Curse of the Vampires (1966)

Bona-fide film buff here, with long family history in Hollywood (famous cinematographer, script consultant). In short, I know my beans somewhat, and am now going to defend this much-maligned horror film from the Phillipines. Yes, "Curse (or, 'Blood') of the Vampires" is far from sophisticated material. It has no such pretensions but is a product of its time and as such, is of considerable interest to film buffs like me. A sprightly waltz opens the action as a rather sedate family celebration is underway, marking the return of brother and sister to the family fold after some years spent away. They find old love interests and reignite the flame. Something charming in such simple romantic notions as fidelity, chastity and devotion. No drama, no lust, just pure romance until their vampire mother puts the bite on her son. The mood darkens; the reason the siblings were sent away was to protect them from all knowledge of the family curse. The doomed couple, Daniel and Leonore, effectively played by capable Filipino actors and a most attractive pair, are forbidden to marry lest the curse breed on. As the lovers flee together Daniel is killed in a carriage accident, leaving Leonore at the mercy of her now-vampire brother. What's worse, it was her vampire brother Eduardo who sabotaged the carriage, causing the fatal accident. What remains is a ghostly denouement, proving that love is strong as death. The cinematography is at times quite masterly and as has been said the production team were not your typical B-movie ragbag but classically-trained film-makers. The color is variously garish, faded, and overdone, all of which lends an air of unreality. The sound is not pristine by any means, but adequate. The setting is weird- Spain? Phillipines? A Caribbean island?- one never knows exactly, and the happy slaves in black-face confuse the issue further, creating an unsettling air. The way Eduardo's wife submits to him as her master and becomes his willing slave is perhaps the most erotic scene and there are a number of these, but none egregious. So, an oddball film of the genre, essentially much better than one would expect, but you have to be prepared to accept the offbeat and the unusual in order to get the most out of this film. I have watched a good clear copy for the past three nights in succession and my admiration has only grown. Loved it in my twenties and to my great surprise and delight, find I appreciate it even more now than I did in the 1970's.

I first read about this in Fred Olen Ray's fantastic "The New Poverty Row", so when I saw it for $5 at Grimsby Giant Tiger, I scarfed it up. And damned if it doesn't have Ray himself introducing the thing in a sexist intro that will do nothing for his Irving Thalberg Award campaign. As for the movie itself, well, there's not much to say. It's an example of the era's Filipino horror output - and not one of the best (!!!) either - mom is supposed to be dead but she's locked in the basement and has turned into a vampire, and bites her son, and quite limited action ensues, some involving locals in blackface as happy slaves. Dull and slow and not nearly as tawdry as the scene's rep.

Curse Of The Vampires is a direct follow-up to the late director Gerardo de Leon's equally compelling 1964 The Blood Drinkers. Dubbed into English and released by Hemisphere Pictures in 1971 as the bottom of a double bill with his frequent collaborator Eddie Romero's Beast Of Blood, it looked to the world like any other low budget drive-in nonsense. But de Leon, along with Romero (the Blood Island trilogy, The Walls Of Hell), was a classically trained filmmaker and is enshrined as a Philippines National Artist, and thus everything he does is with purpose, from the masterful framing, composition, lighting… As a result, Curse Of The Vampires is not just a throwaway B-programmer with bloodsuckers but a serious horror film with deep cultural resonances.A further link to The Blood Drinkers is Amalia Fuentes, who also produced Curse… under her real name Amalia Muhlach for her own production company. Amalia was one of the most famous Philippine actresses of the Sixties, a mixed Spanish or "mestizo" beauty who plays the heroine Leonore, a tragic figure at the center of the doomed Escudero family riddled with vampirism and more. As a Spanish colony until the late 1800s, the country's Hispanic legacy is still strong, leaving behind a feudal nobility who owed its allegiances more to Madrid than Manila. It's no accident the film is set in the 1800s, in a Spanish mansion filled with the frayed trappings of a fading and failing colonial presence. Leonore's mother is played by Mary Walter, a popular mestizo actress from the Philippines' silent era; the very Spanish-looking Eddie Garcia plays the weak and corrupt brother Eduardo, a classic villain of Tagalog movies here playing a less cartoonish and much more multi-layered version of pure evil. The other enduring legacy of the Spanish era is its overt Catholicism, which, as in many of Spain's former colonies, has mutated into a strange hybrid of local folk beliefs with its own uniquely Filipino iconography. In this context, Curse Of The Vampires becomes a deeply Catholic morality play of good versus evil, combined with a cloying Filipino sentiment of love conquering all.The film opens with Leonore in the arms of Daniel (Romeo Vasquez), a pure-hearted local lad who promises her to love her even from beyond the grave. Her father Don Enrique Escudero (Johnny Monteiro) denies permission for them to marry due to the family curse - vampirism, like madness, is borne by blood, and he has unwittingly kept the curse alive by keeping his vampire wife Dona (Mary Walter) locked in the basement. Every night she wakes up in her coffin, her now-animalistic screams pleading for blood. Don Enrique is forced to whip her into submission but can't let go – the family has become insular to the point of incestuous. The mother finally escapes from the basement, captured in a beautifully executed shot of the former matriarch, now a savage beast, tinted red in the foreground while her stern-looking portrait looms in the background. Eduardo willingly allows himself to be turned into a vampire by his mother's loving embrace, and when his father dies in tragic circumstances, he assumes the paternal role of feudal lord. His veins now coursing with evil, he covets both his sister and Daniel's sister Christina (Rosario del Pilar), to whom he becomes an aristocratic predator, demanding total servitude from his new vampiric bride ("You are my lord, I am your slave," Christina says most tellingly on her short-lived honeymoon).Leonore accepts her fate to follow the family curse, yet Daniel won't allow her and reiterates his oath to protect her, in this life and the life after. The entire film is tinged with sadness and loss, and ends with not just a mob of angry villagers, but an entire Catholic parade, all brandishing torches while praying to gaudy statues of Mama Mary. Filipino Gothic was a relatively small and short-lived genre, but de Leon certainly made it his own.Its predecessor The Blood Drinkers was filmed with very little money in mostly black and white with tinted scenes for dramatic effect. Curse… is filmed in color and loses some of The Blood Drinkers' aesthetic charms. De Leon does have a tendency to go overboard with in-studio lighting effects like a foaming-at-the-mouth Mario Bava, bathing entire scenes in saturated red and blue gels. It's hardly subtle, but the effect is eerie and claustrophobic to say the least, even in the elaborately-lit jungle and cemetery exteriors. Weird without intent and without a trace of kitsch, this is, along with The Blood Drinkers, undoubtedly one of Filipino horror's finest moments.

This is a real stinker. I can think of nothing to recommend this film. The film transfer is from a completely washed out print, the audio is muffled and muddy and the dubbing is out of sync. And that's just the technical problems. The story line goes nowhere. The acting makes those Mexican movies from the early 60's (remember 'K.Gordon Murray presents') appear to be Citizen Kane. For offering itself as a vampire movie I really don't recall seeing any blood in it. I think once or twice I did see someone bare their fangs-the five and dime store plastic variety. I picked this one up for $1.00 and boy did I get gypped. I forgot to mention this is part of a "drive in treasures" collection so there are intros and wrap-arounds with two unfunny individuals pretending they are sitting in a car at the drive-in. Even the intermission tag they use is faded and scratchy and appears to be about 10 generations from the original. This is a complete waste of time. Not even one of those so-bad-it's-good movies. Stay away.