Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)

An Indian mystic (Paul Naschy) uses magical chants to raise women from the dead, then sends them out to perform revenge killings for him.As with many (most?) of Naschy's films, he wrote his own script. In other reviews, you might see people complain about the mix of voodoo and Hindu mysticism, which are two very different, unrelated things. And while that may be a fair critique, it distracts from a bigger point: it does not matter, so long as the movie is enjoyable. (When Naschy mixed his werewolf with Elizabeth Bathory, was there outrage that Bathory -- historically -- never met a werewolf?) But Naschy himself was aware that the blend -- and its finished product -- were strange and unconventional. He later wrote, "I must have been under the effects of hashish or, like Bram Stoker, I had one hell of a nightmare." The true origin of the tale is up to viewers to decide. And directing is Naschy's long-time collaborator, Leon Klimovsky, who had recently directed Nashy in "Werewolf Shadow" (1970).The film, as far horror goes, is quite good with its shady characters, dark plots and plenty of blood. The makeup is excellent, both on the zombie women but even more so on Naschy's satyr character. The makeup effects person, Miguel Sese, should be better known; he was thrice nominated for a Goya and won with "Juana la Loca" (2001), but does not seem to have gained much traction outside of Spain.One of the strange things about Euro-horror films is the path they take on the festival circuit and beyond. The cuts, the multiple name changes. In America, one of the men responsible for bringing the film to theaters was John J. Burzichelli, the son of a New Jersey politician and a politician in his own right. Who knew the world of Democratic politics overlapped with screening sleazy Spanish films?Now (2017) Scream Factory brings us the film on Blu-ray, looking and sounding better than ever. We also have the option to watch it with clothed sequences or not. Unfortunately, this is one of the two films in the Paul Naschy set not to have an audio commentary, but the movie really does speak for itself and should be enjoyed no less just because we cannot hear scholars ramble over the top of it.

Though a horror, and quite a chilling one, Klimovsky's outing seems paradoxically almost joyful—more like a fairy tale or an idiot's fantasy. It's a Z horror, as clumsy as it gets. Psychedelic, parody, it's enjoyable rubbish. The women are generally fine ( before they transform into zombies, that is), and there are a few tits on display (at least three actresses have been required to show us something). An extreme of the disabuse—instead of trying to achieve something, turn it promptly into camp—so it looks like its own parody.As a quality—it's not _unenjoyable; I have seen bad European horrors that were displeasing in an outrageous way, while Klimovsky's bizarre Z thriller seems more like a prank.

Vengeance of the Zombies (1973) ** (out of 4) Bizarre but mildly entertaining Spanish horror film has Paul Naschy playing a mystic who uses his powers to have women return from the dead and kill his enemies for him.Sometimes a second viewing can make you see a film in a completely different light. The first time I watched Leon Klimovsky's VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES it was from a public domain disc and the colors were drained. I gave the film a BOMB rating because I just found the entire thing to be deadly dull, poorly made and at times laughable. What changed on this second viewing? Well, being able to see a fully restored print certainly helped but I also managed to enjoy the film a lot more because I knew what I was getting into.If you're expecting George A. Romero type of zombies then you're getting into the wrong movie. The zombies here basically just have some face paint on them but I found them to be mildly effective and especially with the light blue tint and how well it looked on the restored print. Another plus were the slow-motion scenes of the zombies approaching their victims. I usually can't stand when slow-motion is used but here it's actually quite effective. The gore isn't all that high but there are a couple gory scenes including a bizarre one where a can is used as a murder weapon! Fans of Naschy will be happy to see him playing three different roles here. The scene with him wearing horns as a Satanic leader is certainly an eye-opener and for the most part he's good. The supporting women are all beautiful as you'd expect in a Naschy film. There are certainly some flaws here including the pacing of the picture as well as the rather bizarre soundtrack. I'm not sure if this soundtrack was used to make the film appear hip but it's quite distracting to say the least.

Shades of Jess Franco...this one has all the marks of a classic Franco hack-a-thon, and comes out of Spain. As with almost everything Franco did, this director obviously had the knowhow to create a decent film, but he couldn't be bothered to go back and polish all the rough parts. And the movie seems to be nothing but "rough parts" all the way through. The result is like watching the "rushes" for a talented neighbor's home movies for a script he hacked out in a day, if your neighbor had a photogenic wife (like "Rommy") and a 35mm camera. The plot is completely lurid, which actually part of the movie's charm. It starts out with a masked guy (very "Phantom Of the Opera") reviving dead women as zombies to do his bidding, which mostly involved strangling people who obligingly just stand there and let them get on with it. (I have to admit that the make up on the zombies is pretty effective and one of the real reasons to watch the movie.) At least that's the opening scene. And before you know it, the plot has become a freeway pileup of Indian mysticism, serial murder, topless women, stylized slow motion assaults, zombies (of course), Satanism, ritual sacrifices, hallucinatory nightmares...have I left anything out? Oh yeah, all done to a swinging heavy jazz soundtrack that starts a new theme every two or three minutes, stops in the middle of a musical phrases whenever a scene ends, and in general seems to have nothing to do with the action on the screen.The DVD print I saw (part of a "Drive In Movie Classics 50 pack) was awful; it was a full screen "pan and scan", but managed to consistently leave out one or all of the actors in a given shot, instead giving us revealing shots of the middle of the set.And mixing for the sound was apparently done in the bottom of a steel barrel. The overall sound managed to be muddy but was nevertheless so shrill and tinny that I was afraid it might make the neighborhood dogs start to howl. This was a shame because the dubbing for the dialog actual was one of the better efforts I've heard from this era - the dialog is still stilted and clumsy, but it seemed as if the ESL voice actors might have been allowed to actually rehearse a little before they had to jump into the studio. And again, the jazz music was mostly very sprightly and vivid - sort of the stuff you'd hear in a TV commercial for the new model Lamborghini or something; it would have been nice to hear it the way it was performed. My guess is that someone in production intentionally mixed things to sound best coming out of the speakers at a drive-in movie. Either that, or they hated us and wanted us to bleed from the ears and die in torment. So yes, it's a mess. But somehow, it's an enjoyable mess, if only for the ambition of the lead actor, who casts himself in three different parts and the director, who tries to mix three or four different horror genres in one screenplay, and some hard working supporting actors who try their best to give the proceedings some dignity. Do NOT pay money to see this, unless it's part of a collection. If you pay more than $5 to own a DVD of this movie by itself, you will probably be looking around for a throat to slit when it is over.