Weirdhouse Cinema: The Loreley's Grasp

Published May 20, 2022, 10:01 AM

It’s time for another Spanish monster romp on Weirdhouse Cinema! In this episode, Rob and Joe discuss Amando de Ossorio’s 1973 film “The Loreley's Grasp,” full of Germanic mythology and highly questionable science.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be looking at a nineteen seventies euro horror movie. Uh. This one is called The Laurelized Grasp, Rob, How did you come across this movie? Well, in a previous episode of Weird House Cinema, we watched Spanish hard director Amando Dio Sarios film The Return of the Blind Dead, the second in his Blind Dead trilogy, in which undead templars return from the grave and torment the living, but also you know, stumble around and can't see what they're doing exactly right. This is the one where like skeletons come out of the ground with swords and they go around stabbing towns people. And then there is a sexy American fireworks salesman who like charms the local women and somehow defeats them in the end. Yeah. Yeah, and that that of course that character is played by Tony Kendall. Uh So, I, you know, I really loved Return of the Blind Dad, and I was like, I want to watch something with that kind of vibe to it. So I was poking around, uh uh Diasaurios filmography, and here's this film, the Laurelized grasp Um. I had earmarked it to come back to later, and yeah, it totally delivers. It came out the same year, seventy three. And while Return of the Blind Dad again is about undead templars and local corruption in Portugal, corrupt mayor, yeah, this one is about mythic monsters on the German Rhine. So we have a Germanic tale here. This movie also has an ineffectual mayor, but not uh as far as I recall, not evil like the other one. Like in Return of the Blind Dad doesn't the mayor. You're at some point he's like, I know how I will escape. I will send the blind dead after a little child. Yeah, he's basically Mayor Quimby. In fact, he attempts to flee with the money. At one point he's like he's going to go to another town, become mayor and send for the rector, stuffing suitcases of cash into a golf cart while he's sending the skeletons after the kid. Yeah. So yeah, this is a This is tremendously fun movie. Because it's got it's got the German mythology, it's got some really bad science in it. I mean, you can't even it's almost it's just ridiculous science. Um. And then you also have room for a little romance. You have essentially kind of a werewolf movie going on here, except it's a lizard. Uh. Yeah, there's a lot to love. This movie has science on the level of the Exorcist to where there's that line he's like, this machine has scientifically proven that there is an ancient demon locked inside her in this one, it's my experiment, have scientifically proven that the that the Ryan Maidens are real, and that the Laurel I does transform every full moon and devour hearts. Oh yeah, I can't. I can't wait to discuss that sequence now. So this movie is not only a monster movie. It's an example of a particular sub genre that we might call the doomed monster romance, where these are movies where a human of some sort falls in love with a monster or cursed entity and we watch their relationship just plow toward its inevitable destruction because in the end it cannot be And there are plenty of examples of this that come to mind. I was just noting a few that that popped into my head. The Francis Ford Coppola version of Dracula bram Stoker's Dracula a great example here In this movie, Mina Harker played by um oh what's her name? Win Owner Writer? Right, yeah, Mina is not just like hypnotized and transformed by Dracula. You get the sense that they are genuinely in love. But of course it cannot continue because the beast must be destroyed, and he is evil. And it's been a long time since I read Dracula. But if I recall, there's really not any hint of this whatsoever in the original novel. Right, Like in the novel, Dracula is just a nasty demon and and nobody would have a reason to be in love with him. But in this movie they decided, well, yeah, Gary oldman is rather charming guy. Let's make it so that Dracula and Mina are actually faded lovers across centuries. Oceans of time have been traversed so that they could be reunited. See. I really need to watch rewatch Coppola's Dracula um as a grown up, because I I think I only saw it as a kid, and at that time I was just like, I don't really like this romance Dracula bad. Can we go back to the creepy old man and the wolf monster and the bat monster and all that other stuff? You like, the butt hair Dracula and not the not the suave londoner. Yeah, the Yeah, the big hair Dracula with a weird shadow. There's always licking razor blades. That was my Dracula. But I imagine the film would speak to me differently as as an adult. I mean, both are great, but yeah, when Gary Oldman transforms into the young, suave Dracula, especially because he's got hippie sunglasses on, it's wonderful. But but other examples that popped into my head American werewolf in London here, you know, in the middle of the movie, they introduce a sweet love story between this this American backpacker and a British nurse. But of course they're They're romance is doomed because the boy is a werewolf. And uh, it's there in The Fly as well. Cronenberg's The Fly. You know, Gina Davis must choose between her love for a hunky young Jeff Goldblum and the fact that he is now vomiting digestive enzymes on donuts and will probably at some point dissolve her as well. Right, So, I would say common features of the doomed monster romance movie are there's an element of tragedy to them that is not always present in a horror movie. Often, though not always, the human who falls in love with the monster also has another mundane human to human romance on the back burner. So in Bram Stoker's Dracula Mina, while she's having this sort of ethereal love affair with Dracula, is also technically still engaged to Keanu Reeves, and so she's got that to fall back on. I guess when when Dracula is destroyed uh. In the Fly, they flip it around with a with a really horrible twist by making Gina Davis's human back burner dude and absolutely loathsome creep, which really heightens the desperation and horror in the movie when she has nobody to turn to but him. And in the movie we talked about today, it definitely has this angle. Tony Kendall is pursuing two romances at the same time. One a monster one just a sort of disapproving lady. Yeah, and I guess this sort of plot line you often get into the situation where it's essentially like you must choose between the good guy and the bad guy, the good girl and the bad girl, and you know, and there's a fair amount of moralizing that goes on there, especially when you're dealing with with like, oh, well, it has to choose between the monster is feminine and uh and this idealized version of femininity. You know, it's it gets complicated. But also there's a kind of irony in a lot of these movies where it's like the monster is evil. So on one level, you know, you technically should go with your backburn or human romance, but on the other hand, it's clear that the monster romance is the one that's more meant to be. Yeah. Yeah, there's a sense that it's a it's a part of fate. And by teaming up with the like, by by entering into relationship with the monster, you're you're either becoming immortal or you're becoming part of a of a timeline that goes beyond just mortal existence. You're achieving your true potential. Yeah. Uh, And In fact, along with those fatalism themes, I would say a lot of these movies also have something like a reincarnation plot, So sometimes the movie presents the human in the relationship as the reincarnation of a lover that the monster had deep in the past, some kind of recurrence of fate. So Coppolis Dracula does this. Mina Harker in the movie appears to be the reincarnation of Prince of Lads Beloved, and many versions of The Mummy movies do this, like the Mummy will be some figure from ancient Egypt who was cursed or suffered some terrible fate, but once he's revived in the modern world, he encounters a beautiful woman who seems to be the reincarnation of his one true love, and often uh the original reason he was cursed in ancient Egypt has something to do with this woman, like they had an illicit affair, or he tried to revive her from the dead using forbidden magic or something like that. Now, the Luralized Grasp does follow some of these conventions as a doomed monster romance movie, but it also, i would argue, fails to capture one of the primary themes, which is that sense of tragedy. Uh. And it fails to capture that sense of tragedy, I think because the parties in this monster love affair have really hilarious, out of place vibes, both individually and in combination. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point, um now on the romance here in a way, it's kind of fitting. But then also it's it's even more pronounced that that deal. Sorry, it doesn't really follow up on this themes of the tragic themes here because, as I discussed in Wednesday's Monster Fact episode, the lorelie monster emerges not really out of old German myths and legends per se, but out of German romanticism of the nineteenth century, popping up in a pair of famous poems from from that time period. Uh, generally concerned not so much about a monster woman that's going to come out and rip your heart out, but more about like a tragic woman who has thrown herself off the cliffs above the Rhine uh haunts the cliffs above the Rhine. Uh. Though, on the other hand, the other thing that I discussed in that is that there is a Lorelei Rock overlooking the Rhine and I think we see this in the movie. This is the physical location that inspired the poets in question, and it has a long tradition of strange echoes that were tied not to mysterious siren type beings but to tales of dwarves and gnomes and the cavern depths. Is this the rock they blow up with dynamite later in the movie, Um, I don't think they quite well, they blow up something. They blow up something underneath the rhine, right, some sort of subterranean realm. But but yeah, there are scenes where there's some wonderful scenes in the film where where we see these kind of depressing rhine vista's with you know, big container ships moving this sluggishly down the rhine, some very dismal um rhine uh riverside locations that could look like very lonesome places to die the thing. But then also occasion only a shot of a neat castle or these looming cliffs. This movie does have a lot of wide shots and landscape shots, and most of them are not very beautiful or picturesque. Most of them are depressing, right, but it creates a vibe which I think mostly works with this film. Yeah, alright, so here's the elevator pitch. It is a lizard werewolf movie full of Germanic mythology, made up science, and early seventies euro horror sex appeal. That sounds about right. All right, let's hear the English language trailer. A girls boarding school is living a nightmare? Who will be the next pict to me? The clause of Laura La the heart was gone. It sounds like a very old story I once heard that was told me when I was a child. I still can't get it out of my mind. What story the loyal I the monster stocks terror dominates their lives. The legend has turned into reality. Laura I will be transformed into an obscene beast. She must devour human hearts in order to return to her centuries old dream. He will stay with throughout eternity. The clause of Laura La next on this screen. All right, let's discuss the people involved here, so once again, the director and writer on this one is Amando Diosareo, who lived through two thousand and one. If you want to hear more about him, you can go back and listen to that episode we did about the Return of the Blind Dead, also known as Return of the Evil Dead. Uh. He was Disorio here was one of the key names in the nineteen seventies Spanish horror resurgence. He did the Blind Dead trilogy, directed a number of action and horror films, and as we discussed in that last episode about him, he he seems like a guy who always had these big ideas and inevitably ran up against severe budget constraints. Uh. And I don't think was ever completely happy with with how he was able to realize these dreams on the screen, particularly when it came to effects and so forth. Um. Still, I think this is another example of a film where he's he's able to deliver some some quality action thrills in dark fantasy, despite the at times very obvious limitations of what they were trying to achieve. Here, I think I'm gonna have to go on record and say the monster in this movie is not super impressive. No, but at least at least I think they realized it didn't look good and so they rarely show it, uh for for too long. It's often obscured, or it's in the shadows. Except for the glove, the monster glove it it gets a lot of screen time, and and even that could at least from from our perspective. From modern perspective, it could have been battery. It would have been nice to have had to have a more convincing reptilian human hand there. But despite it not looking good, I didn't enjoy every time it showed up because you would always see the hand, and I think it was always the same hand. It was always the right hand. So I wondered if they only made one lizard glove. Maybe so all right, So that's the director and writer. But let's get to the cast. The lead here is Tony Kendall born died two thousand and nine, playing Sigurd the Hunter. Yes, Sigurd as in the Germanic hero Sigurd or Sigfried from from the Song of the Nibelung, from the Volsunga saga and from the poetic Edda. Uh. This is our our hero of mythic proportions. The main thing this movie wants you to understand about secret is that he is attractive. Yes, yes, women, avert your eyes because Tony Kendall has ventured onto the premises. See. I mean, he was charismatic and Return of the Blind Dad, but in this yeah, it's like it's overt, like When we first see him, he rides in on a motorcycle and and he is just you know, decked out and stylish garb. Yeah. Well, so the movie casts him as a hunter. The whole point is that he's supposed to be a sort of loner outdoors type. He's he's the most experienced hunter in the whole town. But it's just hilarious. He does not read as a hunter at all. He reads as a guy who would be hanging out of the disco trying to buy you a drink, right right. So yeah, and and to be clear, like I said, with a motorcycle and so forth. This does not take place during mythic times. This is very much a film set in like early nineteen and D's um. So, yes, he has the name of the mythic Hunter, but does not look like a mythic hunter, does not carry himself like a mythic hunter. And I don't think we ever see him actually shoot anything. I mean, he shoots at a few things, but we never see him hit. No. He he looks dresses and acts like Elvis, not like a hunter. So just imagine like seventies Vegas Elvis, but carrying around a gun all the time, and I want to talk about how he behaves with that gun later on and we get into the plot. This is incredibly inappropriate. Yeah, like a like a prop for handsomeness. Yeah. So, so Kendall was a former model turned actor and did quite a few Spanish action movies. He was in Italian films as well. He was in seven movies in nineteen seventy three and this is yet again one of them. Um. He was in a string of commissar x action movies in the sixties. He went on to do a lot of spaghetti westerns, including Oh I love some of the titles on these nineteen sixty nine, Hate is My God. Uh. He did some yellow work. He was in Mario Baba's The Whip in the Body opposite Christopher Lee in nineteen sixty three. So again clearly very charismatic screen presence that that worked well with films like this. You know, he gets to be a man of both action and romance. He has a lot of swagger, he gets to bring that to the screen. So yeah, Tony kindles a lot of fun in this. He is groovy. Oh but so that's the human side of our doomed romance. We got to hear about the monster side. Yes, Laura Lae herself is played by Helga Lenney born one and and as of this recording, I think is is still still alive. Um and I don't think this can possibly be a spoiler because this film is not subtle about this. But yes she is. This beautiful redheaded actor. Helga Lenney plays the seductive human form of our monstrous murderer here. So she was born in Berlin, but her family fled during I fled Germany during World War Two and she grew up in Portugal, where she worked as a dancer a circus for former and not the not the last former circus performer reference in this movie. Uh eventually been a model and an actress. She worked from roughly one through two thousand six, played a lot of film fatales characters and horror movies, various genre films. I think she's pretty big in Spanish cinema during this time period, and she was all She also has a role in the weird nineteen seventy two train flick Horror Express, which of course stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Kelly Savalis, and Sylvia Tortosa Oh who's also in this movie. As Tony Kendall's other girlfriend. But but Linnay is great in this, Like she's you know, vamping it up most of the time. Um. I think I read somewhere that she did not particularly enjoy this this shoot and did not like the director. Um. But if that is the case, I feel like she was able to channel that energy into this role because you know, she's not she doesn't really like the mortal world. She's just here too, you know, you know, collect a number of blood sacrifices and then go back to sleep, right, she just needs some human hearts and eventually she can take Elvis back to Valhalla with her exactly alright. So Sylvia Tortasa again plays the the good girl love interest. Uh. This is a character named Elki Ackerman, the teacher. She's essentially the headmaster of a private girls school in this though we never see any classes going going on here, I believe the prime subject of this school is just bikini studies. Yeah, Rachel and I were really confused about what the school was supposed to be. So it's like a mansion on top of a mountain full of like women who just hang out of the pool all day. But they call it a school. Yeah, it's the school. We never see the classroom. We've just see them hanging out at the swimming pool. So. Uh Tortosa Spanish actor who worked I think roughly nine four through at least uh born Uh still alive as of this recording. U. Yeah, and she's she's our our our heroes main mortal romantic interest. But they do the classic romance movie thing where when when they first meet, she disapproves of everything about him. Right, we'll get into that. That is hilarious. Okay, you can't have a villain without a hinchman and uh. And in this the lorelized servant is a character named Alberi, played by Louis Barbou. Uh. Barbou live through two thousand one. Barbou was also a circus performer at one point and had a long career playing mostly heavies. He played the executed templar in the Return of the Blind Dead, and he also pops up in Conan the Barbarian. He was a gang member and a fist full of dollars and he appears and I think ten difference movies from Spanish exploitation King Jess Franco. I don't want to spoil all the details about this character in the film, but he's a really fun Hinchman and there's some there's some neat stuff surrounding his character. I don't know why, but he always kind of reminds me of the pirate the Glenn Close plays in Hook. I haven't seen Hook in in a very long time. I didn't realize she played a pirate with a beard. Is this is it supposed to be a costume or is it just a character she plays. I think it's it's just a it's a cameo, like she was on set for some reason, and she's she plays the pirate who they put into the box with all the scorpions. That really scary scene. You remember that, No, I don't. The only thing I remember about Hook is Phil Collins showing up as a police officer. Weirdly enough, I don't know why that stands out the most to me. Remember Bob Hoskins, come on, yeah, no, no, just Phil Collins. That's the only thing I remember. I remember Bob Hoskins, uh and and the Glenn Close pirate and a lot of food that doesn't look like food, like they're in they're eating a big feast, but it mostly looks like play dough Alright. Another actor in this film worth noting, a guy by the name of Anjel Menendez, plays Professor von Lander. Uh eights unknown on this guy birth or death, but he plays I think my favorite character in the whole film, a scientist and Laura la expert who kind of reminds me of Colonel Sanders. He has the armed awkward in a way that ultimately makes the character absolutely work. Uh And I think some of it was perhaps intended. Um and Indez was in a ton of Spanish and Spanish language films in the sixties and seventies, including nineteen sixty nine Santo Faces Death. Uh so a lot of Westerns and horror in his filmography. Wait, Santo faces death like the Grim Reaper? Do Santo wrestle the Grim Reaper? I don't know. I haven't seen this one. I think this one was It was either a Mexican Spanish co production or just a Spanish film because they noted some other familiar faces from Spanish genre films of the day. But I'm not sure you have he's actually facing a supernatural death figure or if he's just getting in a deathly situation. You never know. With Santo, he might be fighting him crime, he might be fighting the forces of evil, might be doing a little bit of both. Who I would be so ready to do another Santo versus the supernatural movie. That's yeah, we should do it. We need to go back to the Mexican cinema. Always a fun time alright. Finally, the music for this film is once more the music of Antone Garcia Abril, who lived through an acclaimed Spanish composer and longtime head of the Department of Compositions and Musical Forms of the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Uh. He did a lot of work outside of cinema, but also did a whole bunch of scores, including the scores for all of the Blind Dead films of Amandoo Sario. So I thought it was a quite good score. It has this wonderful little recurring dream like coral number. Anytime Laura Lai is say, riding on a horse and slow motion by the rhyme that sort of thing. Okay, can you settle a question for me? Is it Laurel I just like a name or is it the Laurel I like the werewolf? I guess either works. Yeah, because like you you pointed out earlier the title is the laure Law, but then also she is Laura La. I think they use both in the movie. It gets confusing to when you look at the origins of the character's name, because it's often spelled different ways in these German poems. Sometimes it's more it's spelled like Laura Ley or Laura Lay. But but then the rock I believe is traditionally known as Laura Lie. And I also believe the etymology is unknown concerned, there's no there's no firm answer, like some some people think it's referring to like it's the lie seems to mean rocks, so it's like the murmuring rocks, or it's the like rocks of some sort of supernatural creatures, or their loud rocks. I think it's uh, it's it's uncertain exactly what it means. Man, I hate loud rocks. Okay, we're ready to talk about the plot. Let's jump into it. Okay. The first thing we see in the movie is the rhine. Seems very appropriate, right, Yeah, there it is sluggish, filled with container ships. Yeah, barge is dingy, kind of low color. But then right after that we go straight into the bride attack scene. So what's the structure of a movie like this. Obviously, before you meet any of your main characters, you need to have a random monster attack on a previously unknown person. Uh. So here, the victim in the first attack is a woman who's preparing to get married in the morning, and she's she's trying on her veil and stuff, and then her fiance starts throwing pebbles at her window. So she goes out to talk to him and he's like, hey, I'm drunk, you're pretty, and uh. She She's like, well, you've been celebrating with your friends too much. And then she reminds him to show up at the church the next morning so they can get married, and he's like, yeah, I'll be there, and he shuffles off. Uh. And then the spooky sounds kicking spooky music comes in, and then outside the window we see the first of many shots of the hand, the reptile hand. So it's five fingered like a human hand, but green, covered in spiky scales like a crocodile, and bugles for claws. Do you deny it? Ah? Yeah, there they are bugle ask I would say again, the gloves not it's not bad, but it's it's not great either. But then we get to see the hand go to work, and I guess that's where it really begins to shine. And then the creature sort of roars leaps through the window in an attack that will repeat many times throughout the movie. We see like the reptar hand on something, and then the reptar jumps out, but we don't get a good look at it is just like a blur and it appears to be wearing a black cloak with a hood, and then it tears open the victim's chest with its bugles and pulls out their heart. Right. Yeah, one thing that they established right off the bat is that this monster attacks fast and just viciously, like like a wild animal. Just u there's a lot of us swiping at the face and tearing at the face and leaving bloody trails on the face. And then eventually it's going to rip through the chest meat, pry open those those ribs and draw out that human heart. Yeah, that's something I think some of these movies from the seventies, especially, do they figured out that, Okay, maybe if you've got effects that don't look super great, maybe you're not the best in the world at building up suspense through your editing in just the right ways. But you can still get get the emotions really high in a in a monster scene just by having somebody scream at great pitch and volume. So a scene that has really high pitched screaming for like thirty seconds to a minute straight, that will get you on edge, even if it's otherwise not cinematically very effective. Though, I gotta say personally, I'm not a big fan of that technique. Like, I recognize why they do it. I said, Okay, that is probably a sort of hack that's a workaround, but but but but yeah, the screaming, it just gets to me. I don't know, do you do you know what I'm talking about? Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot. It's certainly one of those movies where if I'm watching it with the volume up, I have to keep turning the volume down anytime there's a there's an attack, because I know there's gonna be loud screaming, which if there's anybody else in the house they could they could be annoyed by that, or or or curious and like, why is there screaming? What are you watching? Why? Are there? Why are there? There's NonStop screaming coming from the living room. Yeah, so it works in TCM. Well, there's a fine art to the scream Queen that that's something we have to come back to that in the future. What makes a great scream and a horror movie? Right? Uh So, anyway, we we cut from this opening scene immediately to the funeral where the fiance Carlos, who we met just moments before, now he's he's there at the funeral and he's so distraught that he starts shoveling dirt onto the coffin lid while the priest is still talking. And it does look like they buried her in a plastic deli tray. Um. I. I watched this first with the English dub, and then I watched it again in the in the original Spanish. But the dub of this is weird, weird because with the with the subtitles, we don't get a translation on everything that the priest is saying. But but in the dub, the voice that they try and translate everything the priest is saying, and he's saying all sorts of weird things, like something to the effect of God so wanted her by his side, that he made her a holy victim or something to that effect, and and that I was like, well, I don't blame the the husband here for just like wanted to shovel the dirt and get on out of here, because this is all this weird stuff. The priest is saying something about a holy victim and so forth. Yeah, if there's gonna be a sermon or a what's the word homily or a speech given by the priest at a funeral, how do you guarantee the priest doesn't go off on some tangent that you really don't want. Yeah, so it appears that's like the entire town I guess showed up for this funeral. And then there's also uh, somebody on the outskirts of the funeral watching on. Oh right, Yeah, so the funeral is going on, and then it immediately cuts to just a satanic red carriage with red velvet curtains, with a woman who looks like Evil incarnate peeking out of the window with a kind of sinister gaze. And I thought it was so funny. When this scene came on. We were like, gee, I wonder if she's the monster. Yeah, I forget where I saw this. But there was some user review for this film where someone dared to call this a monster who Done it? Like really, really, I mean this movie is not this movie was trying to be a monster who Done it? Yet it's terrible at it because it's it's super clear, like, yeah, she she's clearly the monster. She came here to creep on the funeral from her carriage. And it's not like a red Herring or a switchero like she look, she's obviously the monster and she is. Yeah, yeah, there's there's no switchery going on here. Oh, but she also so she's sitting in the carriage watching the funeral. All um, come back to the question of why she's watching the funeral, but uh, you see it in the carriage. She has a driver, and this is Luis Barbou. Yes, yes, uh, we'll reveal more about him, his character h Berry or Albert. Uh yeah. He becomes more important as we reveal more about the monster and where she comes from. But what's she doing there? I don't know. I can never figure that out because it's established later in the film that she has no regrets about any of this. She's like, would you judge a hurricane or a or a jaguar or a panther for doing what they do. This is just what I do. I don't feel bad about it. So, if so, why did she take time out of her day to to creep on the funeral? Is she's scouting new victims? Is she just curious? Does she just is this? This is the only thing going on in town? She's just bored? This is like more entertaining than I don't know what else she'd be doing just hanging out in the grotto. I guess, I guess so. But had to come up here. She has to emerge from the rhine with her henchmen. They have to rent or acquire a carriage and a horse, get all cleaned up. It's it's it's a lot to do. It seems like there's gotta be a reason here. Oh man. When they try to gallop off the poor horses, they are really skittering in this scene. Did you notice that they like can't get a grip on the ground and they're slipping around in the mud. If they know there's a lie in the carriage, that's it. Well, after the funeral, we go to uh something that it seems to me that there's almost a rule in euro horror movies from the seventies that they must have a scene in a bar, or a pub or a beer hall, I guess whatever you call it in the local culture that is just visually ghastly inside, like lighting and wall color combinations that induce vomiting. I'm thinking eggshell walls with direct overhead lighting. It's just hideous. And and then in this case, in the beer hall we cut two. We've got these red and white checked table cloths, which I guess might be charming in a like dimly lit Italian in restaurant or something, but here in the bright lighting with the white walls that just assault the eyes. It looks very stuffy in there, like it's probably about eighty seven degrees fahrenheit, and the patrons are just exuding a stiff formality. I think everybody's probably wearing wool underwear. It just looks itchy to be alive in this place. I don't know if you had the same reaction. Yeah, yeah, this this feels like a hot box where town people are gather to drink room temperature beer and discuss local politics. Yeah, but I I haven't tried to make a list. But I feel like this is so common in like euro horror movies of the early seventies, they all have a pub or something that is just the interior decor is the most uninviting thing I've ever seen. Surely, real pubs and bars at the time we're not like that, were they, one would hope not, but but yeah, this very much matches the vibe of the pub that is established in Return of the Blind Dad as well. Do you remember that hideous pub in Psychomania? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, just like who would hang out in here anyway? Okay, so in this scene, all the townspeople are hanging out, and the mayor and the coroner are sitting at a table together, and they're essentially like, gather around everyone and we will discuss the gory private details of the recent murder. Uh So they're asking questions to the coroner, and the coroner finally admits the girl's heart was gone, and then somebody else, oh, but it was a bear that attacked her, and another guy goes, it might have been a man. But there is one person in this bar who knows what's up. It is the blind Musician, a Hungarian fiddle player who is like, I know what it was. It was the Laura lie. And she will need more victims and more and more and more and more and more victims. I think he says, there will come new evils. I'm warning you, and immediately everybody is just telling him to show about. You know, we don't we don't care that those legends are not true. Nobody believes in that. You compared him to crazy Ralph and the notes here, Um, oh yeah, he's crazy Ralph from Friday, Your whole doomed Ralph, get out of here. The thing about the Blind Musician here, though, is he's a very likable doomsayer. He's not like that. He's not the town weirdo. He's the He seems to be a musician that everyone likes and respects, and when he inevitably bites it later on, people are disturbed by it. So it is a slightly different move than than other films. Certainly, the doomsayer in Return of the Blind Dead was not a likable character. Who was was that the guy who looked like Stephen King? Oh? Yes, that was Murdo. Murdo, Yeah, Murdo, Yes, Oh, such a such a wonderful creep and This guy not creep at all. This guy is just a beloved musician. Yeah, he's great, except he believes in the loralae, and everybody it does not like that he believes in the Loralae. I guess this. This is a rationalist town. We believe only in science here. But he says, according to the tradition of the seven full moons, Laurel I will be transformed into an obscene beast. She will need to devour human hearts in order to return to her centuries old dream. And the mayor says, nobody believes in that legend. And then they're interrupted when the beautiful professor from the local girls school walks in and she she she walks up to the mayor and gives a speech that's like, basically, we need you to send somebody to protect us because I somehow already know about all the killings that are going to take place for the rest of this movie. Well, it's a small town, and and she's a sharp lady, she's a professor. She knows she can tell what's coming. The character's name is Elki or Elki or elka Ackerman. And of course, the the fiddle player once again chimes in He's like, you're right, young lady. These killings are caused by Laurel. I she will need new victims. And the mayor once again tells him to shut up. And there was a very funny piece of staging here. So he says, Laura rely will need new victims. The mayor is like, shut up, and then he just pivots, like he just turns ninety degrees and stops talking. I don't know why that was very funny what it was like, why the pivot? But anyway, so all the dudes in the beer hall are immediately they hear um the beautiful professor's pitch and they're all like, oh, yeah, I'll come protect you miss. Does this mean I'm your boyfriend now? And the mayor says, no, no, no, no, We're gonna send you see Gurd. And he's better than all of these dopes. He he is the most experienced hunter in town. And oh boy, now we're gonna meet Segurd. Oh goodness, yeah, this whole secret because okay, so we go to the school and and and and instantly the soundtrack shifts to this kind of funky jam, which I really like. That lets you know that it's Uh, it's swinging. Good times are coming. Yeah, it's a funky baseline boom. But do Do Do Do? And the girls school, it's just where like a lot of women hang out like by the pool, playing volley ball and stuff. And there's the thing I wanted to flag here about something that uh that Elkie the character here is doing by the pool. I would say, basically at least half of the scenes in this movie in which there is a woman on screen, she's brushing her hair. And at first this seemed like a bizarre filmmaking tick, like I don't know, maybe the director is just like, uh, oh, she should be brushing her hair. But I think maybe it's actually not that. Maybe it connects thematically to the Laureli myth, because isn't there something in the legend about like a golden a golden hair brush or something. There is, yea golden hair and a golden comb. Yeah, looking at the a bit from the poem here from Heinrich Kina, Um, there's a bit that's that go. This is obviously translation, Um, the fairest of maidens is sitting up there a beautiful delight. Her golden jewels are shining. She's combing her golden hair. She holds a golden comb, singing along as well and enthralling and spell binding melody. Okay, so maybe that justifies it, but I gotta still especially if you don't know that it's funny. It's funny in the movie that Elkie here the professor is just sitting by the pool and just brushing her hair. Yeah. So they're having a great time, lots of giggling and so forth. And then uh, we here and see the motorcycle or arriving. Oh I also forgot. They're told the hunters coming, and they're like, oh, yes, I'm sure it will be a disgusting old man if he's such an experienced hunter. And then room room, here comes Tony Kendall. Yeah, he arrives, and it's instead, it's it's not an old man, it's Elvis. And he's carrying a rifle. Uh. And he rides his motorcycle up and he's wearing this outfit with like the this cool white code and I think bell bottoms and big wide collar shirt as as was the style at the time. And uh and and everybody's like, oh a man and he and so when when Elvis comes up, the stairs. Here you can tell he has many years of experience as a hunter because he's carrying a rifle and he carries it with the barrel pointed straight up at his own chin, and sometimes he he will just like pointed at people during conversation. He basically always has it pointed at a human. He might as well be picking his teeth with the gun barrel. I think in literally every scene where he has the gun, he's holding it so it's either pointed at the person he's talking to or at his own face. Now be fair, Joe, And this one screenshot the included here in our notes, he has his thumb over the end of the barrel everything. That's like having the safety on. But also you can look at him apart from the lack of gun safety knowledge, you could just tell in your heart of hearts, this man has never ever been hunting. But he informs us, Yes, I am the master hunter. I've been hunting since I was eleven, I think, is what he says. So we just he started early. So he's great, even though again we will never see him actually shoot anything with this rifle. We just see him stalk around mostly since he was eleven years old. He has been hunting for the best disco in town. Yeah. He does have a real disco Steve vibe going on here. It's pretty great. Yeah, So they hire him. He promises to find and kill the bear that has been removing people's hearts. Uh, though I think this has only happened one time so far in the movie, I don't know. Uh. And and from this moment on, every scene at the school, like all the women at the school are just like, Oh, Tony, Wow, can I hold your bullets for you? They're they're just gaga for him. Yeah. There's a wonderful scene later on where it's nighttime, it's bedtime at the school and Tony Kendall's out there walking around I think drinking, possibly smoking. Yeah, And and we see like three different windows where the students are preparing for bed and they're like making eyes and winking at Tony Kendall out there, and he kind of winks back at them. Come on, dude. So a lot of the rest of the movie is Tony Kendall wandering around looking for the quote bear, and then intercutting this with scenes of of reptile attacks on random people. So the reptile hand goes up on the wall, and then and then it's in somebody's house. It's oh it's Carlos, the fiance from the beginning, or oh it's the fiddle player. Uh, and he's just killing all the random people. But I would say there are several plot lines that continue throughout the movie that we need to isolate and discuss individually. So one is um, Tony Kendall's romance with Elkie the teacher. One is Tony Kendall's romance with the Lorelai, and the third is Tony Kendall's romance with a weird crank professor. Well, I'm not sure that one's quite a romance, but it's one of the great relationships of this motion picture. Yeah, so let's let's maybe start at the end. Let's go with the professor. So one day, Tony Kendall's out wandering around in his in his white elvis costume. Uh, and and he's in the forest and he ends up bumping into this dude who's spying on him. As this guy with like glasses and a goatee, he looks kind of like a cross between like Colonel Sanders and Leon Trotsky. Yes, yeah, he's poorly hiding in the bushes and like Kindall's character cigarette like pulls him out. I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing spying on me? And he's like, oh no, no, I'll talk to you, just ask me politely. Oh yeah. But so then he explains, basically, I know what you're looking for. It's a monster, and I'll take you back to my lab and show you is so good. Oh it's a lab just full of beakers and bubblings, and there's cages of all different kinds of animals, and there's a sheep and a dog just wandering around and there on their own. Yeah, and he has scientists. So when he gets back, he's like, Okay, I have scientifically proven the legend of the Lorelei by doing experiments that would be condemned by the narrow minded academicians. But but I know the truth. And so he demonstrates the truth of the laurel I legend by he's just got a jar that's got a hand in it. But it's not like a it's a human hand. It's not like preserved in formaldehyde or something. It's just a jar on its side with a hand in it. So we were like, did he get that at the like the hands loose bulk section at the you know, like you get the nuts at Whole Foods or something. Well, yeah, I guess like that, Well we buried somebody else, but we forgot to bury the hand. Could you use it for science? And he's like, yes, yes, of course I could. So he demonstrates the truth of the Lorelie legend by getting a needle and injecting the hand, and then what does he do? He does something to it and then the hand transforms into a lizard hand from a human hand, and he's like, uh, what did I miss something? Well, you missed one thing in the movie, missed another thing. So first he injects this hand with something and it's not we don't know what this is like it this seems like this would be vital to the whole the whole situation, Like what did you inject into the hand? We have no clue. But then he shines his special moon lantern on the hand to that this is a lantern that reproduces the exact energy and illumination of a full moon. Right, so this is the where lizard moon concept. And this said, we get to see this kind of awful transformation sequence where this um, this dead human hand becomes a dead lizard monster hand. Beautiful. And so he explains, I think that this serum he injected, which I guess is just natural to the lower lae. And then the moonlight causes like an evolutionary reversion where the human reverts back to their lizard ancestor okay, doki and then oh, and then he's like, here's a radioactive knife and it's the only thing that can kill the lord. Lie. Yeah, he stabbed. Then he proceeds to stab the hand with the radioactive knife, which makes it first revert to normal human hand status, and then it melts to a mummy hand, or we're told it will melt to a mummy hand, and we see a mummy hand like nailed to the wall overhead. So you know, he's already got all the material together. He's getting ready to publish. This will get him tenure, yes, But Tony Kendall's character is just like like, oh, that's great, yeah, this one, Like he's not buying into it. He's just kind of putting up with this explanation. Yeah, don't don't you hate this nerd. By the way, later this this crank professor will be whipped to death by the Laurel and her henchman. Yes, because and I believe he rats her out to the Lord Lie. He's like, oh, yeah, there's a scientist in town. He thinks he's figuring out your secret and he's gonna kill you or something. And she's like, oh really, oh that's right, Yes, Tony Kendall, He totally he basically sends her after the scientist. Yeah, okay, so there's that. The second one is Tony Kendall's romance with Elkie. So again, she's she's the teacher at the school. She's she's basically the disapproving schoolmarm who does not like Segurd one bit, except that, of course she is uncontrollably attracted to him. And there's the scenes where she you know, she they they say he has to sleep in the moldy garage while he's guarding the school, and she comes in like bangs on the door of the garage and he gets out of bed and he's all like shirtless, and she's like wow, and they have some kind of argument about something, but they end up romancing. Of course, there's also the scene where he showed like he had the funky music starts playing and he's showing up with a towel and she's like, what do you think you're doing. And he's like, I'm gonna go swim with the students and she's like no, no, you absolutely cannot do that. And he's like, okay, I'll go bathe in the marsh. That's right. So they send him to bathe in the marsh. That gets us into the final plot line, which is the romance with Laurela. So yeah, so he's got to go bathe in the marsh. And the marsh, by the way, you're not getting cleaner by getting in this water. Now, this is this is a little very loathsome environment, but it works well. If it's going to be a place haunted by some sort of weird grind maiden, this this is it. Yeah, So he goes down to the marsh and there he sees the creepy lady who has been showing up at the funerals and who I think he chased off of the school premises at night one time. So she's just hanging out there in like a green bikini and then uh, she runs off to a shack and he goes into the shack and they start talking, and I don't even remember what they talk about. Is. I think she's basically like, well, I'm the Laurel, and then he's like, I love you, and then you're in love. But then we then she just she kind of peters out, you know, she she just kind of goes to sleep there in the shed. And who shows up to take her away? Well, it's her Hinchman Alberi um or or might think of him to his Albrecht. And I'm not not sure if it's really revealed here, Like first of all, when he collects her, he takes her back to the water, back to the Rhine and just walks into the water with her, take her down into the depths. And then later on it is revealed that not only is is he her you know, potentially supernatural Hinchman, he is one of the Niba lung He is a dwarf, and in fact, in the work The Song of the Nible Lungs, there is a dwarf character by the name of Albarek who is the guardian of the Nibu Lungs treasure, and he has both superhuman strength and a cloak of invisibility, uh, neither of which are really featured into this picture. Um, but you do see various artistic renderings of this character. He has a bull whip, so it's a dwarf with a bull whip. Um. And Ian Wagner's the Ring of the nibble Lung. He is the lord part of the Nibelung and the opera's primary antagonist. Now in Wagner, does he use the whip to kill a meddling crank scientist. I think so, yeah, I think that's that's straight out of so he Yeah. So Louise here, Luis Barbou carries her down into the water, and so it became it becomes clear she has an underwater layer. There's like a grotto underneath the marsh where she lives, and so Tony Kendall ultimately has to go face her in the grotto, which he does by putting on a speedo with a belt and uh and going scuba diving down lake. Gotta have gotta You can't just tuck that radioactive knife into the front of your speedo. Oh, that's right. So he scuba's down to the grotto and you know what, this movie had a lot of I would say budget and aesthetic limitations, but the grotto set is wonderful shot. This place looks great. It looks like a kind of like a Romanesque church underneath the water, and there's like moss on everything, and it is very old. So this must have been well, actually, I don't know. I can't tell that this is a good set or if this is an actual location. Yeah. I wasn't sure if this was even perhaps the same location that was used in some of the Tomb of the Blind Dead movies, because they often had locations that looked like the sets or locations that looked like this. So so I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least double or triple dipping here when it came to locations. Yeah. So Tony Kendall scuba's down to the grotto in in his speedo. But then it's funny that when he shows up, Luis Barbou is like, here, I I've got some clothes for you to wear, but this on a cape and stuff. You can't come into the presence of the Treasures of the Nibelung dressed in that. And so the I think, given this red cape and all, it's wonderful, let's see and she she basically explains the whole deal to him, right, what does she what does she say? Well, she's she is the daughter of voting, the you know, the Germanic of wagner esque version of Odin. So she is the honor of a god. She hangs that she's not really the guardian of the treasure, that that's Albret's job. But but she lives here with the treasure. Most of the time she is just asleep. But during the the seven nights of both in every you know, however many centuries, she has to come up, transform into a monster, take on this second nature, kill people, rip out their hearts, consume their hearts so that she can go back to sleep. Okay, yeah, so every few hundred years she wakes up with the full moon, turns into a lizard, kills people, takes their hearts, then goes back to sleep, and eventually she'll get to take a hunk with her to Valhalla. Yes, yeah, because ultimately hurt. The whole thing is like, look, I don't feel bad about what I did. That's just my second nature. You can't blame me for that. Uh, and you can't stop me. But here's the fun part. You don't have to stop me. You can just stay here with me forever and yeah, and we'll look you know, rule in Valhalla and so forth. So she makes a strong case. Yeah, she says, I will make you. I will make you eternal and powerful. Right yeah, so yes, So cigarette has a has a choice to make here, uh, and we'll just have to see which side he h he goes with. Well, I think he gets like hypnotized by a crystal or something, right, Oh, well, yeah, she does whip out a crystal, one of the gems of the Niba lung there, and she's using that to sort of hypnotize him. But he was already at least interested in this proposal anyway. Tony Kendall doesn't take a lot of hypnotizing before he will before he's ready to follow a lady to Valhalla. But they put him under basically, and then um Albert comes back out and he's like, you know, this isn't gonna work. He's in love with somebody back there. I saw them making out. And she's like, well, what I have to do is while he's out here, chain him up or something. I'm gonna go up. I'll kill the other woman and then I'll be the only choice. Problem solved. Laura la that is cold, that is that is cold and nasty. Yeah, so they leave him chained up, but then he escapes because he's such a hunk that all of the Rhyan maidens are like, he'll be mine, and they unchain him, and then they started fighting over him. That's the other thing she had down in the grotto. She has these three assistants, female assistants, and these are the Rhine Maidens. While they're not in the Old Norse it does, they do appear in Wagner's Um the ring Dust, and so they're a common feature in the opera of Wagner, but also in some of the illustrations. So, for instance, author Rockham did you know, wonderful illustrations of various fairy type creatures, and so he did illustrations of both Albrich the dwarf with his bull whip, and also he did illustrations of the three Rhine Maidens. So if you're a Wagner fan, you're you're very familiar with these characters. But yeah, they end up squabbling over him, which I guess is is a common trope. Whenever you have a trio of of monsters that are guarding over somebody, you know, be they trolls or witches. Uh, they're gonna end up squabbling and that's gonna allow your hero to escape or am I don't think he slays that well he I guess he does indirectly, Yeah, he so he they they're fighting over him, and he escapes and then he chucks a bomb down to blow up the grotto. Yep, so blows up the rhine maidens, the dwarf as well as the treasure. So everything gets destroyed. Now then now there's no layer for our our monster. So Laurel is running up to attack Elkie and and Tony Kendall's got to go safer, and he brings along the radioactive knife. And I don't think there's too much surprising about here. He basically just like stabs the monster with the radioactive knife. She's like no, and then she turns back into the human version, and then she transforms into a skeleton and then into a photo negative, like a photo negative ghost of herself, hauntingly telling him that I'll be waiting for you in Valhalla. And it's actually kind of ends on a haunting note here where he's he's sort of gazing into the distance hearing this hearing her promise, but also the other love interest, the survivor um from the school, like she's showing up as well, And so he's still torn between worlds here which is the love of true love of his life? Is it the life here on earth with this woman or is it the life the afterlife in Valhalla with his his monstrous bride from another realm? Would it be better to love a lizard of another plane? And then we get that wonderful choral piece at the end playing over everything. So I have to say, solid monster. Maybe I really enjoyed this point. Okay, you know it's got it's got everything. You got the the wonky science, You've got all these uh these allusions to to to mythology and Wagner, You've you've got the the the wonky monster cost costume. You have some fun performances. Uh. And I don't like the music. I don't think i'd say it's a good movie, but it's I love the ridiculous romance, I love the crank. It's it's got all that going for it. And uh and you know, the monster is bad, but it's pretty fun when the scientist is bullwhipped to death, and of course causes acid to fall off of the desk of the scientists onto his face, and so he gets he gets properly melted like that. I wanted to mention that as well. Oh yeah, I just remember that. There's also a great scene where when when he when Kendall's character first arrives in the grotto, Um, she looks she's on her throne waiting for him, and uh and and Albrett looks over at the Laura lie and she gives him a look like he's like, should I whip him to death? And Laura lies like no, no, no no, let him talk first. He's like all right, all right. So that is the laurelized grasp. UM. If you want to watch this movie as well as of this recording, there is a version available for digital renteror purchase in the United States on on Prime UH. This version is English dub only, and I think the video quality is also a cup below what you get on the Blu Ray, but it's also still very watchable. And I and the dubs in this case that the dub is not a drastically different experience compared to the subtitles. So I watched it the first time through UH with the with the dubbed prime version, but then I rented it on Blu ray from Video Drome and this is from a Shout factory. Their screen factory imprint a double feature Blu ray that also features is The Night of the Sorcerers, also by Diasaio. But I believe there are also some international standalone blue rays of this film as well. But anyway that the blue that we watch certainly has better picture quality, has the option for the original Spanish language track, and also a few extra features. I just made a connection which is one of my least favorite things about the movie, the going on way too long and too loud screaming scenes. One of the alternate titles of this film when it was released in the United States was I think it was called Till the Screaming Stops. Yeah, not as good of a title, but I can understand maybe some folks having trouble with the lower a Lie title. You know, the Laura Lie, despite what the musician tells us. The musician tells us at one point like people already all around the world know the story of the Laura Lie. Yeah, I don't think they necessarily do. You can imagine where people are like our people on street going to know what a laurel Ie is when they're looking at what's playing. Um, maybe not until the screaming stops, though everybody knows what screaming is, and it does, it does deliver. It says, hey, this movie will have a lot of screaming, and it will it will test your patients right right, and it makes it seem like it's just gonna be a murder film. But of course it's more than that. It is a romance. It is a monster movie. It is the tale of dwarves whipping scientists to death. It has it all all right, We're gonna go ahead and close this one out. But we'd love to hear from everyone out there, certainly anybody else who's seen the Laureaized Grasp, but also if you have experience in Germanic mythology, the works of Wagner German romanticism from the nineteenth century, and want to chime in on any of this, Uh do so, we'd love to hear from you. If you just have experience with the Ryan, if you've seen the laurela rock and question, uh, let us know as well. We we love that kind of firsthand information and feedback, and if you want to catch other episodes of Weird House Cinema, you know where to find them. Every Friday and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but on Friday's we've put aside most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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