Imagine a fright flick that has few frights in it, but a lot of twists and turns in the plot that mostly lead...exactly nowhere.  A horror film that fails to serve up much horror but does deliver lots of endless dialogue scenes and fascinating sequences of the same actors walking through the same sets again and again.  Imagine a scary movie that our intrepid writer viewed three times and still has more questions than answers about the enigmatic plot.  For those reasons, we'd like to change the title of this creepy non-classic from Graveyard Of Horror to...

By DAVE DUGGINS

Question: What’s the best thing about making an independent film?

Answer: You can do whatever ya frickin’ want!

It’s ultimate freedom. Nobody will tell you it’s wrong. Nobody will say, "Hey, that doesn’t work," or "This story beat is out of place," or "This actor is wrong for that part." Nobody will tell you it’s wrong, because… well, no one will see your film.

Some people saw 1971’s Graveyard Of Horror (it was released in the US by Independent International, the same outfit that also released most of Al Adamson’s schlock output). In fact, Michael Weldon saw it, and reviewed it in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film, which is absolutely the best book about these crazy movies ever, and if you don’t own a copy go now and order it.

Michael Weldon came to the same conclusion I did: this thing is weird. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Weird actors. Weird settings. Totally weird plot. The entire proceeding, from start to finish, is totally disassociated from anything resembling conventional.

And that, as anyone who has ever watched Mexican horror wrestling flicks can tell you, is good.

Usually I try to give some explanation of the plot when reviewing these things. In this, case, it’s not just pointless but impossible. I’ve watched the film three times and I have no idea what it’s about. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch. Just don’t expect it to make much sense. Or, really, any sense.

There’s some grave robbing in it. There’s a guy who loses both his wife and baby during the birth. There’s a crazy family living in gothic mansion; a whacko bunch of sisters who all have the hots for the same guy; a dead Count who’s trying really hard to still be alive; two mad doctors, one slightly madder than the other; and a spooky hilltop cemetery and two robed and masked villains (the aforementioned grave robbers).

Right. Grave robbers, Burke and Hare style--but clumsier, noisier, and obviously not too worried about getting caught. And they wear weird masks, which Burke and Hare didn’t. And they don’t seem to care too much about medical experiments. They‘re all about exsanguinations in the name of resurrecting the dead. Okay, so maybe they’re not like Burke and Hare. But weird? Yeah, man. Very weird.

There was some attempt to tell a story, but the result is Byzantine, impenetrable and extraneous. Like many plot-for-effect films, the bizarre visuals are all that count. The fact that nothing makes any sense is just icing on the cake.

Graveyard of Horror was released as Necrophagus in its native Spain, a far superior title that perfectly captures the spirit of the film. The word is a hybrid, stitched together from the words "sarcophagus" and "necropolis." It doesn’t actually mean anything, but conveys a vague sense of dread.

There you go. That’s the film in a nutshell. Hey, Renfield, do I have to keep writing, or is that good enough?

Okay, so there’s a little more to it than that. The film was written and directed by Miguel Madrid, whose name was Americanized to become Michael Skaife in the U.S. release print, featured on the DVD. I’m not sure how they got "Michael Skaife" out of "Miguel Madrid," but there you go. It’s a mystery, and certainly not the only one associated with this flick. The story, for instance. That’s a total mystery.

Speaking of the DVD, the packaging features a colorized photograph (from a color film, and why you would want to colorize a still from a color film is--you guessed it--a mystery) of the archetypal monster with the unconscious girl in his arms, which is amazingly cool in the one-sheets for Creature From The Black Lagoon, but ludicrous here. The "creature" is a glaringly obvious rubber mask through which the actor’s face is clearly visible, which the color dye-job actually emphasizes.

Madrid only directed three films in his career, which is probably just as well for us. There are enough confused people walking around out there. Imagine the situation if this guy had even a third of Jess Franco’s output.

This was his first film, and while there were guys in my college film classes who put together a more coherent project than this, Madrid did have the benefit of some pretty cool shooting locations. There’s a real castle, and a great snow-covered cemetery on a hilltop. Madrid wisely uses these locations to his advantage, shooting on gloomy, windy winter days. The sequences at the cemetery are visually creepy, if somewhat blunted by our inability to figure out what the hell is going on.

The film opens with main man Micheal Sherrington digging up his wife’s casket. Why he’s doing this is not made immediately apparent. What was that you said? A mystery? You bet. Get used to it. The next hour and a half of your life is going to be defined by seemingly unrelated events. Just take it all in and watch for those cemetery sequences.

Micheal Sherrington is pretty. All the girls love him. Unfortunate, as "all the girls" in this film means Margaret and her three psycho sisters. You might think it would be cool to have four beautiful women after you, but if they’re all crazy, it’s like that ancient Chinese curse. You will live in interesting times.

The opening scene is a perfect example of the kind of direction and cinematography that characterizes the film. It won’t stick with you for long--there are far more bizarre examples ahead - but it bears more than a passing mention: shooting this must have really pissed off the cameraman, as it features about five different angles of Micheal throwing shovelfuls of grave dirt directly into the camera. Hell, it’s as if he’s aiming for it. No matter where the guy with the camera goes, Michael throws dirt at him. No particular reason for it, except maybe for the soft-focus effect you get from four pounds of silt on the lens.

Weird shots and angles, unorthodox techniques such as racking the focus all the way out while quickly panning up, which roughly simulates the final seconds of extreme drunkenness just prior to losing consciousness--all these rules of composition flagrantly disregarded just adds to the overwhelming sense of things being wrong. It’s pretty cool at some points, but then there are those others.

In a lengthy, talky graveyard sequence featuring Michael and Fowles, the creepy cemetery caretaker, Madrid chooses to reverse angles each time the actor speaks rather than compose the shot so that both of their faces are visible. This is called "breaking the plane" in film school parlance - changing the focal point of the shot without transition.

This makes you feel as if you’re running around to one side of the pair when Michael speaks, and running to the other when Fowles speaks. Back and forth, back and forth. If you didn’t have a headache by this point, you certainly will when this scene is over.

The crème de la crème of this weirdness happens at the End of Act II (if you think I’m jumping around a lot, just wait until you see the movie): Michael has disappeared. The mother and daughters are convinced they see him standing in the rain, playing a harmonica. They move closer to investigate--and he’s gone. We snap cut to a shot at the bottom of the cellar stair, where the youngest daughter, Margaret, screams as the graveyard’s caretaker throws a knife at her. He misses.

Another jump cut back outside, and we hear a disembodied male voice: "Then who killed Elizabeth?" The youngest daughter is suddenly with the others (beamed out of the basement by Scotty, perhaps), running toward Michael, who stands in the rain playing that damned harmonica.

The question ("Then who killed Elizabeth?"), asked by a voice out of nowhere, is the capstone of the sequence. I suppose we should be happy it has something to do with the plot, since none of the action seems to, but it did leave me wondering who might be hanging out in the editing room with a bottle of malt wine after hours.

And besides…didn’t we learn earlier that Elizabeth died in childbirth?

The whole thing goes beyond disjointed, zooms past confusing and lands smack in the middle of nonsensical. Hey, what just happened? If anybody out there knows, please drop me an email. I’ll sleep better.

The "story" (term used loosely) is told in flashback, but there are flashbacks within the main flashback, which is sort of like riding a carousel backwards while drunk. We do find out that, while Elizabeth suffered horrible pain in her childbirth, none of her sisters would come to her aid, presumably because they were all jealous of her relationship with pretty-boy Michael. Nice family.

Fowles, the caretaker, babbles something about the next "cycle." It sounds like a plot point, so I fix on it…a vain hope. It’s never explained. What cycle are we talking about here? Is this the second or third time the Count has been resurrected? I thought it was the first.

I’m feeling a bit woozy. Maybe I should lie down. Am I writing this in present or past tense? Are we all, in fact, just flashbacks in somebody else’s movie?

Hopefully not this movie. Please, God, not this movie.

Harrison, Doctor Kinberg‘s assistant, seems unable to offer much help. "Summing up," he says, "we have a doctor suddenly becoming very rich, Elizabeth Sherrington’s head found outside her tomb, and a scientist who disappears at the height of his career."

Huh? Oh…well, I’m glad he said that. Now I have three facts I didn’t have before.

One thing I really liked about the film was Doctor Kinberg’s nifty high-tech machine that allowed him to identify the partially decomposed remains of Elizabeth Sherrington’s head. This is pretty cool stuff for a decidedly pre-CSI 1963…although why he’s bothering with it is anybody’s guess, since everyone knows it’s Elizabeth’s head. Her husband is the guy who finds it. He talks to it, for God’s sake. Calls it by name.

Mister Harrison strolls through the cemetery. "It seems a wonderful day to visit the dead," he tells Fowles. So we add Mister Harrison to our Twisted and Possibly Evil list, a verdict bolstered by the following passage of dialogue:

Fowles: Mister Harrison? How did you get into the cemetery? The gates were closed.
Harrison: Mister Fowles … how does the wind get in?

Well, the wind blows… but I don’t think that’s what Harrison was getting at. Anyway, the whole thing’s hysterical because Harrison was there for a funeral. One might guess that, when funerals are held at the cemetery, they open the gates. Hey, I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong about everything I’ve told you about this film … but you’d never be able to prove it, so I don’t feel too bad.

I just feel a little dizzy, is all.

Next we have a scene where Doctor Lexter (the other mad doctor) takes advantage of Lady Anne, who makes love to him even though she hates him. Lexter is far nastier than Kinberg, who is cerebral, detached and analytical. Lexter vicious and conniving, blackmailing Lady Anne. He has her sign some papers, so obviously he holds something over her head. And, surprise, surprise, we actually find out what it is!

But I’m not going to tell you. Oh no. I had to sweat it out and so will you. At least you won’t have to watch it three times.

Doctor Kinberg never reappears after the scene with the cool CSI gadget, and Lexter gets killed by the creature. So much for mad doctors…and consistency…and character logic…

Only in the last few moments does the film attempt some halfway rational explanation of events. By that time I was too confused to care much. I was just happy to see the end credits roll. For the third time. There will not be a fourth. I don’t know if I’d walk away from it.

There’s much, much more I could deal with. Mysteries left unexplained. Why is a woman on a train carrying nothing but a dead pig in her suitcase? Why does Michael think that stupid harmonica is cool? Who the hell said "But who killed Elizabeth," when Elizabeth died in childbirth?

I have no idea. Neither will you. But man, those cemetery shots are awesome!

Thanks, Dave.  Yup, for sheer head-scratching and fast-forwarding opportunities through the frequent boring talky bits, Graveyard Of Horror has few equals.  For a Seventies horror flick there's amazingly little blood and gore to spice up the tepid proceedings.  And the "payoff" at the conclusion is just a quick glimpse of an actor in one of the least convincing monster getups since Creature From The Haunted Sea.  But, yeah, the sets are great... someone needs to make a real horror movie around them someday.   

Article copyright © Dave Duggins

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