NASCHY FOREVER

The Man

It hardly seems like two years have passed since Jacinto Molina, known to his still-growing legions of fans as the Lon Chaney of Spain, Paul Naschy, shuffled off this mortal coil and took his final bow. Followers of this blog know what Naschy's legacy means to the Duke and me: he was quite literally the impetus of this project of ours, and the subject of its first-ever review post. He left behind a legacy of joy, terror, and madness matched by few, and (in our humbles) surpassed by none.

He is sorely missed. We shall not see his like again.

It may seem incredible to some, but here, two years after the day I woke to discover that my icon and hero had succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 75, I still get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. At some point between that first giddy discovery of Naschy's work, through countless visits to his monster-choked realm, from the dizzying heights of his Waldemar Daninsky saga to the saddening lows of his bitter, fallow years, Naschy stopped being just an image on the screen, just an old man from a foreign land whose interests and passions neatly dovetailed with mine; he became, in a sense, one of my dearest friends. And his loss was hard to take. It still is.

The Myth

Though I have delved deeply into the legacy Naschy left behind, I still have much to discover. Later today I will be posting one of these until-now-untapped discoveries. But in the meantime, as my tribute and monument to my much admired and even-more missed old friend, I collect here all the Naschyness of the blog for your reference and enjoyment.

Rest in peace, Paul. Gracias.

The Legend

• Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968)
• Assignment Terror (1970)
• The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman (1971)
• Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf (1972)
• Fury of the Wolfman (1972)
• Horror Rises from the Tomb (1972)
• Crimson (1973) 
• Curse of the Devil (1973)
• A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1973)
• The Hanging Woman (1973)
• The Hunchback of the Morgue (1973)
• The Mummy's Revenge (1973) 
• Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)
• Count Dracula's Great Love (1974)
• The Devil's Possessed (1974)
• Exorcismo (1975)
• Muerte De Un Quinqui (1975)
• Night of the Howling Beast (1975)
• Inquisición (1976)
• El Transexual (1977)
• The Frenchman's Garden (1978)
• El Caminante (1979)
• Los Cantabros (1980)
• Night of the Werewolf (1981)
• The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983)
• El Ultimo Kamikaze (1984) 
• Rojo Sangre (2004)

And remember last year, the glorious outpouring of love that was the Paul Naschy Blogathon? You can still visit all those links too! And well you should!

THE PAUL NASCHY BLOGATHON LINKS PAGE

EDIT: It appears I've jumped the gun with my grief, as Naschy's official date of death is November 30. :( I'm letting this stand, though--expect my review of my latest Naschy viewing tomorrow.

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Happy Birthday to The Duke of DVD!

"Getting old ain't for pussies, verily."

 Two thousand years ago, in the Australian bush near what is now Bumbang, Victoria, an Aborigine shaman fell into a Dreaming in which he saw a huge, flesh-puddled mass, barely human, surrounded by heaps of gold, piles of roasted wallabies, and the twisted limbs of a thousand writhing damned. The poor man never fully recovered, and spent the rest of his days with a severe form of involuntary sweating lalalogia accompanied by explosive incontinence. Though his people had no written language, for years the oral history recorded his bizarre utterances, collected by Swedish anthropologist Høyt Møøsewørryer in the mid-19th Century. The strange locutions--"Noshee!", "Fool-chee!", "Bah Vah!", "Arrh Ghent Oh!" and "Ooh, Dat's a Bollocky Bumtikler!" have never been satisfactorily explained, but many occult authorities point to this nameless seer as the first to glimpse the coming of the Great Destroyer of Glazed Hams and Devourer of Insanity, whose nativity today is celebrated by some, mourned by others, and feared by all.

Yes, parishioners, today is the birthday of His Flatulence, The Duke of DVD!

As is our custom on this most blessed and cursed of all calendar days, let us take a moment to review some of the lore and legend surrounding everyone's favorite aristocrat:

• In addition to his expertise in all things related to Madness in Cinema, the Duke is also an accomplished (some might say "cunning") linguist, being fluent in Cantonese, Hindi, Creole, and Sasquatchian.

• In 1935, up-and-coming Burlesque star-turned-actress Fifi "Bang Bang" La Desh penned a series of tell-all articles about the Duke, drawn from her experience giving command performances at his chalet in Cunter, Switzerland. Among the startling revelations in La Desh's memoirs, readers learned that after a particularly intense bout of drinking, the Duke once expelled three cysts in the shape of an Eye of Horus, a Pentacle, and Teddy Roosevelt's moustache. It was later learned that the latter was in fact the actual moustache of the ex-president, though heaven knows how it got there.

"Bugger!"

• The Duke has one of the greatest collections of false limbs ever assembled. His prize exhibit is the false arm of Admiral Horatio Nelson, which he employs to open stubborn jars and retrieve hard-to-reach items from high shelves. He also owns the peg leg of privateer François le Clerc, which he habitually puts to more unspeakable uses.

• On his last trip to the Amazon, the Duke and his party discovered a hitherto unknown species of beetle, Ducalias Dvdius Vulgaris, which as a defense mechanism excretes a pheromone that causes uncontrollable orgasms in its attacker. Shortly thereafter, the Duke single-handedly hunted the bug to extinction.

• After receiving a pre-festival tasting pass to the 1979 Munich Oktoberfest, the Duke consumed every vat of ale earmarked for the celebration. As a result, a Novemberfest was held that year, the only such festival in the city's history. The Duke has since been banned from attending, but still sneaks in occasionally in the costume of a Gypsy prostitute.

• The above is also how the Duke covers his airfare and lodging expenses for the trip.

"I find his eminence the Duke...disarming!"
"Also, a right cad. *sob!*"

• The Duke is the 3-time world champion in the Vertical Luge, and the first to be inducted in that sport's hall of fame, by virtue of his being the only person to compete in a VLA meet and survive.

• Among his many hobbies, the Duke enjoys Underwater Sculptural BB-stacking, and being tossed by dwarfs.

• The Duke's middle name is Eunice.

Many happy returns to my friend, my confidant, my blackmailer and fashion consultant, and one of the MADDEST men I know--parishioners and subjects, raise your glasses to the Duke!

Don't Hate Him Because He's Beautiful

Bunnies,
The Vicar

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Night of the Living Dead (1968): or, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 31!

I probably don't have to summarize this one for any of my parishioners, but in the interest of keeping good form, here goes: after laying a wreath on their father's grave, siblings Barbara (Judith O'Dea) and Johnny (Russell Streiner) are attacked by a shambling, murderous lunatic. Johnny is killed in the struggle, and Barbara flees to a nearby farmhouse, whose sole occupant is a partially devoured corpse. Soon she is joined by Ben (Duane Jones), a take-charge kinda guy who is fleeing from a horde of similarly murderous shamblers. They discover another group of refugees in the cellar of the house--lovebirds Tom and Judy (Keith Wayne and Judith Ridley), bickering married couple Helen and Harry Cooper (Marilyn Eastman and Karl Hardman), and the Coopers' injured daughter Karen (Kyra Schon). News reports inform them that what's outside are worse than murderers--incredibly, the unburied dead are coming back to life to kill and eat the living! As the group of would-be survivors tries to find a way out, tensions mount between them and the zombie horde grows larger and hungrier...

Rewatching Night of the Living Dead (1968) for the who-knows-what-numberth time, I was struck as I always am by how near-perfectly paced the film is. There's little to no drag, and from the opening scene in the cemetery to the well-known shock ending, the movie hums along like clockwork--with a very tightly wound spring. Every scene has a purpose and pushes the film forward, gaining momentum as it goes. The characters behave believably, doing what anyone would do in a similar apocalyptic situation; even Barbara's paralytic shock and Harry's angry assholery are understandable and relatable. And Romero's zombies are slow, implacable, and overwhelming, setting the standard for flesh-eating ghouls that continues to hold today.

Suspenseful, thrilling, and still scary after all these years, Night of the Living Dead is the perfect Halloween rewatch, and a great way to cap off my 31 days of horror movies. 3+ thumbs, of course.

They're all messed up.

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Skew (2011): or, Tale of the Tape

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 30!

Amateur videographer Simon (Rob Scattergood) embarks on a week-long road trip with his beer-swilling best friend Rich (Richard Olak) and Rich's girlfriend Eva (Amber Lewis) to attend another friend's wedding. Simon's girlfriend L.T. (Taneal Cutting) was also supposed to go, but cancels at the last moment, leaving Simon a third wheel. As the friends travel cross-country, tensions mount due to Simon's obsession with recording everything they see, and also due to his growing romantic obsession with the lovely, bra-poor Eva. Soon triangular tensions are the least of their worries, though, as Simon begins to notice strange images through his viewfinder: a hotel clerk and a gas station attendant both show up with their features strangely skewed on the tape, and later both wind up dead, the victims of seemingly random violence. As the video anomalies become more common, the body count rises, and Simon fears his camera is the instrument of a terrible supernatural curse. Still, he feels strangely compelled to keep filming, putting his friends in greater danger with every push of the "record" button...

I hadn't heard of Skew (2011) before reading a recent review on the excellent site Planet of Terror, but I'm very glad I did--dispite obvious similarities to the Ring/Ringu movies (cursed characters there also show up distorted on video), director Sevé Schelenz manages to make his "reality horror" film something fresh and intriguing. The main genius move is making our point-of-view character a flawed, possibly unreliable narrator--in addition to experiencing the supernatural visions along with him, we also slowly piece together his own neuroses and strange desires, which enhances the film's texture and deepens the resonance of the images we're shown. Schelenz does a great job revealing his character through visuals and interactions with his friends, giving the audience enough to stay interested without seeming unnaturally expository.

The cast helps things a lot too, as Scattergood, Olak, and Lewis have a lot of natural chemistry. Watching their relationships develop and change is often just as interesting as the next creepy set-piece. Which is not to say Schelenz skimps on the creepiness--the skewed faces of innocents and our knowledge of what that means generates some suspense, and Simon's periodic visitations by the ghosts of those who died of the curse are shocking and goosebump-worthy. The director also uses the medium to good effect--scenes where Rich and Eva borrow Simon's camera reveal a lot about them all, and when Simon rewinds and rewatches some of his footage at the end, it adds another possible explanation to the strange happenings. Or maybe not--I found the final image (no spoilers) puzzling, but still got an inexplicable shiver out of it, which is perhaps a testament to how the film gets under your skin.

Thanks again to Planet of Terror for turning me on to this hidden gem. It's streaming on Netflix instant, so if you're looking for a creepy little story for your Halloween viewing, you could do a lot worse. 2.5 thumbs.

"I think this shirt really brings out my eyes."

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The Bat People (1974): or, Echolocation Nation

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 29!

Scientist Dr. John Beck (Stewart Moss) really loves bats--so much that he's devoted his life and his ski vacation in northern New Mexico to his avid chiropterology. His beautiful wife Cathy (Marianne McAndrew) tries to make the best of things, inviting her hubby for a frolic off the tourist paths in some beautiful caves beneath the mountains. Unfortunately the amorous pair tumble immediately into a hole filled with beetles and are soon after attacked by a very frightening rubber bat replica! After their rescue, Johnny suffers a pair of hilarious seizures, which makes his wife and ski-bum physician Dr. Kipling (Paul Carr, moustache fancier extraordinaire) fear John has contracted the rubber rabies. After a bad reaction to his first rabies treatment, Paul is hospitalized.

The first night, Paul awakens from a dream of murderous bats to find himself transformed, Kafka-esque, into a Man-Bat! Half-man, half-bat, all murdery, Paul offs a nurse and later a dope-smokin', fornicatin' teen...or does he? The doctor believes his transformations and rampages are all in his head, but local cop Sgt. Ward (Michael Pataki, Mad Movie veteran of The Baby and Grave of the Vampire) is not convinced--and the pair of bodies cooling in the morgue don't help Kipling's case either. In a fit of animalistic rage, Paul escapes the hospital, steals an ambulance, and tears out of there like a bat out of hell! (So to speak.) Fleeing back to the cave where his troubles began, Paul descends into either madness or bat-itude, while Cathy and the increasingly unhinged Ward try to track him down. Can they get to him before he kills again?

Spoiler: nope.

A mad mad mad mad movie if ever there was one, The Bat People (1974) is really something special. Sure, director Jerry Jameson's film has pacing problems, and relies too heavily on poorly matched stock footage of bats in nature, but the several things about this flick had me grinning idiot-wise throughout:

• Any movie gets bonus points from me when it opens with a plaintive, 70s theme song. This one has "Angel of Fear," and it's a stunner.

• Some of the "attacking bats" shown in closeup are clearly being held by their wingtips directly in front of the camera and are struggling mightily against the injustice. This is both slightly cruel and deeply hilarious.

• The Man-Bat makeup by Stan Winston I found to be excellent and distinctly Naschy-esque.

"I am not an animal! I...oh, wait. Fuck."

• A late scene where John transforms while making love to his oblivious, orgasming wife is also Naschy-esque (q.v. Curse of the Devil [1973]). 

• An early bat-creature attack scene is scored with the most incongruously toe-tapping free jazz you can imagine. The Naschy parallels have pretty much got to be intentional at this point (q.v., Vengeance of the Zombies [1973])

• Stewart Moss's eye-rolling, face-twitching seizures should have won him an award. Also, awesomely named Arthur Space has a show-stealing scene as a philosophical hobo. 

• There's an odd kneecapping of our sympathy/admiration for the shrewd, no-nonsense Sgt. Kelly when out of nowhere he gets all rapey on Cathy in her hotel room! WTF, lawman?

• The final "bat-attack" scene, which also explains the plural form of the noun used in the title, is simply fantastic.

I'm not going to say The Bat People is a great film, or even one that most viewers would like--it's stupid, cheap, and takes a while getting to the bat-action (though some would count that as a strength, leaving viewers to ponder whether John is actually transforming or just rabid and hallucinating). But as a fan of all things cheap and cheesy, I thought it was great. If you feel the same, Bat People is a fun time. 2.5 thumbs.

And many thanks to the beautiful and deadly Jenn of Cavalcade of Perversions, whose love for this flick is what caused me to seek it out in the first place!

"Look, I'm getting used to the sweater, but if you say 'Good Grief!' to me one more time, so help me..."

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Madhouse (1974): or, Making a Killing in Show Business

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 28!

On New Year's eve, movie star Paul Toombes (Vincent Price) throws a party with three goals: to celebrate the annual changing of the calendar, to premiere the latest in his successful series of horror flicks in which he plays macabre supervillain Dr. Death, and to announce his engagement to his much, much younger lover Ellen (Julie Crosthwaite). Things are spoiled when Paul's former lover Faye (Adrienne Corri, of the previously reviewed sci-fi funfest Moon Zero Two [1969]) interferes with some cutting remarks, and Ellen's old beau, adult film producer Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry) reveals to Paul that his new fiancee has a history doing the belly-bumpin' boogie for the camera. 

This news shocks the old man into spurning his soulmate, going upstairs, and collapsing in a depressed heap on the bed. A bit later, a man dressed in a very convincing Dr. Death costume sneaks into Ellen's room and dispatches her, gaining style points for perfectly balancing her head atop her severed neck for Paul to discover later! Paul is accused of Ellen's murder, and sentenced to twelve years in a mental institution.

When he gets out, he is offered a job by his old friend and screenwriter Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing)--who is also Faye's brother and her sole caregiver after a fiery car accident left her disfigured and insane--reviving the Dr. Death character for a television series. However, as the Hollywood bloodsuckers come out of the woodwork and the temperamental old actor adjusts to modern moviemaking, he suffers further bouts of unconsciousness and wakes up to find more corpses, killed just as Dr. Death would have done. Is Paul a closet psychopath, using his cinematic alter-ego to avenge himself on those he hates? Or is there something more sinister afoot?

With a real all-star cast of horror heavyweights (in addition to Price, Cushing, and Quarry, we get "special participation" by Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff! Though this participation is limited to archive footage from other films), Madhouse is pretty much guaranteed to please. The plot is a little threadbare and silly (the cocky TV director being pressed like a grape in one of Dr. Death's props is just one example), but Price goes at it gamely as always, and Quarry makes an excellent big Hollywood baddie. Cushing is fun as the milquetoast writer who may know more than he's saying, and Corri steals the show as the former beauty whose tragedy has somehow made her a basement-dwelling, spider-coddling old crone. If nothing else, the Dr. Death makeup is simply wonderful, and will make fans of Price wish he actually had made a few films as the character.

There's no actual madhouse action to speak of in Madhouse, but the climax is MAD enough without it. Light on gore and scares, but nonetheless a fun matinee-style horror flick. 2 thumbs.

"The Doctor's on smoke break, baby. Blow."

 (image borrowed from the excellent horror-centric tumblr, Where Beauty and Terror Dance. Check it out!)

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Spider Forest (2004): or, What Tangled Webs We Weave

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 27!

 TV journalist Kang Min (Woo-seong Kam) finds himself inexplicably wandering through a beautiful, creepy forest, and soon happens upon what appears to be an abandoned cabin. Inside, however, he discovers the mangled body of a half-naked man, his face frozen in a rictus of terror. In another bedroom he finds his girlfriend, who was apparently there for a tryst with the dead man. Also mortally wounded, the girl babbles cryptically about "The spiders! The spiders!" before expiring in her wronged lover's arms. Hearing a noise outside, Kang Min chases a shadowy figure into the woods, but gets waylaid with a stout tree branch to the noggin. Concussed and confused, he stumbles onto a nearby road, into a tunnel, and is immediately run down by an SUV! As he bleeds out on the pavement, he sees a blurry, dark figure that seems strangely, impossibly familiar...

Flashing back, we follow the events that led up to Kang Min's bad end--or do we? In Spider Forest (2004), writer/director Il-gon Song weaves an intricate web out of his protagonist's past, present, and possible futures. At the center of the web is the mysterious Min Su-Jin (Jung Suh), an enigmatic photo developing clerk who tells him the story of the Spider Forest--a place where ghosts who no one loves or remembers haunt the amnesiac living as eight-legged revenants. As the TV journalist spirals toward the truth, he becomes more and more entangled in his own memories, leading to (naturally) a shocking and slightly head-scratching conclusion.

Some of the commenters on Spider Forest's imdb reviews page compare the style and content here to a David Lynch film, and the comparison is apt. Though the movie has some horror elements--there's a ghost story in there somewhere, and the scene of the double murder is grim, especially later when Kang Min's friend detective Choi (Hyeong-seong Jang) discovers the bodies teeming with baby spiders--but mostly this is a narrative puzzle of a Lynchian stamp, where the viewer is invited to make connections between seemingly disparate events and symbols and interpret the ending on an almost subconscious level. I don't think this flick is quite as inscrutable as much of Lynch's work, but it is tightly constructed and beautifully shot, with some stunning compositions, particularly in the forest itself and the traffic tunnel where Kang Min meets his fate.

The movie doesn't have a lot of pulse-pounding action, and I would really classify it more as "brain-twisting drama" than horror (but imdb classifies it as horror, so I'm keeping it for the Challenge!)--still, it is a very interesting movie that kept me engaged and intrigued. 2.25 thumbs.

"I just want to drive a big, long semi down this tunnel, again and again and again! I don't know why..."

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