Night of the Sorcerers (1974)
Director Amando Di Assorio is best known for his excellent Blind Dead films. Although Night of the Sorcerers doesn't really come close to the greatness of those films, it does share some of the ideas conceived by them, most obviously the graphic whipping sequences which had censors the world over biting their knuckles due to the nudity and blood on breast sequences.
You have to love the the sacrificial scenes, they are quite striking, heads roll down shoots and blood gushes out of the dismembered bodies after them in scenes of almost violent poetry and then the disembodied head always laughs at the camera. It makes me wonder if this was a nod to Geoffrey Holder's Baron Samedi who had a trademark laugh during sacrifices throughout Live and Let Die from the previous year.
Although set in Africa, the feature was filmed in a Spanish safari park, located near Madrid. Di Assorio makes the film look good, the jungles are lush and the river scenes vast, certainly giving the appearance of the huge African terrains. Di Assorio adds vivid colours to the mix and this combined with the swirling mists and occult storyline gives the film quite a unique and often dream-like style.
The magnificent Jack Taylor takes the lead here although sadly we don't see his grinning disembodied head, whilst Giallo regular Simon Andreu is there as the great white hunter always readily available for any late night river shagging.
I seem to be one of the few who loves this film and have seen it many times over the years.
|