This movie had lots of cool posters. I couldn't pick just one (sue me, I'm a huge nerd). I've wanted to see this movie for years, ever since I read an article that named it one of the greatest vampire movies ever made. It was extremely rare and hard to find, the kind of movie you can only buy used for like $100, so until it was re-released in recent years, I couldn't find this movie to watch it. I've discovered that sometimes movies are "rare and hard to find" because they suck and no one really wants them, so I was glad to find this movie on Shudder where I stream it and decide for myself if it was worth shelling out a lot of money to see it.
This movie is always described with words like "nightmarish" and "artful" and "psychedelic," which is sometimes code for "weird and confusing and annoying." It's definitely got a strange plot. So get this. The movie is about a group of seminary students on break who wander drunkenly around the countryside, seeking shelter for the night at the secluded house of a cranky old woman who seems to have magic powers. She torments them for awhile, until one of them kills her, but ut turns out that she's actually a young maiden and not really an old woman, and even though no one knows the seminary student is the one who killed the girl, he still must perform penance by sitting with her dead body in a church for three days and protecting it from evil spirits. I don't know what kind of drugs the filmmakers were on, but they must have been good.
The music for this movie is really strange. It's not horror-movie like creepy music the way you might expect, but really loud and spirited adventure movie type music, and quirky music that sounds funny and not scary. Basically just out of place for the kind of brooding creepiness this movie seems to want to evoke. I don't know, it seems like everything about this movie is just trying to be as weird as possible. Like the kid in elementary school who thinks he's cool and edgy because he swears a lot. It reeks of trying too hard to be cool.
I guess the acting isn't bad, but the main character is annoying, and I wanted to punch him in the face. The dialogue is dubbed, and I usually prefer subtitles, but in this case the dubbing sounds mismatched and out of place, which actually works for this movie. The characters do a lot of drinking throughout the movie, and I'm jealous and wish I could drink vodka with them.
The movie doesn't really even start having a point until it's been on for like 40 minutes, which is really annoying. There's "slow burn" plot development, and then there's "dragging the plot to death because we have no idea what we're doing." Guess which one fits this movie better. At least once we get to the church the movie finally gets going and some scary stuff happens. The actress who plays the dead girl is really creepy. The music is still too loud and annoying and it I didn't duipenfoverpowers the scary scenes, but at least there's a glimmer of why people might say this is a great vampire movie. The ending packs a punch too. It might even have been great if it weren't for horrible musiv. It's not enough to save the movie for me, though. There is some cool imagery, but otherwise, this movie is silly and annoying. I'm so glad I didn't spend a ton of money on this back in the day. I would be really pissed right now instead of just being bored and tired.
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