CEMETERY GIRLS

Spain | 1972 Directed by Javier Aguirre Starring Paul Naschy Haydée Politoff Vic Winner Color | 83 Minutes | R Format: DVD Double Feature Disc / R0 - NTSC BCI

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		Review by Brian Lindsey

6     5   10 = Highest Rating

Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy does his best Christopher Lee imitation in this silly gothic shocker, although at times he more resembles John Belushi dressed up as Count Yorga for a Halloween soiree... The film, which fails to measure up to Naschy's other contemporary works in a similar vein (Werewolf Shadow, Horror Rises from the Tomb, etc.), makes up in blood, boobs and atmosphere what it lacks in just about everything else.     A stagecoach throws a wheel in Transylvania's infamous Borgo Pass, stranding a quartet of nubile young women and their male companion in a misty forest. After the driver is killed in a freak accident, the group seeks shelter at a nearby castle, where they're welcomed by the owner, the polite but strange-acting Dr. Marlowe (Naschy). Their hospitable host invites them to stay as long as they need or wish. Marlowe, it turns out, is actually Count Dracula — although at times he doesn't seem to realize this. One by one the guests are bitten by his vampire minions and turned into the Undead, all except virginal Karen (Haydée Politoff), with whom Dracula falls in love. In order to complete a blood ritual that will resurrect his long-deceased daughter, Drac must convince Karen to voluntarily become a vampire, joining him as his immortal bride in eternal darkness...     Cemetery Girls starts out ponderously slow but picks up considerable steam once the nighties come off and the blood begins to flow. Its complement of topless Eurobabes, subjected to some genuinely creepy, erotic vampire attacks, will appeal to viewers amenable to dollops of sex and/or sleaze with their gothic horror. Perhaps in a nod to the overt sadism of Hammer's Scars of Dracula (1970), a captive female villager is mercilessly whipped, bloody lash wounds licked hungrily by the vampires. There are a couple of genuine scares to be had (that axe to the head made me jump); those rustic, timeworn Spanish locales lend their usual aura of verisimilitude. Naschy's fully in his element, too, even if he is too short and stocky to play Dracula, a role requiring considerably more restraint than his numerous werewolf portrayals. He takes a similar approach to the character as Christopher Lee, that of an aloof, reserved nobleman prone to feral savagery if angered or provoked.     None of this can be taken seriously.     The overly-lit interiors and pitiful day-for-night photography certainly don't help matters, but some of the scenes in this movie are just plain nutty. A shot of a man falling down a flight of stairs is looped no less than four times during the opening credits. Fights between Naschy and lesser vampires are staged like western saloon brawls. The slow-motion leap of a pair of vampires from ground level to the roof of a house is accompanied by a goofy slide-whistle sound effect. (Shades of the car stunt in The Man with the Golden Gun.) The stilted English dubbing is truly dreadful and often quite hilarious — all the rural Transylvanian peasants sound like crusty Montana cowpokes! The old geezer with his leg caught in an animal trap especially cracked me up.     Cemetery Girls is a laughably bad film (the English language version, that is), but an undeniably fun one. This gothic Spanish Velveeta is pretty tasty!

Paired with the abysmal Vampire Hookers (1978) for BCI's Exploitation Cinema line of bargain-priced double feature DVDs, the film gets its best-looking North American home video release to date. It uses the U.S. drive-in title Cemetery Girls on the packaging but Count Dracula's Great Love — much more germane — for the menu screens and on the print itself. Both films are presented 1.78:1 anamorphic; Cemetery Girls is slightly cropped from 1.85:1 (although compositions don't appear to be impacted). The 35mm print has definitely been around the block a few times, but despite minor damage and instances of faded color, it's quite watchable. (It's obvious that all the nude scenes are culled from a different, inferior, source.) The mono audio track is clear, if flat-sounding; all the poorly-dubbed dialog comes through cleanly. It has been reported that a few minutes of the dialog is out of synch with the picture, but I really couldn't tell you where — the dubbing is that awful throughout.     Cemetery Girls and Vampire Hookers can be watched individually or as a continuous double bill. The latter option tosses in a reel of six exploitation trailers (which, for some inexplicable reason, is predominantly for biker pics) and a vintage concession stand ad. The disc's menu system, fashioned to resemble a grindhouse theater lobby, is cute but entirely unnecessary. 9/24/08

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