I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Halfway Decent Movies That Studios Turn To Crap

Malenka, The Vampire's Niece aka Fangs Of The Dead (1969)
Why, you may ask, was this movie not filed under George Romero rip-offs? A simple reason: the Spanish filmmaker who created this interesting bit of celluloid made a pretty good for its day psychological thriller, which the studio then turned into boring vampire crap.

This was a halfway decent plot too: A model living in Rome named Sylvia is engaged to be married to a doctor.   She gets word that her mother has left her a castle and everything in it - including a title. 

Now the castle is in - and this is a phonetic guess because there was no captioning and no movie description but I believe it was a fictional German town of Waldrich. I get that impression because all the print is in German, the barmaids dress in Germanic clothing, and it does say they're in Europe. So, a pretty good guess. What we have is a Spanish film about an Italian couple embroiled in a German plot. Very European. So Sylvia decides to check the place out where she meets her uncle Count Walbrooke who immediately tells her that she must never marry because of the families strange and supposedly cursed past. He points to a painting that looks exactly like her (except for black hair) and claims that is Malenka, a witch/scientist who was burned alive. She was experimenting with postmortem treatments for immortality. He claims she was successful, and he was her husband, although that would make him over 150 years old.

There's a lot of confusion for Sylvia - she doesn't believe any of it, but he is extremely persuasive, down to an Egor-type servant, a succubus of a woman who acts like she wants Sylvia's blood, and the continuing downward spiral of the health of a barmaid, who seems to be extremely anemic. She sends a letter to her fiancee' saying she cannot marry him. The Count then tries to get her to drink blood. The doctor and his, uh, friend I guess don't take no for an answer and go there immediately. 

He meets with the barmaid and tells her she will be fine - but that night she dies. Her funeral takes place the next afternoon, but that night she is seen by several of the townspeople, who completely believe in the whole 'vampire' legend, down to the garlic, holy water and crosses. More Catholic vampires.

Long movie short - the Count actually wants the castle and the riches for himself. He is NOT a vampire, nor did anyone die (the doctor should have been able to tell that - whoops) but he convinces Sylvia that everything is true and tells her to kill her fiancee'. When asked his motive, he says if Sylvia goes back to Rome and declares everything she believes, and the things she has seen and done, she will be declared insane and the Count (who really IS her uncle) will get everything.

Now that's not a bad movie. Driving Miss Crazy. Not bad for the end of the sixties. But the studio wasn't satisfied although Amando De Ossorio, the maker of the film had made many successful ones, including a series of 'Blind Dead' horror films. So they screwed with it. A lot. They tacked on a very tacky (sorry) 'Count gets a stake in the heart and disintegrates and bursts into flame' ending which contradicts the whole plot and the explanation he just gave. They negated the whole damn movie. Oh, and added a stupid ending where one of the barmaids wants to fly to Rome with the doctor's friend and he shows fangs (even though it is full daylight) and chases her around as the credits roll.

And as a final turn of the screw? They changed the name from Malenka: The Vampire's Niece to Fangs Of The Dead. A horrible treatment of a halfway decent bit of film ensuring no one would want to see it. I didn't. The only reason I did was to rip on the rip off (sorry again) of George Romero. But Amando De Ossorio was a great filmmaker in his own right - if anyone suffers from this movie, it would be him.