Beyond the Living Dead – 1973, Italy/Spain, 97m. Director: José Luis Merino.
The Black Room – 1982, US, 82m. Director: Elly Kenner, Norman Thaddeus Vane.
The Other Hell – 1981, Italy, 87m. Director: Bruno Mattei.
Simon, King of the Witches – 1971, US, 99m. Director: Bruce Kessler.
BEYOND THE LIVING DEAD (1973) (AKA: The Hanging Woman) A man (Stelvio Rosi) arrives at a mountainside village to collect an inheritance, only to bump into the corpse of the Countess to whom he’s the sole heir. The woman’s death sets off a chain reaction of events, including a graphic autopsy, a police inquiry, and family turmoil when its revealed Rosi has inherited the Countess’s entire estate. The Countess’s brother (Gérard Tichy) is experimenting in bringing the dead back to life, and his daughter dabbles in black magic. The cops peg a half-witted gravedigger (Paul Naschy) for the Countess’s murder when they discover nefarious items in his quarters, but he turns out to be a red herring in the form of a necrophiliac—he’s later served some undead justice when he’s entombed alive in a mausoleum. Those looking for a Romero-like zombie bloodbath in this slow-moving European production are better off looking elsewhere. Talky and stiffly acted. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)
THE BLACK ROOM (1982) Unfulfilled by the lack of sex at home, married father Larry (Jimmy Stathis) rents a room in the Hollywood Hills to use for afternoon delight. The room, decked out in black curtains and candles, looks like a set leftover from a porno, and it’s just perfect for Larry’s bevy of L.A. beauties. What Larry doesn’t know is the owners of the house are a pair of Satanic, voyeuristic siblings (Cassandra Gava and Stephen Knight) who kidnap his sex partners and drain their blood in a transfusion for Knight, who suffers from a rare blood disorder. The Black Room might lack structure but it’s an interesting take on the vampire theme, and its AIDS metaphor is perhaps more obvious now than back in 1982. Character takes precedent over gore and the writing is smart enough to not allow Larry to become a macho jerk who saves the day, but a flawed individual who gets a taste of his own medicine when his wife (Clara Perryman) starts using the black room for her own needs. Whether feminism was on the screenwriter’s mind or not, The Black Room ends up being a thoughtful, albeit exploitative, little doozy. B (Currently unavailable.)
THE OTHER HELL (1981) A knife-happy nun dissects a fellow sister in an underground laboratory and removes her victim’s uterus. In the adjacent convent, a Bible erupts in flames and stigmata appears on a nun before she convulses and dies. A freethinking priest (Carlo De Mejo), who dismisses Satan, is sent to investigate and discovers a history of diabolical happenings within the convent. All of this is the product of black magic conjured by a demented Abbess (Franca Stoppi) who years earlier gave birth to a deformed child—the product of an unholy union with the Devil. More incomprehensible, exploitative nonsense made in Italy by unimaginative individuals who’ve seen The Exorcist. The sight of a priest’s charred head in a tabernacle is the only original moment in an otherwise disparagingly witless movie. F (Currently available on YouTube.)
SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES (1971) Simon (Andrew Prine) is an inauspicious warlock who lives in a storm drain. After being taken in by the police for vagrancy, Simon makes friends with a male prostitute (George Paulsin), who later introduces him to Hercules Van Sant (Gerald York), a decadent bigwig who hires Simon to show off his magical skills at parties. Hercules’s entourage doesn’t take Simon seriously, and after they berate the man and his profession, Simon seeks revenge—starting with a pompous party guest who writes Simon a bad check. Simon meets Sarah (Ultra Violet—one of Andy Warhol’s superstars), a self-proclaimed Queen of the Witches, who holds Satanic black masses in her candlelit lair and who Simon denounces as a charlatan. Simon’s newfound celebrity gains him his own small following, and with the strengthening of his powers crosses over to the dark realm—queue the flashy, acid trip-like montage that represents Simon’s ascension into another plane of existence. Prine is charismatic, but his character is too cold to care about; much like Simon, the film itself is empty and doesn’t offer the viewer any moments of razzle-dazzle. A missed opportunity. C (Currently streaming on Tubi.)