Jacinto Molina as Gotho carrying Elena Arpon in one of his best acting performances

US Mya Communication DVD edition

Finally i got to see this much talked about cult movie and the news about Jacinto Molina/Paul Naschy's death, R.I.P. 2009, has reached us.
The sympathetic horror maestro, The Wolfman, The weight-lifting champion, died of cancer november/december 2009, and i watched this
DVD in january 2010. Even though Naschy may have acted in better films, as "El Gran amor del Conde Dracula" or "Los ojos azules de la
muñeca rota" i think his portrayal of the hunchback are one of his best, if not the best.
The film was a bit trashier than i thought but the performance of Naschy wasn't trashy, even though he portayed a limping hunchback in a
B movie. "The Hunchback of the Morgue" is a classic Spanish Gothic horror á la Frankenstein in Spanish 1970's clothing, and Naschy/Molina
gives it a melancholy romantic streak and he manages to appear stylish in his role even though the other actors gladly are hamming it up.

This is the Spanish version of the film and the short nude scene can therefore be found in the Extras, but it contains a whole lot of Gore,
and Warning to the Animal Lovers, and a scene with jumping rats put on fire, poor things (sadly there were no CGI for such scenes then).
The film is as usual with 1970's horror films supposed to take place outside of Spain, in Tyrol, Austrian Feldkirch (?) but is actually shot in
Lleida/Lerida in the Catalan Pyrenees. You could make Horror movies in the Generalissimo Franco 1970's Spain, but not with too much nudity and
it could not take place in Spain, the stories had to be played out in dirty degenerate countries, often in faked French or British settings.
(Ha, ha, Miguel Madrid joked a bit about this in his obscure oddity the 1974 "El Asesino de muñecas" (read more about this film on my Horror
Film Page 3) where he set the story in France, but all action took place in the Gaudi Park Guell in Barcelona, something apparent for every viewer).

Naschy plays the hunchbacked Wolfgang Gotho and he's despiced and taunted by the villagers. He's working at the Hospital Morgue (or at
the Pathology ?) as a janitor and he has fallen in love with the sick in her lungs and dying Ilse (Elena Arpon) who he visits daily and gives
fresh flowers (which he has picked in the Hospital park). Naschy is gripping in his care of Ilse, but she finally dies and the Mad Doctor Orla
(Alberto Albes), who experiments with re-animating the dead, promises Gotho to bring Ilse back from the dead if he only provides him with fresh
dead bodies to experiment on.

A lab is set up deep below ground in secret catacombs with acid baths, prison cells and a lot of rats. There are a Dr. Tauchner, his girlfriend Dr.
Frieda Meyer (Austrian genre icon actress Maria Perschy, acted in lots and lots of Spanish Golden Era trash movies), Dr. Elke (played by
Rossanna Yanni) and finally there's .... The Turd Monster !? Ha, ha, the look of that one was slightly anti-climactic.

anamorphic widescreen, spanish audio mono with english subtitles (or an Italian or English dub) Extra: Alternative scene with some nudity,
US trailer, US credits, German credits, Italian credits, picture Galleries



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