{"id":3598,"date":"2013-11-07T21:09:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T21:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3598"},"modified":"2013-11-07T21:09:55","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T21:09:55","slug":"night-of-the-sorcerors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/night-of-the-sorcerors\/","title":{"rendered":"Night of the Sorcerors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Night<\/a>
Night of the Sorcerors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Director : Armando De Ossorio
\nScript : Armando De Ossorio
\nMusic : Fernando G Morcillo
\nPhotography : Francisco Sanchez
\nEditor : Antonio Ramirez
\nProducers : Jose A.P. Giner, Luis Moreno
\nCast : Jack Taylor, Simon Andreu, Loretta Tovar, Maria Kosti, Kali Hansa, Jose Thelman, Barbara King<\/p>\n

A cheerily hokey Spanish horror movie, this is far from being one of De Ossorio\u2019s best films \u2013 perhaps reflecting the lack of mythological aspect that pervades his work elsewhere. However, it is still an enjoyably tacky feast of breasts, blood and bad dubbing; ridiculous, naive and disarming in equal measures.<\/p>\n

The opening sequence sets the tone for proceedings. Voodoo drums pound, \u2018natives\u2019 stagger around and the air is resonant with exotic mysteries. A nameless babe (Barbara King) is dragged into the picture, tied up and promptly disrobed by a shuffle-dancing dude who wields a mean whip. After she is laid down on a stone altar and decapitated the locals go mad, charging in for a chow down only to be mowed down by a troupe of upright European types. Then, just to ease us into a mood of robust silliness, the severed head does a nifty somersault (?!?) and hisses at the camera. Spooky!<\/p>\n

\"Hokey<\/a>
Hokey fun from Night of the Sorcerors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the credits play out to a pretty appalling 70\u2019s soundtrack we join an expedition of conservationists who are taking a trip into stock footage land. Internal conflicts within the group are soon outlined and they decide to set up camp near a deserted village. Deserted, that is, apart from the creepy Tebunga (Jose Thelman), a weaselly fellow in a dumb hat, who explains that the area is crawling with witches who carry out their ungodly rituals by night. With all the indifference of an idiot, Susan (Loretta Tovar) decides to amble around the cursed area after dark, and is soon doing the damned fandango with our undead friends.<\/p>\n

It is here that the fiendish plot becomes apparent; these particular sorcerers are manufacturing goths. Individuals are brought to their ceremonies as perfectly respectable human beings. When they emerge they have backcombed hair and too much foundation. Now that is truly scary. When daybreak comes, our surviving adventurers are left wondering as to what happened, their companions having withdrawn to a bedsit in Leeds with Bauhaus on the stereo and the curtains closed. Indeed, these creatures worship Marilyn Manson to such an extent that they drown Jack Taylor in his developing fluid for the horrible crime of having a colorful mustache. Eventually, everyone except for Rod (Simon Andreu) and Tanika (Kali Hansa) is drifting about looking for a provincial town centre where they can drink cider-and-black.<\/p>\n

\"Gothic<\/a>
Did I go to this party back in the 1980s? Very probably…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In many ways, Night of the Sorcerors<\/strong> is a lesser companion piece to the Blind Dead<\/strong> series. It has the same basic story line of pitting an isolated group against an unnatural foe. Where it fails, however, is in the fact that the voodoo vampires are a lot less visually startling than the Templars of the other films. Indeed, they seem to have emigrated from the cinematic oeuvre of another Hispanic director, Leon Klimovsky, who features slow motion, new wave bloodsuckers in a number of his unexceptional productions. He also has a tendency \u2013 as with this \u2013 to rely upon somewhat murky nighttime cinematography whereas some of the most powerful shots of the Blind Dead<\/strong>\u00a0series were those filmed in daylight. In De Ossorio\u2019s defence, however, it must be acknowledged that no one has made a great voodoo film that is set in Africa\u2026<\/p>\n

Apart from that, it\u2019s not all bad. There\u2019s a fine cast of Euro stalwarts including the undervalued Simon Andreu who cropped up in Paul Veorhoven\u2019s Flesh and Blood<\/strong> (1985). Jack Taylor is his normal sartorially splendid self and Kali Hansa cropped up in a couple of Jesus Franco movies around the same time. Fun, but nothing special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Night of the Sorcerors is an enjoyably tacky feast of breasts, blood and bad dubbing from Armando De Ossorio; ridiculous, naive and disarming in equal measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1105,1042,1117,560],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3638,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions\/3638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}