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The PackageThe
director of PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (ULTIMO DESEO; 1975) was Leon Klimovsky,
one of the key figures in the Spanish horror boom of the seventies, which
included the iconic Jess Franco, as well as Vincente Aranda (THE
BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE) and Eloy de La Iglesia (CANNIBAL MAN).
Their films tended to mix sex, religion and politics while delivering
the requisite cheap thrills demanded from a movement born of financial
necessity, and PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK was no exception.
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The StoryA
group of swingers arrive at a mansion for a weekend of debauchery.
They manage to get in some amorous sex and a satanic ritual in the
basement before the power abruptly goes out.
One of the partygoers hears on his battery-powered radio that there’s
been a nuclear explosion. Several
of the group decide to explore the countryside, and discover a ravaged
landscape packed by hundreds of desperate people who’ve all gone blind from
the atomic blast. Back
at the mansion a man succumbs to radiation poisoning and dies.
Two more of the guests, a man and woman, decide to take off for good in
the dead guy’s car, but end up waylaid by a group of homicidal blind folks
who beat them to death. The blind
mob then heads for the mansion, where the surviving members of the party arm
themselves with guns. This proves
useless against the blind horde, and so a plan is hatched to escape through the
catacombs underneath the mansion. It
seems to work, as the partygoers manage to flee through them and end up in a
rural area the next morning--but there’s still a crowd of blind maniacs
itching to kill them off. An
all-out slaughter is inevitable, though two of the party run off into nearby
swampland, which leads to a road where the survivors flag down a bus manned by
radiation-suited men. It seems the
two are saved, but in reality they’ve blundered into the most dangerous
situation yet. |
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The DirectionIf
you like goofy seventies music and fashions then this film is for you, as it
overflows with both. It’s
probably best enjoyed as a simple time capsule entry, because as exploitation
it leaves much to be desired: there’s little in the way of bloodletting
(despite the many deaths), and even the sex scenes are over with quickly.
The opening section, which takes up over twenty minutes of the
protagonists driving to and entering the castle that serves as the film’s
central location, is interminable--there are endless shots of people getting in
and out of cars and then chatting before the nuclear explosion hits
(off-screen) and the good stuff begins. But
it’s not all that good: blind people aren’t terribly effective as objects
of terror (think NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with visually impaired folks in place
of zombies and you’ll have the gist of this film), and Klimovski’s
presentation of a post-nuclear world is never very convincing.
For me the only real jolt came near the end, in which two of the main
characters find themselves in a sticky situation organized by the authorities,
closing things out on a deeply grim, and deeply political, note. |
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Vital StatisticsTHE
PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (ULTIMO DESEO)
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