Último deseo (1976)

... aka: Last Desire

... aka: People Who Own the Dark, The

... aka: Planeta ciego (Blind Planet)

Directed by:

León Klimovsky

As I've no doubt already pointed out elsewhere on this blog, I don't think director Klimovsky has really been given his due in horror circles. The fact his film THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971) helped to kick start the busy Spanish horror cycle of the 70s after it became a surprise international hit is only part of the reason why. He also cranked out over a dozen genre films in just one decade (an accomplishment back then; not so much now in the age of digital "filmmaking"), which makes him one of the most prolific genre directors of the entire decade, though again that's just a small part of his legacy. When one takes a look at Klimovsky's horrorography, they'll notice a lot of films that, on the surface, appear to be dredging up Universal Studios-style classic monsters for the umpteenth time. While it's true that his films are usually highly uneven, he never made what most would consider a true genre classic and he's not the visual stylist that many of his contemporaries were, what's usually not pointed out about his films is that he almost always puts a unique spin on tired tropes. 

Klimovsky's THE DRACULA SAGA (1972), for instance, mixes a Gothic vampire film with ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) and delivers some genuine surprises along the way. THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY (1974), another of his low budget bloodsucking yarns, is basically a warped version of Brigadoon (1954). When it came time for him to make his Frankenstein film, he instead delivered I HATE MY BODY! (1974), an amusing pseudo-feminist Nazi mad scientist romp about sexual politics. So it comes as no surprise that when Klimovsky decided to tackle a nuclear holocaust the resultant film was going to be anything but ordinary.

Though he made around 75 films in all genres, Klimovsky is best known these days for his numerous collaborations with Spanish horror legend Paul Naschy. Naschy is present here as well, only he's billed pretty far down the cast list and was never promoted as the film's actual star. Top-lining the cast of Euro-horror heavy hitters is sultry German-born Nadiuska. Now I've already written a little biographical information about this actress in my review for DEATH HAUNTS MONICA (1976) and don't want to repeat myself here only to say that when she did this film her fame was such that not only was she billed above the title but even her personal make-up artist was given a shout out in the opening credits. Still, she and Naschy are just two of the familiar faces in a cast filled with horror film regulars in what is actually something of an ensemble piece.

The film opens with numerous vignettes introducing all of the principal cast and, quite surprisingly, it does an above average job introducing its many characters and does so with a good deal of humor. Nadiuska plays Clara, a high priced call girl who's something of a veteran in her field and currently has pretty novice sex worker Marion (Julia Saly, another frequent Naschy collaborator and his co-star in THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF) under her wing. Seemingly on the opposite end of the spectrum is Berta (Teresa Gimpera - NIGHT OF THE DEVILS), a busy homemaker with two young children whose insurance salesman husband is frequently out of town. Somewhere in the middle are a pair of in-demand models; Luna (Leona Devine) and Tania (Diana Polakov), but apparently even Vogue gigs aren't enough to pay all of one's bills. All five ladies are looking to pick up some extra cash "entertaining" wealthy men at a weekend party at the mansion home of Lily (Maria Perschy) and her lover Victor (Tomás Picó). Lily's home / brothel, called Vilmore, caters only to wealthy clientele and, being wealthy and all, they tend to be more perverted than the rest of us mere peasants.

Among the five men scheduled to attend the next party are esteemed academic Prof. William Fulton (Alberto de Mendoza - Horror Express), obese world-famous surgeon / chess aficionado Dr. Edward Robinson (Ricardo Palacios) and Robinson's colleague, Dr. Meisser (Emiliano Redondo). After receiving an urgent emergency phone call, a Russian ambassador (Barta Barri) has to cancel at the last minute and ends up sending his young attaché, Vasily Seriabrakov (Jess Franco film regular Antonio Mayans), in his place. Rounding out the quintet is Naschy's character, Mr. Borne, who's first seen sport shooting birds and making some kind of shady business deal. He's later described as being a former Foreign Legion soldier turned international drug trafficker turned adventurer / outdoorsman. While he may be a criminal, he's managed to never get caught, and he's rich, which means he's welcome there.

In a scene surpisingly similar to, yet predating, Kubrick's acclaimed Eyes Wide Shut by decades, the men are asked to go upstairs, put on robes and rubber monster masks and then meet their hostess down in the candle-lit cellar for a cult-like ceremony that involves food, booze, drugs and the five working girls, who have been hired to offer the men "pleasure without limits." Lily informs them that their "great master" is one Donatien Alphonse François aka the Marquis de Sade, which should give you some idea about the tastes of all of the socially-respectable male participants. However, the fun and games are interrupted by a sudden tremor in the home. A nuclear bomb has been dropped somewhere nearby. Venturing upstairs, they discover the two maids - Greta (Carmen Platero) and Anita (Estela Delgado) - have both been blinded by the blast and now have cloudy white eyes. While the underground cellar acted as a bomb shelter and spared the hedonists a similar fate, they'll soon have other, equally problematic issues to deal with...

Professor Fulton decides it would be best for them to stay put and only venture out whenever necessary, i.e. when their supplies are low. Due to radiation levels and nuclear fallout being carried there by the wind, he proposes mostly staying in the cellar for at least two months. However, they're short on food so the men venture out to find a local market. While in the village, they encounter a panhandler who's been blind from birth, who informs them that the villagers were having some kind of outdoor celebration when the bomb exploded and now everyone there has been blinded. They've since gathered at a local monastery. Victor loses his mind, starts murdering the blind villagers and has to be put down himself, but the damage is already done.

As the survivors await the radiation to reach them before they retreat to the cellar for awhile, tensions arise and everyone is at each other's throats. Berta turns out to be Lily's former lover, but left her for a "normal" life with husband and kids, and now the two have a chance to rekindle their relationship. Clara reveals that she survived a suicide attempt and now has a renewed desire to live, becoming romantically involved with Fulton. Having dealt the death blow to Victor himself, Dr. Robinson goes crazy, starts stripping off all of his clothes and crawls around on all fours snorting like a pig (!) and lapping up spilled milk from the floor.

Though now short on sight, the villagers are still able-bodied and none too happy about what Victor did. When Vasily and Marion go back into town to look around, they're surrounded by a mob and promptly murdered. The villagers eventually show up with rocks and sticks and lay siege on the home, determined to get inside and kill everyone, and this thing suddenly (though briefly) becomes something of a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD rip-off, with crazed blind folks instead of zombies! They break windows, try to bust through doors and this even copies the NOTLD tension between Ben and Harry Cooper, except with Fulton and Borne arguing about whether or not it would be wise to retreat to the cellar. Once the ambush survivors are out of the house and on the run, the film takes a few unexpected turns before delivering a grim and surprisingly haunting finale.

I'd previously only seen the 82 minute English-language dub of this one and, while I enjoyed it, I much preferred this re-watch of the longer, restored, Spanish-language print, and am bumping my score up by half a star as a result. Yes, this is still flawed and somewhat disjointed even in its uncut form, but the script (written by Vicente Aranda, Gabriel Moreno Burgos and Joaquim Jordà) is more ambitious than usual, with well-placed laughs (including some absurdist humor that would be more at home in a surrealist film), inventive ideas, fairly solid characterizations and (gasp!) even elements of social commentary. Though it takes awhile to get to its more horrific content and is a bit light on exploitative elements, there's an unpredictability to the whole thing that more than makes up for it. 

The performances here are all pretty solid, most especially from leading ladies Nadiuska, Gimpera and Perschy, though I'm also quite surprised this never seems to register very highly for fans of Naschy. His macho, tactless character is one of his better roles and he's given a lot of sarcastic ("What do you suggest? That we teach them braille?") or just plain distasteful one-liners that are quite amusing.

In addition to cutting out over ten minutes, the English-dubbed version (supposedly prepped by Sean S. Cunningham) also Anglicized the credits and substituted portions of the original music score. After an extremely limited run in American theaters in 1980, this was issued on both Beta and VHS in 1981 by Sun Video Corporation. In 1987, it was reissued by Star Classics (who had the best cover art) and then laid dormant until Code Red resurrected the title in 2012 on DVD and then released a much-improved Blu-ray three years later. Canada and Spain are the only two other countries this appears to have been officially released in.

★★★

El caminante (1979)

... aka: Devil Incarnate, The

... aka: Traveler, The

Directed by:
Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy)

After stabbing and then robbing a war vet who calls him out as a liar, Leonardo (Naschy) walks away with a bag of gold and a smile on his face, proclaiming "The world is so beautiful... I shall enjoy it!" And that's just what he does in this episodic, blackly comic 'Merry Frolics of Satan' filled with mean-spirited vignettes hoping to eventually drive home a more enlightened message at the end. Naschy's character is a bearded vagabond who takes what he can get when he can get it and doesn't let little things like law, religion, guilt or morality stand in his way. If he wants your money, he'll find a way to swindle it from you. If he wants your wife, he'll seduce her. Hell, he'll even kill you just for the clothes off your back. Nothing is off limits. Leonardo sums up his philosophy to life rather succinctly early on: "The rich shit on the poor and suck their blood like leeches and then the poor slit their throats as soon as they get their chance. That's humanity." Leonardo also happens to be none other than Satan himself. Adopting a human look and, with it, a human's mortality, he's come to Earth (during Medieval times) to see just how man is progressing. He'll ultimately discover he has very little corrupting to do as we're doing a fine job of that all by ourselves.

The film follows Leonardo on a debauchery journey as he encounters one sad sack character after the next and leaves a trail of misery, heavily compromised morals and death in his wake. Accompanying him on his travels is troubled teenager Tomás (David Rocha), whom he easily woos away from his cruel (and blind) former master after pissing in his drink and pushing him into the water. The loyal but painfully naive Tomás has had a tough row to hoe thus far in life. Abandoned by his mother at a young age and abused by nearly every adult he's encountered up until this point, Tomás figures he has nothing to lose leaving his abusive last master and traveling alongside the amoral and mysterious stranger he's just met... especially considering he's promised all of life's perks (food, shelter, nice clothing, money, sex...) for doing so. He'll eventually discover the hard way that friendship and loyalty mean nothing to his new friend, especially when the almighty dollar is at stake.

Leonardo / Satan is driven by all of the seven deadly sins, but primarily by lust and greed; money and sex. He seeks shelter with a poor farm couple and, while the husband's away, decides to make his move on the crippled and neglected wife, Inés (Silvia Aguilar). After successfully seducing her (Satan is incredibly suave and apparently rather well-endowed to boot), he pays her back by threatening to gut her, robbing her at knife point, calling her a "slut" and then carving an upside down cross on her ass because he likes to "brand his cattle." From there, he gets word that filthy rich nobleman Juan Lopez (Pepe Ruiz) and his wife Blanca (Paloma Hurtado) will be traveling through the area. He and Tomás manage to intercept them and turn Juan's greediness against him in a clever way that leaves all of his guards dead and he and his wife hanging from a tree in their underwear, having been stripped of all their money and belongings.

Having been left with next to nothing aside from a deathly ill child to raise all on her own after her unfaithful husband managed to get himself killed, Aurora (Sara Lezana) becomes the next victim. Leonardo strikes up a bargain with her: he'll cure her child if she'll have sex with him. She reluctantly agrees, both parties go through with their part of the deal and, soon after Leonardo leaves the following day, Aurora finds herself not only stripped of her virtue but also her daughter, who dies shortly thereafter. However, Leonardo had been kind enough to leave her with another unpleasant surprise: his "seed" (the Antichrist) in her belly! Unfaithful miller's wife Maria (Adriana Vega), repressed nun Mother Elvira (Blanca Estrada), who claims to have been having sexual contact with a "demon" along with several other ladies in her convent, and whorehouse madame Leonor (Ana Harpo) will also have rather unsavory encounters with Leonardo that end on a sour note. And speaking of sour notes, things also don't pan out so well for Satan either when he gets a much-earned taste of his own medicine. After all, he's now just a mere mortal himself and just as vulnerable to the ills of man as anyone else.

The late Naschy considered this one of the very best films he ever did. Guess what? He's absolutely right. This is perhaps even *the* crown jewel in his long filmography and, for the most part, it's still waiting to be discovered all these years later. Even if you're not a Naschy fan; even if you've been subjected to the numerous mediocre or sub-par films he's been involved with over the years and given up on him in the process, I still recommend giving him one last shot here. It may even give you a whole new appreciation for his talents as both an actor and a filmmaker.  Not only a well-crafted film with fine work by the production team to effectively evoke time and place, it's also stylishly directed, well-cast and exquisitely photographed by Alejandro UIloa to both bring out the natural beauty of the outdoor locations and to give a soft, other-worldly glow to any bright light that happens to be in frame at the time (the screen also glows red whenever Leonardo's feeling especially mischievous). Stylistically this certainly hits the bulls eye, but thankfully it has much more to offer than just visual splendor.

Best of all, this is uncommonly well-written and thoughtful for a Naschy movie (he shares writing credit with Eduarda Targioni). While littered with scenes of casual human cruelty, it never once becomes monotonous due to its fast pace and a steady stream of humor ranging from extremely dark and blasphemous to light, ribald and bawdy. By design, this is all meant to paint a grim and pessimistic picture of mankind where the innocent and sinful alike suffer as pawns on the same morbid playing field we call Earth. This is best illustrated during a sequence where Leonardo allows a conflicted Tomás to dream about what the future holds and he has (black-and-white newsreel) visions of war, death, atomic bomb explosions and the Holocaust. 

As far as Naschy's performance is concerned, he's never been better than he is right here. This role is perfect for him and he plays it with an arrogant swagger and a sly, devilish twinkle in his eye. In this context, it finally makes sense for all of these women to fall at his feet! Watching his crucified Satan looking up at the sky and cursing God for his part in giving life to us "pigs" is perhaps the most powerful and poignant scene the actor has ever done. Irene Gutiérrez Caba as Aurora's loyal maid, Rafael Hernández and Manuel Pereiro round out a strong cast. Though a notable change of pace for the director, fans of his more exploitative films will be happy to know this is plenty violent and nearly all of the females in the cast get naked, including Taida Urruzola (a Spanish Playboy cover girl who also appeared in the giallo Red Rings of Fear) and Eva León (who'd appeared alongside the star in at least half a dozen other films).

So why is this film seldom discussed and viewed outside of Spain? Simple: It's never been officially released here in America, or most other countries for that matter. While the majority of Naschy's lesser flicks have enjoyed pretty wide exposure on both DVD and VHS (perhaps because they stick closer to horror / monster movie conventions and thus deemed more marketable by suits), this one has rested in limbo for decades. It deserves better treatment than that. What I viewed was the Spanish DVD from Video Mercury Films / Vellavision; a very nice, restored print. Though it doesn't come with English subtitles, fan-made subs are available.

Update: A very nice Blu-ray release courtesy of Mondo Macabro, under the new title The Devil Incarnate, was released in 2018.

★★★1/2