Heartbeat (1983)

Hasn't Naschy already done the ancestor/descendant thing? No matter, for watching Naschy direct and write and act (he does it all here) is always a pleasure - a guilty one, of course, as his films will win no awards.The film opens with a man on horseback in full armor swinging a mace as a naked girl runs for her life. Let's see Scorsese do a better job of directing that scene! Initially, the film does not appear to be more than lots of screaming at ghosts and gore, semi-transparent nightgowns, and a man determined to rid himself of a sick wife. But, hey, that's enough for an enjoyable film. However, more murders occur, the gore gets ratcheted up, and there are some interesting twists.Besides Naschy, Paquita Ondiviela by herself makes the film worth watching. Too bad it is the only film available in which to see her. Silvia Miró is no slouch either. Both provide considerable full frontal.

Paul Naschy was quite an important contributor to the industry of European horror films, and I'm an unusually big fan of his work and persona, but he undeniably never accomplished anything major or classic during all his years of film-making. The titles in his repertoire provide large portions of gore and sleaze (thumbs up for that!) but his screenplays are generally uninspired and too often revert to the same old and repetitive basic premise. Apparently, Mr. Naschy just loves to play his own descendant in stories that revolve on ancient folklore legends and family curses. The entire "Hombre Lobo" cycle is based on this principle as well. "Panic Beats" is sort of like a re-telling of Naschy's earlier film "Horror Rises from the Tomb", as both films feature a murderously mad 16th Century knight - Alaric de Marnac - who supposedly returns from the grave to slay unfaithful women. In this film, 20th Century sleaze-ball Paul uses the petrifying myth to scare his wife to death, inherit her family fortune and marry a young & viral beauty. But, unfortunately for Paul, there's a lot more treason going on behind his back and he also never took into consideration that the myth of his malevolent ancestor might have some truth in it. The plot of "Panic Beats" is overall very dull and it doesn't feature a single story-element or twist that you can't see coming from several miles away. Every dire cliché and stereotype you can think of regarding isolated country mansions and medieval curses is predictably processed into the script, including the loyal old servant and the knight's armor that seemingly moves all by itself. But hey, as usual it was the high gore & sleaze factor that eventually convinced me to reward "Panic Beats" with a positive rating after all. There are a handful of truly nasty murders, committed with axes and other typically medieval armory. Beautiful feminine nudity is provided by luscious women such as Silvia Miró and Paquita Ondiviela, who both go full frontal without hesitating. I just wished Paul Naschy didn't insist on showing so much of his own naked and unusually hairy torso. Oh well … Recommended to all fans of trashy euro-horror, and the Mondo Macabro DVD is a real treat full of phenomenal extras!

This is a typical Paul Naschy movie and as such is difficult to describe to someone who hasn't seen one. On one hand, it is very old fashioned movie hearkening back to classic American thrillers like "Gaslight" or classic European thrillers like "Diabolique". On the other side, it opens with the scene of a completely naked women being chased through the woods by a knight on horseback and then brutally maced (in the medieval sense)into bloody pulp. (People who complain about the sexism and violence toward women in American films ought to take a gander at this).Naschy has a way of combining disparate horror themes and subgenres in what seems like a very random, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink manner (his werewolf films, for instance, have involved everything from Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde to Countess Elizabeth Barthory to a Himalayan yeti). In this film he uses the evil Count Marnac he created for an earlier movie, "Horror Rises from the Tomb", but rather than making a conventional sequel he freely re-writes the legend making the knight an avenging figure who punishes unfaithful women (in "Horror" the count's wife was a conspirator in his crimes, here she is his first victim). Then he proceeds to ignore the supernatural elements of the story until the very end to tell a "Gaslight"-like tale of a man (Naschy himself, natch) who is only using the legend to frighten his wife to death. He wants to be with a mistress, of course, but just to needlessly complicate things he has TWO mistresses--the very sexy "bad seed" niece of his housekeeper(insert audible drooling sounds here) and another woman (who seems to only exist to provide additional nudity and and another gory killing, but oh well). The whole thing really shouldn't work, but somehow it does.The recent Mondo Macabre disc this comes on is one of their best with a very interesting (but lamentably short) documentary that serves as an excellent primer for Spanish horror in general, and a longer, equally interesting interview with the erstwhile Spanish werewolf himself. This is neither the best or the worst Naschy movie I've seen, but this new disc should be a must-have for any Naschy/Spanish horror fan.

From the moment I saw this listed as on the Mondo Macabro website, I was intrigued. It looked good and the reviews I read were mostly positive. So when it was finally released, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. After watching it, I wish I would have waited.What a major disappointment. Right from the start, I knew that Panic Beats couldn't meet my expectations. The whole look and feel of the film is terrible. It has that straight-to-video look that usually destroys atmosphere. The sets are nothing special at all. Most of the film looks like it could have been shot in my house. The story is incredibly predictable. There are a lot of twists and turns in the plot, but most are telegraphed from a mile away. The gore scenes are horribly done. And the whole concept of a knight that comes back from the dead is straight out of Scooby Doo. It's not a very frightening image.Paul Naschy does his best to provide some chills. With raised eyebrows and a menacing stare, he does his best to look frightening. But for the most part, it doesn't work. The most frightening scenes are of Naschy naked in the bathtub. Now that had me screaming.As for Mondo Macabro's disc, it's very well done. I have no complaints with the image, sound, or subtitles. The extras are quite nice, including a brief history of Spanish horror.