Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973)

Cheesy exploitation horror films can be fun when done right.  Unfortunately, not every cheesy exploitation horror film is done right...

Centuries after a Warlock and his wife are beheaded, a group of friends finds the Warlock's head... and people start dying...

"Horror Rises From the Tomb" is a Spanish horror film that lacks a lot of sense... and is more laughable than scary.

The premise of a warlock coming back to life is an interesting one, but the actual storyline is lackluster, and full of holes.  I was often left scratching my head at some of the illogical events that occur in the movie.  One of the biggest holes in the film's logic is that the Warlock's head is buried on the same property as his body... which itself is buried in a marked tomb next to his wife.  This despite the fact that he was executed for witchcraft, and the executioners supposedly didn't want to make it easy to find his body.  Epic fail on the part of the executioners in my opinion.  I just had a hard time buying into the plot because of the thinly connected strings of logic.

The characters aren't exactly all that engaging either.  I found them to be rather ugh, and wondered about their own logic.  After a couple of people have been found dead, two of the characters have a heavy nookie session.  All of the characters seemed to mostly be there to either wear flimsy lingere, no lingere, or die.  Just rather flat and dull character to me.

The acting wasn't too bad.  Paul Naschy plays three characters in the film, and does a decent job- despite the glaring flaws in the script and characters.  Watching him as a head in a box was great.  Helga Line as Mabille De Lancre was beautiful- though she doesn't really appear much, and served no real purpose other than to flash some boobage at the start of the film.  The rest of the women were beautiful as well... but other than Emma Cohen as Elvira, they served no other role than sexy fodder for the Warlock's zombie minions.  The guys?  Not the most skillful acting... but when your character is essentially there to become a zombie minion, you don't need great acting talent, right?

There are some decent pieces of camera work in, "Horror Rises From the Tomb"- mostly during the scenes where someone gets killed.  The kill in the kitchen stood out for me.  Beyond that, the style was rather static and dull.  I liked some of the gore, and the scenes of the Warlock as a head in the box were fun to watch.

This movie is bad enough that I wouldn't even recommend it for a cheesy movie night, though.  I'm putting, "Horror Rises From the Tomb" in "The Ugly".