A young couple find themselves stuck in the path of a vengeful psychiatrist who wants to get back at a demonic architect for taking everything away for him.

Even though Lugosi and Karloff portray their characters very well, the real star is the house. With it’s art deco and expressionist touches, mixed with the old war battlements, the house sets give a very surrealist and almost evil feeling to it where “even the phones are dead”. Director Edgar Ulmer also plays a grand part. He directed this movie as well as written it very well. The conversations between Lugosi and Karloff are almost like knife fights.

The only fault with this movie is that it’s too short. I’m pretty sure things could have been fleshed out a bit more. Maybe more conversations during the chess match or a monologue about how the war has affected them. I think that Karloff’s satanic intentions could have been worked upon as well. Almost anything about the characters of Hjalmar and Vitus would have been great.

This is a “have” in your collection. Not only for Lugosi and Karloff, but also for Ulmer, who later on, becomes the forefather of Giallo.

4 stars.

A survivor of a mass cult suicide awakens from a thirteen year coma. She tries to get her life back together in a psychiatric ward. Then patients start committing suicide which really has the survivor wondering if she’s really safe from the grasp of the cult.

This was a fun film. While it is a bit dated, it’s still somewhat watchable. Bruce Abbot, Rich Lynch, Dean Cameron (especially Dean) really make this film work. The effects were interesting to say the least. One of them got me jumping out of my seat. I really liked the story. It was very original for it’s time. A great first effort from director Andrew Fleming.

With that said. it’s still looks like a freshman effort. There are plot holes and continuity errors all over the place. Not big enough to drive semis through, but noticeable still. There are some forced “homages”. I don’t understand why these happen really. If I’m making an alien flick, I’m not going to shoehorn in Psycho or Vertigo or even 2000 Maniacs reference. Why? Because I’m making an alien film, I’m not making a psycho killer movie. I think Fleming has very bad taste in music, so the score wasn’t very appealing.

Again, it’s still an enjoyable movie. It’s a Sunday afternoon kinda fare. Something to watch to pass the day with. Hell, play it when days are slow. I’d also recommend it to friends.

Three stars.

A beautiful couple meet people who seem to be distant college friends and are invited to their country mansion. Once there, the couple slowly find out their hosts are Satanists.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. This is a eurotrash sexploitation flick. In fact, it was one of the first films to pick up Spain’s “S” (Sex) label that was instituted after Franco’s death. What makes the movie above the rest is the constant atmosphere of something that isn’t right. And while this was considered a hard core horror movie, the slim budget used to make the picture gave them no room for very little gore. This gave them more interest and time to concentrate on disturbing imagery.

That being said, there are some weaknesses to the movie. Mainly it didn’t know what version of “Satanism” it wanted to be. One minute it’s cribbing LeVey, another minute Alistair Crowley, then it goes Dennis Wheatley, then it’s Montague Summers, Catholic texts and rhetoric, Mad Magazine. By the end of the movie, it’s so all over the place, you need to take an aspirin just to recover from it.

This leads us to another weakness. I don’t think the director, Carlos Puerto, knew what the hell he was doing. I think he wrote out my first paragraph of this review and just went with it. “Mariana! We need you to look more terrifying! Stoop over that bowl and pretend to eat like a dog! WAIT! Someone get some blood goop on her lip. Yeeessss. Very nice. Ok. Ready! Camera! ACTION!!” I mean it’s almost ridiculous. He trys to get too much in so little time. It just bunches up and falls over itself.

All in all, it’s a nice film to own. Something to watch on Sundays or days that seem to drag on. Not a classic by any means, but fun none the less. Plus you can wank to it.

Two and a half stars.