Here's a curio. Spanish Director Jess Franco has created a film inspired by The Blind Dead, a collection of skeletal cadavers from Amando de Ossorio's carefully crafted horror quartet. Reputation has suggested this might even be a fifth entry in that series, but I'm not sure Franco has ever made that claim. The scene that opens this film features a group of cowled monks making their way into their monastery, bathed in scorching sunlight, to the incongruous sound of dubbed hollow wind. This reedy sound effect accompanies any scene that promises danger.
Next, a giggling gaggle of chirping 30-something good time girls are tottering on high heels up the stone steps to the hotel they are to make their holiday home for the next few days. Amongst them is Candy Coaster, AKA Franco favourite Lina Romay in a silvery blond wig. They can't wait to 'pick up some guys and have a good time', and yet as soon as the doors are closed to their widely scattered chalets, graphic lesbian activity ensues.
As they sunbathe nude on the shingle, a meat cleaver is thrown from a balcony at the hotel, narrowly missing them. But this doesn't deter their frivolity ("Who wouldn't want to murder four hotties like us?"). The hotel proprietor, shady Carlos (Antonio Mayans), who is responsible, keeps his eyebrow-shorn wife chained on a bed, and appears to be in the thrall of a greater power. Perhaps this power (he is 'from another world') saps any sense Candy possesses; one minute, his chained wife is explaining that he probably wants Candy to take her place - the next, Candy is in his arms, falling for his promises.
One of the girls wanders into the ruined monastery next door to the hotel and things take on a creepier tone. Despite the mournful tolling of a bell, the bell she sees is stationary; as she enters, modulated chanting fills the soundtrack, and that is the last we see of her. The next to be plucked from the group actually comes face to pasty-face with the Monks. Her ensuing gang-rape is protracted and horrifying. Somehow even more horrifying is the next scene, where we catch up with the comedy hi-jinks of bungling odd-job man Marleno 'hilariously' serenading Candy in the hotel garden – in view of the ordeal we witnessed previously, such frivolity seems tasteless. Pretty soon, it's back to the not-so-softcore lesbianism between Candy and Caty (Elisa Vela), the only two girls left. Nothing like a bit of nookie to take your mind off disappeared friends in an empty hotel where the proprietor wants to kill you.
Some of the Monks are grinning and skeletal, another appears to have his (human) face coated in porridge (SPOILER – revealed to be Carlos), and another is entirely human-looking. Cursed by a former victim Irina, they have since been denied eternal rest until they find love. Carlos believes he has found this in Candy, and as they kiss, he crumples to the floor, an empty cloak. Candy doesn't like it and runs off.
I enjoyed this. The four women holiday-makers are a discreditable gang, their slow realisation that they are the only guests in the huge hotel hilariously slow-witted. And yet there is a consistent storyline here, not always the case with Franco. And more importantly, 'Mansion of the Living Dead' works as a horror film, for the sense of unease grows palpable. It probably won't please those expecting an addition to the delicately built-up Blind Dead story (to which this is best thought of as a homage, not a continuation), but to those familiar with Franco's style, this is pretty good.
Next, a giggling gaggle of chirping 30-something good time girls are tottering on high heels up the stone steps to the hotel they are to make their holiday home for the next few days. Amongst them is Candy Coaster, AKA Franco favourite Lina Romay in a silvery blond wig. They can't wait to 'pick up some guys and have a good time', and yet as soon as the doors are closed to their widely scattered chalets, graphic lesbian activity ensues.
As they sunbathe nude on the shingle, a meat cleaver is thrown from a balcony at the hotel, narrowly missing them. But this doesn't deter their frivolity ("Who wouldn't want to murder four hotties like us?"). The hotel proprietor, shady Carlos (Antonio Mayans), who is responsible, keeps his eyebrow-shorn wife chained on a bed, and appears to be in the thrall of a greater power. Perhaps this power (he is 'from another world') saps any sense Candy possesses; one minute, his chained wife is explaining that he probably wants Candy to take her place - the next, Candy is in his arms, falling for his promises.
One of the girls wanders into the ruined monastery next door to the hotel and things take on a creepier tone. Despite the mournful tolling of a bell, the bell she sees is stationary; as she enters, modulated chanting fills the soundtrack, and that is the last we see of her. The next to be plucked from the group actually comes face to pasty-face with the Monks. Her ensuing gang-rape is protracted and horrifying. Somehow even more horrifying is the next scene, where we catch up with the comedy hi-jinks of bungling odd-job man Marleno 'hilariously' serenading Candy in the hotel garden – in view of the ordeal we witnessed previously, such frivolity seems tasteless. Pretty soon, it's back to the not-so-softcore lesbianism between Candy and Caty (Elisa Vela), the only two girls left. Nothing like a bit of nookie to take your mind off disappeared friends in an empty hotel where the proprietor wants to kill you.
Some of the Monks are grinning and skeletal, another appears to have his (human) face coated in porridge (SPOILER – revealed to be Carlos), and another is entirely human-looking. Cursed by a former victim Irina, they have since been denied eternal rest until they find love. Carlos believes he has found this in Candy, and as they kiss, he crumples to the floor, an empty cloak. Candy doesn't like it and runs off.
I enjoyed this. The four women holiday-makers are a discreditable gang, their slow realisation that they are the only guests in the huge hotel hilariously slow-witted. And yet there is a consistent storyline here, not always the case with Franco. And more importantly, 'Mansion of the Living Dead' works as a horror film, for the sense of unease grows palpable. It probably won't please those expecting an addition to the delicately built-up Blind Dead story (to which this is best thought of as a homage, not a continuation), but to those familiar with Franco's style, this is pretty good.