Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and ooh, what horrors we
Speaker 2: have in store for you. In fact, the horror is
Speaker 2: rising from the tomb in this older episode of Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. It originally published July fifteenth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: It's Paul Nashy time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of my favorites. This is one
Speaker 1: of those films that's like, I wish I could watch
Speaker 1: it again for the first time and do it on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema again for the first time. So at
Speaker 1: any rate, it's a great movie to revisit and hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy our discussion of it.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I just finished rewatching it and made it
Speaker 2: to the end where there's a really good stunt fall.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you caught that, when the headless
Speaker 2: body of the Warlock rolls down the steps and it's
Speaker 2: obviously not a dum me, it's a stunt man. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: headless suit. He's getting the legs going all of this,
Speaker 2: so we obviously can't see.
Speaker 1: I think the effects in this movie are better than
Speaker 1: they should have been in some regards, Like I like
Speaker 1: the scenes where there's the lifting of the head. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm something of a well I wouldn't say I'm a connoisewer,
Speaker 1: but I pay a lot of attention whenever there's a
Speaker 1: beheading and there's a head being handled in a film,
Speaker 1: because I'm always curious, like, how good is it going
Speaker 1: to look? How are they going to do it? Are
Speaker 1: they gonna do the dummy head? Are they going to
Speaker 1: do like, you know, shooting an actual head the right
Speaker 1: way and making it look like it's detached. And they
Speaker 1: did a mix here that mostly worked pretty well. I've
Speaker 1: seen it look rougher in more expensive movies.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends what you mean by well. I do agree, though,
Speaker 2: I found I think literally every scene with the severed
Speaker 2: head hilarious.
Speaker 1: Well, it is inherent there's something inherently hilarious about it too,
Speaker 1: especially given the seriousness with which it is approached.
Speaker 2: Did we already start the episode?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 2: Hello, are you listening?
Speaker 1: Oh hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: My name is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We were just talking a little about beheadings and
Speaker 1: movies disembodied heads, the living head off the beheaded, because
Speaker 1: that's what we have in today's film, in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three's Horror Rises from the Tomb.
Speaker 2: Rob, I feel like this is the third or fourth
Speaker 2: early seventies Spanish horror movie you have picked. What's got
Speaker 2: you going down this road? How'd you end up in
Speaker 2: seventies Spain?
Speaker 1: Oh, there's just something about this whole realm of horror filmmaking.
Speaker 1: There's just some really there's some great stuff here, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great stuff that I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: So it's exciting to me. Because the film we're talking
Speaker 1: about here to today, Horror Rises from the Tomb he
Speaker 1: is considered a classic of seventy Spanish horror, Like this
Speaker 1: is a this film is a big deal. So I
Speaker 1: had not seen it previously, so it was it was,
Speaker 1: it was one I was it was interested in. I
Speaker 1: was reading the synopsis and I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: as long as this one sort of stays within the parameters,
Speaker 1: this could be the film for this week, and lo
Speaker 1: and behold it was.
Speaker 2: So I didn't know anything about this movie going in,
Speaker 2: but I was I was certainly tempted when you when
Speaker 2: you shared with me, I think a user review you
Speaker 2: came across on some website that essentially made it seem
Speaker 2: like this may in fact have also been an ego
Speaker 2: trip for a particular writer slash actor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are accounts of Paul Nashy the star and
Speaker 1: writer here and in his his his ego. I have
Speaker 1: I have seen that written about, and yeah, this is uh.
Speaker 1: I ran across this, this particular write up on Letterboxed
Speaker 1: letterboxed dot com. That's l E T T E R
Speaker 1: b O x D. That's a great website to go
Speaker 1: too if you want listings of films, lists of films,
Speaker 1: and hey, we are on there. We have an account
Speaker 1: under the user named weird House, and you can go
Speaker 1: there and see all the films that we've talked about
Speaker 1: in a nice visual display. And I also have links
Speaker 1: to the podcast episodes on there. But anyway, this particular review, yeah,
Speaker 1: a user by the name of their name is spelled
Speaker 1: like Lou Lou, but then it says rhymes with Wao,
Speaker 1: so I guess it's Lao. Lal writes when Paul Nashi
Speaker 1: wrote this movie about medieval Paul Nashi getting decapitated because
Speaker 1: of alleged Satanist practices. He knew it was really about
Speaker 1: the executioners being jealous of medieval Paul Nashi's good looks
Speaker 1: slash him being irresistible to women everywhere. When it came
Speaker 1: time for Paul Nashi to write a hero into the
Speaker 1: story to save everyone and their wives from the clutches
Speaker 1: of medieval Paul Nashi, he conjured up dreamy, present day
Speaker 1: hunk Paul Nashi. He knew that even if Dreamy Paul
Speaker 1: Nashy wouldn't be able to defeat medieval Paul Nashi, he
Speaker 1: would at least be recognized as they hear h Dreamy
Speaker 1: Paul Nashi really is.
Speaker 2: I'd say that's about right. So this movie was not
Speaker 2: directed by Paul Nashi, but written by Paul Nashi and
Speaker 2: starring Paul Nashi in at least three different roles.
Speaker 1: That's right now. I think that I would critique this
Speaker 1: this this this review is hilarious and I love it,
Speaker 1: but it's not one accurate in terms of what we
Speaker 1: get out of the Paul Nashi's and we'll get into
Speaker 1: that the different Paul Nashi characters. There's really one dreamy
Speaker 1: Paul Nashi character in this film, and he's pretty magical.
Speaker 2: So I was watching this movie on a streaming service
Speaker 2: that is supported by AD breaks, and I was deeply
Speaker 2: intrigued by the fact that the movie has major themes
Speaker 2: of a floating severed warlockhead dripping neck blood on things,
Speaker 2: including like a painting in the process of being painted,
Speaker 2: and so so we'd have the head, it would dribble
Speaker 2: some neck blood, and then we would cut to commercial
Speaker 2: and the commercials are all for paper towels and other
Speaker 2: cleaning products. Is this a coincidence or has AD targeting
Speaker 2: got this good, like they can detect the contents of
Speaker 2: the film and adjust adds accordingly.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, you know, when stains are
Speaker 1: at their worst, such as from dripping heads, you need
Speaker 1: a quality paper towel.
Speaker 2: The other thing about the streaming service that I thought
Speaker 2: was funny was that it said this movie is rated
Speaker 2: TV fourteen despite it being absolutely wall to wall severed heads,
Speaker 2: gratuitous nudity and dripping blood all over the place.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe that's like euro rating standards.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe, so, yeah, this is not a
Speaker 1: film for the children, though I have read that there
Speaker 1: is a quote unquote clothed cut of this, So they
Speaker 1: might have shot some alternate scenes in which various characters
Speaker 1: are clothed instead of in various states of nudy, but
Speaker 1: it would be an entirely different film that way, So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can recommend that even if you
Speaker 1: can find that cut.
Speaker 2: Another thing I will say about my experience of watching
Speaker 2: The Horror Rises from the Tomb is that it had
Speaker 2: two features which may seem at odds with each other,
Speaker 2: but we're both simultaneously true. One is that the plot
Speaker 2: is extremely simple. There are not a lot of like
Speaker 2: twist and turns and machinations. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: at least half of the scenes in this movie, I
Speaker 2: had no idea what was going on. By that, I
Speaker 2: mean I could not tell you who some at least
Speaker 2: some of the characters on screen were, how they arrived at,
Speaker 2: what they're doing, why they're doing it, or what it means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a few scenes in this where I
Speaker 1: think I watched them three times and then consulted a
Speaker 1: plot summary to figure out exactly what the characters were
Speaker 1: attempting to do.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, Yeah, I had really in the first half
Speaker 2: had a hard time keeping the different characters and their
Speaker 2: relationships straight. I did not know who was who until
Speaker 2: the Warlock magic really starts happening in the second half.
Speaker 2: Then I guess it gets easier to follow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, this is a movie about the
Speaker 1: ultimate occult power couple coming back from the dead to
Speaker 1: just tear it up. And so once they're back and
Speaker 1: in action, you're one hundred percent on board. You can
Speaker 1: you basically know where things are going and you can
Speaker 1: follow the chaos, but you have to get up to
Speaker 1: that point, and it can be a little confusing but
Speaker 1: never boring.
Speaker 2: Getting It's like the Sunny and Share of Satanism rise
Speaker 2: from the grave in order to get revenge on the
Speaker 2: what the descendants of the inquisitors who put them to
Speaker 2: the sword?
Speaker 1: Yes, but also I think they they just want to
Speaker 1: consume human hearts, drink blood, worship Satan and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But in the parts where I had no idea
Speaker 2: what was going on, I think part of that is
Speaker 2: dialogue and dubbing. Like this movie did have that quality
Speaker 2: of I would literally be watching a scene with my
Speaker 2: full attention. I'm not on my phone, I'm not distracted,
Speaker 2: full attention, but then afterwards I could not summarize what
Speaker 2: anybody said in the scene, so there's a bit of that.
Speaker 2: But then another part I think that made it a
Speaker 2: little hard to follow is that the cinematography drifts more
Speaker 2: toward that dreamy style that you would see in like
Speaker 2: a ful che movie, where I think often our brains
Speaker 2: are trained, we pick up on certain cues of how
Speaker 2: a scene looks and sounds, and like, ah, this feels
Speaker 2: more like a dream sequence. I don't need to pay
Speaker 2: close attention to the plot because it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: dreamy mode. Except this actually is just the physical reality
Speaker 2: of the narrative.
Speaker 1: The world of the living is a dream of the dead,
Speaker 1: which is probably not true, but that sounds like the
Speaker 1: logic you would hear in a seventies horror trailer, right, yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to this movie's very memorable,
Speaker 1: I think, but there is in terms of like remembering lines.
Speaker 1: The most memorable lines for me are some of the
Speaker 1: dumb things that the painter character Maurice says are occult
Speaker 1: power couple here, they have plenty of times where they
Speaker 1: basically just say occult things, and while I don't recall
Speaker 1: the detail the feel of it resonates, so I'd say
Speaker 1: this is a movie that is more to be felt
Speaker 1: than comprehended. And again I had I had to go
Speaker 1: back and watch something several times just to make sure
Speaker 1: I was understanding what they were doing. But to be clear,
Speaker 1: this film rocks. You should see it if you want
Speaker 1: to see it. If you're like, well, I want to
Speaker 1: I want to see this from myself before we get
Speaker 1: into the main episode, well let me tell you where
Speaker 1: you can get it. First of all, as far as
Speaker 1: physical media goes, Shout Factory has the Paul Nashy Collection
Speaker 1: out on Blu Ray that has the films in it,
Speaker 1: Horror rizes from The Tomb, Vengeance of the Zombies, Blue
Speaker 1: Eyes of the Broken Doll, Night of the Werewolf, and
Speaker 1: Human Beasts. You can also pick up horrorrizes from The
Speaker 1: Tomb on DVD. I watched it on Prime, but it
Speaker 1: was not great quality and it was formatted for television.
Speaker 1: I think the the version you watched was on TB.
Speaker 1: It was letterbox edition, but of course you're gonna have ads,
Speaker 1: so you know, it depends how you want to play it.
Speaker 1: I ended up going back on Twoby and watching some
Speaker 1: of the scenes again that I needed to revisit.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd say it's worth it just for the
Speaker 2: hilarious ad cutaways.
Speaker 1: But who knows how the machine's working there. It may
Speaker 1: pick up on something else with somebody else's experience, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, the basic elevator pitch here is yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Horror rises from the tomb. Don't worry if
Speaker 1: you watch this film, Horror will rise from the tomb.
Speaker 1: The ultimate occult power couple won't let death stand in
Speaker 1: their way.
Speaker 2: It's a tender love story about a warlock and his head.
Speaker 2: Boy meets girl, Boy loses head, Boy regains head, Boy
Speaker 2: gets revenge, Boy loses his head.
Speaker 1: Well, boy loses, Boy loses his head, Boy loses girl,
Speaker 1: Boy regains head, Boy regains girl, Boy loses girl, Boy
Speaker 1: loses his head. That's the full plots.
Speaker 2: Dinosaurs eat boy, woman inherits the Earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: From the dark and mysterious Middle Ages, full of mystery
Speaker 4: and violence, there now comes to the screen. Fear rises
Speaker 4: from the tomb, a curse which would bring these people
Speaker 4: to the most terrifying situations. Fear rises from the tomb
Speaker 4: with all the mystery and terror of medieval rights and witchcraft,
Speaker 4: the infernal powers of evil persecuting these defenseless beings. Fear
Speaker 4: Rises from the Tomb, a pro film's production, directed by
Speaker 4: Carlos auded.
Speaker 2: Seven moms have passed today. We shall take them. I
Speaker 2: want when the Supreme day comes, that they are sufficiently
Speaker 2: prepared for the sacrifice.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's talk a bit about the humans
Speaker 1: involved in this before we get back into the plot. So,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned already, Paul Nancy did not direct this.
Speaker 1: It was directed by Carlos Arid, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: seven through two thousand and eight. He was a Spanish
Speaker 1: director of various erotic dramas and Paul Nashy horror films,
Speaker 1: including Curse of the Devil from seventy three, Blue Eyes
Speaker 1: of the Broken Doll from seventy four, and The Mummies
Speaker 1: Revenge from seventy five. As a producer, he helped bring
Speaker 1: the films Alien Predator from eighty six into the look.
Speaker 2: Not Alien versus Predator, but not just Alien Predator Alien Predator.
Speaker 1: He also produced or was one of the producers on
Speaker 1: Claudio Fragaso of Troll two themes nineteen eighty four film
Speaker 1: Monster Dog starring Alice Cooper. What.
Speaker 2: I don't think I knew about that, or if I.
Speaker 1: Did it, I haven't seen it, but I've seen the
Speaker 1: posters and some stills from it looks it looks wonderfully awful.
Speaker 1: And as you might recall from our episode on trollto,
Speaker 1: I mean, Claudio Fragaso took this very seriously, this filmmaking thing,
Speaker 1: and so he's exactly the sort of director you want
Speaker 1: directing a film called Monster Dog starring Alice Cooper.
Speaker 2: So if troll two was a film about how he
Speaker 2: believed that meat eaters were being persecuted by vegetarians, what
Speaker 2: is the meaning of Monster Dog.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but if the poster is any indication,
Speaker 1: he pursues this topic, this subject matter via some sort
Speaker 1: of like fleshless killer doberman.
Speaker 2: Gross. Yeah, all right, so that's the director technically, but
Speaker 2: I don't know. The vibe gives the pretty much top
Speaker 2: to bottom. This is the Paul Nashi show.
Speaker 1: That's right. So who is this guy? So Paul Nashi? Yeah,
Speaker 1: who has story and screenplay credits on this. He plays
Speaker 1: our warlock character, Alarecht Dimarnac. He also plays This is complicated,
Speaker 1: but Alarach's traitor's brother Armand Demarac, and he also plays
Speaker 1: Armand's descendant, Hugo Demarac in the present, So three different roles,
Speaker 1: and all of them have a different feel to them. Though.
Speaker 2: It's weird because his descendant character is not like the
Speaker 2: inheritor of the Warlock throne. He in fact, he basically
Speaker 2: just treats his own descendant as another enemy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, there's a total I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a different energy to h I mean Hugo
Speaker 1: the modern day Paul Nashy character in this Whitch, but
Speaker 1: I mean I mean the nineteen seventies. You know, he's
Speaker 1: still kind of a stylish dude. But he's also I mean,
Speaker 1: he's doomed. He can't stand up to the Warlock. He's
Speaker 1: not like, I am the descendant of Alaric, and therefore
Speaker 1: I'm the one who can defeat him. No, No, it's
Speaker 1: not going to go that way at all.
Speaker 2: Now. In fact, he's a doomed skeptic and he's the
Speaker 2: guy who like doesn't believe in the power of spirit mediums,
Speaker 2: so you know, things are not going to end well
Speaker 2: for him. Movies like this do not reward people who
Speaker 2: don't believe in the supernatural and so Nash. But also
Speaker 2: I would say about Nashi's character, this is not unique
Speaker 2: to him, but he is. This movie has multiple contemporary
Speaker 2: characters who are very much like turtleneck sweater tucked into
Speaker 2: pants guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, they just sort of wander into
Speaker 1: all this where they're like, Yeah, let's have a seance
Speaker 1: that this old estate, let's call back. Let' seef we
Speaker 1: can call the spirit of this dead warlock. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a good time. We'll have some wine, we'll smoke
Speaker 1: a little bit. What could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 2: I would say Paul Nashi's energy as an actor is
Speaker 2: a strange combination something I'm not really used to. In
Speaker 2: one sense, he has very traditional, almost kind of like
Speaker 2: boxy or rectangular masculine movie star energy. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think of who to compare, you know, like a like
Speaker 2: a Ed Begley senior or something. But then on the
Speaker 2: other half, kind of a weirdo word meanness that is
Speaker 2: almost the likes of Peter Lorie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he has his His physicality is is interesting
Speaker 1: to behold. Yeah, because because on one level, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's clearly ripped as we'll discuss he was. He's
Speaker 1: a former professional weightlifter, so so he's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's quite a physical specimen and yes he he but
Speaker 1: yet he can. He does have this kind of worm
Speaker 1: equality to him. He is the natural energy for playing
Speaker 1: this eternal outsider, this warlock that was beheaded in the
Speaker 1: past and now has to uh murder his way into
Speaker 1: being again in the present. So some of you might
Speaker 1: be wondering, well, who is Paul Nashi We're talking about him.
Speaker 1: He sounds pretty great. Well, he is, in many people's words,
Speaker 1: the Lon Chaney junior of Spanish horror cinema. Wow. So
Speaker 1: he was born uh Jaquinto Molino, but he assumed the
Speaker 1: name Paul Nashi for for for acting and yeah, he
Speaker 1: plays three separate characters in this film. Also wrote the screenplay.
Speaker 1: And this is the guy. We can't really appreciate the
Speaker 1: full richness of Paul Nashy in a single episode of
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, but I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: really fun film and a great introduction to him at least.
Speaker 1: So this is a guy who was born into a
Speaker 1: successful furrier's family during the Spanish Civil War, who then
Speaker 1: began to pursue a serious adult life of professional weightlifting
Speaker 1: and architecture. But deep down he only wanted one thing.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be the wolf Man, The Wolfman, The
Speaker 1: wolf Man. Yeah. I mean, from what I've read, he
Speaker 1: grew up idolizing these old horror movies and especially the
Speaker 1: wolfman roles, the Lion Cheney junior sort of roles, and
Speaker 1: fate would deliver him in that direction. So he started
Speaker 1: out in various uncredited and sometimes rumored roles in various
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties Spanish production stuff like El Sid, an episode
Speaker 1: of the TV show I Spy. Then in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: he wrote and starred in a film that was originally
Speaker 1: titled Mark of the Werewolf, but then on the American
Speaker 1: groundhouse circuit it had the name Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, in
Speaker 1: which he played werewolf of Valdemar Daninski for the first
Speaker 1: of many many times.
Speaker 2: So this was a franchise, Yeah, yeah, he did.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a dozen of these, wow with
Speaker 1: titles like Assignment Tear, The Werewolf Versus The Vampire Woman,
Speaker 1: The Fury of the wolf Man, Doctor Jekyll Versus the Werewolf,
Speaker 1: Curse of the Devil, Night of the Howling Beast, Night
Speaker 1: of the Werewolf, The Beast and the Magic Sword, Howl
Speaker 1: of the Devil, like Cantripus, The Moonlight Murders, and Tomb
Speaker 1: of the Werewolf. Most of these films are from the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, but they ultimately span five decades, and
Speaker 1: they're not a continuous narrative by any means, with the
Speaker 1: plots varying wildly, like There's somewhere he goes to Asia
Speaker 1: and goes to Tibet and Japan to try and treat
Speaker 1: his lacanthropy, but a number of them look phenomenal and
Speaker 1: they're just total werewolf features.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like this sheds new light on a
Speaker 2: major flub in the movie that really seems like it
Speaker 2: should have been caught, which is that in the English dub,
Speaker 2: at least, there's one part where they try to say
Speaker 2: the word lichen thropes, but instead they say, I think
Speaker 2: lincoln thropes, like President Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Huh, yeah, yeah, I noticed that that was I actually
Speaker 1: went back and looked at that on two B with
Speaker 1: the captions on, and the captions for this one said
Speaker 1: you have empires in Lincoln's robes instead of you are
Speaker 1: vampires and Lincoln tropes lichen thropes, but they said lincoln thropes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Lincoln thropes, Yeah, Lincoln throat. The dubs has lincolnthropes. They mean,
Speaker 1: like they're talking about lacanthropy. But yeah, but we'll come
Speaker 1: back to the formal charges against Alaric in a bet.
Speaker 1: But back to Nashi here. Mostly it was this werewolf
Speaker 1: character that he returned to, but the warlock character in
Speaker 1: this alric. He does come back in a later nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two film called Panic Beats apparently and plays the
Speaker 1: character once more.
Speaker 2: Is that about does he become a disco warlock? What's
Speaker 2: the beats referred to?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure comes back from the grave. But and
Speaker 1: it may not even be connected because, like I say,
Speaker 1: much of many of these werewolf films, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a concise narrative. It's like, let's bring let's bring
Speaker 1: this guy back again, let's have another adventure. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it has to actually make sense or be stitched
Speaker 1: into the grand fabric of the thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, I see, like you can have many Dracula movies,
Speaker 2: but they're not like all direct sequels to each other
Speaker 2: with continuous or plot continuity exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, now, but I am thinking beats that because you
Speaker 2: look at Nashi as the warlock in this movie, and
Speaker 2: he does look like he could tear up the dance floor,
Speaker 2: like he would get out there in the lights. I mean,
Speaker 2: he'd be doing the whole what's the you know, the
Speaker 2: pointing dance, the John Travolta one.
Speaker 1: I know the one. I don't know what it's called. Okay,
Speaker 1: So just a little more on Nashi here. I looked
Speaker 1: into him a bit of reading an article, actually a
Speaker 1: chapter in a book titled an Icon Rises from the
Speaker 1: Grave The twenty first century Cult Stardom of Paul Nashi,
Speaker 1: written by Andy Willis. Willis writes that Nashi was central
Speaker 1: to quote the development, revival, and reinvention of horror cinema
Speaker 1: in Spain. The paper mostly centers around the cult like
Speaker 1: revival of appreciation for Nashi late in his life and career,
Speaker 1: as film fans and filmmakers in Spain and beyond began
Speaker 1: to reevaluate his films, but it does put point out that, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was very much operating in a time when horror
Speaker 1: was seen as very low brow in Spanish cinema, Like,
Speaker 1: if you had any self respect, you'd be working in
Speaker 1: serious cinema, and if you were doing horror then like
Speaker 1: what are you doing?
Speaker 2: But what was sirious cinema at the time, peplam movies
Speaker 2: like The Sword and Sandal stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, to serious dramas about history and so forth.
Speaker 1: You know nothing about I mean, this is about history though,
Speaker 1: this is about an historic warlock. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why the industry was so down on
Speaker 1: this film at the time. All right, well, we'll come back.
Speaker 1: We'll discuss more about this wonderful performance as we continue.
Speaker 1: But there are there are other human beings we need
Speaker 1: to mention, at least in passing. Okay, we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: This is a power couple. It's not just Alaric, it's
Speaker 1: Alaric and Mobile. He has to bring Mobile back to life.
Speaker 1: Mobile is played by Helga Lena. Helga is back. She
Speaker 1: was the titular Laurele from The Laureles Grasp the you know,
Speaker 1: the gorgeous redhead German born actor who made a name
Speaker 1: for herself mostly in Spanish cinema. Both of these films
Speaker 1: came out in seventy three, so if you want to
Speaker 1: hear more about her, go back to that episode. But
Speaker 1: she was born in nineteen thirty one. As of this
Speaker 1: recording is still alive, and she worked from nineteen forty
Speaker 1: one through two thousand and six and played a lot
Speaker 1: of fimthatals characters in horror movies, various genre films, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty big in Spanish cinema. And in this
Speaker 1: she once more gets to absolutely slay multiple people and
Speaker 1: also consume their hearts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was noticing incredible amounts of overlap with the
Speaker 2: Lorealized Grasp. I was not prepared for how much these
Speaker 2: movies would have in common, even down to what looks
Speaker 2: like it could be just a coincidence, but what looked
Speaker 2: like the same shooting locations, talking.
Speaker 1: About the coastline, that really dreary coastline.
Speaker 2: The dreary lakeside, It looked exactly like the lake in
Speaker 2: Lorealized Grasp, And I would almost be surprised if it
Speaker 2: was not shot in the same place. But maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the actual I don't know about the about
Speaker 1: the the lake, but the actual estate that we see
Speaker 1: I believe was in Paul Nashy's family, like that that
Speaker 1: was his family's estate there that they filmed on.
Speaker 2: But it's not just that Okay, so both movies feature
Speaker 2: Hellga Lena as a kind of I don't know, loosely
Speaker 2: a vampyrus of sorts, some kind of you know, creature
Speaker 2: that comes back from the grave or comes back through
Speaker 2: history to slash people with fingernails, like in ways that
Speaker 2: leave these like you know, parallel slashes on their bodies
Speaker 2: and then extract their hearts and eat them. Both movies
Speaker 2: are about this.
Speaker 1: Right though. In the Laurla she changes into an actual
Speaker 1: monster and in this movie she just gets more.
Speaker 2: Naked, that's true, but she still does the fingernail slash.
Speaker 1: She does.
Speaker 2: This movie has has Wolverine style slashing.
Speaker 1: But she's great and she really vamps it up.
Speaker 2: Yes, there are great scenes where she and the Warlock
Speaker 2: are arguing about, you know, when they're going to eat
Speaker 2: hearts or we're gonna eat hearts now, or we're gonna
Speaker 2: have to eat him later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is the plan? When? When are we praising
Speaker 1: Satan right now? No, we need to wait. There's so
Speaker 1: many moons we need to wait. The exact details of
Speaker 1: their plan are maybe a little vague, but she makes
Speaker 1: a good point.
Speaker 2: I mean he's like, no, we need to we'll do
Speaker 2: the sacrifice to Satan later and then we'll eat hearts then.
Speaker 2: And I think she makes the point that if we
Speaker 2: were angry until then, we're going to be making bad decisions.
Speaker 2: So we need to eat at least one heart now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And she's like, honey, we've been dead for a
Speaker 1: long time. We've got to eat. Yeah. All right though.
Speaker 1: So there these are the two most impressive actors in
Speaker 1: the film, but we have some other roles worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: Emma Cohen plays, who lived nineteen forty six through twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: plays the character el Vira, not to be confused with
Speaker 1: Elvira the horror host So. Emma Cohen was a Spanish
Speaker 1: actor as well as a writer and director. In fact,
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven she apparently directed did a short film
Speaker 1: adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges The Aliph. She was also
Speaker 1: the longtime partner of Peruvian born Spanish director Fernando Fernan
Speaker 1: Gomez till his death, but she before this, she did
Speaker 1: a lot of B movies and horror films in the seventies,
Speaker 1: including seventy five's Night of the Walking Dead, Jess Franco's
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five Count Dracula, that's one that starred Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee as Dracula, Herbert Lom as Van Helsing, and Kloskinski
Speaker 1: as a quote unquote wren Feared. I don't know why
Speaker 1: Wrin feared in the IMDb credits, but he is. Cohen
Speaker 1: also had an uncredited role in nineteen seventies Nicholas and Alexandria.
Speaker 1: And yeah, in this she is she basically, she's our
Speaker 1: final girl. She's the one of the two daughters of
Speaker 1: one of the villagers in the place that they go to.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I'm gonna admit that I again had a
Speaker 2: hard time keeping the different characters and the human characters
Speaker 2: in their relationships straight. So if you're asking, like who's
Speaker 2: married to who or whatever, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had to go back and I like, at first,
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess this was Hugo's wife, but
Speaker 1: it's not. No, it's not. He goes why that's a
Speaker 1: different character entirely. Well, we'll summarize all that in a bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, there were a number of laugh out loud moments
Speaker 2: for me in this movie, but I would say the
Speaker 2: biggest one, the best one, is a scene where we
Speaker 2: have a guy who's had been seeing visions of dark
Speaker 2: eyes staring at him in the night, and he's and
Speaker 2: he can't stop seeing them when he closes his eyes,
Speaker 2: so he's got to paint. He's a painter, and he's
Speaker 2: like painting on a canvas, and then suddenly above the
Speaker 2: canvas appears a laughing, severed head that's just going oh
Speaker 2: and it and dripping blood all over the painting. And
Speaker 2: it's so good. But this paint, like his dopiness makes
Speaker 2: it so much better.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's haunted by the head of Aleric and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. I keep seeing this head.
Speaker 1: I gotta paint it. I gotta paint it. And he's
Speaker 1: and he's painting this like sub night gallery quality painting,
Speaker 1: you know, of this headless body holding not Alaric's head
Speaker 1: but modern Paul Nashi's character's Hugo's head. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is the This painter character, Maurice was
Speaker 1: played by Victor Barrera. I couldn't find any dates for
Speaker 1: this actor, but yeah, he's a wonderful, doomed idiot in
Speaker 1: this The character is the actor. Barrera appeared in such
Speaker 1: Spanish films as nineteen seventies in the Folds of the Flesh,
Speaker 1: the seventy three Nashy film Count Dracula's Great Love, and
Speaker 1: also the Nashy film Hunchback of the Morgue, as well
Speaker 1: as the nineteen seventy three film Green Inferno.
Speaker 2: Who was Count Dracula's Great Love.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I haven't haven't seen it. I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be his career. You know, he
Speaker 1: married to his work. But I imagine it's some woman
Speaker 1: generally that's probably going to be nice.
Speaker 2: I am married to the blood.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, one more thing about Brera. He was also
Speaker 1: in the seventy three Judy Geeson film A Candle for
Speaker 1: the Devil, and as a director and writer, he did
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy eight film The Terrorist.
Speaker 2: He also tucks his turtlenecks into his pants.
Speaker 1: He does. Yes. Now we're going to skip on the
Speaker 1: rest of the actors here, though there are some other
Speaker 1: fun performances, but skip into the music. Carmelo A Bernala
Speaker 1: did the music. He lived nineteen twenty nine through two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. And all I have to say is
Speaker 1: I hope you like creepy organ music and weird percussion sounds,
Speaker 1: because this film is loaded with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got this steady, slow, ascending organ melody that
Speaker 2: just repeats and repeats and repeats. Honestly, it got a
Speaker 2: little monotonous for me.
Speaker 1: I thought it fit this film like a glove. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it would work in every film. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I need a copy of it or I'm looking
Speaker 1: for a high grade vinyl release. But for this film,
Speaker 1: I thought it worked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the appropriate vibe. But yeah, I mean you'll
Speaker 2: hear it quite a few times now.
Speaker 1: Bernlla here He was a longtime Spanish composer of many films,
Speaker 1: including seventy four's Torment and seventy threes Count Dracula's Great Love. Oh.
Speaker 2: He wrote the love theme from Count Dractula's Great Love.
Speaker 1: One assumes one more note about a person in this
Speaker 1: there's a special effects. The special effects were by Antonio
Speaker 1: Molina and I don't have dates for him, but this
Speaker 1: is a guy that apparently has been working in special
Speaker 1: effects since the nineteen sixties, starting with nineteen sixty four's
Speaker 1: This is actually the Barry Sullivan film Pyro the Thing
Speaker 1: without a Face that we referenced in our Fiend About
Speaker 1: a Face episode but Molina here is apparently still working
Speaker 1: today in Spanish productions and even worked on six episodes
Speaker 1: of Game of Thrones. I also served as an armor
Speaker 1: or supervisor in the Spain unit for such big films
Speaker 1: as Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four and Terminator Dark Fate,
Speaker 1: So kind of a cool connection there. This is not
Speaker 1: a film that you watch and you think, wow, I
Speaker 1: guess they had just tons of money to spend on
Speaker 1: special effects. No, so, again, as I kind of alluded
Speaker 1: to earlier, I feel like the effects in this film,
Speaker 1: such as they are, look pretty good.
Speaker 2: Though it is that early seventies euro style of like
Speaker 2: very bright red almost orange blood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's alarming. Maybe that's why I got the
Speaker 1: TV fourteen. That what you perhaps. Yeah, all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's bust into the plot a little bit, Joe, take
Speaker 1: us back to the mid fifteenth century.
Speaker 2: Is that when it is mid fifteenth century, I think
Speaker 2: they say.
Speaker 1: I think that's what the narration says.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this movie begins with the World's Most Pressing parade.
Speaker 2: You're watching like some people kind of tromp through a
Speaker 2: vast We see them like on a plane with mountains
Speaker 2: in the background. So it's the kind of landscape that
Speaker 2: maybe looks like if it had been the true colors,
Speaker 2: it would have been beautiful, but instead it looks just profoundly,
Speaker 2: deeply unhappy, And it kind of reminds me of some
Speaker 2: of the landscapes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Speaker 2: in that way. That like, something about the film style
Speaker 2: and the way the colors come through just makes the
Speaker 2: landscape very drab and unpleasant.
Speaker 1: But it's fitting, especially when we find out what this
Speaker 1: procession is about. It's about killing and tormenting people accused
Speaker 1: of sorcery and witchcraft.
Speaker 2: Right, we're here for the execution of a warlock in
Speaker 2: a witch and there's some narration. You get a voiceover.
Speaker 2: I think that's saying like I don't remember the exact words,
Speaker 2: but it's basically like France, you know, before indoor plumbing. Wow,
Speaker 2: do you you think war and disease are bad? How
Speaker 2: about Satan?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Superstition, ignorance, violence, They prepare you for all of it.
Speaker 2: Here and the inquisitors' troops here looked to me like
Speaker 2: two faces henchmen and batman forever. They've got these goofy
Speaker 2: red sock masks over their heads. That was really kind
Speaker 2: of Nice. And this is also where we get It's
Speaker 2: so the you know, the warlock in the Witch are
Speaker 2: taken to the place of execution. I don't know why
Speaker 2: it needed to be in the middle of this vast
Speaker 2: field with the mountains and the stream, but yeah, that's
Speaker 2: where they take them. And then there's some kind of
Speaker 2: you know, church official or something who reads out the
Speaker 2: charges to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think Maurice's ancestor is one of these
Speaker 1: people as well, so he technically has a double roll. Also,
Speaker 1: one of these people's is Alrich's brother, who's kind of
Speaker 1: like this one eyed Paul Nashy character with like a
Speaker 1: smug grin on his face and a scar. That is
Speaker 1: Alaric's brother Armand who is It's implied here that he
Speaker 1: kind of helped do his brother in here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're but they're both played by Nashi, So
Speaker 2: it's Nashy punishing Nashi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they read out a full list of charges, which,
Speaker 1: in addition to you, are vampires andcanthropes. There, you have
Speaker 1: drunk human blood of both the living and the dead.
Speaker 1: You have eaten flesh, you have celebrated the Black Mass
Speaker 1: with bloody sacrifices of the newborn and of young girls
Speaker 1: you have adored Satan and of followers of his Sabbath.
Speaker 2: Yes, verbatim, I believe.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they put the sorcerers to death. Warlock gets his
Speaker 2: head chopped off, and they like, I don't know how
Speaker 2: they kill the witch. They like hang her upside down
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they she screams. It seems like they're commencing
Speaker 1: to flogger and then cut. Yeah, she's presumed dead.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing we discover later. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: This is when we find their bodies later in the movie.
Speaker 2: So this is going to be hundreds of years later.
Speaker 2: Obviously they want to be resurrected from the dead. But
Speaker 2: Paul Nashy's body, he's like an incorruptible saint, Like his
Speaker 2: body is all there. It still looks like, you know,
Speaker 2: totally fresh, and his head looks totally fresh. Meanwhile, Helga
Speaker 2: Lina's body is a skeleton with a wig on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Different, different, supernatural. Well, I guess here's the thing.
Speaker 1: He is the Warlock. He is the one whose body
Speaker 1: is flowing with unnatural energies. She is his great love
Speaker 1: and therefore she benefits from this sorcery, but she and
Speaker 1: She herself is a different type of entity, and later
Speaker 1: on in the film we had spelled out directly that
Speaker 1: they're slightly different rules for killing one versus the other. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, that opening execution is carried out via
Speaker 1: a decree from Carcassone, which was a French fortified city,
Speaker 1: And of course is also the name of a great
Speaker 1: German tile based board game which absolutely does not have
Speaker 1: a Warlock execut Houston expansion, but I think clearly needs one.
Speaker 2: Oh I never played it. What's a German style? Is
Speaker 2: that like Settlers of Catan kind of stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this one is one. It's a very calm
Speaker 1: and very relaxing board game. It's all about building walled
Speaker 1: cities and connecting them with roads with tiles, so it
Speaker 1: kind of you build it as you go and then
Speaker 1: at the end you score everything. And yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: very cool.
Speaker 2: Okay, cut to the present day, and then Robin, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna need some help here. Who are the people our
Speaker 2: main characters. We have the Paul Nashy guy, and we
Speaker 2: have Maurice the painter, and then we have two women
Speaker 2: and then some other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was the I had to go back and
Speaker 1: put all this together again. But okay, we have we
Speaker 1: have al Rex descendant and well technically Armand's descendant, but
Speaker 1: also I guess Alerex descendant. This is modern day contemporary
Speaker 1: Paul Nashi Hugo and his gal is Sylvia.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Then we have Hugo's painter friend Maurice, who is also
Speaker 1: he's a descendant of one of the witch hunters or
Speaker 1: executors here and his gal is Paula.
Speaker 2: Okay, is so is are Sylvia and Hugo the ones
Speaker 2: where Sylvia is like, why don't we get married? And
Speaker 2: Hugo's like, because I'm Paul Nashy.
Speaker 1: Basically yeah, and I don't really remember what Maurice and
Speaker 1: Paula's whole vibe is other than they love each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so.
Speaker 1: Basically they're all like like, hey, we should I forget
Speaker 1: exactly how they reach this point, maybe this little research
Speaker 1: is going on, but they're like, we should go out
Speaker 1: to the country to Hugo's chalet out there, and we
Speaker 1: should have we should get this, we should hire somebody
Speaker 1: to do a seance so we can get in touch
Speaker 1: with his head, which, by the way, Maurice keeps seeing
Speaker 1: in his dreams and in his visions as he's drawn
Speaker 1: to paint grotesque scenes of decapitation.
Speaker 2: Well, now, wait, I thought they did the seance before
Speaker 2: they went to the chalet. Don't they do the while
Speaker 2: they're still hanging out they're still in the city.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. Okay, so they do the Yes,
Speaker 1: they do the seance first, and that's the inspiration to
Speaker 1: then go out into the country and try to find
Speaker 1: the body and the head of Alric, which are which
Speaker 1: are deposited in different places.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think Maurice is like, I'm seeing this
Speaker 2: head in my dreams and I'm painting it and I'm
Speaker 2: not very smart, and Hugoes like, I don't believe in heads.
Speaker 2: And then they're like, well, let's have a seance and
Speaker 2: that'll tell us what to do. And then the medium
Speaker 2: at the seance is like, there's a severed head that
Speaker 2: you must dig up, and it's up at your up
Speaker 2: in the village, at your chalet, and.
Speaker 1: That body is buried in the cloisters. Head is in
Speaker 1: the crypt of the monastery, and yeah, our our city
Speaker 1: humans here are here, like, well, we got to get
Speaker 1: these two back together again. Let's get this head in
Speaker 1: his body back together, and so they set.
Speaker 2: Out only good can come from it. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 2: they argue about this is one of the scenes where
Speaker 2: Hugo is skeptical because they're like, you must believe what
Speaker 2: Madame Irina said, because you know, it's a spirit was
Speaker 2: obviously choking her from beyond the grave. And Hugh Goo's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it must have been. She must have put on makeup
Speaker 2: to show those bruises. But then why are they trying
Speaker 2: to resurrect a spirit that was choking somebody? That seems like,
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's red flag number one that like,
Speaker 2: you should not resurrect this spirit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. But what did they do? They
Speaker 1: jump in the car that they head out into the countryside,
Speaker 1: and here we kind of get into the We initially
Speaker 1: get into sort of the Texas chainsaw mask your territory
Speaker 1: of the city folks have come out into the country
Speaker 1: and now they're encountering country folk who are suspicious and dangerous.
Speaker 2: Well, and yeah, and it was weirdly more, uh, I
Speaker 2: don't know, there's politics within this village or something. So
Speaker 2: like they get attacked on the road by bandits and
Speaker 2: then some other guys show up too, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: these are the bandits, and they catch the bandits and
Speaker 2: just like vigil any Justice murder them. But then also
Speaker 2: I think the Vigilanties then are essentially bandits also, and
Speaker 2: they tried to extort money from from the.
Speaker 1: Heroes yeah, and end up selling them a car because
Speaker 1: they end up Yeah, when the bandits initially attacked, the
Speaker 1: end up wrecking the car and they're like, well, we'll
Speaker 1: sell you won for three thousand. And of course the
Speaker 1: lead bandit is watching as a Hugo busts out this
Speaker 1: big roll of money and you know, he's eyeball and
Speaker 1: it like, ooh, I'm definitely going to rob these people later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is indeed what they are plotting to do later.
Speaker 1: We'll come back.
Speaker 2: So here I got I got really confused about how
Speaker 2: this was happening. But do if I'm going to do
Speaker 2: like Hugo and the rest of them hire the villagers
Speaker 2: to just dig up all around this ancient church and
Speaker 2: find they're looking for a box that has a warlockhead
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think the villagers are kind of
Speaker 1: interested in it because there's also talk of there being
Speaker 1: some sort of a treasure, so they're like, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: help you dig this up. He will even go to
Speaker 1: that place where they say a demon stalks at night.
Speaker 1: So there's this weird mix of very superstitious but also
Speaker 1: you know, up for whatever. One of the villagers here
Speaker 1: that we meet is this this this Alan character. Uh
Speaker 1: and this is the he has twos. He has two daughters,
Speaker 1: one is Chantal and the other is Elvira.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, yeah, I didn't know where some of
Speaker 2: these characters came from. But so some of the villagers
Speaker 2: they find a box they like, dig it up, and
Speaker 2: they again correct me if I'm wrong. I think they
Speaker 2: think it's treasure. So they get real excited and they
Speaker 2: open it up, like they blow torch the lock and
Speaker 2: crack it open. But when they crack it open, it's
Speaker 2: not treasure. It is a warlockhead. And then the warlockhead
Speaker 2: hypnotizes them and turns them into like like murderers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Alrich's head hypnotizes them and particularly hypnotizes Alan here,
Speaker 1: the father of Elvira, and has him go around with
Speaker 1: this huge scary scythe this this wonderful crooked cutting implement
Speaker 1: that again, I think is quite scary and has him
Speaker 1: going around butchering people with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for a while here there just seems to
Speaker 2: be kind of like random roaming sickle guys and they
Speaker 2: are there. Some people are just getting killed and other
Speaker 2: people are getting hypnotized to go work for the warlock head.
Speaker 2: The head right, because it's not a full warlock yet.
Speaker 2: It's in fact, the most hilarious detail is that they
Speaker 2: there's like a scene where they literally go down into
Speaker 2: the crypt and they start taking orders from the warlock head.
Speaker 2: He's like he can't move his head, so it's really funny,
Speaker 2: like how far his eyes move back and forth when
Speaker 2: he's looking at the different people, Like what's this?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: You know you must do.
Speaker 1: This very you know, templar esque in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: the charges that were leveled against the Templars about the
Speaker 1: worship of decapitated heads. And it reminds me a little
Speaker 1: bit of the treatment of this idea in C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis's that hideous strength as well. But but yeah, the
Speaker 1: head needs the body, it needs people to help with
Speaker 1: the body, and some blood needs to be spilled on
Speaker 1: along the way, and so we do get a series
Speaker 1: of sickle murders, including Alan killing his own daughter chan
Speaker 1: Chantelle here in a pretty terrifying scene. This is a
Speaker 1: scene I had to watch a couple of times because
Speaker 1: I thought it ended up being you know blocked in,
Speaker 1: you know in a way that and shot in a
Speaker 1: way that that I found rather effective. Uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: a certain art to having your your brutal you know,
Speaker 1: Jallo style murders in a film, and they don't always work.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they come off very fake, or they come off
Speaker 1: more about showing the blood than sort of you know,
Speaker 1: teasing the idea of the violence. So this is not
Speaker 1: one of those scenes where we see a lot of
Speaker 1: like hearting of flesh and see heart getting ripped out
Speaker 1: and so forth. But there's just like this sudden attack
Speaker 1: and then the sickle comes out and there's a sound effect.
Speaker 1: I thought it worked really well.
Speaker 2: Oh but there is the ladder in this movie. There's
Speaker 2: plenty of that where there seems, but there's one where
Speaker 2: Helga Line literally just like reaches into a guy's chest
Speaker 2: cavity with her fingers and prize his chest apart to
Speaker 2: get that heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the chest cat. This is one of those films where, yeah,
Speaker 1: human flesh is just like putty to the undead, and
Speaker 1: they can just rip right in there and pull out
Speaker 1: any organ they want.
Speaker 2: This is another sequence though, where I was like, when
Speaker 2: people were getting sickled, I did not know who was who,
Speaker 2: and I was confused when somebody like it seems like
Speaker 2: somebody turns up dead and then the next scene somebody goes, well,
Speaker 2: she's sleeping now, and I was like, well, wasn't she dead?
Speaker 2: Then I think maybe they're talking about another character who
Speaker 2: was present, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of those films too, where on
Speaker 1: one hand the script was allegedly written in like two days,
Speaker 1: but on the other hand too, it's like we're dealing
Speaker 1: with the Grindhouse era doubting, where it wasn't really about
Speaker 1: necessarily making sure that all the intricacies of the original
Speaker 1: dialogue are maintained. It's about getting that product out right.
Speaker 2: So at some point after this, there's a scene where
Speaker 2: both Sylvia and Maurice get hypnotized to go work for
Speaker 2: the Warlock, right, So, like Maurice goes out walking and
Speaker 2: then he gets hypnotized by hypnotized Sylvia and they all
Speaker 2: end up going down into the crypt and that's where
Speaker 2: the warlock head starts talking to them. This was another
Speaker 2: laugh out loud scene for me. Again, anytime the head
Speaker 2: is talking without the body, I found it very funny.
Speaker 2: And he gives a full bond villain monologue, but as
Speaker 2: a severed head sitting in a box talking and I
Speaker 2: had to transcribe this, I thought it was great. So
Speaker 2: it is like you, Maurice, he says the last name.
Speaker 2: I don't remember what it is. You know, you, Maurice,
Speaker 2: with the blood of my enemies running through your veins,
Speaker 2: you will serve and help me accomplish my vengeance. Today
Speaker 2: the faithful Companion Mobile de la Cree will return, and
Speaker 2: in the space of seven moons, and when the heavens
Speaker 2: are propitious, our power will be at its maximum strength,
Speaker 2: so that we can exterminate all those who executed us,
Speaker 2: and our unbounded hatred will make all mankind tremble, and
Speaker 2: thereby we will thus be avenged. Right, it sounds like
Speaker 2: a plan, and thereby we will thus be avenged. I
Speaker 2: think this warlock in his day job, may have been
Speaker 2: a lawyer. It's very contracty kind of language.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, back, I mean, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1: Back in the day like what was a warlock but
Speaker 1: a lawyer who dealt mainly with one client, that being
Speaker 1: the Lord of the pet himself, Lord Satan.
Speaker 2: But also in the scene this is I think the
Speaker 2: resurrection scene where the war lock and Mobile are sort
Speaker 2: of brought back, so like they put the Warlock's head
Speaker 2: back on his body and somehow they turn Mobile from
Speaker 2: a skeleton with a wig on into hellgalln A, oh god.
Speaker 1: This is seen is great. Yes, So the the resurrected
Speaker 1: Alic here, he's one piece again. He places the unconscious
Speaker 1: Sylvia upon the skeletal remains in the casket, slices open
Speaker 1: her chest, and then he kind of necrophilatically resurrects Mabel.
Speaker 1: Mabel he like kind of like lays on top of
Speaker 1: these two bodies in the casket. And then the next
Speaker 1: shot is Mabel is rising up out of the casket
Speaker 1: like the bones of her old bones like spilling to
Speaker 1: the side, and she's back baby. And then Alaric kills
Speaker 1: Alan and cuts out his heart. So just a great
Speaker 1: sequence of events here. I guess, like I say, they're
Speaker 1: a power couple. You can't help you feel their energy
Speaker 1: and get behind him here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're clearly happy to be reunited. They are
Speaker 2: ready to go do copious evil together. Yes, so I
Speaker 2: think there's like a scene where they're getting it was
Speaker 2: not clear, but they're like getting revenge on the descendants
Speaker 2: of the people who executed them. I think they're just
Speaker 2: going and like attacking random villagers.
Speaker 1: I guess. I guess this was part of the vengeance,
Speaker 1: or it might have just been a situation with like
Speaker 1: we got to power up and eat more hearts. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there are these wonderful scenes where Alaric and Mabel go
Speaker 1: off to love up and kill other characters. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure these are necessarily characters that we had met before.
Speaker 1: Mabel finds a young villager dude, she strips nude and
Speaker 1: he gets nude, and then she backscratches him to death yep.
Speaker 1: And then Alaric's occult charisma causes a villager woman to
Speaker 1: strip nude, so he strips nude, and this is when
Speaker 1: we get to see physique by Nashi here, and then
Speaker 1: they climb into bed together. Cut to villager dude with
Speaker 1: his backslashed, cut to nude woman dad with her heart
Speaker 1: cut out.
Speaker 2: I think this is a John Saxon situation, though, where
Speaker 2: like Nashy, clearly he's like, I got to show my
Speaker 2: chest in this movie. People need to see these muscles. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he found ways to work it in.
Speaker 1: I had. It also made me look up as with
Speaker 1: John Saxon, I had to look up old bodybuilding photographs
Speaker 1: and yeah, you see some. I found some old Paul
Speaker 1: Nashi shots of him in like full bodybuilder mode and yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now there's some like Magic Dynamics where there's like
Speaker 2: a magical amulet that pops up sometime around here in
Speaker 2: the movie, and I was trying my hardest to figure
Speaker 2: out did we already know something about this or is
Speaker 2: this just out of nowhere? Like, oh, yeah, there is
Speaker 2: an amulet that will defeat the warlock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this kind of comes out of nowhere. As I
Speaker 1: recall Elvira, the local girl and ultimately she's going to
Speaker 1: be our final girl here, she's like, oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: I just remembered something. There's this Thor's Hammer amulet and
Speaker 1: it can destroy powerful undead creatures.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: So useful information to suddenly have. And also we later
Speaker 1: learn and I don't remember how we learn this, but
Speaker 1: we learned that Thor's Hammer will not outright destroy a
Speaker 1: female undead a female resurrected being. No, for that, you
Speaker 1: need a long silver needle.
Speaker 2: Right, So, yeah, the hammer only works on Paul Nashi,
Speaker 2: the warlock Paul Nashi. I remember how they find this out.
Speaker 2: They open up a book and they're reading the book
Speaker 2: and I'm like, what is this book. I don't know
Speaker 2: if they ever explain what the book is. They just
Speaker 2: have a book that tells you how to kill the warlock.
Speaker 1: This was the research portion of the movie. I forgot
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 2: But so there is a scene where after this, like,
Speaker 2: the remaining humans include Hugo, who is unhypnotized at this point.
Speaker 2: That's normal, that's regular, Paul Nashi, and Elvira, and I
Speaker 2: think maybe somebody else I don't know. So zombies attack
Speaker 2: the house and it's really This was also very funny
Speaker 2: because I think we get Alan or Elaine, the guy
Speaker 2: from the village, talking to Elvira and he's like, el Vira,
Speaker 2: my daughter opened the door and he sounds like Dracula,
Speaker 2: but she's like, oh dad. But when the zombies get
Speaker 2: into the house, they are vocal fry zombies. They are
Speaker 2: just wandering the halls, going non stop until there's a
Speaker 2: torch stand off. Paul Nashy lights up a torch and
Speaker 2: waves it at them. He does an awful lot of
Speaker 2: waving that torch that goes on for a while, and
Speaker 2: eventually he gets him out of the house. He's like shoo, shoo,
Speaker 2: and you know, they get out of the door, and
Speaker 2: then he I think, tries to burn them, but I
Speaker 2: don't know if it exactly works, because later he's like
Speaker 2: looking for their bodies in the lake or something he kept.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a brief burning man stunt here where
Speaker 1: he catches one of the one of the zombies on fire,
Speaker 1: or at least catches the pants and the back on fire.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically Night of a Living Dead scenario here
Speaker 1: with dead villagers. They're able to successfully successfully fight them
Speaker 1: off until Don.
Speaker 2: After this, Maurice comes back the painter guy, and he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not hypnotized by the warlock anymore. And Hugh goes like,
Speaker 2: oh great, well then I need you to go help
Speaker 2: me do something. We're going to need an axe and
Speaker 2: some wood, and then he says to Elvira. So they're
Speaker 2: leaving the house and he's like, you stay here. It's
Speaker 2: going This is a direct quote. It's going to be disagreeable.
Speaker 2: You'll be in no danger even if you're alone. What's
Speaker 2: the basis for that?
Speaker 1: I guess it's because it's daytime. The sun is Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be it, and she shouldn't see what they're
Speaker 1: going to do. What they are going to do. This
Speaker 1: is the same the following sequence. I think I watched
Speaker 1: three different times and finally consulted a summary to really
Speaker 1: nail down what they were trying to do in this sequence.
Speaker 2: Well, what are they trying to do this? So they
Speaker 2: go to the lake and the lake is making bubbling
Speaker 2: tar pit sounds, and I don't know why, but.
Speaker 1: They have to live an axe and they have firewood,
Speaker 1: and they have like a big long pole with a
Speaker 1: hook on it, like they're going to drag the lake.
Speaker 1: Apparently they have come out here to find the bodies
Speaker 1: of the zombies from last night, any remaining bodies, and
Speaker 1: burn them.
Speaker 2: But they don't quite get to do that because Maurice
Speaker 2: was not so unpossessed after all. Looks like this was
Speaker 2: all a trap.
Speaker 1: That's right, a brutal betrayal in which Maurice possessed Maurice
Speaker 1: kills Hugo with a shotgun.
Speaker 2: So this is regular Paul Nashi is dead. Now only
Speaker 2: warlock Pole Nashi remains.
Speaker 1: Right, And again I was kind of surprised by this
Speaker 1: because I thought it was going to ultimately be Nashi
Speaker 1: versus Nashi, but instead no, only Aleric remains.
Speaker 2: But however, I think Maurice is genuinely awakened from his
Speaker 2: hypnotized state by the Thor's hammer amulet, like I think,
Speaker 2: what's her name? Alvira presses that against him and then
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, I'm good now. Yeah. Then that's when
Speaker 2: they read the book they find. They just start reading
Speaker 2: a book and it tells them how to kill warlocks
Speaker 2: and zombies and the silver Needle and all that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: this is when we get the argument between the warlock
Speaker 2: and hell Gallina about when they should eat hearts. You know,
Speaker 2: I will eat hearts later, but I'm hungry now. And
Speaker 2: they settle this by going out to find the bandits
Speaker 2: or the vigilantes from earlier who were camped out with
Speaker 2: a fire by the riverbank, and they just say, Hi,
Speaker 2: We're gonna eat your hearts now, and they do. This
Speaker 2: is where Mabile like rips the dude's chest open with
Speaker 2: her hands.
Speaker 1: Nice. So many chests get ripped open in this film,
Speaker 1: and this all leads up to our final showdown. So
Speaker 1: on one hand, we have we have Maurice, and we
Speaker 1: have Alvira, and then we also have Alrich and Mabel
Speaker 1: and Alvira and Maurice. They have the weapons now they
Speaker 1: feel like they know what they need to do. They
Speaker 1: have the amulet, they have the needle, and so the
Speaker 1: battle begins basically the way this is. I thought thought
Speaker 1: this was a nice final showdown, but ultimately Maurice and
Speaker 1: Alaric both throw items at each other at the same time.
Speaker 1: Maurice is throwing the thor amulet and Alaric is throwing
Speaker 1: an axe, so Maurice is killed by the axe. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the amulet hits Alaric and wounds him. Alvira is fighting
Speaker 1: Mabel and stabs her with a silver needle, which just
Speaker 1: destroys her. And then Elvira picks up the amulet and
Speaker 1: presses it to the wounded Alaric's head, and this results
Speaker 1: in a nice dramatic death sequence for Paul Nashy's Alaric.
Speaker 2: So Elviras survives The Warlock Horror.
Speaker 1: That's right, Alaric. He falls to his knees, his head
Speaker 1: falls off his body, and his head tumble down some
Speaker 1: stairs and then just burned to a crisp.
Speaker 2: They end up looking at they're kind of like a
Speaker 2: smoldering orange newspapers. It looks lake.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then and then Elvirah, in kind of a daze,
Speaker 1: she wanders back down to the lake and she throws
Speaker 1: the thor amulet into the water, and that's the end
Speaker 1: of the movie.
Speaker 2: Now that's the I was confused by that. Why did
Speaker 2: she throw the amulet in the water. The amulet wasn't bad,
Speaker 2: The amulet protected them from evil. How does she know
Speaker 2: that there isn't that she's not gonna need that again?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, she seemed to think it
Speaker 1: belonged there. I don't know if she was like, I've
Speaker 1: had enough of this, I'm throwing this into the water.
Speaker 1: If this is like throwing Goose's dog tags into the
Speaker 1: ocean and top gun, I don't know, if this is
Speaker 1: like ex Caliber needs to be returned to the lake
Speaker 1: and so she's throwing those thrown into the lake. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly what the rationale was here, other than
Speaker 1: to have a kind of haunting, ambiguous ending to the
Speaker 1: whole affair. M yeah, which is sort of what we
Speaker 1: had in the Loralai Scrasp. We had a haunting, ambiguous
Speaker 1: ending by the lake shore.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, Except this movie, unlike Lorealized Grasp, does
Speaker 2: not have a doomed monster romance component. It does not
Speaker 2: have like the human falls in love with a monster.
Speaker 2: If there is a love story, it's the love story
Speaker 2: between two evil monsters and uh and unfortunately they are
Speaker 2: both they are both thwarted by by bumbling humans in
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Well, Aleric is clearly upset when his loved one dies again,
Speaker 1: like we do get a moment of him reacting to that,
Speaker 1: and I felt bad for him because again I was
Speaker 1: one percent behind this power couple. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: their their their modern power couple name would be combining
Speaker 1: Alaric and Mabel. I'll leave met for Maloric Malaric, team Malarek. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was one hundred percent on team Malrek. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a little a little sad when when when
Speaker 1: when things went down the way they did.
Speaker 2: I think Nashi's look as the warlock is far superior
Speaker 2: to his look as a modern day man, So yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: On one day, he's wearing this gross, pale make up
Speaker 2: and he always looks sweaty, and he's got this fake
Speaker 2: beard and he's got the cool cape and everything, and
Speaker 2: that all just gels. That works, and the other words.
Speaker 1: There's an actual gel too, there's that red gel or
Speaker 1: purple gel. So he has this demonic light to him
Speaker 1: and yeah, he's just the got this sardonic look on
Speaker 1: his face. Absolutely love this look.
Speaker 2: That look. That look works. And when you compare that
Speaker 2: to his look as the modern man who tucks his
Speaker 2: turtleneck in, it's just it's not the same.
Speaker 1: Right. Oh, one before we close out, one more Maurice
Speaker 1: moment that I love. There's a part earlier in the
Speaker 1: film where they've gone out into the country and he
Speaker 1: comes back from town. I'm not sure what he was
Speaker 1: doing in town, but he's talking to Hugo and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this place sucks. Like I went into town and the
Speaker 1: kids were throwing rocks at me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved it. I did not know what that meant,
Speaker 2: but it was funny.
Speaker 1: All right. The movie is Horror Rises from the Tomb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. At some point in the future,
Speaker 1: I may have to come back and look around at
Speaker 1: some of these Paul Nashi werewolf films and figure out
Speaker 1: what might be the Paul Nashi werewolf film to watch.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but if anyone out there has any ideas,
Speaker 1: feel free to write in and let us know. All right.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to listen to other
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema episodes, you'll find them in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed every Friday. We're mainly
Speaker 1: a science podcast, but once a week we like to
Speaker 1: set aside everything that's serious and just talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film. So yeah, get that wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: If you want a full list of the movies we've covered,
Speaker 1: there are two places you can go for that, aside
Speaker 1: from the episode feed. You can go to letterbox that's
Speaker 1: l E T T E R bo x D, and
Speaker 1: if you look up the account Weird House, you'll find
Speaker 1: a list there with all the movies in there. So
Speaker 1: you can give this nice visual of everything that we've
Speaker 1: covered and sometimes a glimpse at what we're going to cover.
Speaker 1: I also blog about these at a personal blog titled
Speaker 1: Summuta Music, so you can go there as well.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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