Night of the Sorcerers

  Night of the Sorcerers (Night of the Witches, La Noche de los Brujos)

1973

Director- Amando de Ossorio

Cast- Jack Taylor, Kali Hansa, Bárbara Rey, María Kosty, Simón Andreu, José Thelman, Loreta Tovar

            

    The movie begins in Africa in 1910. An obviously western woman (Barbara Rey) has been taken captive by some natives who seem to be in the middle of an occult ceremony. She is tied between 2 trees and the head priest uses a whip to literally whip the clothes off of her. He then gives her a vampire bite and she is transported to an alter where a priestess, after some dancing, lops the woman’s head off with a machete! Meanwhile, a bunch of pith helemeted colonial soldiers surround the scene and then open fire, killing all of the natives. The woman’s head reanimates, alive and with vampire fangs. And that’s all within the first seven minutes!

           

     Fast forward 60 years or so and a new group of Europeans has arrived in the area to do research on elephants. They are led by manly Jack Taylor, who has been in too many horror movies to list but I’ll just throw out a few Jess Franco’sCount Dracula and The Ninth Gate, not to mention a cameo in Conan the Barbarian! His crew includes 3 beautiful women (Hansa, Kosty, Tovar) and Rod, a man for hire who is helping the expedition. They are met by a local guide who explains that all of the elephants in the area are gone or dead and drops a hint about a local superstition involving witches.

            

     That night, one of the ladies decides, since she can’t get pics of elephants, she’ll go out looking for the witches. She finds them all right, all returned from the grave! She receives the same treatment as the last woman; clothes whipped off, vampire bite,  beheading, and reanimation.

           

      Somehow the heads are reattached to the bodies and the new vampire woman is joined by the original woman from the beginning of the film. They stalk the camp at night and turn another of the young women into a vampire. Rod and his girlfriend refuse to leave, hoping to find their missing members. Will they make it out alive or join the ranks of the undead?

            

    The movie was directed by prolific Spanish horror director Amando de Ossorio who, among other things, directed The Blind Dead saga. All of the stars in the film except one have starred in his movies and most appeared in one or another of the Blind Dead films.

            

     As far as it being a serious examination of the occult, forget about it. In the English dub, words like, Voodoo, Satanist, sorcerer and witches are all used interchangeably. The word Brujo is used in the Spanish language version and I guess that serves as a kind of a catch all.  The women are sacrificed in a ritual but return as vampires clad in leopard skin bikinis (because why not?).  As for the witches themselves, are they ghosts? Zombies? We never really know. 

     The Blind Dead movies are very dark, bordering on the point of oppressive at times. This movie takes itself much less seriously. This is a fun film with exactly what you’d expect from Spanish horror exploitation from the 70s; lots of nudity, bright red blood, and enough originality to keep it interesting.