#jose luis mereno

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Beyond the Living Dead

It opens with a funeral cut short by a thunderstorm, despite the fact those present are interring the body in a mausoleum. I’d like to say that’s the weirdest thing about Jose Luis Merino’s BEYOND THE LIVING DEAD (1973, Tubi) — aka ORGY OF THE DEAD, aka THE HANGING WOMAN, aka RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES, aka BRACULA: TERROR OF THE LIVING DEAD — but I’d be lying. Count Minajli has died, leaving his estate to his daughter, who turns up dead before the reading of the will. Instead, it goes to his nephew (Stelvio Rosi), much to the consternation of his widow (Maria Pia Conte) and the scientist (Gerard Tichy) whose research into life energy he’s been sponsoring. Conte is a witch, but that goes nowhere. She’s having sex with a necrophiliac grave digger (Paul Naschy), as whom wouldn’t, who feels he’s cheating on the corpses he’s been hiding in a secret passageway between the castle and the mausoleum. And that goes nowhere. After finding out Conte has seduced Rosi (in a scene with a relentlessly revolving overhead shot of their naked bodies), the scientist’s daughter (Dyanik Zurakowska) offers herself to him, so he makes her strip then tells her she’s stupid. Naturally they fall in love. As the bodies pile up, suspicion falls on Rosi for no discernible reason, so he starts trying to solve the crimes himself. It’s like the Hardy Boys with bare breasts and zombies. After an impressive musical cue with choral voices for the funeral, Francesco De Masi’s score sounds an awful lot like the music for DARK SHADOWS, and then ends with a variation on “Tara’s Theme” from GONE WITH THE WIND. Adding to the delirium is the dubbing, with British accents that sound as if they were being done by American actors. The dubbing is also extremely energetic. I suspect the voice actors were better actors than the originals. It’s all so loopy it’s almost exhilarating. If it seemed deliberate and had a little more panache, we’d be hailing Merino as a stylist on a par with Douglas Sirk and John Waters. The only thing of any real artistic merit is the Eastmancolor location photography of the Pyrenees, but for all that, I defy you to take your eyes off the screen.