Night of the Damned (1971)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

We start off with amateur sleuth Jean (or something) settling down for a cigarette and some wine while his woman cleans the house when he receives a letter from one of his long lost friends: a certain Guillaume de Saint Lambert. At first it sounds like Guillaume has consumed large amounts of LSD before writing the letter, but then Jean uncovers some ridiculously complex clue: "If we take the first letter from each word it refers to the works of Buadilliare, and the date is wrong so if we add that together…" These days that letter would have been thrown in the recycling while we all slope off to check if anyone has liked a picture we uploaded of a shoe.Clue uncovered, the duo head off for the standard creepy old castle! Yeah! It's Gothic horror time again, but this film is set in the seventies, so how are we going to get that 'gothic' feel? Easy! Guillaume de Saint Lambert has gone insane and thinks he's living three hundred years in the past and has gotten rid of anything electrical, but kept those old suits of armour, all the cobwebs, and of course, many,many candles. At least that's what his creepy wife whose definitely not a witch tells Jean when he arrives. Saint Lambert tells a different story, saying he's uncovered the truth and there's a curse on the family and he's a bit tired so he'll tell the rest of that story tomorrow morning before selfishly dying without revealing his wife is a witch. Meanwhile Jean's wife is getting obsessed with a picture in their guest room that depicts a witch being burned. Now and again some real flames start appearing and freaking her out – sometimes on the picture, and one time in the glass of booze she was drinking – I think that might be the local grappa, love. Turns out the witch is killing off all the Saint Lamberts, including his female cousins, whom she has brought to her naked of course by other naked women so she can claw at their boobs and then dump their bodies elsewhere. There's also a zombie involved and a bit of Sapphic love involving Jean's missus while he's off trying to solve the mystery of how to kill off an immortal witch (she actually tells him how, psychically, I think, which was rather unwise). You all know from watching Hammer Horror films that when some immortal creature is defeated they then go through a quick stop-motion aging process before turning into a skeleton, but here the witch goes through the hilarious aging process, then explodes! Then something else explodes that the budget couldn't show so we just get Jean looking at it! If you like bad movies this one is worth seeking out, or not, as I've just told you the whole plot.

Typical for the period horror film, Night of the Damned features a castle, a curse, some nudity, and a few murders (mostly off screen). A reporter visits a sick friend who believes himself cursed. Relatives of the friend are being inexplicably bumped off under strange circumstances. Is this a supernatural phenomenon or the result of an all too human inheritance plot? The film goes down easy enough but is not overly memorable. The color cinematography is warm but there is little atmosphere. The trippy climax is enjoyable but the film could have used more psychedelia. Bottom line: die hard fans of Euro-horror might want to give Night of The Damned a look. Don't expect The Reincarnation of Isabel/Black Magic Rites - a much wilder ride.

Famed journalist Jean Duprey (Pierre Brice) and his wife receive a letter from an old friend, Prince Guilluame St. Lambert, imploring them to come to his castle at once. The Prince fears he's dying from a curse placed on his family three centuries before but his beautiful young wife, Rita (Angela De Leo) is convinced he's merely losing his mind. St. Lambert tells Duprey he's found out something horrible in the library and when the journalist investigates, he discovers one of his friend's ancestors had a beautiful young woman burned at the stake back in 1650 and insanity and death have plagued every generation since. The terrified Prince dies in his sleep and is interred in the family crypt but soon after, the body of a young woman is found near the castle drained of blood. The police ask Duprey to stay on and help solve the crime as his wife, who's been begging to leave, falls under a strange spell...Despite the low budget, there's some good Gothic atmosphere with the gloomy, candelabra-lit castle providing a perfect setting with plenty of armor in the hallways and windstorms that billow the draperies all night. It's revealed early on that the Prince's haughty wife, Rita (a big-haired Cynthia "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls" Myers clone), is the witch and she sacrifices her victims during Satanic rituals by raking her nails down their breasts. There's no graphic gore but a bit of nudity and lesbian overtones help compensate and, at the end of the day, NIGHT is enjoyable, juvenile nonsense that doesn't overstay its welcome. Undiscriminating Italian Horror hounds will probably appreciate the effort put forth provided they don't expect too much.

The other comment here could not be serious. This title deserves all the attention a cult movie should. It has all the elements proper to the genre it represents. A witch, a castle, a malediction, an 'investigator of the occult', some morbid sexual themes, a rich and grainy photography focused on warm and thick colors like red and orange so that it resemble that of another great movie: 1962's Riccardo Freda's masterpiece "L'orribile segreto del dottor Hichcock". The plot could not be so original but this is not the main thing to appreciate in a product like this. Remember: it was filmed in 1971 on a low budget. If you're into Jess Franco or Mario Bava don't hesitate to search for this movie, it will worth the time and money. To me it's an 8/10.