'Horror Rises from the Tomb' (1977) – Carlos Aured.

Since my early teens my preferred viewing has been the more gonzoid examples of 1970s horror, especially those from our zesty European brethren, and very little comes close to the bravura, hyperactive, bosomy schlock of Carlos Aured’s grandiloquent ‘Horror Rises From The Tomb’ (1973). To the obsessive euro cult cognoscenti, this delirious OTT escapade is helmed by the genre veteran behind delightfully ludicrous and sanguineous fare such as ‘Curse of The Devil’ (1973) and ‘Blue Eyes of The Broken Doll’ (1973), the latter being a zealous but ultimately clumsy example of that most micro of genre’s, the Spanish Giallo. While demonstratively not on par with the Italian’s feverish output from this most fecund era of eyeball piercing horror; nonetheless, Spanish genre cinema from this period had a trump card in that most hirsute and burly of male protagonists, (and to-date, he remains a bona fide living legend of gothic horror).....Scabies and gentle germs I give you Waldemar Daninski (aka) Paul Naschy (aka) Jacinto Molina himself; Europe’s most capable and terminally rugged bogeyman. 

This swarthy interpreter of Euro horror’s most eldritch fantasy’s has long lent his swollen, snug-fitting turtleneck sweater’d form to a multitude of horror archetypes’ and he is at his brooding, archetypal best with this magnificent performance, one of Jacinto Molina’s most robust and enduring creations Alaric De Marnac. A deeply sinister warlock whose (off-screen) cavalier occult dabbling has found little favour with the Christian hordes and thus finds himself awaiting a seemingly terminal case of death by decapitation. For many (if not all) this would seem to be an irreversible malady, not so for the sneering De Marnac who vehemently vows, at least while his malevolent bonce sits squarely on his broad shoulders, that he shall return from the clammy embrace of the grave to avenge this gross travesty of justice. For some clearly an idle boast, but ol’ Alaric obviously regards their sentence as little more than a contemptuous piffle; yet his motives for vengeance seem a trifle, well, indulgent, as I can only assume that he was sentenced to death for all manner of iniquitous, vile and barbarous acts, so this furious, all consuming need for vengeance must stem from the fact that they also plan to knock off his voluptuous squeeze, the delightful Helga Line...I mean, he can’t really be that chagrined by the simple townsfolk wanting to Ice his paella padded ass for his wicked heathen ways; he must appreciate that during these medieval times his decadent pagan modus operandi was going to win him little favour amongst the simple god fearin’ proletariat. 

Anyway, I digress; so, this head-lopping provides both the catalyst for his eventual re-birth and sanguineous revenge. I don’t mean to belabour the point, but the only real quibble I have with Jacinto Molina’s pantomime gothic mise-en-scene is this irksome ambiguity about said vengeance...If you excuse the tangent, in Abel Ferrera’s most-able sleaze-fest Ms. 45, the timorous Zoe Tamerlis gets raped twice in the same morning, which would bum out the most centred individual, thus giving her a perfectly legitimate reason to dress in a nun’s habit and fuck some almighty shit up! In fact, she could dangle a small, helpless infant out of a 6-storey window, vote Tory, enjoy the wretched comedy stylings of Ricky Gervais, and listen to Coldplay, and we’d still forgive the murderous, baretta-weilding Knob hater...No such laxity here, but maybe I’m missing the point since Naschy’s De Marnac is such a grievous swine he slaughters nubile Spanish totty under the most spurious, nay, entirely fraudulent of motives! Taken on this admittedly subjective interpretation, this Alaric De Marnac is an entirely reprehensible cove, since his garish revenge appears decidedly arbitrary, and director, Carlos Aured is clearly disinterested in Marnac’s bloody ancestry, and like many of Naschy’s films (Be they good/bad or indifferent) it would be very unwise to give their plot’s/scripts too much scrutiny, might be best to ignore them completely and revel in the unrestrained lunacy, which in my mind is adequate compensation for the dearth of actual immersive story. ‘Horror rises from the Tomb’ is gloriously and unashamedly silly, and, personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way! This is primo, unpretentious gothic Grand Guignol that not only wears its heart on its ruffled sleeve, it tears said palpating organ though your ribcage and hungrily feasts on the sinewy delicacy before the last vestige of life dims from your glazed and incredulous orbs. 

After the requisite dull and extraneous exposition; I mean, who gives a greasy hand fuck why these libidinous strumpets want to spend the weekend at Naschy’s terribly isolated and preternaturally spooky ancestral home, as long as they get nekkid’ and dead asap. Naturally, this being one of many Naschy identikit scripts he swiftly orchestrates a plethora of righteous sequences where he gets to leer and paw at a multitude of wide-eyed compliant hotties, and herein lies the timeless giddy appeal of this gaudy production; for subtlety and nuance may I suggest a trip to the National portrait gallery, for a lurid preponderance of perky boobage and theatrical, unrealistic gore ‘Horror Rises From The Tomb’ hits the motherlode... So, to recap, the nudo euro babe quotient here is VERY high indeed, so kudos! And should you tire of this undulating and ravening spicy tapas of erotic nubile flesh being repeatedly pawed at by a series of lascivious Spaniards, one can also revel in the Promethean displays of bodily dismemberment, cannibalism, evisceration and wondrously crusty attack zombies that add the final mouldering veneer of sepulchral horror to this muscular celebration of sex, death, decapitation and yet more death. In a perfect cinematic world all genre films should adhere to Naschy’s voluptuous creedo of muchas bloody gash and muchas bloody tits, and contemporary horror wouldn’t be such a tiresome, thin and borderline redundant affair. Naturally, this magnificent era was when the goggle-eyed director was far more of a voyeur than auteur, this fundamental difference is why so many of these wildly exploitative titles have been lovingly restored and have found another generation of zealous fans. 

With many actors it would be foolhardy, if not a trifle unbalanced, to gauge the merit of their work by the amount of hair the character has on display; not so with Naschy, his finest cinematic scares seem forever melded to rug-faced gnascher Waldemar Daninski, his iconic take on this most ubiquitous lycanthrope who, quite frankly, turns up in more films than is absolutely necessary. Here he cuts a decidedly nobler swathe wrapped in a Merlin cloak, with a louche thatch of unruly Ian McShane mulletry and a sculpted, oh-so roguish devil beard. Much like fellow genre stalwart John Saxon who also spent much of his screen time bearing his thick, well-muscled torso with great alacrity, Naschy, like Saxon, appears to be similarly afflicted by brillo pad hair, an enigmatic condition whereby the aggrieved viewer (me) spends much of the film’s running time contemplating the authenticity of said barnet; in Saxon’s case his exaggerated macho posturing were designed to draw one’s attention away from his very tightly wound and convoluted comb over, and Naschy’s bare chest, log cutting, fist fightin’, pussy gettin’ oeuvre is clearly diversionary tactic to keep one’s eyes from straying to his far-too-rigid hairline. Fraudulent follicles aside, the glorious films of Paul Naschy should be cherished by all who favour simple bloody fare served with generous scoops of heaving breast meat. (Naschy reprises the role of Alaric in the equally exaggerated goth monster mash up Panic Beats, which, also, comes with the highest recommendation)