HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE Directed By Javier Aguirre, Starring Paul Naschy (1973).
Reviewed By Troy Guinn.
Don’t be fooled
by the impossibly catchy “oompah” German polka theme that plays behind the
opening credits of HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE; it might be the last cheerful
moments of the film but it damn sure won’t be the only thing that lingers in
your mind after you experience this, the peak of Spanish horror icon Paul
Naschy’s career as an actor and storyteller, and one of the very best
Eurohorror films of the 1970’s.
In a small
German village (actually a Spanish town in Catalonia serving as a stand-in),
the inhabitants pass their time by chugging beer and abusing the deformed
hunchback, Gotho (Paul Naschy). Even the children and the students of the local
medical college get in on the cruel fun of tormenting Gotho, whose only solace
is his friendship with the sickly Ilse (Maria Elena Arpon), whom he visits in
the hospital, where he also serves as a morgue attendant. When Ilse dies, the
hunchback, already driven half-mad by a lifetime as an outcast, is truly sent
over the edge, stealing Ilse’s body while dealing murderous justice to those
who disrespected her in life or who would dispose of her corpse. Yes, Gotho
might be a lover but he ain’t no dancer, and while Ilse’s remains turn a queasy
shade of green and the flies start a-buzzin’, Gotho cleaves heads from bodies,
battles a horde of hungry rats, and introduces various thugs to the acid bath
in his underground lair if they get too close to his departed, decomposing pal.
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| All I gotta do is slice off some nice bacon for the Arby's meat delivery. |
Enter Dr.
Orla (Alberto Dalbes), a prominent professor at the medical college who is
having trouble getting funding, let alone consent, to continue his
controversial scientific endeavors at the university. In Gotho, the
manipulative doctor sees a gullible tool he can use to his own ends. Dr. Orla
promises to bring Ilse back to life if Gotho will build a secret lab in the
catacombs for Orla’s experiments. Even when Ilse’s physical form is destroyed
and Gotho thinks all hope is lost, Orla tells him not to worry, for the
professor’s discoveries in growing new cell tissue will enable him to create an
entirely new Ilse from scratch. There’s just one catch, though: the newly
growing tissue must be fed living human flesh! Luckily, there’s an entire
women’s prison in this quaint little village, which provides the prowling
hunchback with many potential victims to kidnap and serve as dinner to Orla’s
rapidly-growing “Ilse”.
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| when will supper be ready, I can't fucking wait anymore! |
Along the
way, Gotho draws the attention of Elke (Rosanna Yanni), a compassionate doctor
who not only takes the hunchback into her heart, but also into her boudoir
(this IS a Paul Naschy film, after all). Still undeterred in his determination
to see Ilse reborn, Gotho continues to procure live, kicking and screaming
victims for Orla’s pet; however, it becomes apparent that what Orla is actually
cultivating is not a fresh, sweet, flower-loving Ilse but an ancient “Old One”
from the primordial beginnings of time. This kick-in-the-teeth, combined with
Orla’s plan to feed not only Elke but two other kind doctors (played by Vic
Winner and Maria Perschy) to the “Primordial” finally convinces Gotho he’s been
had and it’s time to shut down Orla for good. It’s at this moment the
Primordial, who’s grown into a humanoid, slimy shambling thing, decides it’s
tired of dining in and breaks loose from his cell. Gotho must do battle with
the Primordial and save his new friends from Dr. Orla’s evil machinations.
If the
above synopsis is any indication, anyone popping HUNCHBACK into the DVD player
and expecting another take on Victor Hugo’s classic HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, a
familiar tale about a lonely and pathetic figure who suffers cruelty from his
fellow man except for the kindness of one girl, whom he then sacrifices all to
protect, might not be prepared for the sick, wonderfully unsavory and nutty
catacombs full of surprises lying in wait for them in Naschy and director
Javier Aguirre’s twisted cinematic concoction. However, those well-versed in
the quirky realms of Eurohorror and also Naschy’s fertile mind know full well
he not only loved reviving the classic monsters, he also specialized in subverting
expectations and creating rich stews that mixed ingredients from his well-read
library, his love of cinema and art, and his own personal experiences. From
moment to moment, scene to scene, HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE is science-fiction,
gothic horror, Lovecraft-inspired celestial mythos, pulpy 70’s horror comic
magazine, grand guignol gore, and Universal films monster mash.
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| Shhh! Be quiet, I'm trying to masturbate! |
So, yes, a
lot to absorb, but at the film’s heart is our hunchback, Gotho, and Paul
Naschy’s effective portrayal, one for which he would receive prestigious
international accolades and awards. Naschy gives a physically skillful and
psychologically compelling performance, adding complexity and layers to what
could have simply been the “village idiot” as most of Gotho’s community see him.
Gotho is a sympathetic yet volatile character, childlike but certainly not an
innocent nor a total idiot; an obviously deranged individual capable of
unconditional, bordering-on-religious devotion to those who show him kindness,
but also able to return the brutality he receives twofold, with decisive
violence and, yes, a hint of gleeful sadism. While it’s somewhat amusing, in
light of the fact that Naschy’s scripts usually provided plenty of intimate
scenes with lovely actresses for his protagonists, to note that Gotho might be
horror cinema’s only hunchback to enjoy consensual sex with a film’s loveliest
starlet (in this case, the stunning Rosanna Yanni), it does lend a unique
degree of tragedy to Gotho’s story: unlike his bell-ringing Parisian counterpart,
Gotho actually CAN “get the girl” and find earthly happiness, but he’s simply
too far gone in his own self-hatred and disdain for the world of the living,
and his desire for the company of Ilse’s remains, animated or no, to take this
rope to redemption that has been thrown to him.
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| Huh? The Hunchback's got game? I'm flabbergasted! |
Even those
who haven’t seen HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE might be aware of its most justifiably
infamous sequence, in which Gotho returns to his lair to find that rats are
feasting on Ilse’ corpse. The rats fling themselves on the hunchback (Naschy
was covered in horse grease and yes, the rats are really biting him), who
drives them away by putting them to the torch. The rats used in the production
had been rounded up by the city and were scheduled to be destroyed, but that
doesn’t make it any easier to watch the roasting rodent fireballs run
screeching to and fro…unless you get off on that kind of thing. As unpleasant
as this scene is to watch and certainly to film (as it was for Naschy and must
have been for Maria Elena Arpon, who as Ilse earns a real Eurohorror merit
badge for maintaining corpse-like stillness while being swarmed by the rats),
the sleeze-and-quease factor might have been ramped up even further if a
certain other opportunity for real-life gore had been carried through: The
HUNCHBACK production received permission to use a real cadaver in the morgue
anyway they wished. The plan was for Gotho to actually behead the corpse, but
even though Naschy fortified himself with liquor before filming the
decapitation, he was unable to bring himself to do it. Thus, it’s merely a fake
head that Dr. Orla feeds to the growing “Primordial”, and I think I speak for
most viewers when I say that’s probably for the best…unless you get off on that
kind of thing.
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| Alchohol, solves all problems, lowers inhibitions, Ahh skip it and bring in the fake severed head. |
Visually,
HUNCHBACK is a marvel for lovers of gothic horror, making use of vast catacombs
under Madrid to evoke a dank, clammily noxious atmosphere. The cinematography
of Raul Perez Cubero lends the film the brown earthy tones of Brueghel, a
painter Naschy admired greatly, and the history of cruelty and suffering that
occurred in these underground tunnels (in the film, still littered with
discarded skeletons and torture devices) underscores the casual inhumanity
directed towards Gotho by the “normal” denizens of the village above. One can
almost smell the cold decay of Gotho’s world because of the visual power and
the imaginativeness of the set design.
HUNCHBACK
OF THE MORGUE belongs in the upper echelon of touchstone works in Eurohorror
history. Even some of those that praise the film have deemed the story to be
“muddled” or a “mess” but that unjustly penalizes the film for having a wealth
of ideas and mixing several genres, while ignoring that these ingredients
nearly all unfold without derailing the pace or failing to pay off in the
story. What’s perhaps most impressive is that HUNCHBACK was made when Naschy
and director Aguirre were forced to shut down production on COUNT DRACULA’S
GREAT LOVE due to an accident suffered by some of the cast. While COUNT
DRACULA, as atmospheric and endlessly watchable as it is, is truly a work that
can be called muddled, HUNCHBACK stands as the superior achievement of the two
films.
BUY THE BLU-RAY OF NASCHY COLLECTION II, (which has exclusive commentary from Troy and Rod Barnett of the Naschycast).
BUY THE BLU-RAY OF NASCHY COLLECTION II, (which has exclusive commentary from Troy and Rod Barnett of the Naschycast).
