The Vampires' Night Orgy (1973)

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 4!!!)

Last week I pointed out that The Long Hair of Death was the first Mill Creek movie to be shown in its correct aspect ratio. But that was only like 1.85:1 (if that). The Vampire’s Night Orgy (Spanish: La Orgía Nocturna De Los Vampiros) does it one better though – a full on 2.35:1 transfer!!!* The annoying little Mill Creek bug in the corner of the screen didn’t even obscure any film information!

Oh, and the movie was pretty damn good to boot.

I think Orgy (which doesn’t have any orgies, sadly, though there is SOME nudity) is the first film to combine the typical “breakdown” scenario with a vampire film. Our group is in a big bus and it breaks down, so they stop in vampire town. The bus actually breaks down a 2nd time and they have to return, which is something I really liked. Dual breakdownage! I also love how the group immediately begins to drink once they arrive in the town and discover it empty.

It also sort of unfolds like a slasher movie, with our good guys constantly going off by themselves and getting killed every 10 minutes or so. Also, the vampires behave sort of like zombies; rather than just one euro-trash head vampire and a couple of lackeys, like usual, it’s just a bunch of vague, hungry zombies, a la 30 Days of Night (except for the Danny Huston character), which was also a nice change of pace. It’s only 79 minutes long, but it’s a well paced 79 minutes, and I could have easily enjoyed another 10-20.

In fact, that may be possible. One thing the film didn’t really deliver on was the gore. It never really felt edited (music cues were not abruptly cut) but for a 70s Italian horror movie, it was relatively dry in this area. I did some light research, and only found someone claiming their version was 82 minutes, but otherwise it seems that the film is complete (it has the nudity; apparently the nude scenes all have alternate “clothed” takes, so I don’t see why they would be OK with nudity but not gore). Still, some of the kills were pretty cool anyway; my favorite was when a guy is seduced by a vampire girl, who then tosses him out the window to be eaten by a bunch of vamps waiting below. Awesome.

The end is stolen from 2000 Maniacs, of all movies. Our two survivors go see a cop, and tell them about their ordeal. He doesn’t believe them, so they lead him to the town, only to discover nothing there. However, a final shot reveals that the town WAS there and they are hiding. At first I thought it was going to be like Nothing But Trouble, where the cop turns out to be in on it, but oh well, can’t have everything.

Another thing worth noting – even though the film is obviously Spanish (even the credits are in Spanish – “Producida por”!), the dubbing is way above average. Some of it sounds a bit forced (as if they were pausing unnaturally to better match the original lip movement) but as a result, there isn’t any of the usual sort of “the guy is still talking but his mouth is already closed” action.

It’s rare I see a film on these MC sets that I would actually recommend for non ironic reasons; I’d even go out and buy the film on its own DVD if the image was better (widescreen or not, it’s still a bit washed out, as always) and had some good extras. I may tell everyone to watch Cathy’s Curse (the reigning champ of budget pack “finds”) but it’s a wretched movie. This one’s actually pretty damn good for real. Check it out.

Also, this is my 3rd movie in a row in which the monster type (Devil, Zombie, and now Vampire) was in the title. Cool. If possible, I’ll keep the streak going.

What say you?

*Someone on IMDB claimed that the transfer was in fact a full frame transfer that was then masked (black placed over the image) to only appear widescreen. This is completely stupid, as it would mean you were only watching the very center of the image (as it would be missing the left and right sides from the initial cropping, and then the top and the bottom from the masking). I think something like that would be noticeable, and thus an example is below:

ORIGINAL WIDESCREEN IMAGE...

...THEN CROPPED...

...AND FINALLY MASKED AGAIN?

No. Idiot.