Analysis
If you took a glance over the art work on this DVD you would be forgiven for thinking that this film contains hoards of undead creatures clawing their way up from the bowls of the earth just for the chance to chow down on a few juicy craniums. The title in itself is intriguing enough to want to spend an hour of so checking out. So, if like me, you are seduced by the very notion that you might get to see a good zombie movie, do not watch this film. The art work bears absolutely no resemblance to the movies real content. You have been warned.

Anyway, what we really have is a low budget european horror film that, in all honesty, was probably written, shot and edited while the whole crew were stoned. The story follows the beautiful Christina as she arrives in a strange town for the reading of her fathers will. She goes to stay with her estranged aunt and uncle in a castle in Monseratt. Local residence warn Christina not to go to the valley were the castle is situated due to an ancient curse that has killed everything there. She goes anyway and meets the very weird people who stay in the castle grounds. Now things go really cuckoo.

The problem with this film is that the story is never really compelling enough for you to want to stay the course. What happens on the screen is never explained, so you are left having to work thing out for yourself. Now this is no bad thing except you need to have the drive to want to figure things out, but the story is just so weak and weird that you will probably give up. If you study director Jess Franco's CV you will find it littered with examples of horror movies that most people will never of heard of, but this guys been at it for years. He is responsible for directing over 180 films since the 1950's and having seen this one I'm sure it is just a banana skin along the path of his career. The directing of the photography uses a technique that I have seen in many other 'classic' italian / french horror films which I find most annoying and that is the over use of the zoom lens. At just about any opportunity, the cameraman will wrench the lens round and back again until all the viewers get migraines at which point the film ends.

Due to the age of the film, we are treated to a fare amount of grain and scratching from the original print and being of european origin we have subtitles and unfortunately no english dubbing so read on my friends.

Key Area	Rating (out of 5)	Comment
Action		A few scenes involving Christina running away from various weird happenings, gives this a single point.
Thrills/ Tension		The music that makes up the sound track does at times make you sit up and watch when ever the tension builds, but it is very sparse.
Violence/ Gore		A severed hand is shown in one scene that works quite nicely. You also get a stupid 'vampire' moment were one of the castles inhabitants is supposed to be sucking blood from the breast of a blind women. Bizarre stuff.
Bare Flesh		Like all good European films, it has a fare amount of bare flesh. The highlight being the disrobing of the main female lead Miss Christina von Blanc.
Plot	None	Ridiculous and confusing are words not positively associated with a good story.

Verdict This film will only appeal to hardcore fans of Franco. To the rest of you, I fear your time could be wasted on this one. As I have said, do not be fooled by the DVD art work as it will mislead you into spending your money if you are a massive fan of zombie films.

Euro-nonsense