The World of the Vampires (1961)

After over a century of sleep, the vampire Count Subotai has risen, determined to revenge himself against the Colman family, responsible for the past failure of his evil plans. He introduces himself as a guest, and seduces one of the daughters. But suspicions are raised, and musician Rodolfo Sabre teams up with the family patriarch to save his daughters, and the world from the terrible power of the dead...

World of the Vampires is a neat little horror movie, and one that lives up to its title's grand promises! It's a relatively simple story, and doesn't go as crazy in that respect as it maybe could've, but we do see a great supernatural world here, that impresses for a cheesy Mexican b-movie.

The film has an effective prologue, short on dialogue and high on imagery, as a genuine army of vampires swarms a young couple (after the idiots gets out of their car!). Count Subotai has also taken cues from Phantom of the Opera, because he has a huge organ in his evil lair, which adds to his nifty diabolical repertoire.

It's this musical nature that adds a unique touch to the film. Not only do we get these scenes of the vampire's evil music, but the opposite too, exploring how certain notes cause physical reactions. Some positive, some negative, and some downright deadly to vampires. A movie where monsters are killed with the power of music may sound a bit silly, but it's handled really well, and provides a lot of great imagery and audi...errr.audiery.

Something the film suffers from is a thin plot. All it boils down to is a vampire wants to get revenge against a family, so he attends a party, charms a daughter, then kidnaps the others to kill. That's the entire plot. No further depth, no subplots, or anything. I guess it's a credit to the director that the movie's never boring, but this lack of story does still harm the experience.

The film sometimes moves a bit too quickly for the filmmakers too, and characters will have to stop themselves from doing certain things just because it would end the movie too early. Things go so quickly that the rest of the film's events are still the same night as the party!

The climax is fun. Things do happen a little easily, but it's great seeing the role music plays in destroying the villains. And it's always fun to see a spike pit get some use! The film concludes with a happy sunshine and rainbows ending, until Leonora decides for no apparent reason to commit suicide. She was bitten, but the vampire is dead, you'd think she'd be ok!

Rodolfo is a good hero. As a musicologist he may not be much of a physical fighter, but he's armed with the power of harmonic resonance. After a vampire attack, he begins undergoing an interesting transformation, turning hairy. With only a limited time before he becomes a minion of darkness, it's all the more reason to stop Subotai quickly. Mirta is a nice and clever heroine, although does does get some blonde moments too, like when she has the drop on the henchman but doesn't hit him. Instead she tries appealing to the unconscious man to save her, before helpfully running into a cage.

Count Subotai is a fun villain, with surprisingly grand plans of world domination, but must kill a few random people first. I don't even think he needs to, so he must be pissing off the dark lord if he's wasting their only chance of success to kill one dude and his daughters. He really takes injustice seriously despite being evil! And one last thing to note, he even has an obedient hunchbacked servant, who goes "Yesss master!".

The rest of the cast are fine. The family patrirach is a good guy, and quite lucky too. We don't really get to know other sister Leonora before she's seduced and vampirised by Subotai. Then there's the guy from the prologue, who's further along into his own transformation into a wolfman. He begs to be put out of his misery, which the heroes seem to ignore. Perhaps for the best since they stake the head vampire less than 10 minutes later!

The cast here does a fairly decent job. What one thinks of lead villain Guillermo Murray though is up for debate. He was ok, but a little too clean-cut, normal and...American(?) to be a vampire? He makes up for this with his fun expressions, and ludicrously big collar. Also, whoever was responsible for the monsters snoring earned their pay that day!

The direction here is pretty neat, with the grand lair and mass vampire attacks shot very well. It really sells the idea that there are many vampires, and not just the same two recycled.

The effects are a low point for the film, or high depending on your point of view. The vampire fangs are good, as is the 'wolfmen' make-up, the ghost transitions, etc. The sets are also sumptuous. The vampire masks however are as fake as can be! They're like immobile papier mache. The bats are likewise fake, in a cute way. The crowning achievement has got to be the bat with a human face, which manages to be the funniest thing in the movie! If only it was meant to be.

World of the Vampires is a flawed but interesting film. It does a few original things with the vampire mythos, and delivers enough traditional Gothic fun to entertain...