Leonor (1975)
So what happens when you bring together a world-class cast and crew, and make a vampire film that has no blood… no fake fangs… no rubber masks… and a tragic love story for grown-ups?
The movie sinks without trace, that’s what.
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- 59: No, Not That One!
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- 61: WTF!?
- 62: In The Key Of B
- 63: The Forgotten Dawn Of Horror
- 64: The Most Dangerous Roundtable
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- The Links We Love
#1 by MatthewF on May 1, 2009 - 3:32 am
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Sounds like Pet Semetary for adults. To be crude. Not sure if a Ramones theme song would help though.
#2 by Joshua on May 1, 2009 - 5:07 am
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How on Earth do you find movies like this? I can’t imagine they’re on the shelf at your local rental shop.
#3 by Braineater on May 1, 2009 - 8:10 am
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Actually, Matthew, Pet Sematery for adults would probably be Pupi Avati’s Zeder. In a weird bit of synchronicity, Avati and King came out with essentially the same idea at the same time. And while most things in life would be improved by a Ramones theme song, Leonor isn’t one of them.
Joshua — that’s one of my points in writing the review. Why is this movie so difficult to find? I had to make do with a grey market version taken (I think) from Italian television. With no subtitles, naturally — but then again, that’s not too much of an obstacle; it’s Italian, not (say) Telugu…
(Although if you want to watch unsubtitled Telugu horror movies, they’re here.)
#4 by lyzard on May 1, 2009 - 4:55 pm
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I find myself intrigued by the thought of what the line, “Zis reever can keel you in a zouzand vays” might sound like in Telugu.
That sounds like a perfectly valid form of anti-patriarchal rebellion to me.
#5 by Howard on May 1, 2009 - 11:54 pm
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Goddammit, Braineater! I have always found your taste in films to be a suitable simulacrum for my own, yet this film is proving elusive to my usual means of obtaining movies. I need to see this.
My only consolation is my recently discovered source for Brazilian B-movies other than Coffin Joe pictures, which none of the Cabal seem to have discovered, and which secret I will take to my grave.
#6 by Braineater on May 2, 2009 - 10:17 am
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Curses, Howard! You taunt me with your Brazilian treasure trove!
I guess I may need to dive into Nigerian horror movies now, just to keep my edge…
#7 by Blake Matthews on May 2, 2009 - 12:07 pm
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Howard: That sounds like a challenge!
#8 by Howard on May 2, 2009 - 5:50 pm
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Well, so far Coffin Joe has the edge in terms of Brazilian horror movies, but there are a huge number of musicals and comedies from the tail end of the Vargas regime that are worth watching. I can highly recommend O homem do Sputnik (The Sputnik Man) from 1959. It’s a classic Cold War comedy, but from the perspective of a major non-aligned nation. Something has fallen from the sky and destroyed a chicken farmer’s hen house and he believes it’s the Sputnik satellite. Before you know it, spies from the USSR, USA, and France (including Norma Bengall, pre-Planet of the Vampires) descend on the hapless Brazilian hoping to get their hands on the Soviet sattelite. For any pop-culture junkie, this is a movie not to be missed.
Cala a boca, Etelvina (“Shut your mouth, Etelvina” is my translation) is a ridiculous Komedy with a capital K, at about the level of the TV show “Hazel” or maybe Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors,” but it has some astounding musical numbers, including an extended fantasy sequence featuring the great Forró artist, Jackson do Pandiero.
#9 by Howard on May 2, 2009 - 5:53 pm
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Man, you guys really need to enable comment preview.
Forró
Forò
Forró
One of these should work.
#10 by Howard on May 2, 2009 - 6:26 pm
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Braineater, I’ve been wanting to get my hands on some Nigerian films as well. I think the thing that keeps me from doing so is the sure and certain knowledge that many Nigerians actually believe in witchcraft, and I wonder about the role those films play in the mutilation and murder of real human beings (NSFW/NSFAnywhere).
#11 by Braineater on May 2, 2009 - 7:58 pm
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Well, unfortunately I don’t know enough about them to tell whether they were made for entertainment, or to incite superstitious violence. I can promise you they won’t make me go out and murder anyone, though.
And you know, I’ve been thinking about the matter of Secret Sources: as much fun as it is to dig up some forgotten movie that nobody seems to have reviewed so far (and I admit I do get a perverse pleasure out of this)… that isn’t really the main reason I want to write about it. I really like the movie, and I’d like for more people to be able to see it — or at least to be aware of it, in case they ever have the unexpected opportunity. If I had a reliable source for copies of Leonor, I wouldn’t hesitate to share it with everybody. Unfortunately, even the recent Spanish DVD seems to be hard to find (and expensive, too).
A few years ago, when I put out a request that people search their attics for copies of the US TV print of Pontianak (1957), which is now otherwise a lost film, there was a cockroach-like flurry of activity on cult movie message boards: OMG! The MAN is after our movies! Hide your Pontianak videos (if they exist) or the Braineater will take away our Berne Act rights! This made me sad.
#12 by MatthewF on May 3, 2009 - 9:51 am
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I spent all day yesterday watching horror movies that aren’t out on the VHS or DVD, or on the web. In fact they haven’t actually been made yet. So I’m lying. But still. I win.
#13 by El Santo on May 3, 2009 - 11:25 am
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“I spent all day yesterday watching horror movies that aren’t out on the VHS or DVD, or on the web. In fact they haven’t actually been made yet. So I’m lying. But still. I win.”
Were you by any chance hanging out with F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre?
#14 by lyzard on May 3, 2009 - 3:30 pm
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Oddly, this is the second nasty reference to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre I’ve come across in the past two days. It must be a measure of the films I’m watching/reviewing/wasting my life searching for.