FangsoftheLivingDead

Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)

I’m a big fan of the Blind Dead series. Well I suppose at least 3 of the movies anyway. So when I heard that director Amando de Ossorio had done a vampire movie I had to check it out. This was especially so when I realized it had been released on many of those cheap DVD collections and that I owned it several times over.

Fangs of the Living Dead is about a woman named Sylvia, played by the beautiful Anita Ekberg, who inherits a castle. Living in the castle is her uncle, who later makes the fantastic claim that he is actually her grandfather! According to him Sylvia’s grandmother was a witch that before she was burned at the stake turned him into a vampire. Living with him in the house is a beautiful woman that also claims to be a vampire. Their claims at being the undead are only reinforced when one of the beautiful young local girls turns up dead, then undead. If that weren’t enough this happens while she is under the care of Sylvia’s fiancé, who is in town to find out what happened to her!

To be honest this isn’t a very good movie. The story starts off very slow and until the last few minutes never picks up the pace. There is some potential here and I love some of the twists that the movie unexpectedly throws at the audience, though the final one was just a bit too much. But for the most part we are “treated” to long stretches of dialogue that never seems to go anywhere. Add in the fact that the dialogue is poorly dubbed and at times the movie can be a chore to get thru. I will give the movie credit for putting some beautiful women on display and in some risqué situations, or at least for the late 60s anyway. Fangs of the Living Dead has a great “Euro Sleaze” feel to it that I always have trouble describing. But if you aren’t a fan of these sorts of films I have a feeling that this one will leave you scratching your head and a bit bored.

The copy that I watched was from one of those cheapie DVD sets that I mentioned earlier. The print they transferred from was beat up and scratched to hell. But even then I could appreciate some of the camera work and locations. The movie has a cool visual look to it, including some wonderful catacombs and the castle itself. These locations are captured nicely with a camera that seems to be moving all the time. One of my favorite things about the Blind Dead series was the look of the movies, and de Ossorio brings that style to Fangs of the Living Dead. This along with the overly dramatic music gives the movie that cool “Euro Sleaze” vibe I mentioned earlier.

If the pacing of Fangs was a bit better I have a feeling that fans would be talking about it as much as the Blind Dead series. Unfortunately that just isn’t the case. I will sort of recommend this movie to the fans of the director and of the sleazy little horror movies that were coming out of Spain and Italy in the late 60s early 70s. Otherwise you might want to pass on it.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer