El pez de los ojos de oro (1974)

... aka: Eyes of the Golden Fish

... aka: Fish with the Eyes of Gold, The

... aka: Fish with the Golden Eyes, The

Directed by:

Pedro L. Ramírez

The name Waldemar Wohlfahrt may not mean much to you (it didn't to me either prior to viewing this), but this flash-in-the-pan minor 60s / 70s celebrity has an interesting story that's worth telling. Long story short, in 1966, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed German-born playboy from Stuttgart found himself accused of being a serial killer targeting young ladies along the Autobahn! As for hard evidence that implicated him, well, it basically boiled down to his love of travel (he divided his time between Germany and Spain) and the fact he happened to own a red Mercedes sports car. And that's about it! Wohlfahrt ended up getting arrested and was slandered mercilessly by the tabloid press, whom he later successfully sued after it turned out he wasn't even in the same country at the time of one of the murders. I'm not sure if the real killer was ever apprehended or not, but Wohlfahrt decided to parlay his press notoriety into a show business career. He first released an unsuccessful album, posing on the cover with his red sports car and using the name "Waldemar the Vampire" (!)

While he made mention in the press that he'd also been eyeing an acting career and stated he'd love to play a 007-style secret agent, there would be no James Bond level films for Wohlfahrt but instead stuff like The Horrible Sexy Vampire, The Lustful Amazons and Virgin Killer. But them's the breaks, especially when you're not much of an actor to begin with. His film debut, which he himself financed with his lawsuit earnings, was the 1969 sleaze-horror film El vampiro de la autopista; a title directly alluding to the Autobahn serial killer the Spanish press had once insisted was him. The film, which wouldn't be released until two years after it was shot, had absolutely nothing to do with the killer nor the star's life. The Spanish murder-mystery El pez de los ojos de oro on the other hand does actually seem to be sometimes commenting about Wohlfahrt's celebrity and contains a few direct references.

Wohlfahrt (billed as "Wal Davis") stars as a bellbottomed "Englishman" record store employee named Derek, who's hitchhiking through Spain on his way to visit a couple of friends for the holidays. As he's standing on the street trying to thumb a ride, he spots Mónica (Montserrat Prous) and Marco (Rex Martín) having a heated argument. She immediately jumps into her red convertible, spots Derek, picks him up and takes him back to her apartment for an off-screen revenge fuck. Later that night, Derek awakens to find her bloody corpse lying in bed next to him. She'd been stabbed to death and the killer has been kind enough to leave the murder weapon lying right on the floor. After touching her body, thumbing through her purse and doing everything else to ensure his fingerprints are all over the place, Derek then flees in the woman's car.

Instead of going straight to the police, Derek goes to visit his friends, artist Zachary Kendall ("Richard Kendall" / Ricardo Vázquez) and his sculptress wife Virginia (Norma Kastel). There, he learns there's a serial killer on the loose in the area. In fact, Zachary himself had previously witnessed the scuba gear-clad killer stab Belgian tourist Hildegard Aaron (Susana Taber) to death on an inlet. He also has visions of a child seeing their father stab the mother to death as a fishbowl gets knocked over. It's likely no coincidence then that the killer seems to be set off by images of fish. The Belgian girl had been killed while lounging on a fish beach towel, while Mónica was wearing a fish necklace when she was murdered. The killer had even stolen the pendant after killing her.

Zachary and Derek decide to go to a police commissioner (Barta Barri) to report their experiences and are shocked to find themselves the two key suspects in the killings. I mean, that's pretty understandable though, right? One claims to have directly witnessed a killing and the other had somehow managed to sleep right through a murder being committed right next to him and it's all just an "odd coincidence." The inspector obviously isn't buying it. The fishiness (har har) continues with the introduction of Marina (Adela Tauler), who's a student studying under Zachary and the daughter of the ultra-strict Pedro (Víctor Israel), who happens to run an aquarium. While Marina fancies a job as an artist, her demanding father is always nagging her to feed the fish. He also talks to the fish and claims they're his loyal friends. Despite Marina being an adult, Pedro tries to forbid her from dating, so he's none too thrilled to find out that his daughter has recently started seeing Derek.

It's revealed that the neglected Virginia is having an affair with sleazy gigolo and con artist Marco and is currently working on a fish sculpture herself. She claims to have gotten the design from somewhere else, perhaps from a local goldsmith named Miguel Toledo (Gustavo Re) who is, in turn, making golden-eye fish pendant necklaces like the one Mónica was wearing. However, he hasn't put them up for sale yet and had only given one to Marco to give to Mónica as a gift. The investigation turns up that Marco has been sexually involved with not only all of the victims thus far but also at least one of the suspects. That man really gets around. However, he's soon strangled to death so that checks him off the list. Meanwhile, Zachary starts his own affair with Nurse Tessi (María Elena Arpón) and she moves into his home. A few more murders follow.

Sleep with the fishes you cheap, bland, subpar film! This is talky and tame, with zero suspense, a poorly structured and surprise-free mystery, annoying cheat scenes, comically bad dialogue, horrible editing and mostly bad acting. There's also a curious lack of exploitative elements. Most of the kills are bloodless and there's no nudity in the 80 minute version I watched despite there being ample opportunity for such and a cast of performers who were certainly not shy in most of the other films they appeared in. One random bird who has nothing at all to do with the plot is even introduced just long enough to be stabbed to death in the shower, yet they show nothing. However, the hatchet job editing indicates the version currently floating around has been cut and is likely derived from a heavily-censored, Franco-approved Spanish release. That said, I could find no evidence this was ever released outside of Spain so a "continental" version may no longer even exist.

As for ole Waldemar, he's strictly of the deer-in-headlights school of emoting, though his hilariously unsubtle facial expressions at least elicit a few laughs. Tauler, who plays his romantic interest, was also his real-life girlfriend (eventually wife). The two appeared in no less than seven films together and she even wrote a vehicle just for him to star in. Co-star Ricardo Vázquez was also the executive producer and one Ricardo Vázquez Jr. is listed as being the assistant director. The director only made on other genre film: the mediocre though slightly better SCHOOL OF DEATH (1975).

The only legitimate home video release I'm aware of was a 1984 Spanish VHS release on the Videotel label, which uses a drawing of a screaming Carroll Baker stolen from the Spanish poster for Detrás del silencio / Knife of Ice (1972) for the box. Some bootleg dealers now carry it on DVD though the same exact VHS print is used for all of these as no official or restored version of the film has ever been released.

Edit: Since I've reviewed this, there's been a new Blu-ray release for this title from Vinegar Syndrome, as part of their "Spanish Blood Bath" set. It's paired with Jess Franco's NIGHT OF THE SKULL (1974) and Jorge Grau's Violent Blood Bath (1974), and the full running time is 84 minutes. 

★1/2

Más allá de la muerte (1986)

... aka: Beyond Death

Directed by:

Sebastián d'Arbó

Director D'Arbó (real name: Sebastià-Daniel Arbonés Subirats) is best known as an occult / afterlife / paranormal expert who's been a regular presence on Spanish TV and radio since the 1960s and is still busy to this very day promoting his books, films, etc. on both social media and television. In addition to hosting and presenting countless programs, he also branched out into filmmaking and made a number of genre films (see list below) throughout the 80s, all dealing with his favorite subjects. D'Arbó shows up on screen here as well in the pre-credit introductory sequence and tells us what we're about to see is based on his own research and the real-life experiences of those who were declared clinically dead long enough to get a taste of what lies beyond. We're then off to Dachau, Germany in 1945 to see a Nazi general and his men gun down some prisoners. From there, we zip ahead to modern day Spain in the snowy Pyrenees mountain region where Austrian psychiatrist Dr. Johan Möser (Tony Isbert - TRAGIC CEREMONY) arrives at a parapsychology institute located next to a ski resort (!?) There, he catches the tail end of surgeon / biologist / professor / "alternative scientist" Hamermann's (Narciso Ibáñez Menta - MASTER OF HORROR) lecture on the afterlife and approaches him afterward.

Johan is in need of answers. After just one year of marriage, his beloved wife Vera passed away, leading to a period of depression and neurosis for the grieving widower. However, he swears up and down that the ghost of his late wife has visited him on at least one occasion. Not only that, but he was actually able to see and touch her. Hamermann claims what he experienced is nothing uncommon or unique. He was simply in an altered state and thus open to receiving psychic energy in the home, which enabled him to materialize a "psycho-energetic entity", a process called "phantasmogenesis." Just as simple as that! By the way, this is just the start of all of the pseudo-intellectual paranormal babble you'll have to endure with this one.

Professor Hamermann quickly befriends Johan (who suggests he work as his assistant), takes him to his home and shows him the thousands of testimonials he's collected over the years from people who've had near-death experiences. One such experience is even laid out for us in real time by a woman (Blanca Martínez) who hits her head after being thrown from her snowmobile, ends up officially dead and is later revived. She describes the first moments of death as being both inside your body and outside of it floating around simultaneously, taking a warp speed trip through a black tunnel and then heading to a peaceful place that's so wonderfully serene the woman gets upset at the doctor for saving her life!

Neither Hamermann nor Johan are who they claim to be and both have ties to the sinister Thule Gesellschaft (Thule Society), a (real-life) German occult and ethno-nationalist organization that was eventually dissolved into Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party. Johan, who has already gone through the official Thule blood ceremony and been branded with their insignia, works for them as an informant and was sent there to get information on the professor, while Hamermann (back when he was using the name Skladovsky) was a captured Jewish doctor forced to help the SS conduct hideous experiments on fellow prisoners. Toward the end of WWII as Germany was on the verge of being defeated, Hamermann / Skladnovsky was taken outside with the other remaining prisoners and shot. Only he managed to survive.

Because Johan has taken a liking to the professor, and started a romantic relationship with his daughter Florence (Berta Cabré), he decides not to relay accurate information back to the Thule Society, but instead help the professor with his experiments. Thus far Hamermann has been able to kill and then revive guinea pigs and monkeys using a special serum he's created. Now he'd like to try it out on a human being. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't get the chance when a Thule Society assassin shows up and shoots him. Johan, with help from Florence and one of the late professor's colleagues, Dr. Carlos Ferrero (Sergio Tula), decides to then pick up where the late professor left off.

While this almost comically over-stuffed movie clearly has many issues, especially with its pace and the convoluted plot, it surprisingly managed to somewhat win me over by the end. That may have something to do with the director presenting his otherworldly existential gobbledygook on the screen with such conviction I just had to respect the man for having a specific point of view, and it may have something to do with his film at least provoking thought. Also, if we're to be honest here, a lot of his concepts really are in tune with a lot of the near-death experiences one will read about.

Most interestingly, D'Arbo doesn't accept the afterlife on completely biblical turns, though he does settle on a disappointingly New Age-y equivalent of heaven and hell when one evil character dies. His visions include flashes of loved ones drifting by accompanied by a colorful psychedelic spacey light show, stardust skeletons, multi-colored orbs, mist and stars and tunnels of refracting light and rainbow panels. His "heaven" is essentially becoming one with the universe and he ends his thesis with the quote "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed, because everything is an energy." which is (probably falsely) attributed to Einstein.

Stylistically, the film also does a surprisingly good job with the various flashback scenes. Johan's (probably fictionalized) ghostly flashback and his initiation into the Thule Society are tinted red. The various Nazi flashbacks, which have been shot in grainy black-and-white to resemble old newsreel footage, look authentic and are effectively disturbing. There's also a fantastic moment where the professor character, who survives a gunshot graze to the head, is "reborn" out of a pile of corpses and crawls away from what will soon be a covered open grave.

Also appearing in small roles are Antonio Molino Rojo as a police inspector, Víctor Israel as a janitor, Carmen Serret aka Carla Dey as a doctor's wife and future director Germán Monzó (Antichrist 2: Magic London) as a Jewish prisoner. IMDb currently lists a whole bunch of other actors (Julissa, Enrique Lizalde, Mónica Serna, Silvia Solar) who are not in the film. D'Arbo's other genre credits include Viaje al más allá / "Journey to the Beyond" (1980), El ser / "The Being" / PSYCHOPHOBIA (1982), Acosada / "Harassed" (1985) and Cena de asesinos / "Dinner of Murderers" (1989).

Even though a decent print with English subtitles has finally surfaced, I could find no evidence this was ever officially released to home video anywhere in the world. It's not to be confused with Los fantasmas que aman demasiado ("The Ghosts That Love Too Much"), a Mexican horror film directed by Julián Pastor released the following year on VHS as Más allá de la muerte. That same title was also used for the Spanish-language video release of the notorious shockumentary Faces of Death (1978).

★★1/2