I finally caught up with this extended telling of "The Wurdalak" which served as the middle tale of Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH/THREE FACES OF TERROR. Nicolas (Gianni Garko of SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK, father of current Italian leading man Gabriele Garko) plays a businessman whose car breaks down in a wooded shortcut when he swerves to avoid hitting a woman who disappears after the accident. He makes his way through the woods to the home of Gorca and his family who have recently buried his dead brother who had taken up with a witch. There Nicolas meets Sdenka (Agostina Belli of HOLOCAUST 2000) who he falls in love with while noting the strange behavior of the family. The next day while Nicolas' car is being repaired, he overhears Gorca telling his son that he is going into the woods "to finish it" and the son gives him until six that night to return or else he won't be allowed back in. The family and Nicolas wait until six for Gorca to return (during which time he has tracked down the witch and killed her with a wooden stake). He returns at six but none of the family are sure whether he has been transformed or not. The next morning they discover that Gorca left with niece Irina (Cinzia de Carolis of CAT O'NINE TAILS obviously modeled after the girl in NIGIHT OF THE LIVING DEAD). They search the woods but cannot find her. When Gorca returns that night, his son kills him and Nicolas watches as the corpse disintegrates. He leaves to tell the police and learns from one of the officers who grew up in the area of the various superstitions and is warned that if he loves Sdenka, he should go back and take her away from there before she is a victim of the wardalak (undead creatures who take victims not for food but for company). In the meantime, Irina kills her mother (Teresa Gimpera of such diverse projects as CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD and SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE) and she in turn kills her nephew/lover and it continues from there. Nicolas returns and finds only Sdenka remaining. But is she still among the living?

This is one of those Spanish/Italian co-productions that make it hard to decide which thread to post about it in. It has Italian leads, an Italian director and composer, along with Spanish co-stars, cinematographer, and apparently locations. The film has a Spanish rustic feel that is combined with distinctly Italian special effects (lacking the effective naivete of Spanish effects) and a very Italian score by Giorgio Gaslini (DEEP RED) which seems to also borrow cues from Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera's score for SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK. It's also amusing to hear familiar dubbing voices (including Carolyn de Fonseca) attempting Eastern European accents.

The film is framed as a flashback with Nicolas in the hospital as doctors try to figure out what happened to him. When an apparently human Sdenka (carrying a strangely empty purse) is brought to see him, Nicolas flips out. Its actually easy to forget the framing story as one is drawn into the flashback. Although it is based on a tale that also served as the basis for one of Bava's tales for BLACK SABBATH, this update seems to have also been inspired by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD in its pre-Fulci aggressive gore (by Carlo Rambaldi), boarded up houses, and attacks on cars placed in a gothic context (the past impinges upon the present in a grittier Spanish feel compared to the more slick Italian gothic throwbacks of the seventies). My only real complaint about the film is that it never makes sense of the flashback images that Garko sees in the opening minutes after he passes out and before he is shown in the hospital. A woman's face is blasted away, a beating heart is pulled out of a body, a maggoty skull, a nude woman. As such, with the exception of the woman, the other footage in that sequence almost feels like special effects make-up test shots inserted at that point to maintain audience interest.

Still, its a film worth of rediscovery. I haven't seen the Spanish DVD but its already been reported that its in Spanish only and is the censored Spanish cut.

Whoops. It should be the other way around, at least part of Gaslini's score seems to figure into the score for SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK.

Nice review Eric. Its a little masterpiece which still needs a proper DVD release. I am surprised no American company ever bother to pick it up.