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1973 - Spain Directed By: Javier Aguirre. Starring: Paul Naschy, Rosanna Yanni, Alberto Dalbes, Victor Barrera, Maria Elena Arpon, Maria Perschy, Manuel de Blas and Antonio Pica.
Aka
El Jorobado de la Morgue
Rue Morgue Massacres
The Hunchback of the Rue Morgue
Current Availability
Look no further than the German R2 Special Edition from Anolis. Strictly limited to just 3,000 units this is a lovingly crafted SE featuring a beautiful uncut print of the film and an expansive array of extras all contained in one of the most innovative and aesthetically pleasing packaging designs in the history of the DVD format. Despite the hefty price tag fans of Naschy really have no excuse not to have this beauty in their collection. This is how a Special Edition should be done.
Recommended?
For fans of continental horror and trash cinema this film receives the highest possible recommendation. Irrepresible Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy gives his best performance ever in a thoroughly entertaining blend of gothic atmosphere, graphic dismemberment and disarmingly affecting human tragedy. Essential!
Review
In the minds of many aficionado’s of continental horror and trash cinema director Javier Aguirre’s outrageous 1973 effort El Jorobado de la Morgue – or as it is better known to English speaking audiences The Hunchback Of The Morgue – is often regarded as the high point in the career of famed Spanish horror star Paul Naschy (aka – Jacinto Molina).
With the Spanish horror landmark Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror (1968), for which he was both writer and star, former Olympic weightlifter Naschy was responsible for launching the fledgling horror market in his native Spain and also began his own long and productive career as a star, writer and occasional director of Spanish horror pictures. Heavily influenced by the Universal classics, Lon Chaney Jr and the gothic trappings popularized by Hammer, Naschy’s many features would see him cover the full range of the classic monsters as he starred as The Werewolf, Count Dracula, The Mummy and even Mr Hyde. Hunchback Of The Morgue saw Naschy reunited with director Javier Aguirre, who had directed him the previous year in Count Dracula’s Great Love. More importantly Hunchback Of The Morgue saw Naschy finally complete his collection of classic cinematic ghoulies (after a fashion), with our man cast as a Quasimodo-esque, hunchbacked outcast albeit one with somewhat pronounced homicidal tendencies.
Set in the Bavarian village of Feldkirch, Austria, Hunchback Of The Morgue stars Naschy as the gentle natured hunchback mortuary clerk Gotho. Due to his deformities Gotho is a loathed, mocked outcast in Feldkirch, regularly singled out for cruel verbal and physical abuse. The only person to treat Gotho with any kindness is his childhood friend and would be sweetheart Ilsa (Arpon) who is tragically stricken with an incurable terminal illness.
When Ilsa finally succumbs to her condition and dies poor Gotho is grief stricken and when two hospital orderlies attempt to rob his beloved’s corpse he brutally slaughters them both in a homicidal rage. Now a wanted murderer Gotho snatches Ilsa’s body and flees with it into the maze of subterranean catacombs beneath the towns ruined abbey.
Desperate to restore Ilsa to life, the slowwitted Gotho approaches the eminent Dr Orla (Dalbes) who cynically promises to restore Ilsa to life (a promise he never intends to deliver upon) in return for Gotho’s assistance in facilitating his own crackpot experiments. Dr Orla is in the midst of an obsessive quest to create his own artificial life form but has met with understandable opposition from the medical authorities who have barred him from using their facilities for conducting any experiments towards such an outlandish end.
Seizing his opportunity Dr Orla promptly relocates his laboratory to Gotho’s underground lair away from prying eyes. Naively believing that Dr Orla will revive Ilsa, the increasingly murderous Gotho covertly procures Dr Orla various dismembered parts from which he succeeds in creating a horrific primordial mutation.
Requiring live human sustenance for his creature, Dr Orla soon has the hapless Gotho abducting unfortunate young women from a nearby reformatory, who are then fed alive to Dr Orla’s foul creation. During his nocturnal visits Gotho is befriended by kind-hearted female doctor Elke (Yanni) who becomes the only person other than the tragic Ilsa to treat him with kindness and eventually makes love with him.
Eventually the beleaguered hunchback sees the light. Realising that Dr Orla has no intention of ever restoring or replacing his lost love, Gotho rebels against his evil master in order to prevent Elke or any others becoming the victims of his insane activities, thus sealing his own doom in the process.
While most Naschy films fall readily into the “acquired taste” category, Hunchback Of The Morgue is in this reviewers opinion a glorious exception – a masterful gothic flavoured marriage of overt, bloody horror and human tragedy underpinned by a superb showing from Naschy who delivers what is easily his greatest ever star performance as the doomed Gotho. A hated societal cast out, Gotho cuts a vivid, unforgettable figure as he shuffles haplessly along the streets of Feldkirch to be callously stoned by cruel children and mocked by the arrogant medical students he encounters at the mortuary. Ultimately a tender, sensitive and sweet-natured soul, Gotho’s doomed romance with the terminally ill Ilsa is genuinely poignant and the viewer shares his sadness in her death. Naschy does a marvelous job of expressing Gotho’s wide, teary eyed sorrow and pent up, grief-fuelled sense of rage at the passing of his lost love meaning that despite his brutally murderous activities Gotho remains an immensely sympathetic character whose sorrowful plight can easily be empathized with.
The death of Gotho’s sweetheart Ilsa proves the catalyst for the hunchback’s obsessive and brutal quest to return her to life which provides Aguirre with an excuse to paint the screen red with a veritable orgy of bloodshed and graphic dismemberment. Despite its tragic-romantic leanings Hunchback Of The Morgue certainly doesn’t sell itself short in the gore department and in its uncensored international print easily ranks as one of the bloodiest horror films of its period making the bloodletting of Hammer and their ilk look almost impotent by comparison.
Aguirre signals his gruesome intentions early on as two orderlies conspiring to rob Ilsa’s body are swiftly and savagely dispatched by an enraged, axe-wielding Gotho. The camera lingers lovingly over the carnage as one man is decapitated and the others innards are spilt by a blow to the torso. With momentum on his side Aguirre promptly follows this bloodcurdling double slaughter up with a cinematic first – death by asphyxiation with a bunch of roses! This is just the beginning as a conveniently placed acid bath comes into play on multiple occasions with typically nasty consequences and both the narrative and the mortuary setting provide a convenient excuse for numerous grueling, unflinching scenes of corpse dismemberment. In another outrageous scene sure to offend animal lovers everywhere a horrified Gotho upon finding a score of rats nibbling away at Ilsa’s corpse responds by setting light to the rodents with a flaming torch. The animals used in this scene were genuine live rats as opposed to toy props and whilst rats hardly command much affection from the average person there is still something slightly uncomfortable about watching these live animals running around squeaking whilst being roasted alive. Hunchback Of The Morgue has never been officially released here in the UK either theatrically or on video, but were it ever to be submitted to the BBFC you can be sure that every frame of Naschy’s impromptu rat inferno would hit the cutting room floor before the film could be granted a certificate. Apparently the scene was not only hazardous for the deceased rodents but for Naschy too who claims that he had to be inoculated for rabies before the scene could be shot.
It is also worth noting (if just to clear up a false perception) that Hunchback Of The Morgue has intermittently been the subject of a rumour that genuine cadavers were utilized for the scenes of corpse dismemberment. A similar whisper has also followed infamous Italian trash director Joe D’Amato’s 1979 ode to sadism Beyond The Darkness. Whereas such tall tales were unfounded in the case of the D’Amato film in the case of Hunchback Of The Morgue they are not a complete falsehood, but merely a massive exaggeration of the truth. The truth in question is that for one decapitation sequence permission was given to use a genuine cadaver. However, Naschy despite having allegedly downed a few stiff drinks beforehand was unable to go through with the scene meaning that eventually calmer heads prevailed and a more conventional dummy head was used for the scene. Even bearing this in mind the fact remains that the films gore effects although certainly grotesque and above average in their execution by the standard of the time are hardly convincing enough to justify ludicrous fairy tales about Naschy and company chopping up real corpses for the camera.
Of course gore alone does not make for a great horror film in itself. Fortunately then Hunchback Of The Morgue is imbued with both brisk, capable direction and the conjuring of a vivid, unique sense of gothic decay. While the inherent thinness of the films premise could have proved a sticking point this is thankfully counteracted by the spirited direction of Aguirre who seldom allows the film to lag let alone grind to a halt. The films trump card however proves to be its perfectly appropriated locations around which Aguirre is able to deftly weave a powerful and impregnably brooding and oppressive gothic charnel house atmosphere. The scenes set within Gotho’s subterranean domain were actually shot within the vast cellars that once belonged to the first Spanish king Phillip II which prove to be the perfect setting with the maze of fetid, gloomy tunnels and remnants of torture implements left over from the days of the inquisition conjuring up a dread, dank ambience whilst also making for a neat visual reflection of the murderous hunchback’s sorrowful, nihilistic mindset. Elsewhere the Pyrenean town of Viella doubles up effectively as the Bavarian alps and the intermittent mortuary scenes – shot in a genuine Madrid hospital morgue – enrich the film with a palpable sense of morbidity. To this end much credit must go the films cinematographer Raul Perez Cubero whose work is beautifully composed. He would eventually return to genre cinema with Enzo G. Castellari’s forgettable Italian-made Franco Nero vehicle The Shark Hunter (1979).
In addition to its already considerable slate of merits Hunchback Of The Morgue also benefits from the presence of a capable cast who provide able support to Paul Naschy’s powerhouse turn as Gotho. Even in its English dubbed form Hunchback Of The Morgue boasts performance quality way above average for that of a continental horror production. Spanish horror starlet Maria Elena Arpon – who also featured as Virginia, the first ever victim of the blind, undead templar knights in Amando de Ossorio’s Spanish horror classic Tombs Of The Blind Dead – is a fragile, sympathetic presence as Gotho’s stricken love interest Ilsa. Also on the female front Argentinean born Rosanna Yanni makes a strong impression as Elke – a doctor at the women’s reformatory who befriends Gotho and eventually out of either pity or perversion makes love with the hunchback in the films only (mild) sex scene. The best supporting turn however, is given by European horror and exploitation regular Alberto Dalbes, who succeeds in being simultaneously urbane yet thoroughly sinister in the role of the wicked, twisted Dr Orla without ever feeling the need to delve into the bucket of mad scientist clichés.
Even the staunchest admirer of Naschy would be forced to concede that many of his films while generally entertaining served little purpose beyond facilitating his own, often egocentric and self-indulgent star turns. Hunchback Of The Morgue however, is probably the happiest of several exceptions to that rule and stands proud as perhaps Naschy’s most well rounded and singularly satisfying film marred only slightly by the climactic appearance of Dr Orla’s monster which unfortunately resembles a crap homemade imitation of The Creature From The Black Lagoon and almost undermines the otherwise potent poignancy of the films tragic ending.
This excusable niggle aside Hunchback Of The Morgue is a visceral and atmospheric yet at the same time highly accessible yarn that even horror fans unfamiliar or not especially enamored with Naschy’s usual monster man capers can enjoy purely on its own merits. Memorably combining a hefty quotient of gore and a ripe, morbid gothic atmosphere with a wonderfully measured central performance and poignant, disarmingly touching undertones of lost love, Hunchback Of The Morgue ranks not only as possibly Naschy’s best film but also as a glorious high point for early seventies Continental horror cinema.
Also Try… Flesh For Frankenstein / The Hanging Woman / Curse Of The Devil / Rojo Sangre / The Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll / Count Dracula’s Great Love / Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror.
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