Tag: Teresa Gimpera

THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)

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Directed By: Leon Klimovsky 

Written By: Gabriel Burgos, Vincente Aranda and Joaquim Jorda

Cinematography: Miguel Fernandez Mila 

Editor: Soledad Lopez 

Cast: Nadiuska, Alberto De Mendoza, Teresa Gimpera, Emiliano Redondo, Julia Sali, Tomas Pico, Diana Polakov, Antonio Mayans, Leona Devin, Ricardo Palacios 

Wealthy elites gather at a remote castle for a decadent party when nuclear catastrophe strikes. They emerge to find the surrounding townspeople irrevocably blinded by the blast, helpless and panicked. As the survivors venture into this collapsed world, they discover a shadowy faction called “The People Who Own the Dark,” whose motives remain obscure and threatening. Paranoia escalates. The castle becomes both sanctuary and trap. Trust disintegrates as survival instincts collide with moral decay.

At first, This looks like it’s going to be one kind of movie entirely. It opens with wealthy people gathered at an estate for what appears to be a very exclusive bacchanal, somewhere between EYES WIDE SHUT and SALO only with considerably less Stanley Kubrick or Pasolini and considerably more exploitation movie energy. And then, suddenly there is an apocalypse.

A bomb blast wipes out civilization, leaves the surrounding population blind, and turns this decadent little gathering into a survival story. Except the people coming after our privileged partygoers aren’t zombies or mutants. They’re ordinary human beings who have been blinded by the blast and understandably aren’t thrilled when one particularly trigger-happy member of the group starts murdering them.

From there, the movie becomes something of a low-budget DAWN OF THE DEAD with the survivors fighting off the furious townspeople while gradually discovering that their biggest threat may actually be each other.

Because nothing reveals someone’s personality quite like the possibility of dying.

The film is cynical about privilege, survival, desire and human nature, but surprisingly, it also becomes more emotionally involving than you might expect. What initially feels like a disposable exploitation picture slowly develops into a story about people you may actually care about including a rather touching and heartbreaking love story.

And yes, this is another post-apocalyptic movie where humanity apparently has to relearn the concept of basic decency. You don’t really know anyone until panic sets in, and once survival becomes the only objective, morality becomes a very negotiable concept.

The movie even manages to complicate its own characters. You might expect to cheer when these wealthy, decadent people get their comeuppance, but the longer you spend with them, the more you realize that some of them don’t necessarily deserve the fates coming their way.

It’s essentially a B-movie with ambitions of being something deeper. Sometimes it gets there. Sometimes you can practically see the seams. But it works surprisingly well, largely because it keeps moving and mercifully doesn’t overstay its welcome. It makes its points, occasionally quite bluntly, and gets out before it can completely wear out its welcome.

And then there is Nadiuska. The film is certainly not shy about making sure its female cast is easy on the eyes, but Nadiuska has a screen presence that makes you stop paying attention to the plot for a moment. She is absolutely gorgeous. A genuine screen siren and the movie gives her one of its more romantic and emotionally affecting storylines. That makes what happens to her character all the more heartbreaking.

She brings a warmth and vulnerability to the movie that helps make the ending hit harder than it probably has any right to. Among all the chaos, violence and rather obvious social commentary, her character gives the film something genuinely human to hold onto.

So, yes, the film initially promises you exploitation and then hands you something slightly different. Thankfully, it’s a pretty good trade.

I wouldn’t call this a great film, but it’s an entertaining, strange and surprisingly effective one. It has enough atmosphere, sex, violence, social commentary, survivalism and melodrama to satisfy the exploitation crowd, while occasionally reaching for something more thoughtful underneath it all.

Not exactly essential cinema, but certainly not disposable either.

Grade: B-

REFUGE OF FEAR (Aka CREATION OF THE DAMNED) (1974)

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Directed By: Jose Ulloa 

Written By: Jose Ulloa and Miguel Sanz 

Cinematography: Antonio Millan 

Editor: Emilio Ortiz 

Cast: Craig Hill, Patty Shepard, Teresa Gimpera, Fernando Hilbeck, Pedro Maria Sanchez, Fernando Millet 

Five strangers bound by concrete and dread hole up beneath a scorched America, waiting for radiation to thin enough to breathe. Food vanishes. Medicine runs dry. Nerves fray into territory no bunker was designed to contain. The youngest among them, restless and half-feral with need, makes a decision that nobody else has the courage to face. Above, the world is poison. Below, so is everything they’ve become to each other. The shelter stops being a refuge almost immediately, turning instead into a slow-burning pressure cooker of want, boredom, and bodies too close together for too long.

This is the kind of movie that seems like it should be pure exploitation. It opens with plenty of shots of New York, establishing where we supposedly are, only for the film to later send a character outside into what looks suspiciously like the suburbs. Add the fact that this is an Italian production with dubbed English dialogue that doesn’t always agree with the actors’ mouths, and the movie is already having a bit of an identity crisis. Everyone is apparently American, even when absolutely nothing about the production agrees.

But once you get past that, there’s actually a pretty interesting little film here.

This is a post-apocalyptic drama with some nudity, some sex, and just enough exploitation seasoning to remind you what aisle you’re standing in. For the most part, though, it plays like a chamber piece. Five people: two couples and one of their sons are trapped inside a futuristic apartment building, waiting for news about what’s happening outside.

And, naturally, they have nothing to do but turn on each other.

Each character is basically a different type, and after being stuck together for what seems like weeks or months, the personalities begin rubbing each other the wrong way. We enter the story somewhere in the middle of their isolation, watching these people slowly come apart while the outside world becomes almost secondary.

It’s predictable. You can usually see where things are going; the only question is when the movie is going to get there. Still, it manages to be compelling because the characters gradually reveal themselves, and there’s something effective about watching ordinary human behavior become more frightening than the apocalypse itself.

It’s almost like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD without the living dead. No zombies necessary when people are perfectly capable of becoming their own worst enemies.

The second half gets particularly cold, especially in the relationships. It sometimes feels as though death is the only thing capable of making these people realize they actually care about one another or at least about whoever has just become the latest victim.

The premise is interesting, the movie keeps moving, and despite its ridiculous touches, it’s never really boring. There’s something here worth watching, even if the film occasionally seems unsure whether it wants to be serious science fiction, exploitation, or an Italian movie pretending very hard to be an American one.

Patty Shepard is a stand out as at first she comes across as more of a minor ungrateful character whose wild end up, causing the initial dissension, but as the film goes along, she becomes more and more important as her character grows and seems maybe one of the few characters who hasn’t totally lost their mind. As at first, they play her more as a kind of flirtatious, easy character. as she is quite eye-catching throughout with her piercing eyes. Though she proves to be more than that throughout the film.

In the end, The filmfeels like one of those thought provoking science-fiction novels you discover in a used bookstore. The premise sounds better than the writing, there are some genuinely good ideas buried inside, and you wish the execution were just a little stronger.

It’s not great. It’ kind of cheesy. It’s not exactly sophisticated. But it’s certainly not forgettable. And sometimes, in a post-apocalyptic movie, keeping your attention is already a small victory.

Grade: C+