Director: León Klimovsky (as Leon Klimovsky)
Writers: Paul Naschy (screenplay) (as Jacinto Molina), Paul Naschy (story) (as Jacinto Molina)
León Klimovsky's Vengeance of the Zombies draws from many sources. It presents a jaw dropping mashup of Hindu mysticism, Satanism, and Voodoo, plus references to the Kali Death cult thuggees and a nod to the writings of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. This willingness to clump all sorts of horror sources together in one movie was a trademark of Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter Paul Naschy (who provided the screenplay). A truly admirable quality from Naschy's large body of work, as uneven or downright weird as it could get, was his love of the genre. He truly was a Glenn Danzig before there was a Glenn Danzig.
American audiences may know Naschy best for his Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies, of which he made a dozen a 35 year period. He also turned out a high number of other horror films, portraying Dracula, a mummy, Fu Manchu, an evil sorcerer named Alaric de Marnac and many others.
Often he played multiple roles in the same movie. In Vengeance of the Zombies, he plays three separate roles, Krisna, a Maharajji-type Guru in London, his horribly scarred, evil twin brother, Kantaka, and in a dream sequence, Satán himself!
Plot-wise, Vengeance of the Zombies is very similar to Gordon Hessler’s 1969 The Oblong Box with Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Although colonialism was a thing of the past in 1973, Vengeance of the Zombies focuses explicitly on European privilege running afoul in countries that are being exploited. Kantaka, a young Indian man, falls in love with the young daughter of a powerful, English family. He rapes and murders her. The family and two other families take the law into their own hands and attempt to kill him by burning down the house he is hiding in. Of course, as these things go, Kantaka does not die and returns years later to extract his revenge and gain immortality.
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| Creepy, yet sexy zombies abound as they sashay around in slow motion, bare breasted under the thinnest of shrouds, their face green and frozen in a gruesome rictus. |
Paul Naschy's films are always interesting, although sometimes they trip themselves up with their own melodrama. Characters fall in and out of love with each other in a seemingly random fashion. While Krisna starts out to be in love with his assistant Kala. It is obvious that Elvire (last survivor of Kantaka's vengeance) prefers Krisna over Lawrence, her current boyfriend. The problem with Kala is, while she loves Krisna, she is also serves his brother in his plot to extract his revenge and gain immortality. In order to achieve immortality, Kantaka has to sacrifice a woman who is loved by his brother for reasons that are not explained. Of course this works to Kala's advantage when Krisna throws her over and declares his love for Elvire. And what about Lawrence? Well, he takes an unexpected and unexplained detour with some girl that he hit with his car out in the country while driving to rescue Elvire from Kantaka.
Spanish horror films of the 1970s attempted to bridge the gap between Gothic, old world, velvet-waist coat and brocade style horror films like the ones that Hammer Films made a name for themselves producing, and the modern world. One cannot get much more old school than calling on Kali and Satan. Yet Vengeance of the Zombies takes place in 1973 in London. The movie has a very modern, R&B style soundtrack and begins with a series of 2nd unit shots of familiar, London landmarks such as Big Ben and the London Bridge. This was a year after Hammer tried to integrate Count Dracula into the modern world in Dracula A.D. 1972. Even though that movie took also took place in swinging London, Dracula himself never left the ruined church where he was resurrected. In Vengeance of the Zombies, while Elivre is struggling against Kantaka at the Devil’s Mansion, Lawrence, a psychologist is helping Scotland yard investigate and solve the supernatural murders and grave violations that have been taking place.
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