The Vampires' Night Orgy [1972] [DVD]

A busload of tourists is stranded after their driver drops dead. They end up in a small village with no cars, no phones, and seemingly no people. A character known as the Major appears and offers our hapless travelers lodging at the only inn in town. Soon, the visitors become tasty snacks for a mysterious countess and her gang of bloodsucking freaks! Will anyone survive? Watch for the first victim, a Chuck Bronson clone with tall hair and a fleece-lined marlboro-man coat! Watch as the countess' giant servant butchers the locals for body parts! As a result, the inn ends up with a menu resembling the one in "The Undertaker And His Pals"! The little girl in VNO befriends a strange little boy who keeps disappearing. Is he a ghost? I was never quite sure. VNO is a fairly presentable little film along the lines of the (superior) Erica Blanc classic, "Devil's Nightmare". As a matter of fact, these two movies would make quite a double feature! I can already feel my saliva glands churning! Enjoy...

Disclaimer: The version of 'Vampire's Night Orgy' that I saw is included on a single disc, five movie collection titled 'Vampire Collection Volume 2', which is not available on Amazon in the exact format which I own. I cannot comment on the quality of the item as sold on this product page; my review is only concerned with the entertainment value of the film.

'Vampire's Night Orgy', directed by the incredibly prolific Leon Klimovsky (75 titles in 30 years!), and starring no one I've ever heard of, is, I think, a fairly typical example of cheap European horror films from the early '70's - the plot moves along in a predictable way, even as the characters often do inexplicable things, and there are moments that are almost creepy, followed immediately by developments that leave viewers scratching their heads. I believe it's rare for these films to get the release format that is going to put them in the best light, and we're probably never going to get 'director's cuts' or even unedited versions - one thing that must plague these releases is that they were chopped and censored even on their initial release, and the integrity of the films have never been restored. At least those are my guesses, since too often there are elements in these films that are unexplainable any other way.

This particular example of 'Euro-horror' doesn't stand out, but I don't think it's a complete write-off either. A busload of domestic workers are en route to a new employer when their driver has a heart attack and dies. Because one of the workers has her young daughter with her, the rest of the workers put the dead man in the back of the bus and tell her he is sleeping. Although I don't know what else they would do in this situation, the entire episode seems a little bizarre, but anyway...one of the soon-to-be handymen (who has an almost uncanny resemblence to Charles Bronson) takes over the driving responsibilities. Soon he comes to a crossroad - one way leads to their destination, the other to a town which is much closer. Logically, since they have a dead man in the back, the elect to go to the closest place and report their problems - and here is where the troubles begin.

It would be impossible to sell this movie to those that don't already enjoy these types of films, but I did like it in a roundabout way. When the workers pull into town it seems deserted, so they take it upon themselves to hole up for the night in the town's hotel - it isn't until the next evening that they meet any of the town's inhabitants. The explanation is that every single soul had been at the cemetery, observing a special service. Yeah, right. This is a movie titled Vampire's Night Orgy, after all. The workers eventually find out that the town is run by 'The Countess', who turns out to be the chief vampire - the rest of the citizens are more like sub-vampires who feast on the remains of her dinner...guests. Of course the viewer learns this well before the workers, who do eventually figure it out, one by one.

Strange quirkiness abounds; our hero first meets our heroine by observing her through a hole between the hotel rooms as she jammies up and gets ready for bed. Even after they meet, he continues to watch over her, which is creepy not in a vampiric way but in a creep kind of way. And even though our workers are outnumbered hundreds to one, the entire town goes to extreme lengths to cover up what's really going on - only after nearly all the normal people have been 'had over for dinner' do the last few decide it's in their best interest to leave town.

All in all, there's enough here to recommend it to viewer's who are already predisposed to cheesy seventies horror films from Europe (in this case, Spain). What's unfortunate is that there doesn't really seem to be a release that's worth spending much money on. My copy comes from a company called TGG Direct, or also known as The Garr Group. This transfer is extremely poor, with the lighting and sound almost making the action indecipherable at timees, and surveying other reviews, it sounds doubtful that any of the other editions are any better, including The Vampires Night Orgy (1973) [Remastered Edition]. It is also available on the Mill Creek Pure Terror - 50 Movie Pack - I've been pleased with the 12 movie packs of Mill Creek's that I've watched so far, so perhaps there is hope that they got their transfer from a better source. I wouldn't hold my breath though. What would really be interesting would be to watch this film with the night scenes visible and the original Spanish language track and subtitles - in other words, to see it how it was meant to be seen, and then compare it to other horror flicks. Such a copy probably doesn't even exist, and if it did, the cost might be prohibitive. After all, I bought this single DVD package with five films for around 8 bucks - even if I had more money than I knew what to do with, I probably wouldn't throw away 25 dollars on a restored special edition. The sad thing is that studios make a thousand copies of Pearl Harbor (Two-Disc 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition) and sell enough to get their money's worth, while Vampire's Night Orgy, even though it's no Citizen Kane, sucks the blood out of a film like Pearl Harbor and spits in its eye.

Don't let the title fool you - there's no orgy going on here, at least in the large group of naked people sense. Obviously, once you watch it, you can see that the title is supposed to refer to the gluttonous vampires, but even that's a little questionable. I would thing 'orgy' would mean over the top, but this is a much more sedate story about blood-sucking freaks than I might have assumed. Oh well, can't have it all. Besides, Vampire's Night Orgy is a much better title than 'Vampire's have nice table manners', or even 'Twilight'.

Normally I avoid buying Alpha DVDs because the quality is so variable. I took a chance on Vampires Night Orgy since it was cheap. What a surprise to find that it is actually a decent transfer, a real rarity for Alpha. And, despite the specs listed on Amazon, it is presented in a 2.35 letterboxed aspect ratio. The movie itself is a typically cheesy Euro horror film with a wildly inappropriate background score. But it is lots of fun and Helga Line makes a good vampire.

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