NaschyCast

Naschycast 69 - AGONIZANDO EN EL CRIMEN (1968

Bob Sargent returns to the show to discuss a very early Paul Naschy screen appearance. Rescued from Spanish language-only obscurity by the online fan-subbing community AGONIZANDO EN EL CRIMEN (1968) is a strange crime story centered on a serial killer obsessed with medical professionals - and their hands! This one is not easy to see but is it worth seeking out? Boy, do we have a lot to say.

 
Troy, Bob and I dig into the production of the film and how Naschy’s original job on this project was behind the camera. We spot a few interesting locations including a very familiar set of steps that are a big part of Naschy’s cinematic legacy. The film’s writer/star comes under scrutiny with Naschy’s pointed comments about fellow leaving no doubt about why these two men never worked together again. On the other hand, this movie’s director, Enrique López Eguiluz, played a major role in making Jacinto Molina into the horror movie star we know and love to this day.

 
We take our time and really pull this one apart with occasional sideroads into the Hammer Dracula films and the on-set shenanigans of Klaus Kinski. It can’t be helped! We have a lot to say about the Juan Logar’s wide-eyed, maniacal but still somehow detached performance. We chuckle over the casual 1960’s style of misogyny and the silly idea that a woman might become a surgeon. Madness! And it all circles round to an embarrassing discussion of how best to hide a murder boner. We are a strange trio.

 
We end the episode with a few new pieces of mail sent to naschycast@gmail.com and if you have anything you’d like to tell us, that is the place. Thank you for listening to the show and we’ll be back soon. 

Mini-Naschycast - Email Episode

This short show is comprised of two segments of Troy and I reading several emails and answering questions sent to the podcast. Many topics are hashed over.

 
Originally this was to be an even briefer episode but I waited long enough that more emails came in allowing us to add extra responses. Never say that procrastination doesn’t sometimes have an upside!

 
If you have any comments, questions or ideas about the show naschycast@gmail.com is the place to let us know. I think we’ll continue to handle new emails in this way as we go forward. Unless the listeners don’t like the shorter shows. We’ll see. Thanks for listening! 

Naschycast 68 - Bob Sargent Interview

The NaschyCast returns with a long episode to reward your patience.

 

Bob Sargent was the man behind the excellent 1990’s cult movie fanzine Videooze. His issue devoted to Paul Naschy was a major contributor to my early knowledge of the man’s filmography and allowed for fans to have a roadmap to his career. Mr. Sargent is a huge fan of Naschy and reached out recently to gab about our shared fascination with the great Spanish Horror icon. Of course, Troy and I couldn’t wait to get him in front of a Zoom mic and pick his brain about Euro-Horror in general and Naschy in specific. He was even kind enough to put together a list of his personal Top Ten favorite films by Senor Molina! This a is a lively conversation and it ranges over the decades and across a dozen different topics. You might even learn a little about how Videooze came about and who Mr. Sargent credits with pushing him into self-publishing.

 

If you have any comments or questions naschycast@gmail.com is still the address to send things to. We’ll be back soon with a short episode focused on answering a few emails.

Beyond Naschy #35 - SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY (1971)

Troy and I (finally) return with a new episode!

This time we dive back into the Franco pool of cool and look longingly at the luminous Soledad Miranda. SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY (1971) was the final collaboration between the young actress and Jess Franco before her untimely passing. While it is generally not considered their best film together it contains many scenes that display the brilliance that they could achieve. Soledad’s skills are on full display in her role as a vengeful wife extracting blood from the people who hounded her husband into suicide. As the story plays out, she runs the gamut of human emotions from deep concern and grief-stricken to seductively aloof and finally filled with violent rage. Her performance is mesmerizing and is carried out so well that she could have embodied her character without dialog and still communicated every nuance necessary to engage the viewer. She was a powerhouse screen presence and her loss is only more deeply felt when watching her in this film.

We dig into why we enjoy this film as much as we do with much attention paid to the strength of the central performance. We point to reoccurring plot elements within Franco’s work and his love of a certain visual metaphor involving boats at sea. We discuss the movie’s odd choice to rush past the possible mad scientist idea at the beginning to get to the righteous vengeance at the heart of things. We try to define what makes Soledad such a memorable screen actress even as this film refuses to even give her character a first name. Each of the murders is dissected as we try to understand what Franco might have had in mind as his story gains force, climaxing in a fascinating sequence in which the director is himself the victim. It certainly raises some questions about Jess’ sexual desires and points toward what might have been included in future unrealized projects.

We hope you enjoy the episode and if you have any comments naschycast@gmail.com is the show’s address. Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon. I promise!

Beyond Naschy 34 - REFUGE OF FEAR (1974)

Post-apocalyptic stories don’t turn up in the Golden Age of Spanish Horror as frequently as I would like and until a listener asked us about REFUGE OF FEAR (1974) neither of us were aware of it being part of that sub-genre. Of course, once we learned about the cast, we immediately tracked down a copy and here we are!

 
Also known as CREATION OF THE DAMNED the film tells the story of a small group of survivors of a possible nuclear war. These five people live in a cramped underground complex while trying to wait out the effects of radiation on the world above. The teenage son of one couple is obsessed with trying to stay in contact with the outside by shortwave radio. He lives in the hope that his girlfriend is somehow still alive but is becoming less sure of that possibility while the pair of married couples are having problems of their own. The husbands are ex-military so are using their training to maintain order but as the film begins tensions are in evidence. One wife drinks and knits while the other tries to sleep away as many hours as she can. Soon, the cracks that begin to appear in the walls of their concrete bunker aren’t the most dangerous breaks in their lives as mentally fragile people start to fracture.

 
REFUGE OF FEAR (1974) has a generally bad reputation which both Troy and I feel is a shame. We were drawn to see this film because it stars the wonderful Patty Shepard who, along with Craig Hill, appeared in a couple of Paul Naschy’s films. She and Hill have he most screentime and are good in their roles with the script giving them some juicy dramatic meat to chew on. The interesting script comes under discussion even as we try to not spoil the turns things take in the final act. We both feel that the director lets the film down a bit and we dig into the possible reasons for that. And we once again find a film that is richly deserving of a quality Blu-Ray release. I think this could be considered a much better film if a good print was made available. 

If you have any comments on the film or anything else naschycast@gmail.com is the address. Or we can be found lurking over at the show’s FaceBook page as well. Thanks for listening! 

Beyond Naschy #33 - THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS (1974)

The Naschycast returns to the films of Amando De Ossorio for a romp through the jungle!

THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS (1974) a.k.a. The Night of the Witches follows a small group of researchers seeking to document the endangered species of a fictional country in Africa. They make camp near a (miniature) village and then learn from a native about the supernatural history of the area. Of course, we have been made aware of the odd rituals of ‘Bumbasa’ in a prologue showing the kidnapping, rape and beheading of a British lady in 1910 on an altar that seemingly transforms her into a leopard demon! Or, at least, a fanged disembodied head that can turn and snarl at the camera! It’s a wild ride. 

Troy and I hack our way through the jungle foliage to get a good look at this strange little film. As he had done with his Blind Dead movies Ossorio is clearly trying to create a new monster of his own design. But the leopard demons offer some technical hurdles that the writer/director’s usual low budget is often unable to jump. We discuss the various forms in which we see the creatures onscreen trying to decide which of them is most effective. Since these three forms are simply leopard stock footage, fake leopard heads partially hidden by leaves and female members of the cast running in slow motion through the jungle night it can be difficult to make a conclusive choice. And Ossorio throws in enough sex and blood to keep an exploitation audience distracted from the inherent silliness of the pieces of his narrative that don’t always work. But where does this film fall in the legacy of this legendary Spanish horror filmmaker? We share our opinions and hope to hear yours. 

The podcast can be reached at naschycast@gmail.com where you can send your thoughts on this episode’s film or Amando De Ossorio’s career as a whole. We’d love to hear from you! Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon with more from the Golden Age of Spanish Horror. 

Beyond Naschy #32 - SLEEP TIGHT (2011)

Re-upload of this episode! Originally released October, 2020. 

 

Filmmaker Jaume Balagueró made the big time when he co-directed 2007’s REC but he is a much more accomplished than a found footage zombie film would imply. His feature film debut THE NAMELESS (1999) managed to both brilliantly adapt a Ramsey Campbell horror novel and find a smart way to darken the wrenching finale of the tale. Over the last twenty years he has become one of Spain’s hidden masters of taut thrillers and smart horror tales. The only complaint I have with his career is that I wish he had more completed films released but I continue to hope for more excellent cinema from him in the future. 

SLEEP TIGHT (2011) is both a thriller and a character study of a deeply unhappy man named Cesar. As the concierge of a Barcelona apartment building, he presents a pleasant face to the upper middle-class residents but behind this mask he seethes with rage at their contented lives. Since he is incapable of being happy, he staves off his suicidal ideation by finding ways to make the people he serves in the building miserable. In both small ways and large he wages a one-man war to make them uncomfortable, embarrassed or inconvenienced in any way he can imagine. But he reserves his most vicious attention for Clara, a beautiful single woman of such sunny disposition as to seem angelic. She is the focal point of Cesar’s most persistent activities aimed at making her life unbearable. His repeated failures to change her optimistic outlook seem to only enrage him further until he finally resolves to escalate things to violence. But will circumstances allow his plans to succeed?

 
Troy and I dig into this film and its themes but we do our best not to spoil the final act’s shocks and surprises. Indeed, we begin the show with a discussion of several recent viewings to get the Halloween season off to the right start. We touch on THE GHOST AND MISTER CHICKEN, THE OPEN HOUSE, THE CHANGLING, the remake of THE BLOB and our plans for 2020’s indoor October 31st. It’s been a strange year, folks. We end the show with a listener email that prompts a series of interesting horror icon mash-ups. 
We hope you enjoy the episode and if you have any comments naschycast@gmail.com is the show’s address. Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon.

Naschycast #67 - ALL THE SCREAMS OF SILENCE (1975)

The busiest years of Paul Naschy’s career were the early 1970’s. Moving from one project to the next at incredible speed he often finished one film while still writing the final draft of another and negotiating a deal for a third. During this period, he produced some of his best work including a large percentage of the movies that still define his image as a Spanish horror icon. But a few of his films from the 1970’s were thrillers that, for various reasons, were rarely distributed outside of Spain or even dubbed into English. This has made it very difficult to see these movies and for non-Spanish speakers to comprehend them in the rare instances of locating a copy to watch. Thank the strs for the fun-subbing community out there on the internet! 

Troy and I finally get a chance to see TODOS LOS GRITOS DEL SILENCIO (1975) and we are so happy that not even the crappy VHS sourced print can dull our enthusiasm. Yes, there are a few scenes that are a little too dark to be sure of what we’re supposed to be seeing but the fact that solid subtitles are onscreen means that we can follow the story anyway. And that turns out to be very important with this film because it is a twisty murder mystery that falls easily within the giallo genre even if it doesn’t have a few of the usual elements you might expect. ALL THE SCREAMS OF SILENCE has very little blood since the killer’s preferred method of dealing death is a silenced gun (hence the title) and the amount of flesh on display is low which might factor into this thriller being so underseen for the past forty plus years. No gore or nudity? What were they thinking? But the film does have a great performance from Naschy as a journalist chasing the bullet-slinging murderer while at the same time trying to locate his missing girlfriend. Are the two mysteries connected? With a script by Jacinto Molina you can bet some surprises are coming in the third act.

 
We begin the episode with some news about the upcoming Blu-Ray release of TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD and hint at a few more commentary tracks from the Naschycast down the road. Also, we mention a new podcast project coming soon from our buddy Adrian Smith that will be of interest to fans of European Cult cinema. And we end the show with several letters from listeners that put some fresh ideas in our head for possible YouTube projects too. If you have any comments on the podcast naschycast@gmail.com is the address and we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for listening to the show! 

Naschycast #66 - SHADOWS OF BLOOD (1988)

Years ago I decided that, because I did not want to watch SHADOWS OF BLOOD (1988), we would not cover it on the Naschycast. I could simply see no upside to wallowing in what we knew was commonly considered the star’s worst film. I suspected that it would be a painful and depressing experience so I opted to avoid it and instead seek out less reviled fodder for the show. But then a friend pointed Troy and I toward a humorous Australian podcast called Finding Desperado. In that show the hosts conduct a hunt for a lost film that eventually finds them bemusedly watching SOB as part of their research. After listening to the eight hilarious episodes of this podcast I realized that these two funny men had pointed the way toward covering this movie – puzzled confusion. So, we decided to finally dive into what I’ll forever refer to as Naschy’s Nadir. 

We dig into the genesis of this film starting with some details about the low career point that Naschy had come to by the mid-1980’s. We doubt that he would have participated in this shot on video ‘production’ if he had had anything better as an alternative but chance often leads the dance in movie making. We discuss Lord Sidney Ling who is the writer/director responsible for this film including his bizarre history as a fabulist of the highest order. Finding Desperado relates much more detail about this strange man and his self-aggrandizing nature but we concentrate on what might have influenced the poorly thought out ‘story’ he concocted for SHADOWS OF BLOOD. We trudge through the film trying to understand what might have been intended, occasionally getting lost in the dull sameness of the events onscreen. The sloppy narrative follows two escaped lunatics as they walk (and walk) around Amsterdam murdering random people in a competition to see who can kill the most victims. It is a mostly embarrassing exercise in senseless tedium that, even with its short running time, will test the most devoted Naschy fan. I’m just glad we finally have this one behind us!

 
We have a couple of emails at the end of the show including an amazing tale from listener Kurt that reads like a possible future noir film. His brief life story is well worth knowing. If you want to add your story to the podcast naschycast@gmail.com is the address where we can be reached. Let us know what’s on your mind! And thanks for listening to the show. 

Naschycast #65 - Satanic Naschy with Samm!

We begin our eleventh year of the show by having a Satanic discussion!

 
Author and podcaster Samm Deighan returns to dig into two specific Paul Naschy films. In both EXORCISM (1975) and INQUISITION (1977) Naschy plays a man of God working to help his flock overcome the influence of The Evil One. In one he is a paragon of virtue and in the other he is definitely not. Both films feature women placed in horrible positions by outside forces that seem to be Satanic in origin. But in each case the question of the how or even if these terrible things are happening is central to story. Are these people possessed by the Devil or is there a more human quality to the awful events depicted? 

Samm, Troy and I engage in a freewheeling discussion of these movies jumping from topic to topic as one point leads to another. The conversation assumes that you are familiar with both films and spoilers are certainly in the air. Religion is the main part of our talk but we also look at the obvious class commentary layered into the scripts. We talk about the movies that influenced these Naschy classics and how some later movies may have taken some ideas from them for sleazier effect. We drag in everything from HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973), MALIBIMBA (1979) and ANGEL HEART (1987) as we look at different ways of portraying the Dark One onscreen. Of course, as with any such chat, we end up ranging off the main topic which is how we somehow end up in nipple territory again! I’m not sure how this happens but I’m going to blame Samm. Yeah! It’s her fault. I also make time for a short anecdote about subjecting my unsuspecting beloved to a Jess Franco directed Fu Manchu film. Give her your sympathy. 

We end the show with an email that was sent to naschycast@gmail.com in which we are asked to make a terrible purchasing choice. It takes us a while to decide! You can ask similar question or tell us your favorite onscreen Satan at that same address. Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon.