BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS

BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS

(A.k.a. SANGRE DE VIRGENES)

Argentina, the 19th Century. Ofelia (Susana Beltran) is engaged to be wed to dullard Eduardo, at the insistence of her aristocratic parents. The only problem is, she's secretly in love with outsider Gustavo (Walter Kliche). Following a showdown with her folks, she breaks the bad news to Gustavo - she WILL be marrying Eduardo, and therefore can no longer see her lover. Hmm. He has other ideas.

Come the wedding night, Gustavo sneaks into the newly married couple's bedroom and reveals his true nature: he's a vampire. He proceeds to ram a dagger through Eduardo's neck and take a bite out of Ofelia. She too is now a bloodsucker...

Fast-forward to the 1960s and we meet a group of hippies doing what hippies did best at that time: dancing topless in Go-Go clubs, conversing at Beatnik bashes, making out in public and, er, skiing. Their party is led by plank-like Raul (Rolo Puente) and his pretty partner Laura (Gloria Prat).

When the van they're fooling around in with a bunch of mates runs out of petrol, they realise they're not far from a deserted castle which is said to be haunted. Of course, a gauntlet is laid down: dare the group spend the night there?

Yes, they dare. But they soon learn it's at their own expense when the place reveals itself as not being deserted after all. Raul falls under the spell of the undead Ofelia, while Gustavo and his young henchman set their sights on the group's female contingency...

Billed as "Argentina's first ever vampire film" (because there are LOADS of them, yeah?), BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS is a beguiling hybrid of the old and the contemporary, filmed in 1967 - on the cusp of a new wave in Horror cinema. It marries Gothic imagery and old-school theatrical performances with modernistic female nudity and explicit - for its time - gore. Combined with its lo-fi aesthetics and gleefully hammy script, it plays not unlike a Coffin Joe film of that era.

Written and directed by Emilio Vieyra (THE CURIOUS DOCTOR HUMPP), VIRGINS is short at 75 minutes in length and yet still manages to pad itself out on occasion with scenes of swinging hipsters which resemble segments from some tacky mondo movie. But, absurdly, it all adds to the cumulative effect: the film is a lot of fun, alternately goofy, crappy and filled with crude but striking genre iconography (coffins, vampire bats, buxom fillies under vampiric hypnosis etc).

Cartoonish opening titles suggest a lurid content that the film has no difficulty living up to. Dialogue is often quotable by virtue of its sheer lunacy. A clear devotion to the aesthetics of Hammer horror is endearing, even when it's offset by gratuitous jiving and boobies.

At the end of the day, what's not to like?

Cheezy Flicks are by now renowned for their lousy DVD presentations. So I was quite surprised by the quality of the transfer here. It's by no means without issue, but it did exceed my - admittedly low - expectations.

For a start, the film is uncut and looks pretty good for the majority of its run. Blacks are deep, colours are true and a decent amount of detail is offered. The print is fairly clean and bright, though the odd speck is evident throughout.

The big BUT is that the film is presented in 16x9 widescreen. This raises alarm bells because the Internet Movie Database lists the film as being shot in a 1.37:1 ratio, while the two previous Mondo Macabro DVD releases - in the US and the UK - afforded VIRGINS an accurate-looking 1.33:1 presentation. Here, images do look somewhat stretched from the off. The good news, if you can call it that, is that this isn't overly distracting once you get a few minutes into the film and it doesn't look as though any significant information has been lost from any edge of the screen. Still, it's a bizarre specification, given that most Cheezy DVDs are assigned to basic pillar-boxed presentations.

Audio-wise, we get the film's original Spanish mono soundtrack. It sounds fine, clean and clear. Perfectly legible English subtitles are burned-in.

This region free disc opens to a static main menu page, from which a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 11 chapters.

Extras are restricted to a 3-minute-and-38-seconds trailer reel showcasing forthcoming attractions in the form of I DRINK YOUR BLOOD, FRANKENSTEIN '80 and LISA AND THE DEVIL. If any of them look as poor upon release as they do here, it would be advisable to steer well clear of these titles. But, we'll wait and see...

So, BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS remains a joyously entertaining, trashy slice of prime hokum. Cheezy Flicks' presentation bemuses with its stretched 16x9 transfer, but otherwise looks clean, clear and vibrant. Oh, their cover art is very nice too.

Clearly, the Mondo Macabro discs are the best way to view this film (they also contain a pretty cool featurette). But, considering they're out of print and sell for a pretty penny online at the moment, this Cheezy Flicks release offers a cheap substitute for those who simply want to see the film

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Cheezy
Region All
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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