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Black Candles (1982)
By lngway2go | August 2, 2007
Director: José Ramón Larraz
Starring: Helga Line, Vanessa Hidalgo, Carmen Carrion
Black Candles is a blend of Rosemary’s Baby and the Hammer Horror films of the 60’s and 70’s, with an extremely large helping of sexploitation.
Released by BCI as part of their Welcome To Grindhouse Double Features series to cash in on the ’success’ of the Tarantino/Rodriguez film Grindhouse. This exploitation film is directed by, José Ramón Larraz, the Spanish filmmaker who would eventually breathe some much needed life, as well as some sin, into English horror cinema in the form of Vampyres (1974).
Larraz is a very competent filmmaker, who is not scared to lather his product with sexuality, although Black Candles suffers from too much and we are left guessing which market Larraz is aiming for; horror or softcore sex market. Many horror films during the 70’s relied heavily on their sexual content, and as the 80’s approached this increased as horror directors began making porn films, which would often be the only way that b or z-grade directors could actually make any significant amounts of money. Director’s like Jess Franco and Joe D’Amato ended up blurring all lines between sex and horror as they mixed hardcore pornography with their horror output, but that’s another story entirely.
Black Candles opens with the naked visage of a man and women entangled in an adulterous act, while the man’s wife looks on from the bedside table, framed behind glass. But as we are observe this immoral act, she really is watching from somewhere afar, clutching a doll and a long needle in her hand. When she thrusts the needle through the doll, the man dies in the bed while his mistress is left unsatisfied by the rude interruption. And here the tone for the movie is laid out before our very eyes.
After her brother’s death (the man in the bed), Carol travels with her boyfriend, Robert, to see her sister-in-law and find out what happened to her brother. But when they arrive it’s quite apparent that something unusual is happening here, and she begins to suspect something more might have happened to her brother. It quickly becomes apparent that they have put themselves in the middle of some occult goings on and Carol’s sister-in-law seems to be a part of this cult, as well as everyone one else in the film except the new arrivals!
There isn’t really any mystery in the film, since we already know who killed who, and it’s all part of some occult happenings. All we have left to do is wonder if Robert will be able to resist the succubus (aka sister-in-law), and will they discover what happened to Carol’s brother? Given the nature of the film, it’s not hard to guess the answer to at least one of these ‘burning’ questions.
Much of the plot (and I’m using that word very loosely) is established in the first half of Black Candles, the latter half is but a series sex scenes, en (black) mass. Although none of the scenes go to hardcore status, there is a somewhat disturbing scene involving…a goat of all things! I didn’t really understand why they needed to have the coupling, and I wasn’t that keen on rewinding… something to do with fluids conjoining, power and some other dark mumbo jumbo. But I guess this is, after all, an exploitation movie, I didn’t specify what kind of exploitation.
Black Candles looks nice (I’m not talking about the naked bodies!) in that exploitation kind of way, it’s well filmed and edited, but it is ultimately a mediocre affair. I have a soft spot for witchcraft based subject matter but unfortunately the plot is cast aside as often as the casts’ clothes, and all we are left with is a pretty hollow piece of cinema. That said, this is the second time I’ve bought this movie (this dvd replaces an old video cassette), so I guess you’ll have to make of that what you will.
Topics: Exploitation, Witchcraft Films |