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Released by: Crash Cinema
Released on: April 27, 2004.
Director: Carlos Aured
Cast: Paul Naschy, Emma Cohen, Victor Alcazar, Helga Line, Juan Cazalilla, Betsabe Ruiz
Year: 1973
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The Movie:
The first of his collaborations with director Carlos Aured, Horror Rises From The Tomb should please Naschy fans to no end as it finds the actor, who also penned the film under his real name, Jacinto Molina, playing both the protagonist and the antagonist in this bizarre epic from 1972.
Alaric De Marnac (Naschy) is a medieval French warlock who, along with his seductive lady friend named Mabille DeLancre (Helga Line of Jess Franco's El Conde Dracula), is put to death at the hands of the local authorities for devil worship. Before they're dead though, Mabille promises that they will get their revenge - Mabille is hanged and Alaric decapitated.
Cut to the present day (well, the seventies at least) where we find Hugo (Naschy again) and his friend Maurice (Victor Alcazar of Count Dracula's Great Love) becoming more aware of some strange activity in their lives. It seems that Hugo is a descendant of De Marnac while Maurice is a descendant of the man who killed him. They bring in a medium and hold a séance to try and find out more information, but when it all goes wrong, they decide to grab their girlfriends and head off to Hugo's family chateau. The pair hopes to prove once and for all that Alaric's body is in fact dead and buried.
They run into some problems on their journey to the remote area in which the chateau was built though, and after they crash their Mercedes Benz, are taken advantage of by some local townspeople. These rapscallions sell them a beat up clunker of a ride to get them to their destination for three thousand Francs after vanquishing some thieves who had attempted to rob our heroes.
Eventually though, Hugo, Maurice, and their two companions make it to the chateau. They get some help together and dig up a chest containing Alaric's severed head and some jewels but by doing this they unwittingly bring Alaric and Mabille back from the dead. The pair of miscreants quickly reverts back to their old evil ways, killing many of the locals and eventually going after Hugo and Maurice as well, even going so far as to bring in some zombies to help them in their Satanic quest.
Naschy is typically good in his duel role, lending an air of dignity to his protagonist and a serious amount of menace to his evil Alaric antagonist. All cloaked in black and sporting some truly devilish facial hair, Alaric slashes his way through the cast with all of the seductive flair fans associate with Naschy. Line, as his compatriot, is likewise great, bringing no small amount of sex appeal to her role. One need only watch the scene where the two of them seduce Christine towards the end of the film for a shining example of this. Alaric and Mabille have her under their complete control and while a good part of the action is left to your imagination (courtesy of Naschy's cloak), you're given enough to know what's going to happen to her.
The rest of the cast is decent as well, everyone looking sufficiently amused and/or horrified in all the appropriate places. The film delivers ample amounts of gore and nudity in its uncut version, which keeps the thrills coming at a good pace. Aided markedly by a truly unique (and at times, unintentionally funny) musical score consisting mainly of repetitive organ tones, Aured's direction is slick and competent. The film is framed very nicely with much attention paid to capturing the moody atmosphere of the gothic sets (castles, graveyards, and the like). Color composition is striking with plenty of greens and reds used to keep your eyes busy taking it all in and the entire package almost feels like an issue of an old Warren magazine like Creepy or Eerie.
Despite the claim on the packaging that the disc contains the Uncut Version (with a running time of 88 minutes) and the US Version (missing most of the gore and nudity, clocking in at 80 minutes), there is also a widescreen Clothed Version included as well (that is missing the nudity and some of the gore, but not all, running 81 minutes in length).
Video/Audio/Extras:
Video varies depending on which version of the film you watch. The least impressive is the Uncut Version, which looks like it was taken from a VHS source. It's fullframe and missing a considerable amount of picture information. The U. S. Version is probably sourced from a TV print and despite the heavy cuts made to it, it doesn't look too bad, though it too is fullframe.
The best looking of the three versions is the Clothed Version, which is presented in a very nice (though non-anamoprhic) 1.85.1 widescreen transfer. There is still some print damage but it's minor and the color scheme looks much better on this cut than on the other two. Seeing the entire picture on the screen obviously makes a big difference and for those who have previously only seen this in pan and scan presentations, this widescreen transfer makes it like seeing it again for the first time. Too bad it's not the Uncut Version! Also worth noting is there are a few moments where burned in German subtitles appear on the print used on the widescreen presentation. The later release from BCI, however, looks much, much better than any version found on this release.
All three films are presented in a Dolby Digital Mono English dub. It'd have been nice to see a Spanish language option with English, but that's nowhere to be found. That being said, it's never hard to follow the story or understand the dialogue. Overall, there is some hiss and distortion present on each of the tracks but it's minor and doesn't interfere with the viewing experience much.
A nice gallery of posters, lobby cards, artwork, stills and press book material is included (highlight by Naschy's own sketch of his character from the film). There's also, in text format, an interview with the director of the film, Carlos Aured and a nice Naschy biography and filmographies for both Naschy and Aured. Most of the extras were supplied by Mirek Lipinski, who runs The Mark Of Naschy website. There are also trailers for Invaders Of The Lost Gold and Beat Girl supplied as well. Off the disc, there is a nice poster reproduction in the form of an insert, and an outer slipcase as well.
The Final Word:
Crash has done a pretty good job finally getting this movie out in widescreen. It's not a perfect release but it's far better than the Brentwood release that came out last year and seeing Horror Rises From The Tomb in widescreen really does make on appreciate it that much more. With that said, yeah, the BCI version that came out after this one is a big improvement and the one that serious fans will want to own.