"After all, let's not take it too seriously. In the end, it's only a horror movie."
    With these words, Paul Naschy, Spain's greatest horror star, gleefully introduces what many feel is his finest film, 1972's Horror Rises from the Tomb, in this very welcome DVD from BCI. It's hard to argue with him, too. This is a horror movie, all right, and doesn't worry its grisly little severed head over anything more than living up to that billing in frame by blood-soaked, atmosphere-laden frame.
    Horror Rises from the Tomb, written by Naschy (under his real name of Jacinto Molina) and directed by the late Carlos Aured, was one of my earliest introductions to Naschy, when it popped up on local television in the late '70s. I wouldn't come to know of Naschy's importance to Spanish horror cinema until the videotape era touched off an explosion of interest in foreign horrors and the creative forces behind them. Still, there was no denying the strange, unsettling otherness of this film as I watched it in a dark room, illuminated only by my portable black-and-white TV set. There was no question that HRFTT was cut from some other cloth than that of the American and British classic horror films with which I was already well familiar. Though the nudity was excised from this broadcast print, a fare amount of its excessive violence and gore was shown intact. What really stood out to me was a palpable coldness the film conveyed to me — a feeling not just due to its snowy setting and bleak mountainous landscapes, but a chill that came from the stone crypt walls and from the wicked visages of Paul Naschy and Helga Liné as the unforgettably perverse pair of villains. Quite literally, the cold of a hopeless, lifeless tomb permeated this gem of Grand Guignol.
    In the film's prologue, set in 15th century France, an evil pair of lovers are about to be executed for their debaucheries. One is Alaric de Marnac (Naschy), and by his side is the equally evil Mabille de Lancre (Helga Liné of The Loreley's Grasp). Presiding over their execution is Alaric's brother, Armand (Naschy again), and Andre Roland (Vic Winner). The condemned sorcerers — who are also vampires and lycanthrope, according to their death sentence — spit curses upon the descendants of their executioners, until the headsman carries out his grisly duty and relieves de Marnac of his head. Mabille de Lancre is then stripped, strung upside down from a tree, and butchered... and all this before the opening credits!
    As the story proper begins, we find that the descendants of Roland and de Marnac (Maurice and Hugo, respectively, played again by Vic Winner and, for a total of three roles in the film, Naschy!) are best friends living in modern-day Paris. Maurice, an artist, is haunted by visions of intensely staring eyes, and is trying to capture his nightmare on canvas. The somewhat roguish Hugo arrives with news that Maurice's girlfriend, Paula (Cristina Suriani), has arrived from Germany. At a dinner party given by Hugo's girlfriend Sylvia (Betsabee Sharon), some mutual friends invite them all to a séance. Hugo is skeptical about the proceedings, but for a lark decides to attend in order to try and communicate with his legendarily evil ancestor. The séance is held, and Alaric de Marnac speaks through the medium and reveals that his head and body are buried beneath the monastery grounds of the de Marnac estate, and that he cannot rest until the two parts of his corpse are reunited. Meanwhile Maurice, who has refused to go to the séance, is inspired by de Marnac's ghost to paint a gruesome portrait of a headless de Marnac holding the severed head of Hugo! When the painting begins to bleed real blood, Maurice snaps out of his spell and destroys the painting while de Marnac's spirit just laughs it up. To say this occurrence is a hint of things to come would be an understatement. In response to Maurice's troubling visions and the events of the séance, Hugo suggests that the two couples get away from it all via a trip to his family grounds, and while there they can attempt to locate the head of Alaric de Marnac. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...
    One of the common themes in a Paul Naschy story is what happens when people with modern sensibilities encounter Old World justice and violence, and our protagonists in HRFTT are thrown almost immediately into this kind of conflict as they drive through the snowy hills of Hugo's homeland. They are beset by highway robbers, and during the fight Hugo's car is wrecked. They are then saved by local vigilantes who don't seem to be much of an improvement over their former attackers. Led by the sinister Andre Gover, the vigilantes brutally execute the robbers on the spot and eagerly eye the wad of money Hugo carelessly exposes when paying for another automobile. Glad to have escaped unharmed, the quartet arrive at Hugo's home, which in Hugo's absence has been inhabited by the caretaker, Gaston, and his daughter, Elvira (Emma Cohen). Elvira is a childhood sweetheart of Hugo's, and in no time Hugo begins ignoring Sylvia and seeking Elvira's bed. The search for the head of Alaric de Marnac begins in earnest, and de Marnac's influence guides Maurice directly to its place of internment. The chest containing the head is unearthed from the monastery grounds. That night, two of Gover's henchmen come to steal the chest, but just as they open it, they are discovered by Gaston. De Marnac's head is still very preserved and very much alive, and he commands one of the thieves to kill Gaston and the other thief. The remaining thief, still in hypnotic thrall to de Marnac, hides the chest inside the crypt under the monastery.
    While Hugo dallies with Elvira, the household around them quickly falls under de Marnac's influence, and those who aren't slaughtered end up as entranced accomplices in de Marnac's grand scheme. As you might have guessed, de Marnac has no interest in being "at rest", but rather intends to resume the grand ol' time he was having at humanity's expense in the old days. He also wants his partner-in-slime Mabille at his side again. Gaining possession of both Maurice and Paula, de Marnac has them kidnap Sylvia and bring her to the tomb. In two very effective and creepy resurrection sequences, De Marnac's body is unearthed by the hypnotized Maurice and reunited with his head, followed by the sacrifice of Sylvia, whose body is absorbed by the bones of Mabille de Lancre. Mabille returns in the lovely flesh, and the reborn sickos waste no time in descending upon the village for a spree of sex and bloodletting. Their victims return as zombies (and if the zombies in HRFTT look familiar to you, it's because the makeup artist, Julian Ruiz, also worked on the wonderfully fun Spanish film Horror Express) and besiege Hugo and Elvira. As the couple arm themselves with emblems of Thor's hammers (a nice variation on the usual crucifix-as-protection) and prepare to stand alone against the darkness, the stage is set for a finale of heart-ripping, beheading, depraved sexuality, and more heart-ripping. In fact, there are so many bleeding hearts on display in this DVD, it might make the perfect Valentine's Day gift for that special someone. Enjoy!
    Horror Rises from the Tomb, for me, is the best cinematic equivalent of the horror-comic magazines in the early '70s, particularly those released by Eerie publications and Skywald Horror-Mood. Lurid and psychedelic, with a uniquely twisted inner logic and without the classic EC comics' sense of moral justice, (and, tellingly, having a considerable number of Spanish artists and writers) these magazines share with HRFTT similar shocking violence and sensuality. Naschy and Aured's film seems to strain and rend at the conventions of traditional gothic horror films just as these horror magazines were carving their own niche apart from the EC, Marvel, and Warren comics of their day.
    It was the directorial debut of Carlos Aured, and while his style isn't flashy, it is never less than assured, providing many memorable images and inspired camera setups. The film does threaten to go off the rails at times into a pure catalog of shocks, but in Naschy and Aured's hands, it all holds together. Not only that, HRFTT avoids the languidness that one often associates with foreign horror, and is one of the best-paced European horror films of its era.
    Naschy wrote the script under such a deadline that he could only complete it by popping pills and staying awake for hours on end, which no doubt accounts for its fever-dream quality. However, the script differs remarkably from what one thinks of as a typical Naschy scenario. His films often depict the results of curses placed by ancestors upon their descendants, but it's interesting here that the influence of de Marnac falls not upon his direct descendant played by Naschy, but rather upon Vic Winner's character, Maurice. Naschy's Hugo is, in fact, more of a supporting character, though for a time during the film it appears he might become the central figure. Naschy's most famous creation is, of course, Waldemar Daninsky, the human cursed with lycanthropy whom Naschy portrayed in numerous films. Daninsky is always presented as a sympathetic character as a contrast to the ravening werewolf he becomes under the full moon. HRFTT gives Naschy a chance to portray not only a purely evil character (which he does with great leering, eyebrow-arching power), but even Hugo is a less heroic, less admirable man than Daninsky. The ambiguity carries over to the rest of the film, in fact, and one of HRFTT's strengths is the manner in which we are kept guessing who of the many protagonists will survive, become a servant of evil, or be the last man (or woman) standing. Naschy would portray Alaric de Marnac one more time, in Panic Beats (1982), which also features a Naschy script that twists character expectations and subverts the viewer's expectations. It is as though the evil influence of de Marnac (who Naschy based on the real-life mass murderer Gilles de Rais) has willed Naschy to some of his most challenging work as a scenarist.
    Naschy never failed to surround himself with beautiful women, and the cast of HRFTT is no exception, but let it be noted that the actresses in his films are never generic nor are they ever just window-dressing. Quite often, a woman in a Naschy film will become the true hero of the story. Since all the actresses in HRFTT are convincing and hold their own, it adds to the uncertainty of just who will be the most vital to the story. Helga Liné, who had mostly done comedy up to this point, is every bit as icily, creepily demonic as Mabille de Lancre as Naschy is in his portrayal of de Marnac. As Elvira, Emma Cohen has a sad, haunted quality that becomes all the more crucial in selling the story as the bodies pile up around Elvira and she finds herself increasingly fighting the battle with evil by herself.
    Horror Rises from the Tomb deserves to be mentioned along with the likes of Witchfinder General as a pioneering example of the blending of classic horror with 1970s nihilism and brutality. As those '70s horror comic magazines often said... Miss it not.