original production:

EL ATAUD DEL VAMPIRO

Cast: German Robles (Count Karol de Lavud), Abel Salazar (Dr. Enrique/Dr. Henry Heatherford), Ariadna Welter (as "Adriadna Welter") (Marta/Martha), Yerye Beirute (Manson, the graverobber), Alicia Montoya (Mary), Carlos Ancira (Dr. Marion), Guillermo Orea, Antonio Raxell, Alicia Rodriguez

PLOT OUTLINE:
(from IMDb): A doctor brings an ancient vampire back to life.

(from AFI): Henry, a mad doctor, disinters Count Lavud, a vampire. from a cemetery. The count revives when a servant removes a wooden stake from his heart, and he terrorizes Mexico. In bat form, the vampire is destroyed when impaled by a spear.

GUEST SYNOPSIS/REVIEW:
by Brendan O'Brien
This is the second of the vampire flicks to feature Count Lavud and those star-crossed lovers, Henry and Martha. It picks up right where THE VAMPIRE left off; probably in more ways than one seeing that it was filmed in the same year. Having been thwarted in his plans to gain control of the Sycamore Estate, Lavud focuses his attentions now on Martha. He doesn't want to kill her, but make her his eternal vampire bride.

We begin with a suspicious looking man skulking about in a dark place. Now I mean real dark - compared to this you'd need to wear shades in a Lucio Fulci night scene. The man unlocks a gate and is joined by another man. They find the crypt of Count Lazlo Lavud. We can tell these guys are up to no good because they spend about five minutes of this scene shooting pensive glances at each other. The first man takes the cover off of Lavud's grave; he works at it with a hammer but the cover is more likely a piece of plywood held on with old chewing gum. The other man opens the casket and we see a skull reflecting in a pocket mirror. They make off with the casket, but not before a loopy old crone tries to stop them. She is thrown to the ground, and they move on.

The two men take the casket to a hospital. One is apparently a doctor, the other a hired thug who turns extortionist before leaving the doctor. Before he leaves they also open the casket revealing the completely intact corpse of Count Lavud, stake and all. Lavud's ornate brooch catches the thug's eye. He leaves, and the doctor calls for Dr. Heneford.

Elsewhere in the hospital, a child wakes screaming. Martha, who is now a nurse at this hospital, goes to tend to her. She should've let her be because we are then treated to not only horrendous child acting, but also horrendous child dubbing. A toxic combination. After the child is convinced that she won't die, Martha bumps into Henry in the hall. She refuses his advances to commemorate her final night at the hospital before she returns to the theater. He then hears that he is paged by Dr. Marion, regretfully he leaves Martha.

As it turns out, Marion is the doctor who lifted Lavud's casket. Henry is significantly dismayed but refuses to acknowledge that Lavud is a vampire. Marion shows him the reflection trick - the intact, dead Count reflecting as a skeleton, and explains in a borderline mad scientist speech that he intends to study this phenomenon. Henry agrees to help Marion, but only if they burn the corpse immediately thereafter. They both go to get instruments, allowing the thug to return and steal the brooch. In order to do so he must remove the stake, thereby resurrecting the vampire. The thug shoots him five times, but Lavud keeps coming. He enslaves him with his hypnotic brooch and disappears as the doctors return.

They return to find the empty casket in the room and are suitably worried. The strange woman from the cemetery arrives at the hospital and turns out to be Mary from the previous film. Lavud goes and bites the young girl, and then finds Martha and hypnotizes her. Before he can "bind Martha to him" with the brooch, Henry busts into the room and finds Martha has fainted. They then check on the girl, who describes Lavud.

Cut to a wax museum, where a man is leading patrons through a display of famous murderers and torture devices. Sound familiar? He shows them several devices that will surely be used later on; a gallows, a guillotine, and a Virgin of Nuremburg, perhaps more widely known as an Iron Maiden. The guide shows the patrons out, promising the future display of some "African art objects", which I'm sure are huge with the torture device crowd. After he locks up, the thug, whose name is Manson, is still there. Apparently they were associates in the past, and Manson forces the guide, whose name is Charlie, to put him up in the basement. Charlie, Manson. Manson, Charlie.

Back at the hospital, Henry tries to report the whole sordid affair to the hospital director. The dubbing and fierce overacting on the part of Henry make this entire sequence hysterical. The director doesn't buy it, and all of Henry's evidence betrays him; Marion has gone to the wax museum with Mary and the coffin has vanished.

At the wax museum, Mary and Marion pound on the outside door. Lavud instructs Manson to let them in, saying that Marion is his enemy. Despite the fact he's never laid eyes on him. They come in and Mary discovers the coffin. To no avail however; Lavud strangles Marion and Manson closes the Iron Maiden on Mary after she hides in it. Yes that's right, she hides from a psychopath in an Iron Maiden. In addition to skewering you in a number of uncomfortable places, it's not like those things offer a great deal of cover. She might as well have sung "Run to the Hills" on the top of her lungs. Anyway, they're dead.

Henry is now frantically searching the hospital for Marion. He bumps into Martha again and suggests that they go "look at street signs or something" so he can get her where Lavud can't find her. They go somewhere where there's a chandelier. As Henry comes clean about the whole situation, Lavud hypnotizes Martha from outside. Henry snaps her out of it, the world's most pissed-off sounding rooster crows, and the vampire flees to his coffin. Have you ever realized just how royally screwed vampires would be without roosters? The next morning, Henry and Martha say goodbye to the horrendous little child and go to the theater for Martha's first rehearsal. Outside, Lavud sees a poster featuring pictures of Martha. He crosses the street to a bistro and looks in the window at a solitary woman. She exchanges small talk with the waiter about how she can't get work at the theater and leaves, throwing glances at the Count, who follows, flourishing his cape for effect. And they walk. And walk some more. After a little bit more walking Lavud finally takes flight, lands in front of her, and does what vampires do.

At the theater, rehearsal is interrupted by news of Lavud's attack. Henry goes to the cops and reports a vampire; after a painful exchange, the cops don't buy it. In Martha's dressing room Lavud appears and puts the brooch around her neck. Henry appears and the vampire disappears; as he hovers nearby unseen, Henry and Martha formulate a plan. The performance begins; this theater is more like a semi-burlesque dance troupe. Needless to say this sequence is agonizing, but interrupted as Manson attempts to abduct Martha. Lavud carries her back to the wax museum as Manson fights Henry. He gets the better of our hero, but Henry comes to and follows Manson to Lavud's lair. In the basement our Count is feeling the mood so to speak; he lays Martha out carefully, lights some candles, does everything short of putting on an Al Green record before she wakes up, screams, and runs away. Upstairs, Henry beats up Manson and then struggles with Lavud, Martha is knocked out and falls strategically into the guillotine. Henry fights a bat on a string until he spears it to the wall, Martha gets up just before the guillotine falls. The cops get Manson and Henry carries Martha off into the sunrise.

I commend the makers of THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN for making this film different from its direct predecessor. I don't commend them, however, for taking everything that worked about THE VAMPIRE and inverting it in this film, robbing it of any potential effectiveness. It's not a total loss however; there are enough laughs in this film to make it worthwhile.

Let's start with Count Lazlo. In the first film he was mildly amusing. This time he's a laugh riot. First of all, Lazlo? Wow, hundreds of years ago when he and his brother Karol were in their heyday they must've been quite the fearsome pair. He shoulda stuck with Duval. Secondly, his fangs. He only wears them in scenes where they are going to be used because the things are so goddamn big they could never fit in his mouth. Nothing scarier than a vampire with serious overbite. His powers are somewhat suspect. He's been hypnotizing Martha for the whole film, what enables her to suddenly come to and escape when Lavud finally has her alone and in his grasp? And after teleporting around everywhere, why does he just jog after her? Temporary amnesia regarding one's own abilities is a typical conceit applied to B movie villains, and here as always it happens in the last 5 minutes of the flick and results in the villain's death: Lavud also forgets about his teleporting at a very inopportune time, like when there's a spear flying directly at him.

Duval's foil, Henry, is another character that generates significant unintentional laughter. Further complicating matters with Henry is the fact that he actually is supposed to be funny. I'm not sure if this was a terrible mistake or a masterstroke on the part of the filmmakers. On the one hand Henry's comedic lines fall flatter than what's left in the keg at 7:30am, and on the other hand his performance in scenes such as the one with the hospital director are so furiously overacted you'd think he was a silent movie actor with Tourettes (which is to say funny).

The dubbing is occasionally clever, usually rote and sometimes inexplicable. When Lavud discovers that Manson has done away with Mary he intones the word "fine" with a palpable touch of jealousy. She is after all the woman who put him down in the previous film and Manson has denied him his revenge. Thankfully he doesn't grace us with another plot exposition speech, and his "maniacal" laughter is about as convincing as those laughs that you give your boss when he / she makes another lame joke. In the inexplicable category, Lavud instructs Manson that Marion is his enemy despite having never even seen him, and Martha incredulously exclaims "I was wearing that?" seconds after taking Lavud's brooch off of her own neck. Oh yeah, did I mention Henry's "humorous" lines?

The special effects aren't exactly miles ahead of the last outing. The most important effect is of course the transformation from man to bat; this time they add some actual bat footage a la THE DEVIL BAT and Lavud adds a little "pretending to land" step to his patented "pretending to jump" bit. Despite a number of bites and one pretty gruesome death, there is a distinct lack of blood. Which can be forgiven, I mean you know going into a cheapo vampire flick that magic marker is gonna represent bites. It's when someone comes out of an iron maiden that you expect at least some chocolate syrup to be squirted around. Again there are a few shots that are worthy of positive mention, for example the slightly improbable sequence in which Lavud hypnotizes Martha by reflecting moonlight off his brooch, through a window and into a chandelier that she's facing. If nothing else he knows his angles and must be an absolutely nasty pool player. The use of shadow as the Count pursues the young woman through the streets of wherever they are is creative and reminds one of the opening credits sequence of THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, which came along almost twenty years later.

The only troubling aspects of this film are those borrowed from HOUSE OF WAX. Now I'm not saying that once someone sets their film in a wax museum no one else can. Effigies are creepy things, and the museum scenes are the closest that this film comes to capturing the atmosphere of THE VAMPIRE. It's the plagiarized plot elements that drag the film down considerably. Why make the thuggish Manson into a talking version of Charles Bronson's Igor? As Henry and Manson struggle around the museum you're just waiting for Henry to end up unconscious in the guillotine; the film confounds your expectations but the connection has already been made. THE VAMPIRE borrowed from DRACULA but held back from blatant imitation; the use of HOUSE OF WAX here just makes it seem like they ran out of ideas.

What I got out of all this is that THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN was a quickie sequel done without the care that went into the original. The end result is far from a great movie, but is certainly a great B movie. Like has often been said of the films of Ed Wood; they may be bad but they're entertaining and therefore worthwhile. The same can be said of THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN.

SYNOPSIS:
One dark, foggy night, two men break into a cemetery, and open a tomb; the resting place of Count Lavud, the Vampire!

They remove the demon's coffin, and open it. One of the men, Dr. Marion, shines a mirror on the decomposed face, and proves by its reflection that it is indeed the undead one.

The two men take the coffin with them, back to the city and a private hospital.

The other man, a petty criminal named Manson, asks Marion for his payment. Marion gives him some cash.

Manson asks to see what is inside the coffin. Marion opens the coffin, and reveals the body of Count Lavud, with a stake through his heart!

Manson now asks for more money, for his silence on the grisly graverobbing.

Marion reluctantly gives Manson an extra $200. Manson leaves.

Marion rolls up his sleeves, and asks his secretary to fetch his colleague, Dr. Henry Heatherford.

Meanwhile, in another part of the hospital, a young patient, Lois, screams from a nightmare. A beautiful nurse, Martha, hears the cry, gets dressed, and goes to comfort the child.

Henry enters the child's room, and flirts with Martha. We learn that this is Martha's last night as a nurse, for tomorrow she discards her stalled career for a better one: professional dancer!

Henry is paged, and leaves.

Henry enters Marion's room. Marion excitedly shows him the coffin of Lavud. Henry, however, is horrified.

Marion argues that cadavers are necessary for medical research, and since it has become impossible to obtain them nowadays through "regular channels", especially something as rare as the corpse of a vampire, one must pursue other means...

Henry counters by relating all the troubles that he and Martha had earlier with this horrible "man", and insists that Marion should not fool with it.

Marion scoffs; he is sure a dissection of this unusual corpse will help advance the cause of medical science immensely.

Marion shows Henry Lavud's reflection in a mirror, and sees the same skull which Marion has seen at the cemetery.

Marion insists that studying this vampire, and his strange blood type, may solve many biological mysteries.

Henry reluctantly agrees to help Marion, but only if he agrees to burn the evil corpse once the experimenting is done, or if something should go awry.

After the doctors leave the room, Manson sneaks back in; he wants to steal some of the precious jewels he saw on the corpse.

Manson opens the coffin, and removes the stake from Lavud's heart, to better access the medallion which lays in his chest.

Manson removes the medallion, and inspects it. Behind him, Lavud rises from his coffin, He is once again alive!

Lavud approaches Manson, who shoots at him, with no effect.

Manson recoils in horror at the approach of the indestructible beast. Lavud tells Manson that he will not kill him, but put him under his spell, and make him his slave forever!

Lavud takes back his precious medallion, and hypnotizes Manson. The vampire instructs his new slave to make sure that he is protected by the darkness every night, and sheltered from the daylight at all costs.

Drs. Marion and Heatherford return to the examining room. Lavud disappears into thin air, and Manson runs off.

Marion and Henry find the coffin empty, as well as the stake laying on the ground, and fear the worst. Henry flees to the hallway.

An old woman, Mary, runs into Henry, and tells him that Lavud will try once again to get at her niece, who is Martha!

Mary runs into the examining room and yells at Marion for his recklessness.

Lavud materializes in another part of the hospital, and heads straight for the room of Lois, who had had the nightmare earlier.

Lois wakes up screaming again, and scares Lavud off. He ends up in Martha's room and hypnotizes her once more, as he had vowed to do.

Marion, Mary and Henry check in on Lois, who appears to have strange bite marks on her neck.

Lavud tells an entranced Martha that she was destined to be with him forever, in holy undeath.

Henry runs in just as Lavud vaporizes, and finds Martha passed out on the floor. Henry asks Martha what has happened, but she doesn't remember anything.

Martha returns to Lois, who is crying again, still hysterical over the vampire's attack.

Mary tells the doctors they must find Lavud before all is lost.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, a group of sightseers is being given a tour of a wax museum, which specializes in dioramic scenes of crime, punishment and torture. The proprietor, Charlie, is quite knowledgeable about the unfortunates displayed here, and also shows the curious group a working guillotine, an iron maiden, and other barbaric machines of torture.

Manson waits until the tourists have left, and confronts Charlie, with whom he apparently shares a criminal past.

Manson demands that Charlie let him crash in his old room, a dank cavern deep below the museum. What he doesn't tell his friend, is that he really wants the room as a resting place for his new master, Count Lavud!

Back at the hospital, Henry goes to see his boss, Mr. Hanley, to tell him about the whole corpse mess, in the hopes that he might be of some assistance.

Henry awkwardly tells Hanley that he stole a cadaver. Hanley is at first incredulous, and then outraged, and demands that the corpse be returned immediately. Henry tells Hanley that the corpse has vanished, and in addition, may be a vampire!

Henry runs out of the office to get Marion, whom he hopes will confirm his story, but Marion cannot be found.

Henry returns to Hanley, alone, and convinces Hanley to see the coffin for himself, to prove he is telling the truth.

The two men return to the examining room, but the coffin too has disappeared!

Later, Marion and Mary visit the wax museum, looking for Manson. Manson hears the door, but on his way to answer it, is approached by Lavud, who first appears to him as a bat.

Lavud tells Manson that the two who are knocking outside are his enemies...

Manson opens the door, and Marion tells him that the cadaver is missing. Manson doesn't seem terribly interested, but invites the pair inside to look around.

Marion and Manson search in one direction, and Mary in another. Lavud appears behind the two men.

Mary finds the coffin, and runs to tell the men, but when she arrives, she finds Lavud choking Marion.

Mary tries to escape, but Manson chases her. Lavud strangles Marion.

Mary tries to hide from Manson inside the iron maiden, but Manson sees her, and crushes her by closing the terrible instrument.

Lavud is pleased. He tells Manson to burn the bodies.

Lavud turns back into a bat and flies away, leaving Manson to clean up.

Back at the hospital, Henry searches for Marion in vain.

Martha makes sure that Lois is well, and leaves her, but she is still concerned about the bite marks on her neck.

Martha and Henry meet, but both are uncomfortable about information they are keeping from the other.

Henry and Martha smoke cigarettes, in an attempt to pass the awful evening. Martha finally tells Henry that Lavud entered her room earlier, and she thinks he may have put her under a spell. Henry insists that Lavud is merely a killer, and not a supernatural being, but secretly, he is worried.

Lavud appears outside the window, and listens in to the conversation.

Henry breaks down and tells Martha the whole, awful story about Lavud, including the stolen cadaver. Meanwhile, Lavud communicates telepathically to Martha, and she falls under his spell, walking away even as Henry babbles on.

Henry catches Martha as she is about to leave the room, and she comes to at the last moment.

Lavud returns to his coffin, for the first of dawn is approaching.

Next morning, Lois and Martha surprise Henry, who has fallen asleep in a chair. Lois says goodbye, and leaves the hospital with her caretaker. Martha also says goodbye, for today is her first day at the theater. Henry insists on accompanying her.

At the theater, Henry watches as Martha and the others begin their dance rehearsals.

Lavud also hangs around the theater; he is determined to make Martha his bride of the undead!

To cool off, Lavud visits a local tavern, and observes a tramp sitting alone at a table.

The tramp puts money in the jukebox, and a jazzy record plays. She laments to the bartender that business is bad.

The tramp leaves the tavern, and walks by Lavud, smiling at him.

Lavud follows the tramp into a dark alley, and attacks her, making her one of his own.

Back at the theater, Martha and the others rehearse into the night. Henry watches, impressed but concerned.

Henry is duly informed that a young girl lay dying outside the theater, and his help is requested.

Upon seeing the horrible bite marks on the tramp's neck, Henry knows that the evil Lavud is nearby!

Henry tries to convince the police chief that the killer of the tramp was a vampire, but the lawman doesn't believe him.

Back at the theater, Martha is relaxing in her dressing room. Suddenly, Lavud appears, and hypnotizes her with his medallion.

Lavud places the medallion around Martha's neck, and puts on her coat.

Henry enters Martha's room. Lavud disappears. Henry sees Lavud's medallion hung around Martha's neck.

Martha faints; when she comes to, she realizes she is still under the horrible monster's spell!

Martha and Henry argue over their options, while Lavud listens in. Henry places the medallion back onto Martha, and they set a trap.

Meanwhile, the evening performance begins, an evocative modern ballet which switches settings from the big city to an ancient civilization.

Henry watches from the wings, keeping an eye out for the dread vampire.

Lavud watches the show also, captivated by his sweetheart, Martha!

During the finale, Martha is raised up on a vine swing, and when she reaches the rafters, she encounters Manson, who is waiting to grab her. Martha and the audience scream. Manson and Martha struggle. Lavud approaches.

Lavud kidnaps Martha. Henry climbs a ladder and fights Manson. Lavud carries the unconscious Martha back to the wax museum.

Manson escapes Henry's clutches, and runs back to the wax museum also, with Henry following.

Lavud prepares his chambers for Martha's induction into eternal life, as Henry enters the wax museum. He walks amongst the spooky statues of killers and criminals, and becomes spooked himself.

Suddenly, Manson jumps out of the shadows, and tries to kill Henry with a giant prop axe.

Henry is able to knock Manson unconscious, and he places him into the iron maiden, closing the door on his enemy.

Meanwhile, Lavud is about to bite Martha's neck, but she wakes up at the last moment, screams, and runs upstairs.

Martha manages to escape Lavud's clutches temporarily, and runs for help.

Manson escapes the iron maiden, and he and Henry continue to fight. Meanwhile, Lavud is hot on the tail of Martha, who trips and lands directly on the guillotine chopping block!

Lavud appears and disappears, freaking Henry out, while Martha lay unconscious on the guillotine block. What's worse, the rope holding the chopping blade is starting to fray!

Lavud turns into a bat, and tries to bite Henry's neck.

The cops arrive just in time to keep Manson from escaping.

Henry throws spears at the vampire bat, trying to kill it. One spear toss does finally impale Lavud against a wall.

The guillotine rope snaps, but Martha wakes up just in time to save her head.

Martha and Henry embrace. The cops arrive, and see Lavud impaled against the dungeon wall.

Henry picks up Martha, and carries her out of the horrible wax museum. Once outside, they embrace and share a kiss.

THE END

REVIEW:
THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN is the fun sequel to the equally fun THE VAMPIRE. One of the coolest things about this film is the weird sense of anachronism it conveys. Film opens with a spooky, atmopsheric prolog in which graverobbers Manson (the great Yerye Beirute) and Dr. Marion (the nervous Carlos Ancira), steal Count Lavud's coffin from its crypt resting place, in a setting which clearly looks like the early 18th century. Thus, when after the credits the first thing we see is a 1955 Chevrolet hearse pull up in front of a hospital, we suffer a strange sense of temporal dissociation as we realize the film is a contemporary drama!

Again, in later scenes which take place (for no apparent reason) at a local wax museum, the dungeon-like atmosphere of the place looks like some dank castle of deSade, not the basement of a 20th century Mexico City tourist attraction!

Also fun is the hospital setting in general, in which nurses and doctors wearing tight white coats flirt with each other and try like hell to create a steamy soap opera-like atmosphere ala the Dr. Kildare movies of the 40's (which may have been an influence). The always-lovely Ariadna Welter, such a powerful presence in many Mexican horror films, makes a very sexy nurse here.

The vampire-in-modern times plot is very exciting (done well the same year in THE VAMPIRE with John Beal), with the gothic Lavud appearing out of nowhere into antiseptic hospital rooms and modern urban buildings, sometimes fading in slowly, at other times just popping into frame. However, the marks he leaves on victims' necks are at least 4" apart! Man, he must have some bite!

One bit that's a little curious occurs when the graverobber Manson goes to hide out in the basement of his friend Charlie's wax museum. Part of their dialog involves saying their names back and forth: "Manson!" "Charlie!" "Manson!" "Charlie!" Sort of like an invocation of evil spirits...

The essentially throwaway scene in which Lavud stalks and kills the tramp is strong, and highly sexual.

The film's big production number, featuring Ariadna Welter as both a tart and a virgin sacrifice, is sensational, a curious mixture of kitsch ballet and screwy modern dance.

For drive-in patrons of 1965, this co-bill with THE ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY must have been as much, if not more fun than the main feature! Oh man, what a night that would have been!

HEAR THE ORIGINAL PROMO SPOT!
CLICK ON K. GORDON MURRAY!

COMMENTS:
* (effective 05-01-03) After a very brief window of availability, this long-sought K. Gordon Murray title is once again out of print, due to international copyright issues. Used video tapes of this title may be found on online video dealers and auction sites. Stay tuned for further developments!

* Popular Mexican producer/actor Abel Salazar made several other great Mexican horror films during this period (the beloved THE BRAINIAC among them), many (all?) of which Murray brought to the US.

* According to AFI, THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN/THE ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY had their US premiere on November 17, 1965 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

NOTABLE DIALOGUE: