BeastoftheYellowNight

The Beast of the Yellow Night (1971)

The movie opens with a criminal, a man named Langdon, trying to avoid capture by hiding out in a dense jungle. He is starving and eats some poisonous plants. Literally dying on the ground a voice calls out to him offering help. It belongs to a strange man that offers him a bargain. If Langdon will serve him for the rest of his life he will save him. He agrees and is saved, only to find out that the man is Satan (played by one of my personal favorites Vic Diaz). Langdon is then tossed into different bodies by Satan to do all kinds of bad things. Though we only find this out thru a conversation they have. The rest of the movie takes place when Langdon is fed up doing Satan’s bidding and tries to have a life of his own. This results in him turning into a monster and eating anyone that has the misfortune to be around him at the time.

Well The Beast of the Yellow Night is certainly a cheesy drive in movie there is no doubt about that. From the very low budget, to it’s locations in the Philippians director Eddie Romero has given us another goofy outing. Unlike some of his other movies though I have some issues with this one. The story is kind of confusing as our main story starts before the Langdon character dies. Before we know what is going on that character is being called by another name. It takes the movie a while to explain that he is jumping into other bodies and that he is jumping thru time when doing so. And honestly it really doesn’t explain this, I just sort of put it together from some of the dialogue. Whenever a movie like The Beast of the Yellow Night makes you think it isn’t’ a good thing. I want to turn my brain off and just enjoy a flick like this for the goofy entertainment that it should be. A confusing plot like this is a bad idea.

Speaking of goofy lets talk about the creature. Basically you get the actor, John Ashley, in a mask and gloves running around “feasting” on his victims. The makeup is silly looking and the gore really not much to talk about. I mean some read stuff smeared on the actor while Ashley squishes it are what the kills amount to. Then again it does have a fun H.G. Lewis vibe to it. And the simple makeup on the creature is fun if you like that sort of thing (and I do!). My real complaint about the creature and the kills are that they don’t get nearly enough screen time. The story takes way too long to set this up and instead of some creature mayhem we have to sit thru characters and dialogue.

There are some things that I like about The Beast of the Yellow Night. The creature is fun, I have this strange affinity for anything shot in the Philippians, and damn it Vic Diaz is in it! But in spite of these positives it is sort of mediocre. Basically we have a drive-in movie with a plot that tries way too hard to be clever. If you are interested in this one VCI has put it out on a 12-movie set called Scream Theater. It includes a much better movie from Romero called Beyond Atlantis (and Vic Diaz is in that too!). Check out their site at http://www.vcientertainment.com/ for more information.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer