Saturday, March 7

Beyond the Living Dead (1973)


A.K.A. La orgía de los muertos / The Hanging Woman
Directed by José Luis Merino
91 Minutes / Unicorn Video / Cropped from 1.85:1 to full screen

Paul Naschy in a fleeting role as a ghoulish cemetery caretaker suspected of murder after a countess turns up dead in a mausoleum. Let the creeky histrionics begin with macho argument grappling, slutty women in tight corsets, and a lot of whodunit pipe smoking.

Naschy would have done much to enliven this muddling rustic, period Spanish horror flick if given the chance. The best sequences feature him hunched over corpus fawning over their rotted visages. Otherwise, his role is small and probably all wrapped up with a day of shooting. The wolfman was busy in '73. The other stuff is pretty yawn enducing with a few completely unexplained plot threads and suddenly disappearing characters. Perhaps this is a cut U.S. edit? Oh, at least there's some boobs, a couple non-threatening undead, and that trademark bright an' thick 3M blood.

Film: 3.5/10
VHS Picture: 6/10
VHS Sound: 6/10

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...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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