So here we go again with another lost foreign film, bought to life on DVD from BCI Eclipse. This time its the 1974 Spanish Exploitation flick The Night of the Sorcerers. A film that is more like talkie/porn flick than it is a horror film. However the good thing about it is that at least all the women in this film are beautiful, and of course nude. But that’s about all this film has to offer.
The Night of the Sorcerers starts off with some hot redhead tied up to a tree by a bunch of African tribesmen & women who with a whip, whip all her clothes off her until she is bare ass naked. Then they put her on a sacrificial table and cut her head off, only somehow after the British army attacks the tribe, her head grows fangs and is somehow resurrected. That whole scene was happened in the year 1910. In the next scene and for the rest of the movie for that matter we’re trusted into the 1970’s where a group of explorers arrive in Africa to study the local wildlife. If just so happens that their in the same area where this bizarre cult like event took place more than sixty years ago. All is well during the day time as the group of explorers which includes a few well dressed men and a bunch of hot women who like to be nude or hang out in their bra’s and panties; enjoy the sites and wonders of the jungle. However as night falls all hell starts to break loose as a zombie tribe and vampire women in tiger bikini’s reek havoc on the explorers in search of blood and more people to sacrifice.
The film was mainly shot in Spanish, but the DVD offer a dubbed track in English as well as subtitles. I opted to watch the film in Spanish, and I don’t even know how to speak the language, however I do understand it, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway what I found good about this film lied in the direction and acting. Both were actually pretty good and well worth noting. I really dig the casting directors decision on the women he cast in this picture. A really great business choice on the part of the producers to allow the casting of such great looking women. And not only were they good looking but they all knew how to act, which is a rarely among exploitation films. The male actors in this film, although very few, were also very good in their roles, but where all minor to that of the female parts.
The screenplay was a bit off, the writing is halfway decent, but where I question the script after the first scene was the lack of story there after. We are introduced to the characters in the first few minutes after the first scene of the film, but the characterization goes well beyond more than a half hour, before we start to witness the horrors of the film. During that half hour we’re really just exposed to men and women explorers and a few welcome nude shots of the women. The real horror does not really begin to take place until about forty five minutes into the story. Which by then we’ve developed a relationship to the characters just to watch the majority of them be killed off or turned into zombies or vampires.
The production value of the film was alright. You can tell where the movie cut from an on location set to a closed set on a studio stage. The woods in which they shot the film in looked nothing like the jungles of Africa at all, there are even some shots where pine trees are visible in the distance, which only tells me that this film was shot somewhere in Europe. however the set design was not half bad, although it was pretty basic for the time in which this film was shot.
The make-up effects in the film were kind of up and down. The vampire women looked very good and the blood effects looked great, however the zombie effects used on the tribesmen and women looked really bad. Most of the time where covered or wearing tribal masks, but a close up shot on their faces reveals really bad make-up work. Almost like the make-up artist told the actors to go roll their faces in mud.
Overall, Night of the Sorcerers is not a half bad flick. The DVD artwork alone is well worth buying the disc to make your DVD rack come to life with the great display of art that the cover gives off. The movie is actually not that bad, and I know in the past I always said that films with a lot of nudity and especially exploitation flicks are mostly pointless, and that I do; and still do find nudity in most films to be pointless. However this film did something right in it’s use of the latter. The girls were all good looking and the nudity was not so over the top that it took away from the story. With most Exploitation films there are usually sex scenes which take away from the story of the film, and for the most part are pointless. With this film the nudity just happens to be part of the story and there are no sex breaks in the film. Fans of Exploitation film and especially fans of early seventies European movies will probably find this film to be interesting.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
