Slow moving Spanish chiller, has Paul Naschy in one of his more devious roles as an insane perverted necrophiliac gravedigger..it's a lesser role for Naschy but he makes the most of it. He's pretty hideous in it. Stelvio Rosi is Serge Chekov, an outsider entering a village corresponding to a letter naming him heir to his uncle's(..who was a wealthy Count)estate, put in charge of the man's daughter, but he arrives too late and finds her hanging in a cemetery after removing a letter from her dead father's coat pocket. Nadia Mihaly(Maria Pia Conte)was the Count's young wife, furious at not being left anything in his will. A practitioner of black magic, Nadia prides herself quite knowledgeable in the dark arts. Anyway, Nadia makes a move on Serge who is all too willing to embellish her advances, fully understanding her motives. Dyanik Zurakowska is Doris, the maid for the Count, and the daughter of scientist, Leon Droila(Gérard Tichy), begging Serge to allow her father to continue his research in the laboratory(Count Mihaly funded Leon's experiments in reanimating the dead)located inside the villa. Carlos Quiney is the Count's butler who doesn't like Serge's new position nor appreciates Nadia's interest in the new owner of Count Mihaly's villa. Pasquale Basile is the detective investigating the murder of Count Mihaly's daughter(she seems to have died of fright, not of strangulation as we so assume)and keeps an eye on Serge as developments regarding murder and intrigue soon surface after a séance goes awry and the walking dead appear. Also, Igor(Naschy)is suspected of robbing graves and becomes a suspect in a victim's murder at what appeared to be at the hands of the dead Count himself. Mad science; experiments with the reanimated dead. A beheading. Zombies. Organ removal. Secret passageways. Tombs raided and corpses abused. Possible witchcraft. A séance. Family secrets. Lots of salacious/grotesque goings-on in this little horror flick. Not a lot of gore, besides the decapitation, with some boobs and a smidgen of sex. Like many of these kinds of Spanish movies in the 70's, the atmospheric village setting features sinister behavior, motivations behind violent acts resulting from greed, not to mention Serge's plans to sell the Count's villa aren't popular. Naschy has some amusing scenes, peeping on Nadia, allowed to grope her, but scolding himself for "betraying" his other girls(..dead women whose tombs he carried to a secret passageway hidden within the villa!). He's quite an unpleasant site, the romanticism his characters often relate to in his El Hombre Lobo series removed..it's too bad there isn't more of him in this particular film.
Review of The Hanging Woman
