|
Author
|
Topic: Lips Of Blood 200ft Derann extract.
|
Kevin Wardle
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 136
From: Durham - England
Registered: Jul 2009
|
posted August 05, 2009 03:01 PM
Lips Of Blood Colour/Sound Derann Extract
I saw this in the Derann Catalogue and was very interested. It said a "Sex and horror as a vampire mummy rapes and murders and young girl"! a bit strong, but never the less interesting. I bought the film from Perry's, secondhand. The film starts with a man and his chauffeur bringing a coffin of a mummy into a castle. A young girl arrives and has sex with the newly animated egyptian vampire! The vampire then sucks the girls blood and that's it. THE END.
It's quite a good extract really and has a little bit of atmosphere! Derann released a lot of euro horror and this is a good example.
This is what I got from imdb:
genuinely bizarre oddity of the Euro Horror fad from the early 1970s, a deservedly obscure ultra low budget attempt to make a vampire movie without a vampire.
The only version I have been able to see for myself is a somewhat ragged Spanish language print that has the trappings of a genuinely interesting film: Gothic location work galore, some demented shock sequences involving chains & manacles & vaulted crypt like dungeons, girls being abused and molested by some freak in a strange half costume, and an interesting aura of gloomy, autumn countrysides crossed with dank cloistered claustrophobia. Even if I don't understand the language it's a pleasure to look at.
There's some sort of story going on about a scientist (George Rigaud, looking respectable as always) who tries to tell a wandering occult expert (spaghetti western stalwart Frank Brana) about his efforts to revive the corpse of an Egyptian mummy who never quite decomposed after being shuttled into his coffin. He succeeds and quickly comes to regret it as the mummy starts to exhibit Christopher Lee like tendencies involving hypnotizing various supporting cast members to do his evil bidding.
One of the bizarre touches the film treats us to is the lack of a mummy costume. Instead we get a sort of 12th grade talent show production's vision of what an Egyptian sorcerer might have looked like before the gauze wrappings were applied. And once revived the fiend must glut itself on the blood of pretty half-naked Euro Horror babes who have been chained up by Rigaud's hypnotized servant.
Being a Spanish production from the early 1970s there were no doubt two versions made to appease dictator Generalissimo Franco's banning of frontal nudity from his cinemas during his reign, and sadly one of the few surviving home video versions was struck from a Spanish language print that doesn't contain the sexualized horror that this sort of material usually calls for. There's some adequate scenes of sadism on the part of the mummy that leads to the expected bloodletting, but something tells me we're only seeing half of the picture in this shaky 16mm Spanish print, and as such its somewhat difficult to assess.
There is one really effective sequence when the suitor of one of the abducted Euro Horror babes tracks her abductor down to the marvelously crumbled & dank castle (or castles, since some of the interiors have a decidedly French look to them, others look familiar from Spanish outings) and has to worm his way inside like Gollum, only to find himself pitted against an evil against which there is no real defense. The hopelessness of the situation is actually kind of compelling in a way, even if in the end it doesn't amount to much.
Fans of spaghetti westerns will probably recognize some of the Spanish & French countrysides used for the exteriors, and die hard fans of vaulted, decrepit Euro Horrors will probably be delighted by the results, which have been filmed with a unique sort of eye for detail including an interesting use of dissolves & editing segues. I wish I had a better idea what was going on however!
The Derann print was the usual standard for 1970's Derann 8mm prints. Murky colour, which by now would have faded. The sound was very crackly and poppy (from the optical sound master), but good.
This can be recommended! If anyone has a spare copy and want to sell it please E Mail me (I sold my print a few years ago).
Print B/C Sound A/B
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
