so the doctor thinks. But Satan has Langdon inhabit his body and when his bandages come off, he looks like Langdon. Philip's wife Julia, assuming his new face is from plastic surgery, takes him home where he resumes Philip's life, trying to free himself of Satan's influence. But Satan throws in a new twist: at certain moments, Langdon turns into a werewolf-type creature and literally feeds on human beings. It's unclear what triggers the transformations—Satan seems to cause them, but at one point, Satan says that Langdon brings them on himself. They mostly happen at moments of high emotion, including when initiating sex. During a bestial rampage, Langdon bonds with a blind man who tries to help the obviously disturbed Langdon. Though he keeps turning into a monster, Langdon begins to think that he may be on a path to salvation and with the blind man's help might be able to finally die for good and escape his cursed existence. 

This is another low-budget Filipino horror film written and directed by Eddie Romero and starring John Ashley (who was also a producer), pictured. Like the others (THE TWILIGHT PEOPLE, for example) it looks and feels cheap and shoddy though it has its moments. The script is ambitious, with a fair amount of philosophical chatter about life and death and good and evil bandied about, but these themes don't take root, and such talk winds up detracting a bit from the horrific elements. It would have been nice to have spent maybe ten minutes or so on the life Langdon leads between 1946 and the present—Satan notes in the jungle that Langdon's physical body is about to die from eating poisoned seeds, so he had to be somewhere for those 25 years. But undoubtedly I'm thinking too hard about this. As usual, Ashley is fine in the lead role and his frequent co-star Vic Diaz is, if not really good, at least entertaining as a slightly goofy Satan. Mary Wilcox (Julia) seems to have been given little direction and she's a bit wooden. Slightly better is Eddie Garcia as a sympathetic cop. Some critics make fun of the beast makeup, but it's really not bad. I like that he turns into a beast, not a wolf, though the "yellow night" reference in the title is never explained, and there are a couple of decently gory moments. If the phrase “Filipino horror” or the name John Ashley mean something to you, you'll want to see this. [DVD]

THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA (1960)

In the pre-dawn hours in a European village, a young servant named Brigitte is attacked by a caped figure, but is saved by farm workers and taken to a nearby home. This is the third attack by an assailant who strikes during the full moon and leaves bite marks on the neck of his victim. Meanwhile, a group of scantily clad women are staying in the home; they are a ballet troupe, with the only males being the blondish Luca, the ballet master, and the beefy mustachioed Giorgio, the music director, and they are rehearsing at the home of Luca's uncle, a professor. There is, of course, talk of the vampire myth, the assumption being that the attacked women become anemic and beholden to the will of the vampire. Brigitte dies and later at her funeral, we see her face, looking alive and horrified, visible through a glass panel in the coffin. Two of the dancers, Francesca and Luisa, go for a walk in the woods and when a storm comes up, Luca goes looking for them. They wind up taking refuge in what looks like an abandoned castle, but they are greeted by the Countess Alda and her old and creepy servant Herman. When Luisa goes exploring, she is bitten by Herman, and we soon figure out the vampire setup: Herman goes trolling for women, he drinks their blood and turns young, then goes back to Alda who drinks his blood and he turns old again while Alda keeps her youthful (and buxom) looks. It's hinted that, despite Herman acting like a servant, he is actually the ruler of her in a sadomasochistic relationship. Luisa, who doesn't recall the attack, survives and back at the professor’s place, all the loose talk inspires Giorgio to create a vampire dance. But Alda, smitten with Luca, seems to want to replace Herman with him. The plot eventually goes a bit haywire; things seem to happen based on the conventions of the vampire movie, not because of plot considerations. The climax, on the roof of the castle at dawn, is nicely done.

I liked a later movie by the director, Renato Polselli, the similarly themed THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA, so I backtracked to find this one. Vampires and dancers are central to both, and like OPERA, this one has a few sexy dance sequences, the best being the improvised vampire dance done to Giorgio's music. The women playing the female leads are rather interchangeable and only adequate in acting talent. In fact, the only good acting comes from Maria Luisa Rolando as the countess. She's attractive and sensual and, though the part was apparently written for the great Barbara Steele, Rolando is fine. The male leads, Isarco Ravaioli as Luca and John Turner as Giorgio, are less interchangeable and moderately attractive but also a bit weak in the acting department. Some sapphic touches are presented here and there but not dwelled on. The music is interesting, and at one point, a crazy big band tune breaks out from nowhere. The make-up for the old Herman makes him look less like an old vampire and more like a sci-fi mutant freak. But the make-up for the final scene of the vampires in the sun is nicely gooey, inspired perhaps by Christopher Lee's demise in HORROR OF DRACULA (which I must get around to reviewing one of these days). My favorite line is Luca addressing Alda, "Lady, demon, countess or whatever you are!" I liked OPERA better but this has its moments of fun. Pictured at top left is Maria Luisa Rolando; at right are the two heroes, Isarco Ravaioli and John Turner (aka Gino Turini). [YouTube]

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED (1963)

Architect Scott Campbell, in need of work, is called by his friend Joe to do an architectural survey of an old mansion called the Rochester Castle. The owner, a former actress who is now institutionalized, had leased it to a carnival owner named Arbuckle for nine years but he has recently vanished and the real estate agent is looking to make changes to make it more appealing for the housing market. Scott and his wife Nancy head to the house to stay a few days to examine the property. Odd things happen from the start. First, their way to the house, up a winding road into hills overlooking the ocean, is blocked by dead end signs. Then a creeping shadow is seen on a wall. That night, we see what appears to be a legless man come into their room and take some keys off of a keyring containing thirteen keys, leaving only eleven, and they soon discover that one door in the house can't be unlocked. The next day, Joe's wife Loy shows up seeming a bit disgruntled, then Joe shows up and the two are at odds over his possible infidelities. Just as we're wondering if Joe and Loy know something that Scott doesn't, we see Loy scream in the night and the next morning, her decapitated body is seated in a chair. A visit to Mrs. Rochester shows that she is freaked out by the house. Will our trio discover the secret to the house of the damned?

This short B-film scores high in visual creepiness (an old dark house full of shadows and half-glimpsed figures) but fairly low on actual horror, the headless body notwithstanding. It sets up some potentially interesting narrative paths but they all pretty much lead nowhere. In the early scenes, Scott and Nancy have an odd vibe together which is promising but again, nothing is really done with that. There is an explanation that is satisfying but not especially thrilling. Many online reviews give the ending away but I won't because if you know from the beginning what's going on, there’s not much impetus to stick with it. The actors range from bland to adequate: Merry Anders, probably the most recognizable actor here, having racked up nearly 100 credits in her career, mostly on TV, is Nancy; Ron Foster is Scott; Erika Peters is Loy. Best is Richard Crane (pictured), star of the 50s sci-fi TV series Rocky Jones, as Joe; though his is technically a supporting role, he's the only person we miss when he's not on screen. Richard Keil (Jaws from the James Bond movies) has a small role. The movie is an hour long; there's not quite an hour's worth of story here, but I wasn't ever exactly bored. Shot in widescreen black and white, the film at least looks good—I'm assuming the YouTube print I saw was taken from a DVD. [YouTube]

THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER (1973 TV-movie)

Alice Shaw is clearly in emotional distress at church though she rebuffs her priest when he tries to help. In her apartment, she is confronted by a crippled man walking on two canes (whose face we don't see) who has come to claim her 21-year-old daughter. Alice tries to shoot the crippled man, who claims to be the girl's father, but the bullets have no effect and she drops dead. At Alice's funeral, her daughter Diane is comforted by Lilith, an old friend of her mother's. Lilith is friendly but a bit aggressive and insists that Diane stay with her to let Diane sort out her life. Lilith introduces Diane to some eccentric neighbors and gives her a ring with a distinctive insignia, like a cross overlaid with an X, that she says belonged to Diane's mother. Diane notices a sinister looking painting in Lilith's living room of a creepy looking man in a cloak against a blood red background, and the ring insignia is present in the corner of the painting. We soon discover that Alice and Lilith were both in a cult of devil worshippers; apparently, the Devil himself (or perhaps a lesser demon), as pictured in the painting, fathered Diane, and Alice promised to give the girl up to the group when she turned 21. Now Lilith and the cult are trying to snare Diane into becoming their Princess of Darkness who will mate with the Demon of Endor. Diane's attempts to escape the influence of Lilith are ineffectual until she starts dating Steve, a handsome neighbor. Between Steve and the kindly judge who was the executor of Alice's will, Diane thinks she has escaped the clutches of the cult—but has she?

Between the title, the visuals, and the overdetermined narrative, it's obvious right from the get-go that this is basically a TV-movie version of Rosemary's Baby—the opening credits roll over an image stolen from the famous Rosemary's Baby poster. Almost every plot beat is predictable and, it being a 70s TV-movie, we also know that it's likely to have a downbeat ending (upbeat for the Satanists). Still, this was fun largely due to a good cast. Shelley Winters is fabulous as Lilith; she resists her scenery-chewing ways except for one scene in which she goes ballistic when Diane announces she's moving out, and it's a good scene. Belinda J. Montgomery (later Doogie Houser's mom) alternates between frightened and strong as Diane. Joseph Cotten has a glorified cameo as the judge. Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows) plays Lilith's mute butler; it's a small role but he plays the one cult member who actually is on Diane's side. Abe Vigoda, the year after The Godfather and the year before Barney Miller, looking a bit like Boris Karloff, is a cult elder. Robert Foxworth is handsome and serene as Steve. Martha Scott plays his mother and Diane Ladd is Diane's mother. Admittedly there are moments that verge on laughable, such as the chanting of "Diane, Princess of Darkness." But the ending, though predictable with the Demon of Endor showing up with glowing eyes (above right), is effective. Somehow I missed this one in my childhood but I'm glad to have caught up with it. Pictured at left are Winters and Frid. [Ok.ru]

TERROR-CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (1965)

A nervous man runs through the streets of a town at night. He arrives at a stable and saddles up a horse, but is kicked to death by it. Next, we see lawyer Albert Kovac arrive at the Villa Hauff to consult with Jeronimus Hauf about his will. But Hauf's wife Cleo and her stepdaughter Corinne are surprised because Jeronimus died a year ago. In fact, his body is about to be transferred from a grave to the family vault. Hauf dabbled in the occult and bought the mansion because it was built on the ruins of a 15th century plague hospital. Some patients were thought to have spread the plague on purpose, and their mummified severed hands are on display in the villa. There is a belief in the village that Hauf had made contact with some dead plague victims, and Hauf's death, after a fall from a narrow stone staircase, was a bit mysterious, with the five people who were present in the house at the time having signed the death certificate. Oddly, two of those people have died in the past year (one being the man from the first scene), and that day, another of the five, the town's mayor, is found dead with acid splashed on his face. That leaves a wheelchair-bound man named Stinnel and a fifth person whose signature is too smudged to read. There is another belief that sounds of ghostly carts that collected the plague dead can be heard around the villa, and sure enough, Stinnel hears it just before he kills himself in a particularly gory way. The final element in the plot is an old folk song from the plague days that says, "Pure water will save you" from the death carts. Everything is now in place for the playing out of the return of the dead plague spreaders as revenge against those responsible for Jeronimus’ death.

This has a terrible title that conjures up a trashy grade-Z horror movie, but actually it's is a well-produced and photographed Gothic thriller with supernatural elements—somewhat oddly, we don't actually see the grave creatures, even though they are real. The literal translation of the Italian title, 5 TOMBS FOR A MEDIUM, is much better if still a bit misleading—there is no traditional medium present. The big draw here for horror fans is the presence of Barbara Steele looking and acting every inch the way she always looks and acts, as Cleo. She is top-billed though Mirealla Maravidi, as Corinne, has a larger role. Walter Brandi (Albert) is the hero, though he doesn't get to act especially heroically and he's not quite as young and handsome as he should be opposite the two attractive female leads. The spooky Gothic atmosphere is kept up well, and the severed arms are a nice touch with a creepy payoff near the end. It never becomes clear why the opening scene is present; it's almost as if it was footage from a different movie that got spliced on to add five minutes to the running time. The director is assumed by fans to be Massimo Pupillo, but the onscreen credit goes to Ralph Zucker, also a co-producer. The story is that Pupillo directed it but didn't like the outcome so gave credit to Zucker. However, at least one cast member has said that Zucker did indeed direct at least some of it. Credit is given to Edgar Allan Poe for inspiration, but that's a weak claim; the plague background is a faint echo of Masque of the Red Death, and the character of the lawyer might remind one of the narrator of The Fall of the House of Usher. The proceedings bog down a bit in the middle, but for atmosphere, this makes great October viewing. Pictured are Steele, Maravidi, and Brandi. [Blu-ray]

A BELL FROM HELL (1973)

Young John is sitting in a room in an asylum making a plaster cast of his own face. Next, John is being released from the asylum (it seems more like a college dorm) on a kind of probation during which he has to report to his doctor every eight days. He lives in his late mother’s old house and frequently visits his Aunt Marta and her three young daughters. We don’t know why John was institutionalized or for how long (he looks to be in his early to mid 20s). In fact, we learn very little else about John's situation except seeing home movies which show that John and his cousins were close in their childhood. His reunion with his family is fraught with tension; it is vaguely implied that his aunt may have had him put away in an attempt to take his inheritance, and it's even more vaguely implied that incestuous feelings may have (and may still) run rampant among the four cousins. John briefly takes a job in a slaughterhouse but leaves after one day, saying he's learned enough—the slaughterhouse footage here is real and explicit. We soon learn that John enjoys pulling pranks. Some are fairly harmless, like the one he pulls on a visitor to the aunt's house that is taken from the famous Saki story “The Open Window.” Some are more harmful, such as when he pretends to rip his eyes out in front of a neighbor's wife; she faints and he puts her body on her couch and leaves a note implying that he raped her. On the other hand, he acts as a rescuer to a young girl who is threatened with gang rape by four hunters. The next day, he pulls a vulgar prank on one of the men involving pissing in a urinal. John is hard to figure out, and when he begins to plan revenge against Marta and his cousins, his actions are even more bizarre. He assaults one of the cousins, though it seems to turn into consensual sex at some point. He sprays Aunt Marta's unconscious face with honey then sets a colony of bees on her. He outfits his basement like a slaughterhouse then ties his three cousins up as if planning to slaughter them. The bees don't kill Marta and he can't go through with the slaughter (or perhaps he never intended to, though that is not made clear) but Marta gets her revenge, with some help from old pal Don Pedro, when John is tied to a new church bell (the title bell, I assume, which we see off and on through the film), bricked in, and left to be hung when the bell is rung for the first time the next morning. But there’s a nifty little final scene which shows Don Pedro paying for his crime.

This Spanish film was directed by Claudio Guerin who fell to his death from the bell tower set on the last day of shooting—despite rumors, it's unlikely to have been a suicide. Though Spanish, the film partakes of some elements of the Italian giallo genre, with interesting use of color, atmospheric cinematography, some potentially gory moments (though oddly, there is only one death shown in the movie and it's bloodless), some near-nudity, and a somewhat incoherent script. One online critic says it took him three viewings to figure everything out. I have no desire to sit through this again (unless I can find a cleaned-up DVD print; the YouTube prints are all smudgy and murky) and I think my plot summary is mostly accurate. French actor Renaud Verley (pictured) is handsome and effective as John. I'm not sure that Verley knew what was going on with his character any more than I did, but he strikes a nicely ambiguous persona and we are sometimes in uncomfortable sympathy with John. The busy and respected Vivica Lindfors gives the wheelchair-bound Marta some gravitas even as we're pretty sure she's a villain. We never really know how conniving and controlling she is; the only truly deplorable thing we see her do is to withhold John's passport so he can't leave the country and start a new life. (In one fairly big plothole, we are told that John never shows up to his probation visits, but he suffers no consequences for this.) The plot is confusing and disjointed, and the tone unpleasant, but if I got the chance to see a clear print, I might watch this again—though three times is out of the question. [YouTube]