Hoping to enjoy Grizzly (1976) more than I ever have, which hasn’t been much, I recently loaded the Blu-ray into the machine and leaned back in my recliner to watch it. For a little more than half the film, I had two thoughts. First, it was better than I remembered. Second, it’s not as much…

Now comes Paul Naschy’s take on The Exorcist. He claimed the screenplay for Exorcismo (1975) was written before The Exorcist was released in 1973; however, some similarities between the two are so strong that it’s hard to deny the influence. If we don’t hold Naschy responsible, then it must be Profilmes, the production company desperately…

Devil’s Possessed (1974) is Naschy November’s first historical drama, although it’s light on historical fact. As the first of this style of film, it isn’t perfect, but instead hints at better things to come. Another collaboration with director Leon Klimovsky, I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m simply saying I’ve seen subsequent movies and they’re better.…

A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1975) gives us a Paul Naschy we haven’t seen before. He plays Inspector Paolo Scaporella, a tough, cigar chewing detective seeking redemption for a botched case by leading the investigation into a new one, the “Dragonfly Killer.” His character defies stereotype by being a faithful husband and staying on the…

We’ve talked before about how actors sometimes take roles simply for the money. There’s no shame in that. Paul Naschy himself said that’s what he did when he made Crimson, the Color of Blood (1973.) I tell you, though, it’s hard to find anything redeeming in this movie. Much of the time, if you consider…

The People Who Own the Dark (1976) is another non-Naschy, Naschy film. That is to say, he appears only on the side of the camera facing it. It’s a bit part, at that, but a pretty good one. The movie itself is tough to rate based on the less-than-prime print of the film I watched.…

Although it has some characteristics of a giallo, Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974) is more a thriller in the vein of Hammer’s mini-Hitchcocks. That is to say, it has more twists and turns than it does blood and gore, although the killer does remove the eyes from his/her victims and, you guessed, they’re…

If I was bad-mouthing director Javier Aguirre for my dislike of Count Dracula’s Great Love, he has redeemed himself with The Hunchback of the Morgue (1973.) We’re back to bat-shit crazy Paul Naschy films and this one is another monster mashup between the hunchback, Gotho (Naschy) and a mad scientist, Dr. Orla (Alberto Dalbes) who…

It’s been a good run. I’ve either liked each Paul Naschy film I’ve revisited this month as much as the first time I watched it, or more so. Now, though, I must face the truth. I don’t think I’m ever going to like Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973.) Because of this realization, the movie is…

In his memoirs, Paul Naschy said about his 1973 movie, Vengeance of the Zombies: When I wrote the screenplay, I must either have been under the effects of hashish or, like Bram Stoker, I’d had one hell of a nightmare. Maybe it wasn’t hashish but cheap wine. I wonder if it was anything like the…