Saturday, October 14, 2006

Loreley's Grasp


Loreley's Grasp
Original Title; Garras de Lorelei, Las

Directed by; Amando de Ossorio, Spain 1970
Horror / EuroGoth / Thriller
Distributed by: Midnight Video


Story:
Every night of the full moon the cursed demon Lorely [Helga Liné] prowls towns on the Rhein River in Germany. When an exclusive school for young women is attacked they employ Sigurd the Hunter [Tony Kendall] to protect them. But as he gets more and more involved he soon find's that there's more than meet the eye to the mysterious lizard like Lorely.

Me:
This is a true gem of EuroGoth horror. Made between the first two and last two Blind Dead instalments by Spanish horror director Amando de Ossorio, Lorely unfortunately lacks all the atmosphere and pathos of Blind Dead classics. But violent attacks, sexy ladies, tacky gore effects, and a suave heroic Tony Kendall make up for an otherwise quite cheap looking movie. Loads of seventies semi nudity, funky soundtrack, weird red herring decoy characters, including a blind village idiot, and an mysterious professor with a very basic chemistry lab, where he figures out the mystery of the Lorely, just seconds before being attacked and killed. There's even a hero's-love-interest-turns-out-to-be-the-villain sub plot too. But if you like cheesy EuroGoth, then you know what to expect, and this movie should be right up your alley. .

Image:

The presentation is in 16x9, and the colours are somewhat bleak, but this is probably due to source materials. There are Japanese subtitles burned into the print.

Sound:
2.0 Stereo, works like a charm.


Extras:
Japanese trailers for Franco's Female Vampire, De La Iglesia's Cannibal Man and a promotional reel for other Midnight Video collector's DVD titles.

Unfortunately it has come to be known in recent years that De Ossorio wasn’t pleased with any of his films after Malenka: la sobrina del vampiro1969, he considered them to be trivial nonsense, even his Blind Dead movies he looked back on with which is unfortunate as they have become true gems of EuroGoth horror.

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