Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we're
Speaker 1: gonna be looking at a nineteen seventies euro horror movie. Uh.
Speaker 1: This one is called The Laurelized Grasp, Rob, How did
Speaker 1: you come across this movie? Well, in a previous episode
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema, we watched Spanish hard director Amando
Speaker 1: Dio Sarios film The Return of the Blind Dead, the
Speaker 1: second in his Blind Dead trilogy, in which undead templars
Speaker 1: return from the grave and torment the living, but also
Speaker 1: you know, stumble around and can't see what they're doing
Speaker 1: exactly right. This is the one where like skeletons come
Speaker 1: out of the ground with swords and they go around
Speaker 1: stabbing towns people. And then there is a sexy American
Speaker 1: fireworks salesman who like charms the local women and somehow
Speaker 1: defeats them in the end. Yeah. Yeah, and that that
Speaker 1: of course that character is played by Tony Kendall. Uh So, I,
Speaker 1: you know, I really loved Return of the Blind Dad,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to watch something with
Speaker 1: that kind of vibe to it. So I was poking around,
Speaker 1: uh uh Diasaurios filmography, and here's this film, the Laurelized
Speaker 1: grasp Um. I had earmarked it to come back to later,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it totally delivers. It came out the same year,
Speaker 1: seventy three. And while Return of the Blind Dad again
Speaker 1: is about undead templars and local corruption in Portugal, corrupt mayor, yeah,
Speaker 1: this one is about mythic monsters on the German Rhine.
Speaker 1: So we have a Germanic tale here. This movie also
Speaker 1: has an ineffectual mayor, but not uh as far as
Speaker 1: I recall, not evil like the other one. Like in
Speaker 1: Return of the Blind Dad doesn't the mayor. You're at
Speaker 1: some point he's like, I know how I will escape.
Speaker 1: I will send the blind dead after a little child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's basically Mayor Quimby. In fact, he attempts to flee
Speaker 1: with the money. At one point he's like he's going
Speaker 1: to go to another town, become mayor and send for
Speaker 1: the rector, stuffing suitcases of cash into a golf cart
Speaker 1: while he's sending the skeletons after the kid. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a This is tremendously fun movie. Because it's
Speaker 1: got it's got the German mythology, it's got some really
Speaker 1: bad science in it. I mean, you can't even it's
Speaker 1: almost it's just ridiculous science. Um. And then you also
Speaker 1: have room for a little romance. You have essentially kind
Speaker 1: of a werewolf movie going on here, except it's a lizard. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to love. This movie has science on
Speaker 1: the level of the Exorcist to where there's that line
Speaker 1: he's like, this machine has scientifically proven that there is
Speaker 1: an ancient demon locked inside her in this one, it's
Speaker 1: my experiment, have scientifically proven that the that the Ryan
Speaker 1: Maidens are real, and that the Laurel I does transform
Speaker 1: every full moon and devour hearts. Oh yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to discuss that sequence now. So this
Speaker 1: movie is not only a monster movie. It's an example
Speaker 1: of a particular sub genre that we might call the
Speaker 1: doomed monster romance, where these are movies where a human
Speaker 1: of some sort falls in love with a monster or
Speaker 1: cursed entity and we watch their relationship just plow toward
Speaker 1: its inevitable destruction because in the end it cannot be
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of examples of this that come
Speaker 1: to mind. I was just noting a few that that
Speaker 1: popped into my head. The Francis Ford Coppola version of
Speaker 1: Dracula bram Stoker's Dracula a great example here In this movie,
Speaker 1: Mina Harker played by um oh what's her name? Win
Speaker 1: Owner Writer? Right, yeah, Mina is not just like hypnotized
Speaker 1: and transformed by Dracula. You get the sense that they
Speaker 1: are genuinely in love. But of course it cannot continue
Speaker 1: because the beast must be destroyed, and he is evil.
Speaker 1: And it's been a long time since I read Dracula.
Speaker 1: But if I recall, there's really not any hint of
Speaker 1: this whatsoever in the original novel. Right, Like in the novel,
Speaker 1: Dracula is just a nasty demon and and nobody would
Speaker 1: have a reason to be in love with him. But
Speaker 1: in this movie they decided, well, yeah, Gary oldman is
Speaker 1: rather charming guy. Let's make it so that Dracula and
Speaker 1: Mina are actually faded lovers across centuries. Oceans of time
Speaker 1: have been traversed so that they could be reunited. See.
Speaker 1: I really need to watch rewatch Coppola's Dracula um as
Speaker 1: a grown up, because I I think I only saw
Speaker 1: it as a kid, and at that time I was
Speaker 1: just like, I don't really like this romance Dracula bad.
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the creepy old man and
Speaker 1: the wolf monster and the bat monster and all that
Speaker 1: other stuff? You like, the butt hair Dracula and not
Speaker 1: the not the suave londoner. Yeah, the Yeah, the big
Speaker 1: hair Dracula with a weird shadow. There's always licking razor blades.
Speaker 1: That was my Dracula. But I imagine the film would
Speaker 1: speak to me differently as as an adult. I mean,
Speaker 1: both are great, but yeah, when Gary Oldman transforms into
Speaker 1: the young, suave Dracula, especially because he's got hippie sunglasses on,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. But but other examples that popped into my
Speaker 1: head American werewolf in London here, you know, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the movie, they introduce a sweet love story
Speaker 1: between this this American backpacker and a British nurse. But
Speaker 1: of course they're They're romance is doomed because the boy
Speaker 1: is a werewolf. And uh, it's there in The Fly
Speaker 1: as well. Cronenberg's The Fly. You know, Gina Davis must
Speaker 1: choose between her love for a hunky young Jeff Goldblum
Speaker 1: and the fact that he is now vomiting digestive enzymes
Speaker 1: on donuts and will probably at some point dissolve her
Speaker 1: as well. Right, So, I would say common features of
Speaker 1: the doomed monster romance movie are there's an element of
Speaker 1: tragedy to them that is not always present in a
Speaker 1: horror movie. Often, though not always, the human who falls
Speaker 1: in love with the monster also has another mundane human
Speaker 1: to human romance on the back burner. So in Bram
Speaker 1: Stoker's Dracula Mina, while she's having this sort of ethereal
Speaker 1: love affair with Dracula, is also technically still engaged to
Speaker 1: Keanu Reeves, and so she's got that to fall back on.
Speaker 1: I guess when when Dracula is destroyed uh. In the Fly,
Speaker 1: they flip it around with a with a really horrible
Speaker 1: twist by making Gina Davis's human back burner dude and
Speaker 1: absolutely loathsome creep, which really heightens the desperation and horror
Speaker 1: in the movie when she has nobody to turn to
Speaker 1: but him. And in the movie we talked about today,
Speaker 1: it definitely has this angle. Tony Kendall is pursuing two
Speaker 1: romances at the same time. One a monster one just
Speaker 1: a sort of disapproving lady. Yeah, and I guess this
Speaker 1: sort of plot line you often get into the situation
Speaker 1: where it's essentially like you must choose between the good
Speaker 1: guy and the bad guy, the good girl and the
Speaker 1: bad girl, and you know, and there's a fair amount
Speaker 1: of moralizing that goes on there, especially when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with with like, oh, well, it has to choose between
Speaker 1: the monster is feminine and uh and this idealized version
Speaker 1: of femininity. You know, it's it gets complicated. But also
Speaker 1: there's a kind of irony in a lot of these
Speaker 1: movies where it's like the monster is evil. So on
Speaker 1: one level, you know, you technically should go with your
Speaker 1: backburn or human romance, but on the other hand, it's
Speaker 1: clear that the monster romance is the one that's more
Speaker 1: meant to be. Yeah. Yeah, there's a sense that it's
Speaker 1: a it's a part of fate. And by teaming up
Speaker 1: with the like, by by entering into relationship with the monster,
Speaker 1: you're you're either becoming immortal or you're becoming part of
Speaker 1: a of a timeline that goes beyond just mortal existence.
Speaker 1: You're achieving your true potential. Yeah. Uh, And In fact,
Speaker 1: along with those fatalism themes, I would say a lot
Speaker 1: of these movies also have something like a reincarnation plot,
Speaker 1: So sometimes the movie presents the human in the relationship
Speaker 1: as the reincarnation of a lover that the monster had
Speaker 1: deep in the past, some kind of recurrence of fate.
Speaker 1: So Coppolis Dracula does this. Mina Harker in the movie
Speaker 1: appears to be the reincarnation of Prince of Lads Beloved,
Speaker 1: and many versions of The Mummy movies do this, like
Speaker 1: the Mummy will be some figure from ancient Egypt who
Speaker 1: was cursed or suffered some terrible fate, but once he's
Speaker 1: revived in the modern world, he encounters a beautiful woman
Speaker 1: who seems to be the reincarnation of his one true love,
Speaker 1: and often uh the original reason he was cursed in
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt has something to do with this woman, like
Speaker 1: they had an illicit affair, or he tried to revive
Speaker 1: her from the dead using forbidden magic or something like that. Now,
Speaker 1: the Luralized Grasp does follow some of these conventions as
Speaker 1: a doomed monster romance movie, but it also, i would argue,
Speaker 1: fails to capture one of the primary themes, which is
Speaker 1: that sense of tragedy. Uh. And it fails to capture
Speaker 1: that sense of tragedy, I think because the parties in
Speaker 1: this monster love affair have really hilarious, out of place vibes,
Speaker 1: both individually and in combination. Yeah, yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a good point, um now on the romance here in
Speaker 1: a way, it's kind of fitting. But then also it's
Speaker 1: it's even more pronounced that that deal. Sorry, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really follow up on this themes of the tragic themes
Speaker 1: here because, as I discussed in Wednesday's Monster Fact episode,
Speaker 1: the lorelie monster emerges not really out of old German
Speaker 1: myths and legends per se, but out of German romanticism
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, popping up in a pair of
Speaker 1: famous poems from from that time period. Uh, generally concerned
Speaker 1: not so much about a monster woman that's going to
Speaker 1: come out and rip your heart out, but more about
Speaker 1: like a tragic woman who has thrown herself off the
Speaker 1: cliffs above the Rhine uh haunts the cliffs above the Rhine. Uh. Though,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, the other thing that I discussed
Speaker 1: in that is that there is a Lorelei Rock overlooking
Speaker 1: the Rhine and I think we see this in the movie.
Speaker 1: This is the physical location that inspired the poets in question,
Speaker 1: and it has a long tradition of strange echoes that
Speaker 1: were tied not to mysterious siren type beings but to
Speaker 1: tales of dwarves and gnomes and the cavern depths. Is
Speaker 1: this the rock they blow up with dynamite later in
Speaker 1: the movie, Um, I don't think they quite well, they
Speaker 1: blow up something. They blow up something underneath the rhine, right,
Speaker 1: some sort of subterranean realm. But but yeah, there are
Speaker 1: scenes where there's some wonderful scenes in the film where
Speaker 1: where we see these kind of depressing rhine vista's with
Speaker 1: you know, big container ships moving this sluggishly down the rhine,
Speaker 1: some very dismal um rhine uh riverside locations that could
Speaker 1: look like very lonesome places to die the thing. But
Speaker 1: then also occasion only a shot of a neat castle
Speaker 1: or these looming cliffs. This movie does have a lot
Speaker 1: of wide shots and landscape shots, and most of them
Speaker 1: are not very beautiful or picturesque. Most of them are depressing, right,
Speaker 1: but it creates a vibe which I think mostly works
Speaker 1: with this film. Yeah, alright, so here's the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1: It is a lizard werewolf movie full of Germanic mythology,
Speaker 1: made up science, and early seventies euro horror sex appeal.
Speaker 1: That sounds about right. All right, let's hear the English
Speaker 1: language trailer. A girls boarding school is living a nightmare?
Speaker 1: Who will be the next pict to me? The clause
Speaker 1: of Laura La the heart was gone. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a very old story I once heard that was told
Speaker 1: me when I was a child. I still can't get
Speaker 1: it out of my mind. What story the loyal I
Speaker 1: the monster stocks terror dominates their lives. The legend has
Speaker 1: turned into reality. Laura I will be transformed into an
Speaker 1: obscene beast. She must devour human hearts in order to
Speaker 1: return to her centuries old dream. He will stay with
Speaker 1: throughout eternity. The clause of Laura La next on this screen.
Speaker 1: All right, let's discuss the people involved here, so once again,
Speaker 1: the director and writer on this one is Amando Diosareo,
Speaker 1: who lived through two thousand and one. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear more about him, you can go back and
Speaker 1: listen to that episode we did about the Return of
Speaker 1: the Blind Dead, also known as Return of the Evil Dead. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was Disorio here was one of the key names
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies Spanish horror resurgence. He did the
Speaker 1: Blind Dead trilogy, directed a number of action and horror films,
Speaker 1: and as we discussed in that last episode about him,
Speaker 1: he he seems like a guy who always had these
Speaker 1: big ideas and inevitably ran up against severe budget constraints. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I don't think was ever completely happy with with
Speaker 1: how he was able to realize these dreams on the screen,
Speaker 1: particularly when it came to effects and so forth. Um. Still,
Speaker 1: I think this is another example of a film where
Speaker 1: he's he's able to deliver some some quality action thrills
Speaker 1: in dark fantasy, despite the at times very obvious limitations
Speaker 1: of what they were trying to achieve. Here, I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go on record and say the
Speaker 1: monster in this movie is not super impressive. No, but
Speaker 1: at least at least I think they realized it didn't
Speaker 1: look good and so they rarely show it, uh for
Speaker 1: for too long. It's often obscured, or it's in the shadows.
Speaker 1: Except for the glove, the monster glove it it gets
Speaker 1: a lot of screen time, and and even that could
Speaker 1: at least from from our perspective. From modern perspective, it
Speaker 1: could have been battery. It would have been nice to
Speaker 1: have had to have a more convincing reptilian human hand there.
Speaker 1: But despite it not looking good, I didn't enjoy every
Speaker 1: time it showed up because you would always see the hand,
Speaker 1: and I think it was always the same hand. It
Speaker 1: was always the right hand. So I wondered if they
Speaker 1: only made one lizard glove. Maybe so all right, So
Speaker 1: that's the director and writer. But let's get to the cast.
Speaker 1: The lead here is Tony Kendall born died two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, playing Sigurd the Hunter. Yes, Sigurd as in
Speaker 1: the Germanic hero Sigurd or Sigfried from from the Song
Speaker 1: of the Nibelung, from the Volsunga saga and from the
Speaker 1: poetic Edda. Uh. This is our our hero of mythic proportions.
Speaker 1: The main thing this movie wants you to understand about
Speaker 1: secret is that he is attractive. Yes, yes, women, avert
Speaker 1: your eyes because Tony Kendall has ventured onto the premises. See.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was charismatic and Return of the Blind Dad,
Speaker 1: but in this yeah, it's like it's overt, like When
Speaker 1: we first see him, he rides in on a motorcycle
Speaker 1: and and he is just you know, decked out and
Speaker 1: stylish garb. Yeah. Well, so the movie casts him as
Speaker 1: a hunter. The whole point is that he's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a sort of loner outdoors type. He's he's the
Speaker 1: most experienced hunter in the whole town. But it's just hilarious.
Speaker 1: He does not read as a hunter at all. He
Speaker 1: reads as a guy who would be hanging out of
Speaker 1: the disco trying to buy you a drink, right right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and and to be clear, like I said,
Speaker 1: with a motorcycle and so forth. This does not take
Speaker 1: place during mythic times. This is very much a film
Speaker 1: set in like early nineteen and D's um. So, yes,
Speaker 1: he has the name of the mythic Hunter, but does
Speaker 1: not look like a mythic hunter, does not carry himself
Speaker 1: like a mythic hunter. And I don't think we ever
Speaker 1: see him actually shoot anything. I mean, he shoots at
Speaker 1: a few things, but we never see him hit. No.
Speaker 1: He he looks dresses and acts like Elvis, not like
Speaker 1: a hunter. So just imagine like seventies Vegas Elvis, but
Speaker 1: carrying around a gun all the time, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about how he behaves with that gun later
Speaker 1: on and we get into the plot. This is incredibly inappropriate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a like a prop for handsomeness. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: Kendall was a former model turned actor and did quite
Speaker 1: a few Spanish action movies. He was in Italian films
Speaker 1: as well. He was in seven movies in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three and this is yet again one of them. Um.
Speaker 1: He was in a string of commissar x action movies
Speaker 1: in the sixties. He went on to do a lot
Speaker 1: of spaghetti westerns, including Oh I love some of the
Speaker 1: titles on these nineteen sixty nine, Hate is My God. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did some yellow work. He was in Mario Baba's
Speaker 1: The Whip in the Body opposite Christopher Lee in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three. So again clearly very charismatic screen presence that
Speaker 1: that worked well with films like this. You know, he
Speaker 1: gets to be a man of both action and romance.
Speaker 1: He has a lot of swagger, he gets to bring
Speaker 1: that to the screen. So yeah, Tony kindles a lot
Speaker 1: of fun in this. He is groovy. Oh but so
Speaker 1: that's the human side of our doomed romance. We got
Speaker 1: to hear about the monster side. Yes, Laura Lae herself
Speaker 1: is played by Helga Lenney born one and and as
Speaker 1: of this recording, I think is is still still alive.
Speaker 1: Um and I don't think this can possibly be a
Speaker 1: spoiler because this film is not subtle about this. But
Speaker 1: yes she is. This beautiful redheaded actor. Helga Lenney plays
Speaker 1: the seductive human form of our monstrous murderer here. So
Speaker 1: she was born in Berlin, but her family fled during
Speaker 1: I fled Germany during World War Two and she grew
Speaker 1: up in Portugal, where she worked as a dancer a
Speaker 1: circus for former and not the not the last former
Speaker 1: circus performer reference in this movie. Uh eventually been a
Speaker 1: model and an actress. She worked from roughly one through
Speaker 1: two thousand six, played a lot of film fatales characters
Speaker 1: and horror movies, various genre films. I think she's pretty
Speaker 1: big in Spanish cinema during this time period, and she
Speaker 1: was all She also has a role in the weird
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two train flick Horror Express, which of course
Speaker 1: stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Kelly Savalis, and Sylvia Tortosa
Speaker 1: Oh who's also in this movie. As Tony Kendall's other girlfriend.
Speaker 1: But but Linnay is great in this, Like she's you know,
Speaker 1: vamping it up most of the time. Um. I think
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that she did not particularly enjoy this
Speaker 1: this shoot and did not like the director. Um. But
Speaker 1: if that is the case, I feel like she was
Speaker 1: able to channel that energy into this role because you know,
Speaker 1: she's not she doesn't really like the mortal world. She's
Speaker 1: just here too, you know, you know, collect a number
Speaker 1: of blood sacrifices and then go back to sleep, right,
Speaker 1: she just needs some human hearts and eventually she can
Speaker 1: take Elvis back to Valhalla with her exactly alright. So
Speaker 1: Sylvia Tortasa again plays the the good girl love interest. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a character named Elki Ackerman, the teacher. She's
Speaker 1: essentially the headmaster of a private girls school in this
Speaker 1: though we never see any classes going going on here,
Speaker 1: I believe the prime subject of this school is just
Speaker 1: bikini studies. Yeah, Rachel and I were really confused about
Speaker 1: what the school was supposed to be. So it's like
Speaker 1: a mansion on top of a mountain full of like
Speaker 1: women who just hang out of the pool all day.
Speaker 1: But they call it a school. Yeah, it's the school.
Speaker 1: We never see the classroom. We've just see them hanging
Speaker 1: out at the swimming pool. So. Uh Tortosa Spanish actor
Speaker 1: who worked I think roughly nine four through at least
Speaker 1: uh born Uh still alive as of this recording. U. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's she's our our our heroes main mortal romantic interest.
Speaker 1: But they do the classic romance movie thing where when
Speaker 1: when they first meet, she disapproves of everything about him. Right,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that. That is hilarious. Okay, you can't
Speaker 1: have a villain without a hinchman and uh. And in
Speaker 1: this the lorelized servant is a character named Alberi, played
Speaker 1: by Louis Barbou. Uh. Barbou live through two thousand one.
Speaker 1: Barbou was also a circus performer at one point and
Speaker 1: had a long career playing mostly heavies. He played the
Speaker 1: executed templar in the Return of the Blind Dead, and
Speaker 1: he also pops up in Conan the Barbarian. He was
Speaker 1: a gang member and a fist full of dollars and
Speaker 1: he appears and I think ten difference movies from Spanish
Speaker 1: exploitation King Jess Franco. I don't want to spoil all
Speaker 1: the details about this character in the film, but he's
Speaker 1: a really fun Hinchman and there's some there's some neat
Speaker 1: stuff surrounding his character. I don't know why, but he
Speaker 1: always kind of reminds me of the pirate the Glenn
Speaker 1: Close plays in Hook. I haven't seen Hook in in
Speaker 1: a very long time. I didn't realize she played a
Speaker 1: pirate with a beard. Is this is it supposed to
Speaker 1: be a costume or is it just a character she plays.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's just a it's a cameo, like
Speaker 1: she was on set for some reason, and she's she
Speaker 1: plays the pirate who they put into the box with
Speaker 1: all the scorpions. That really scary scene. You remember that, No,
Speaker 1: I don't. The only thing I remember about Hook is
Speaker 1: Phil Collins showing up as a police officer. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: I don't know why that stands out the most to me.
Speaker 1: Remember Bob Hoskins, come on, yeah, no, no, just Phil Collins.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing I remember. I remember Bob Hoskins,
Speaker 1: uh and and the Glenn Close pirate and a lot
Speaker 1: of food that doesn't look like food, like they're in
Speaker 1: they're eating a big feast, but it mostly looks like
Speaker 1: play dough Alright. Another actor in this film worth noting,
Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Anjel Menendez, plays Professor
Speaker 1: von Lander. Uh eights unknown on this guy birth or death,
Speaker 1: but he plays I think my favorite character in the
Speaker 1: whole film, a scientist and Laura la expert who kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of Colonel Sanders. He has the armed
Speaker 1: awkward in a way that ultimately makes the character absolutely work.
Speaker 1: Uh And I think some of it was perhaps intended.
Speaker 1: Um and Indez was in a ton of Spanish and
Speaker 1: Spanish language films in the sixties and seventies, including nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine Santo Faces Death. Uh so a lot of
Speaker 1: Westerns and horror in his filmography. Wait, Santo faces death
Speaker 1: like the Grim Reaper? Do Santo wrestle the Grim Reaper?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't seen this one. I think
Speaker 1: this one was It was either a Mexican Spanish co
Speaker 1: production or just a Spanish film because they noted some
Speaker 1: other familiar faces from Spanish genre films of the day.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure you have he's actually facing a
Speaker 1: supernatural death figure or if he's just getting in a
Speaker 1: deathly situation. You never know. With Santo, he might be
Speaker 1: fighting him crime, he might be fighting the forces of evil,
Speaker 1: might be doing a little bit of both. Who I
Speaker 1: would be so ready to do another Santo versus the
Speaker 1: supernatural movie. That's yeah, we should do it. We need
Speaker 1: to go back to the Mexican cinema. Always a fun
Speaker 1: time alright. Finally, the music for this film is once
Speaker 1: more the music of Antone Garcia Abril, who lived through
Speaker 1: an acclaimed Spanish composer and longtime head of the Department
Speaker 1: of Compositions and Musical Forms of the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did a lot of work outside of cinema, but
Speaker 1: also did a whole bunch of scores, including the scores
Speaker 1: for all of the Blind Dead films of Amandoo Sario.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was a quite good score. It
Speaker 1: has this wonderful little recurring dream like coral number. Anytime
Speaker 1: Laura Lai is say, riding on a horse and slow
Speaker 1: motion by the rhyme that sort of thing. Okay, can
Speaker 1: you settle a question for me? Is it Laurel I
Speaker 1: just like a name or is it the Laurel I
Speaker 1: like the werewolf? I guess either works. Yeah, because like
Speaker 1: you you pointed out earlier the title is the laure Law,
Speaker 1: but then also she is Laura La. I think they
Speaker 1: use both in the movie. It gets confusing to when
Speaker 1: you look at the origins of the character's name, because
Speaker 1: it's often spelled different ways in these German poems. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's more it's spelled like Laura Ley or Laura Lay.
Speaker 1: But but then the rock I believe is traditionally known
Speaker 1: as Laura Lie. And I also believe the etymology is
Speaker 1: unknown concerned, there's no there's no firm answer, like some
Speaker 1: some people think it's referring to like it's the lie
Speaker 1: seems to mean rocks, so it's like the murmuring rocks,
Speaker 1: or it's the like rocks of some sort of supernatural creatures,
Speaker 1: or their loud rocks. I think it's uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: uncertain exactly what it means. Man, I hate loud rocks. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're ready to talk about the plot. Let's jump into it. Okay.
Speaker 1: The first thing we see in the movie is the rhine.
Speaker 1: Seems very appropriate, right, Yeah, there it is sluggish, filled
Speaker 1: with container ships. Yeah, barge is dingy, kind of low color.
Speaker 1: But then right after that we go straight into the
Speaker 1: bride attack scene. So what's the structure of a movie
Speaker 1: like this. Obviously, before you meet any of your main characters,
Speaker 1: you need to have a random monster attack on a
Speaker 1: previously unknown person. Uh. So here, the victim in the
Speaker 1: first attack is a woman who's preparing to get married
Speaker 1: in the morning, and she's she's trying on her veil
Speaker 1: and stuff, and then her fiance starts throwing pebbles at
Speaker 1: her window. So she goes out to talk to him
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, I'm drunk, you're pretty, and uh.
Speaker 1: She She's like, well, you've been celebrating with your friends
Speaker 1: too much. And then she reminds him to show up
Speaker 1: at the church the next morning so they can get married,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I'll be there, and he shuffles off. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the spooky sounds kicking spooky music comes in,
Speaker 1: and then outside the window we see the first of
Speaker 1: many shots of the hand, the reptile hand. So it's
Speaker 1: five fingered like a human hand, but green, covered in
Speaker 1: spiky scales like a crocodile, and bugles for claws. Do
Speaker 1: you deny it? Ah? Yeah, there they are bugle ask
Speaker 1: I would say again, the gloves not it's not bad,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not great either. But then we get
Speaker 1: to see the hand go to work, and I guess
Speaker 1: that's where it really begins to shine. And then the
Speaker 1: creature sort of roars leaps through the window in an
Speaker 1: attack that will repeat many times throughout the movie. We
Speaker 1: see like the reptar hand on something, and then the
Speaker 1: reptar jumps out, but we don't get a good look
Speaker 1: at it is just like a blur and it appears
Speaker 1: to be wearing a black cloak with a hood, and
Speaker 1: then it tears open the victim's chest with its bugles
Speaker 1: and pulls out their heart. Right. Yeah, one thing that
Speaker 1: they established right off the bat is that this monster
Speaker 1: attacks fast and just viciously, like like a wild animal.
Speaker 1: Just u there's a lot of us swiping at the
Speaker 1: face and tearing at the face and leaving bloody trails
Speaker 1: on the face. And then eventually it's going to rip
Speaker 1: through the chest meat, pry open those those ribs and
Speaker 1: draw out that human heart. Yeah, that's something I think
Speaker 1: some of these movies from the seventies, especially, do they
Speaker 1: figured out that, Okay, maybe if you've got effects that
Speaker 1: don't look super great, maybe you're not the best in
Speaker 1: the world at building up suspense through your editing in
Speaker 1: just the right ways. But you can still get get
Speaker 1: the emotions really high in a in a monster scene
Speaker 1: just by having somebody scream at great pitch and volume.
Speaker 1: So a scene that has really high pitched screaming for
Speaker 1: like thirty seconds to a minute straight, that will get
Speaker 1: you on edge, even if it's otherwise not cinematically very effective. Though,
Speaker 1: I gotta say personally, I'm not a big fan of
Speaker 1: that technique. Like, I recognize why they do it. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: that is probably a sort of hack that's a workaround,
Speaker 1: but but but but yeah, the screaming, it just gets
Speaker 1: to me. I don't know, do you do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's certainly one of those movies where if I'm watching
Speaker 1: it with the volume up, I have to keep turning
Speaker 1: the volume down anytime there's a there's an attack, because
Speaker 1: I know there's gonna be loud screaming, which if there's
Speaker 1: anybody else in the house they could they could be
Speaker 1: annoyed by that, or or or curious and like, why
Speaker 1: is there screaming? What are you watching? Why? Are there?
Speaker 1: Why are there? There's NonStop screaming coming from the living room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it works in TCM. Well, there's a fine art
Speaker 1: to the scream Queen that that's something we have to
Speaker 1: come back to that in the future. What makes a
Speaker 1: great scream and a horror movie? Right? Uh So, anyway,
Speaker 1: we we cut from this opening scene immediately to the
Speaker 1: funeral where the fiance Carlos, who we met just moments before,
Speaker 1: now he's he's there at the funeral and he's so
Speaker 1: distraught that he starts shoveling dirt onto the coffin lid
Speaker 1: while the priest is still talking. And it does look
Speaker 1: like they buried her in a plastic deli tray. Um. I.
Speaker 1: I watched this first with the English dub, and then
Speaker 1: I watched it again in the in the original Spanish.
Speaker 1: But the dub of this is weird, weird because with
Speaker 1: the with the subtitles, we don't get a translation on
Speaker 1: everything that the priest is saying. But but in the dub,
Speaker 1: the voice that they try and translate everything the priest
Speaker 1: is saying, and he's saying all sorts of weird things,
Speaker 1: like something to the effect of God so wanted her
Speaker 1: by his side, that he made her a holy victim
Speaker 1: or something to that effect, and and that I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't blame the the husband here for just like
Speaker 1: wanted to shovel the dirt and get on out of here,
Speaker 1: because this is all this weird stuff. The priest is
Speaker 1: saying something about a holy victim and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if there's gonna be a sermon or a what's the
Speaker 1: word homily or a speech given by the priest at
Speaker 1: a funeral, how do you guarantee the priest doesn't go
Speaker 1: off on some tangent that you really don't want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it appears that's like the entire town I guess
Speaker 1: showed up for this funeral. And then there's also uh,
Speaker 1: somebody on the outskirts of the funeral watching on. Oh right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the funeral is going on, and then it immediately
Speaker 1: cuts to just a satanic red carriage with red velvet curtains,
Speaker 1: with a woman who looks like Evil incarnate peeking out
Speaker 1: of the window with a kind of sinister gaze. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was so funny. When this scene came on.
Speaker 1: We were like, gee, I wonder if she's the monster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forget where I saw this. But there was some
Speaker 1: user review for this film where someone dared to call
Speaker 1: this a monster who Done it? Like really, really, I
Speaker 1: mean this movie is not this movie was trying to
Speaker 1: be a monster who Done it? Yet it's terrible at
Speaker 1: it because it's it's super clear, like, yeah, she she's
Speaker 1: clearly the monster. She came here to creep on the
Speaker 1: funeral from her carriage. And it's not like a red
Speaker 1: Herring or a switchero like she look, she's obviously the
Speaker 1: monster and she is. Yeah, yeah, there's there's no switchery
Speaker 1: going on here. Oh, but she also so she's sitting
Speaker 1: in the carriage watching the funeral. All um, come back
Speaker 1: to the question of why she's watching the funeral, but uh,
Speaker 1: you see it in the carriage. She has a driver,
Speaker 1: and this is Luis Barbou. Yes, yes, uh, we'll reveal
Speaker 1: more about him, his character h Berry or Albert. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: He becomes more important as we reveal more about the
Speaker 1: monster and where she comes from. But what's she doing there?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can never figure that out because
Speaker 1: it's established later in the film that she has no
Speaker 1: regrets about any of this. She's like, would you judge
Speaker 1: a hurricane or a or a jaguar or a panther
Speaker 1: for doing what they do. This is just what I do.
Speaker 1: I don't feel bad about it. So, if so, why
Speaker 1: did she take time out of her day to to
Speaker 1: creep on the funeral? Is she's scouting new victims? Is
Speaker 1: she just curious? Does she just is this? This is
Speaker 1: the only thing going on in town? She's just bored?
Speaker 1: This is like more entertaining than I don't know what
Speaker 1: else she'd be doing just hanging out in the grotto.
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess so. But had to come up here.
Speaker 1: She has to emerge from the rhine with her henchmen.
Speaker 1: They have to rent or acquire a carriage and a horse,
Speaker 1: get all cleaned up. It's it's it's a lot to do.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's gotta be a reason here. Oh man.
Speaker 1: When they try to gallop off the poor horses, they
Speaker 1: are really skittering in this scene. Did you notice that
Speaker 1: they like can't get a grip on the ground and
Speaker 1: they're slipping around in the mud. If they know there's
Speaker 1: a lie in the carriage, that's it. Well, after the funeral,
Speaker 1: we go to uh something that it seems to me
Speaker 1: that there's almost a rule in euro horror movies from
Speaker 1: the seventies that they must have a scene in a bar,
Speaker 1: or a pub or a beer hall, I guess whatever
Speaker 1: you call it in the local culture that is just
Speaker 1: visually ghastly inside, like lighting and wall color combinations that
Speaker 1: induce vomiting. I'm thinking eggshell walls with direct overhead lighting.
Speaker 1: It's just hideous. And and then in this case, in
Speaker 1: the beer hall we cut two. We've got these red
Speaker 1: and white checked table cloths, which I guess might be
Speaker 1: charming in a like dimly lit Italian in restaurant or something,
Speaker 1: but here in the bright lighting with the white walls
Speaker 1: that just assault the eyes. It looks very stuffy in there,
Speaker 1: like it's probably about eighty seven degrees fahrenheit, and the
Speaker 1: patrons are just exuding a stiff formality. I think everybody's
Speaker 1: probably wearing wool underwear. It just looks itchy to be
Speaker 1: alive in this place. I don't know if you had
Speaker 1: the same reaction. Yeah, yeah, this this feels like a
Speaker 1: hot box where town people are gather to drink room
Speaker 1: temperature beer and discuss local politics. Yeah, but I I
Speaker 1: haven't tried to make a list. But I feel like
Speaker 1: this is so common in like euro horror movies of
Speaker 1: the early seventies, they all have a pub or something
Speaker 1: that is just the interior decor is the most uninviting
Speaker 1: thing I've ever seen. Surely, real pubs and bars at
Speaker 1: the time we're not like that, were they, one would
Speaker 1: hope not, but but yeah, this very much matches the
Speaker 1: vibe of the pub that is established in Return of
Speaker 1: the Blind Dad as well. Do you remember that hideous
Speaker 1: pub in Psychomania? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, just like who
Speaker 1: would hang out in here anyway? Okay, so in this scene,
Speaker 1: all the townspeople are hanging out, and the mayor and
Speaker 1: the coroner are sitting at a table together, and they're
Speaker 1: essentially like, gather around everyone and we will discuss the
Speaker 1: gory private details of the recent murder. Uh So they're
Speaker 1: asking questions to the coroner, and the coroner finally admits
Speaker 1: the girl's heart was gone, and then somebody else, oh,
Speaker 1: but it was a bear that attacked her, and another
Speaker 1: guy goes, it might have been a man. But there
Speaker 1: is one person in this bar who knows what's up.
Speaker 1: It is the blind Musician, a Hungarian fiddle player who
Speaker 1: is like, I know what it was. It was the
Speaker 1: Laura lie. And she will need more victims and more
Speaker 1: and more and more and more and more victims. I
Speaker 1: think he says, there will come new evils. I'm warning you,
Speaker 1: and immediately everybody is just telling him to show about.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't we don't care that those legends
Speaker 1: are not true. Nobody believes in that. You compared him
Speaker 1: to crazy Ralph and the notes here, Um, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he's crazy Ralph from Friday, Your whole doomed Ralph, get
Speaker 1: out of here. The thing about the Blind Musician here, though,
Speaker 1: is he's a very likable doomsayer. He's not like that.
Speaker 1: He's not the town weirdo. He's the He seems to
Speaker 1: be a musician that everyone likes and respects, and when
Speaker 1: he inevitably bites it later on, people are disturbed by it.
Speaker 1: So it is a slightly different move than than other films. Certainly,
Speaker 1: the doomsayer in Return of the Blind Dead was not
Speaker 1: a likable character. Who was was that the guy who
Speaker 1: looked like Stephen King? Oh? Yes, that was Murdo. Murdo, Yeah, Murdo, Yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: such a such a wonderful creep and This guy not
Speaker 1: creep at all. This guy is just a beloved musician. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's great, except he believes in the loralae, and everybody
Speaker 1: it does not like that he believes in the Loralae.
Speaker 1: I guess this. This is a rationalist town. We believe
Speaker 1: only in science here. But he says, according to the
Speaker 1: tradition of the seven full moons, Laurel I will be
Speaker 1: transformed into an obscene beast. She will need to devour
Speaker 1: human hearts in order to return to her centuries old dream.
Speaker 1: And the mayor says, nobody believes in that legend. And
Speaker 1: then they're interrupted when the beautiful professor from the local
Speaker 1: girls school walks in and she she she walks up
Speaker 1: to the mayor and gives a speech that's like, basically,
Speaker 1: we need you to send somebody to protect us because
Speaker 1: I somehow already know about all the killings that are
Speaker 1: going to take place for the rest of this movie. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a small town, and and she's a sharp lady,
Speaker 1: she's a professor. She knows she can tell what's coming.
Speaker 1: The character's name is Elki or Elki or elka Ackerman.
Speaker 1: And of course, the the fiddle player once again chimes
Speaker 1: in He's like, you're right, young lady. These killings are
Speaker 1: caused by Laurel. I she will need new victims. And
Speaker 1: the mayor once again tells him to shut up. And
Speaker 1: there was a very funny piece of staging here. So
Speaker 1: he says, Laura rely will need new victims. The mayor
Speaker 1: is like, shut up, and then he just pivots, like
Speaker 1: he just turns ninety degrees and stops talking. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that was very funny what it was like,
Speaker 1: why the pivot? But anyway, so all the dudes in
Speaker 1: the beer hall are immediately they hear um the beautiful
Speaker 1: professor's pitch and they're all like, oh, yeah, I'll come
Speaker 1: protect you miss. Does this mean I'm your boyfriend now?
Speaker 1: And the mayor says, no, no, no, no, We're gonna
Speaker 1: send you see Gurd. And he's better than all of
Speaker 1: these dopes. He he is the most experienced hunter in town.
Speaker 1: And oh boy, now we're gonna meet Segurd. Oh goodness, yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole secret because okay, so we go to the
Speaker 1: school and and and and instantly the soundtrack shifts to
Speaker 1: this kind of funky jam, which I really like. That
Speaker 1: lets you know that it's Uh, it's swinging. Good times
Speaker 1: are coming. Yeah, it's a funky baseline boom. But do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do? And the girls school, it's just where
Speaker 1: like a lot of women hang out like by the pool,
Speaker 1: playing volley ball and stuff. And there's the thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to flag here about something that uh that Elkie
Speaker 1: the character here is doing by the pool. I would say,
Speaker 1: basically at least half of the scenes in this movie
Speaker 1: in which there is a woman on screen, she's brushing
Speaker 1: her hair. And at first this seemed like a bizarre
Speaker 1: filmmaking tick, like I don't know, maybe the director is
Speaker 1: just like, uh, oh, she should be brushing her hair.
Speaker 1: But I think maybe it's actually not that. Maybe it
Speaker 1: connects thematically to the Laureli myth, because isn't there something
Speaker 1: in the legend about like a golden a golden hair
Speaker 1: brush or something. There is, yea golden hair and a
Speaker 1: golden comb. Yeah, looking at the a bit from the
Speaker 1: poem here from Heinrich Kina, Um, there's a bit that's
Speaker 1: that go. This is obviously translation, Um, the fairest of
Speaker 1: maidens is sitting up there a beautiful delight. Her golden
Speaker 1: jewels are shining. She's combing her golden hair. She holds
Speaker 1: a golden comb, singing along as well and enthralling and
Speaker 1: spell binding melody. Okay, so maybe that justifies it, but
Speaker 1: I gotta still especially if you don't know that it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's funny in the movie that Elkie here the professor
Speaker 1: is just sitting by the pool and just brushing her hair. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they're having a great time, lots of giggling and
Speaker 1: so forth. And then uh, we here and see the
Speaker 1: motorcycle or arriving. Oh I also forgot. They're told the
Speaker 1: hunters coming, and they're like, oh, yes, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: will be a disgusting old man if he's such an
Speaker 1: experienced hunter. And then room room, here comes Tony Kendall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he arrives, and it's instead, it's it's not an old man,
Speaker 1: it's Elvis. And he's carrying a rifle. Uh. And he
Speaker 1: rides his motorcycle up and he's wearing this outfit with
Speaker 1: like the this cool white code and I think bell
Speaker 1: bottoms and big wide collar shirt as as was the
Speaker 1: style at the time. And uh and and everybody's like,
Speaker 1: oh a man and he and so when when Elvis
Speaker 1: comes up, the stairs. Here you can tell he has
Speaker 1: many years of experience as a hunter because he's carrying
Speaker 1: a rifle and he carries it with the barrel pointed
Speaker 1: straight up at his own chin, and sometimes he he
Speaker 1: will just like pointed at people during conversation. He basically
Speaker 1: always has it pointed at a human. He might as
Speaker 1: well be picking his teeth with the gun barrel. I
Speaker 1: think in literally every scene where he has the gun,
Speaker 1: he's holding it so it's either pointed at the person
Speaker 1: he's talking to or at his own face. Now be fair, Joe,
Speaker 1: And this one screenshot the included here in our notes,
Speaker 1: he has his thumb over the end of the barrel everything.
Speaker 1: That's like having the safety on. But also you can
Speaker 1: look at him apart from the lack of gun safety knowledge,
Speaker 1: you could just tell in your heart of hearts, this
Speaker 1: man has never ever been hunting. But he informs us, Yes,
Speaker 1: I am the master hunter. I've been hunting since I
Speaker 1: was eleven, I think, is what he says. So we
Speaker 1: just he started early. So he's great, even though again
Speaker 1: we will never see him actually shoot anything with this rifle.
Speaker 1: We just see him stalk around mostly since he was
Speaker 1: eleven years old. He has been hunting for the best
Speaker 1: disco in town. Yeah. He does have a real disco
Speaker 1: Steve vibe going on here. It's pretty great. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they hire him. He promises to find and kill the
Speaker 1: bear that has been removing people's hearts. Uh, though I
Speaker 1: think this has only happened one time so far in
Speaker 1: the movie, I don't know. Uh. And and from this
Speaker 1: moment on, every scene at the school, like all the
Speaker 1: women at the school are just like, Oh, Tony, Wow,
Speaker 1: can I hold your bullets for you? They're they're just
Speaker 1: gaga for him. Yeah. There's a wonderful scene later on
Speaker 1: where it's nighttime, it's bedtime at the school and Tony
Speaker 1: Kendall's out there walking around I think drinking, possibly smoking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and we see like three different windows where the
Speaker 1: students are preparing for bed and they're like making eyes
Speaker 1: and winking at Tony Kendall out there, and he kind
Speaker 1: of winks back at them. Come on, dude. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the rest of the movie is Tony Kendall
Speaker 1: wandering around looking for the quote bear, and then intercutting
Speaker 1: this with scenes of of reptile attacks on random people.
Speaker 1: So the reptile hand goes up on the wall, and
Speaker 1: then and then it's in somebody's house. It's oh it's Carlos,
Speaker 1: the fiance from the beginning, or oh it's the fiddle player. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he's just killing all the random people. But I
Speaker 1: would say there are several plot lines that continue throughout
Speaker 1: the movie that we need to isolate and discuss individually.
Speaker 1: So one is um, Tony Kendall's romance with Elkie the teacher.
Speaker 1: One is Tony Kendall's romance with the Lorelai, and the
Speaker 1: third is Tony Kendall's romance with a weird crank professor. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that one's quite a romance, but it's
Speaker 1: one of the great relationships of this motion picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's let's maybe start at the end. Let's go
Speaker 1: with the professor. So one day, Tony Kendall's out wandering
Speaker 1: around in his in his white elvis costume. Uh, and
Speaker 1: and he's in the forest and he ends up bumping
Speaker 1: into this dude who's spying on him. As this guy
Speaker 1: with like glasses and a goatee, he looks kind of
Speaker 1: like a cross between like Colonel Sanders and Leon Trotsky. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's poorly hiding in the bushes and like Kindall's character
Speaker 1: cigarette like pulls him out. I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? What are you doing spying on me? And
Speaker 1: he's like, oh no, no, I'll talk to you, just
Speaker 1: ask me politely. Oh yeah. But so then he explains, basically,
Speaker 1: I know what you're looking for. It's a monster, and
Speaker 1: I'll take you back to my lab and show you
Speaker 1: is so good. Oh it's a lab just full of
Speaker 1: beakers and bubblings, and there's cages of all different kinds
Speaker 1: of animals, and there's a sheep and a dog just
Speaker 1: wandering around and there on their own. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: has scientists. So when he gets back, he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have scientifically proven the legend of the Lorelei by
Speaker 1: doing experiments that would be condemned by the narrow minded academicians.
Speaker 1: But but I know the truth. And so he demonstrates
Speaker 1: the truth of the laurel I legend by he's just
Speaker 1: got a jar that's got a hand in it. But
Speaker 1: it's not like a it's a human hand. It's not
Speaker 1: like preserved in formaldehyde or something. It's just a jar
Speaker 1: on its side with a hand in it. So we
Speaker 1: were like, did he get that at the like the
Speaker 1: hands loose bulk section at the you know, like you
Speaker 1: get the nuts at Whole Foods or something. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess like that, Well we buried somebody else, but
Speaker 1: we forgot to bury the hand. Could you use it
Speaker 1: for science? And he's like, yes, yes, of course I could.
Speaker 1: So he demonstrates the truth of the Lorelie legend by
Speaker 1: getting a needle and injecting the hand, and then what
Speaker 1: does he do? He does something to it and then
Speaker 1: the hand transforms into a lizard hand from a human hand,
Speaker 1: and he's like, uh, what did I miss something? Well,
Speaker 1: you missed one thing in the movie, missed another thing.
Speaker 1: So first he injects this hand with something and it's
Speaker 1: not we don't know what this is like it this
Speaker 1: seems like this would be vital to the whole the
Speaker 1: whole situation, Like what did you inject into the hand?
Speaker 1: We have no clue. But then he shines his special
Speaker 1: moon lantern on the hand to that this is a
Speaker 1: lantern that reproduces the exact energy and illumination of a
Speaker 1: full moon. Right, so this is the where lizard moon concept.
Speaker 1: And this said, we get to see this kind of
Speaker 1: awful transformation sequence where this um, this dead human hand
Speaker 1: becomes a dead lizard monster hand. Beautiful. And so he explains,
Speaker 1: I think that this serum he injected, which I guess
Speaker 1: is just natural to the lower lae. And then the
Speaker 1: moonlight causes like an evolutionary reversion where the human reverts
Speaker 1: back to their lizard ancestor okay, doki and then oh,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, here's a radioactive knife and it's
Speaker 1: the only thing that can kill the lord. Lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he stabbed. Then he proceeds to stab the hand with
Speaker 1: the radioactive knife, which makes it first revert to normal
Speaker 1: human hand status, and then it melts to a mummy hand,
Speaker 1: or we're told it will melt to a mummy hand,
Speaker 1: and we see a mummy hand like nailed to the
Speaker 1: wall overhead. So you know, he's already got all the
Speaker 1: material together. He's getting ready to publish. This will get
Speaker 1: him tenure, yes, But Tony Kendall's character is just like like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's great, yeah, this one, Like he's not buying into it.
Speaker 1: He's just kind of putting up with this explanation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't don't you hate this nerd. By the way, later
Speaker 1: this this crank professor will be whipped to death by
Speaker 1: the Laurel and her henchman. Yes, because and I believe
Speaker 1: he rats her out to the Lord Lie. He's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a scientist in town. He thinks he's figuring out
Speaker 1: your secret and he's gonna kill you or something. And
Speaker 1: she's like, oh really, oh that's right, Yes, Tony Kendall,
Speaker 1: He totally he basically sends her after the scientist. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so there's that. The second one is Tony Kendall's romance
Speaker 1: with Elkie. So again, she's she's the teacher at the school.
Speaker 1: She's she's basically the disapproving schoolmarm who does not like
Speaker 1: Segurd one bit, except that, of course she is uncontrollably
Speaker 1: attracted to him. And there's the scenes where she you know,
Speaker 1: she they they say he has to sleep in the
Speaker 1: moldy garage while he's guarding the school, and she comes
Speaker 1: in like bangs on the door of the garage and
Speaker 1: he gets out of bed and he's all like shirtless,
Speaker 1: and she's like wow, and they have some kind of
Speaker 1: argument about something, but they end up romancing. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's also the scene where he showed like he had
Speaker 1: the funky music starts playing and he's showing up with
Speaker 1: a towel and she's like, what do you think you're doing.
Speaker 1: And he's like, I'm gonna go swim with the students
Speaker 1: and she's like no, no, you absolutely cannot do that.
Speaker 1: And he's like, okay, I'll go bathe in the marsh.
Speaker 1: That's right. So they send him to bathe in the marsh.
Speaker 1: That gets us into the final plot line, which is
Speaker 1: the romance with Laurela. So yeah, so he's got to
Speaker 1: go bathe in the marsh. And the marsh, by the way,
Speaker 1: you're not getting cleaner by getting in this water. Now,
Speaker 1: this is this is a little very loathsome environment, but
Speaker 1: it works well. If it's going to be a place
Speaker 1: haunted by some sort of weird grind maiden, this this
Speaker 1: is it. Yeah, So he goes down to the marsh
Speaker 1: and there he sees the creepy lady who has been
Speaker 1: showing up at the funerals and who I think he
Speaker 1: chased off of the school premises at night one time.
Speaker 1: So she's just hanging out there in like a green
Speaker 1: bikini and then uh, she runs off to a shack
Speaker 1: and he goes into the shack and they start talking,
Speaker 1: and I don't even remember what they talk about. Is.
Speaker 1: I think she's basically like, well, I'm the Laurel, and
Speaker 1: then he's like, I love you, and then you're in love.
Speaker 1: But then we then she just she kind of peters out,
Speaker 1: you know, she she just kind of goes to sleep
Speaker 1: there in the shed. And who shows up to take
Speaker 1: her away? Well, it's her Hinchman Alberi um or or
Speaker 1: might think of him to his Albrecht. And I'm not
Speaker 1: not sure if it's really revealed here, Like first of all,
Speaker 1: when he collects her, he takes her back to the water,
Speaker 1: back to the Rhine and just walks into the water
Speaker 1: with her, take her down into the depths. And then
Speaker 1: later on it is revealed that not only is is
Speaker 1: he her you know, potentially supernatural Hinchman, he is one
Speaker 1: of the Niba lung He is a dwarf, and in fact,
Speaker 1: in the work The Song of the Nible Lungs, there
Speaker 1: is a dwarf character by the name of Albarek who
Speaker 1: is the guardian of the Nibu Lungs treasure, and he
Speaker 1: has both superhuman strength and a cloak of invisibility, uh,
Speaker 1: neither of which are really featured into this picture. Um,
Speaker 1: but you do see various artistic renderings of this character.
Speaker 1: He has a bull whip, so it's a dwarf with
Speaker 1: a bull whip. Um. And Ian Wagner's the Ring of
Speaker 1: the nibble Lung. He is the lord part of the
Speaker 1: Nibelung and the opera's primary antagonist. Now in Wagner, does
Speaker 1: he use the whip to kill a meddling crank scientist.
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, I think that's that's straight out
Speaker 1: of so he Yeah. So Louise here, Luis Barbou carries
Speaker 1: her down into the water, and so it became it
Speaker 1: becomes clear she has an underwater layer. There's like a
Speaker 1: grotto underneath the marsh where she lives, and so Tony
Speaker 1: Kendall ultimately has to go face her in the grotto,
Speaker 1: which he does by putting on a speedo with a
Speaker 1: belt and uh and going scuba diving down lake. Gotta
Speaker 1: have gotta You can't just tuck that radioactive knife into
Speaker 1: the front of your speedo. Oh, that's right. So he
Speaker 1: scuba's down to the grotto and you know what, this
Speaker 1: movie had a lot of I would say budget and
Speaker 1: aesthetic limitations, but the grotto set is wonderful shot. This
Speaker 1: place looks great. It looks like a kind of like
Speaker 1: a Romanesque church underneath the water, and there's like moss
Speaker 1: on everything, and it is very old. So this must
Speaker 1: have been well, actually, I don't know. I can't tell
Speaker 1: that this is a good set or if this is
Speaker 1: an actual location. Yeah. I wasn't sure if this was
Speaker 1: even perhaps the same location that was used in some
Speaker 1: of the Tomb of the Blind Dead movies, because they
Speaker 1: often had locations that looked like the sets or locations
Speaker 1: that looked like this. So so I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if it was at least double or triple dipping here
Speaker 1: when it came to locations. Yeah. So Tony Kendall scuba's
Speaker 1: down to the grotto in in his speedo. But then
Speaker 1: it's funny that when he shows up, Luis Barbou is like, here,
Speaker 1: I I've got some clothes for you to wear, but
Speaker 1: this on a cape and stuff. You can't come into
Speaker 1: the presence of the Treasures of the Nibelung dressed in that.
Speaker 1: And so the I think, given this red cape and all,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful, let's see and she she basically explains the
Speaker 1: whole deal to him, right, what does she what does
Speaker 1: she say? Well, she's she is the daughter of voting,
Speaker 1: the you know, the Germanic of wagner esque version of Odin.
Speaker 1: So she is the honor of a god. She hangs
Speaker 1: that she's not really the guardian of the treasure, that
Speaker 1: that's Albret's job. But but she lives here with the treasure.
Speaker 1: Most of the time she is just asleep. But during
Speaker 1: the the seven nights of both in every you know,
Speaker 1: however many centuries, she has to come up, transform into
Speaker 1: a monster, take on this second nature, kill people, rip
Speaker 1: out their hearts, consume their hearts so that she can
Speaker 1: go back to sleep. Okay, yeah, so every few hundred
Speaker 1: years she wakes up with the full moon, turns into
Speaker 1: a lizard, kills people, takes their hearts, then goes back
Speaker 1: to sleep, and eventually she'll get to take a hunk
Speaker 1: with her to Valhalla. Yes, yeah, because ultimately hurt. The
Speaker 1: whole thing is like, look, I don't feel bad about
Speaker 1: what I did. That's just my second nature. You can't
Speaker 1: blame me for that. Uh, and you can't stop me.
Speaker 1: But here's the fun part. You don't have to stop me.
Speaker 1: You can just stay here with me forever and yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll look you know, rule in Valhalla and so forth.
Speaker 1: So she makes a strong case. Yeah, she says, I
Speaker 1: will make you. I will make you eternal and powerful.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, so yes, So cigarette has a has a
Speaker 1: choice to make here, uh, and we'll just have to
Speaker 1: see which side he h he goes with. Well, I
Speaker 1: think he gets like hypnotized by a crystal or something, right, Oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: she does whip out a crystal, one of the gems
Speaker 1: of the Niba lung there, and she's using that to
Speaker 1: sort of hypnotize him. But he was already at least
Speaker 1: interested in this proposal anyway. Tony Kendall doesn't take a
Speaker 1: lot of hypnotizing before he will before he's ready to
Speaker 1: follow a lady to Valhalla. But they put him under basically,
Speaker 1: and then um Albert comes back out and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't gonna work. He's in love with
Speaker 1: somebody back there. I saw them making out. And she's like, well,
Speaker 1: what I have to do is while he's out here,
Speaker 1: chain him up or something. I'm gonna go up. I'll
Speaker 1: kill the other woman and then I'll be the only choice.
Speaker 1: Problem solved. Laura la that is cold, that is that
Speaker 1: is cold and nasty. Yeah, so they leave him chained up,
Speaker 1: but then he escapes because he's such a hunk that
Speaker 1: all of the Rhyan maidens are like, he'll be mine,
Speaker 1: and they unchain him, and then they started fighting over him.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing she had down in the grotto.
Speaker 1: She has these three assistants, female assistants, and these are
Speaker 1: the Rhine Maidens. While they're not in the Old Norse
Speaker 1: it does, they do appear in Wagner's Um the ring Dust,
Speaker 1: and so they're a common feature in the opera of Wagner,
Speaker 1: but also in some of the illustrations. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: author Rockham did you know, wonderful illustrations of various fairy
Speaker 1: type creatures, and so he did illustrations of both Albrich
Speaker 1: the dwarf with his bull whip, and also he did
Speaker 1: illustrations of the three Rhine Maidens. So if you're a
Speaker 1: Wagner fan, you're you're very familiar with these characters. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they end up squabbling over him, which I guess is
Speaker 1: is a common trope. Whenever you have a trio of
Speaker 1: of monsters that are guarding over somebody, you know, be
Speaker 1: they trolls or witches. Uh, they're gonna end up squabbling
Speaker 1: and that's gonna allow your hero to escape or am
Speaker 1: I don't think he slays that well he I guess
Speaker 1: he does indirectly, Yeah, he so he they they're fighting
Speaker 1: over him, and he escapes and then he chucks a
Speaker 1: bomb down to blow up the grotto. Yep, so blows
Speaker 1: up the rhine maidens, the dwarf as well as the treasure.
Speaker 1: So everything gets destroyed. Now then now there's no layer
Speaker 1: for our our monster. So Laurel is running up to
Speaker 1: attack Elkie and and Tony Kendall's got to go safer,
Speaker 1: and he brings along the radioactive knife. And I don't
Speaker 1: think there's too much surprising about here. He basically just
Speaker 1: like stabs the monster with the radioactive knife. She's like no,
Speaker 1: and then she turns back into the human version, and
Speaker 1: then she transforms into a skeleton and then into a
Speaker 1: photo negative, like a photo negative ghost of herself, hauntingly
Speaker 1: telling him that I'll be waiting for you in Valhalla.
Speaker 1: And it's actually kind of ends on a haunting note
Speaker 1: here where he's he's sort of gazing into the distance
Speaker 1: hearing this hearing her promise, but also the other love interest,
Speaker 1: the survivor um from the school, like she's showing up
Speaker 1: as well, And so he's still torn between worlds here
Speaker 1: which is the love of true love of his life?
Speaker 1: Is it the life here on earth with this woman
Speaker 1: or is it the life the afterlife in Valhalla with
Speaker 1: his his monstrous bride from another realm? Would it be
Speaker 1: better to love a lizard of another plane? And then
Speaker 1: we get that wonderful choral piece at the end playing
Speaker 1: over everything. So I have to say, solid monster. Maybe
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this point. Okay, you know it's got
Speaker 1: it's got everything. You got the the wonky science, You've
Speaker 1: got all these uh these allusions to to to mythology
Speaker 1: and Wagner, You've you've got the the the wonky monster
Speaker 1: cost costume. You have some fun performances. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: don't like the music. I don't think i'd say it's
Speaker 1: a good movie, but it's I love the ridiculous romance,
Speaker 1: I love the crank. It's it's got all that going
Speaker 1: for it. And uh and you know, the monster is bad,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty fun when the scientist is bullwhipped to death,
Speaker 1: and of course causes acid to fall off of the
Speaker 1: desk of the scientists onto his face, and so he
Speaker 1: gets he gets properly melted like that. I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention that as well. Oh yeah, I just remember that.
Speaker 1: There's also a great scene where when when he when
Speaker 1: Kendall's character first arrives in the grotto, Um, she looks
Speaker 1: she's on her throne waiting for him, and uh and
Speaker 1: and Albrett looks over at the Laura lie and she
Speaker 1: gives him a look like he's like, should I whip
Speaker 1: him to death? And Laura lies like no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: let him talk first. He's like all right, all right.
Speaker 1: So that is the laurelized grasp. UM. If you want
Speaker 1: to watch this movie as well as of this recording,
Speaker 1: there is a version available for digital renteror purchase in
Speaker 1: the United States on on Prime UH. This version is
Speaker 1: English dub only, and I think the video quality is
Speaker 1: also a cup below what you get on the Blu Ray,
Speaker 1: but it's also still very watchable. And I and the
Speaker 1: dubs in this case that the dub is not a
Speaker 1: drastically different experience compared to the subtitles. So I watched
Speaker 1: it the first time through UH with the with the
Speaker 1: dubbed prime version, but then I rented it on Blu
Speaker 1: ray from Video Drome and this is from a Shout factory.
Speaker 1: Their screen factory imprint a double feature Blu ray that
Speaker 1: also features is The Night of the Sorcerers, also by Diasaio.
Speaker 1: But I believe there are also some international standalone blue
Speaker 1: rays of this film as well. But anyway that the
Speaker 1: blue that we watch certainly has better picture quality, has
Speaker 1: the option for the original Spanish language track, and also
Speaker 1: a few extra features. I just made a connection which
Speaker 1: is one of my least favorite things about the movie,
Speaker 1: the going on way too long and too loud screaming scenes.
Speaker 1: One of the alternate titles of this film when it
Speaker 1: was released in the United States was I think it
Speaker 1: was called Till the Screaming Stops. Yeah, not as good
Speaker 1: of a title, but I can understand maybe some folks
Speaker 1: having trouble with the lower a Lie title. You know,
Speaker 1: the Laura Lie, despite what the musician tells us. The
Speaker 1: musician tells us at one point like people already all
Speaker 1: around the world know the story of the Laura Lie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they necessarily do. You can imagine where
Speaker 1: people are like our people on street going to know
Speaker 1: what a laurel Ie is when they're looking at what's playing. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe not until the screaming stops, though everybody knows what
Speaker 1: screaming is, and it does, it does deliver. It says, hey,
Speaker 1: this movie will have a lot of screaming, and it
Speaker 1: will it will test your patients right right, and it
Speaker 1: makes it seem like it's just gonna be a murder film.
Speaker 1: But of course it's more than that. It is a romance.
Speaker 1: It is a monster movie. It is the tale of
Speaker 1: dwarves whipping scientists to death. It has it all all right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go ahead and close this one out. But
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there, certainly anybody
Speaker 1: else who's seen the Laureaized Grasp, but also if you
Speaker 1: have experience in Germanic mythology, the works of Wagner German
Speaker 1: romanticism from the nineteenth century, and want to chime in
Speaker 1: on any of this, Uh do so, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. If you just have experience with the Ryan,
Speaker 1: if you've seen the laurela rock and question, uh, let
Speaker 1: us know as well. We we love that kind of
Speaker 1: firsthand information and feedback, and if you want to catch
Speaker 1: other episodes of Weird House Cinema, you know where to
Speaker 1: find them. Every Friday and the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but on
Speaker 1: Friday's we've put aside most serious concerns and just talk
Speaker 1: about a strange film. Huge thanks, as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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