Hunchback of the Morgue

Director - Javier Aguirre (Mother's Sins, Count Dracula's Great Love)
Starring - Paul Naschy (Night of the Werewolf, Tomb of the Werewolf), Rosanna Yanni (The Amazons, Fangs of the Living Dead), and Victor Barrera (The Terrorist, Green Inferno)
Release Date - 1973
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "A freak of nature whose crimes go beyond your wildest terrors"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Horror has been a popular genre for well over a century.  Hell, even master inventor Thomas Edison made his own adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1910.  Since then there has been countless legends that made a name for themselves in the genre.  Names like Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Tom Savini, George A. Romero, John Carpenter and so on has entertained many a generation of horror fans.  With that being said, there is several amazing icons that contributed so much to horror that doesn't get the respect as the names above.  Once such name is Paul Naschy.  Naschy is an amazing actor and director that brought so many amazing films and characters to life.  Last year Scream Factory released the Paul Naschy Collection on blu with several amazing films from Naschy.  With the success of that release Scream has decided to release a second volume.  I reached out to Scream Factory and they were kind enough to send over a review copy.  I want to thank Scream for always supporting my reviews and Horror Society.

     The film follows hunchback Wolfgang Gotho (Naschy) who is mentally slower than everyone in his small town.  Wolfgang works for the local morgue and visits the hospital everyday to see the love of his life who is dying.  The hospital staff is unable to save her and she dies.  This sends Wolfgang on a killing spree where he tortures those that made him miss her final moments before snatching her body and hiding it in the catacombs beneath the city.  He then seeks the help of a doctor to help bring her back to life.  Doctor Orla uses this to his advantage to make Wolfgang perform unspeakable acts so he can conduct his crude experiments in secret.  He convinces Wolfgang that he will resurrect his lost love as long as he does what he says but that quickly proves to be wrong when some workers destroys her body in a vat of acid sending Wolfgang into another bloody frenzy.  Wolfgang has reached the end of his rope with the doctor and wants to back out but it is too late.  The doctor has now created artificial life and Wolfgang must stop it before it kills even more people that he loves.

     I generally enjoy Paul Naschy's work.  There has been a few films of his that I did not like but for the most part his films are fantastic.  Hunchback of the Morgue is one of the few Paul Naschy films where he was not truly the star of the show and still entertains.  The acting in this one is solid but we don't get the amazing and over-the-top performance from Naschy like we typically see.  His character is mentally stunted and almost child like but can turn vicious at the drop of a dime.  He character was fun but not as flamboyant as previous roles.  The rest of the cast is great.  Their characters are outstanding.  I really enjoyed the role of Doctor Orla portrayed by Alberto Dalbes.  He stole the show and made every scene he was in his own.  I really enjoyed the cast and liked the fact that Naschy was not the center focus. This caught me off guard.  The story for this one is fun and a lot more than I was expecting.  I went into this thinking it was a flick about a killer hunchback but Wolfgang Gotho is not the monster in this and it takes half the film to realize this.  The film is a surprising when science runs amok flicks that also serves as a period piece.  I really enjoyed how this story went.  Finally, if you want gore you wont find any here.  However, the film does have some impressive make-up effects that reminded me a lot of the film Zombi...even though this film was released almost 6 year before.  Overall, Hunchback of the Morgue is a great watch.  Fans of Nashy will enjoy this unless you want a lot of Naschy then you may be disappointed.  I recommend this one.