'Make sure that stake is good and sharp or we're all dead.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘That’s a werewolf’
Young Hannah Queen of the Vampires, also known as Crypt of the Living Dead,
starts off with an archaeologist having a bad day,
startled by a caveman,
strangled by a monk, and...
Shortly after Edward Woodward arrives,
not really, and I don’t think they’re ripping off the Wicker Man as they were released the same year,
but there are real similarities.
‘Those look kinda like totem poles.’
'Yeah, kinda.'
This is the dead archaeologist’s son, Chris, here to find out how his Dad ended up crushed by a tomb.
‘What was he doing under there?’
And not just any tomb.
‘Do you mean that she was supposed to have been a vampire?’
Once this place was called Vampire island and Hannah was their Queen, but Chris isn’t having any of that,
‘Well I’m gonna move that tomb and I’m gonna bury my father’
with the help of his father’s friend Peter,
‘I’m a Jack of all trades’
and Peter’s hot sister, Mary.
‘I’ve learned not to scoff at the unnatural things that seem unanswerable’
Unfortunately, the weight of the tomb means that lid and base need to be lifted separately.
In other words; gotta open it.
‘I’m breaking the seal’
This is usually where things go wrong.
Chris of course is sceptical,
'You don't believe this stupid superstision.'
mocking the locals.
Although they do make it easy.
‘Put away them college books and get yourself some dogbane’
I learned everything I know from dogbane.
‘Before the moon comes up make sure them Dogbane is around Hannah’s tomb, it’s the only thing that will keep her in there.’
Chris thinks differently.
That went south fast.
‘Hannah’s out!’
'How do you know?'
Somebody moved the dogbane, I don’t know who.
‘Take these flowers and wrap them round you. You'll be alright.’
Doesn’t matter where I got them, I found them – yeah, that’s it; found them.
‘We may never know what happened down there.’
And the shocks keep coming as Mary learns the horrifying truth about her brother.
'With the new dawn rise so does our hope of resurrection.'
‘Oh Peter.’
Shocking stuff.
Except, I didn’t mention the very first scene of the film.
'Oh Hannah, you shall never sleep in death.'
So we always knew Peter was Hannah’s disciple.
‘You mean you killed Chris’s father?’
We actually see him do it.
I don’t know what they were thinking, they hide his face through the body of the film,
having shown it at the start.
Some people interpret Peter’s involvement to mean he murdered Chris’s father in this fashion,
specifically to bring Chris here and force the opening of the tomb.
'He would have prevented me setting her free.'
I didn’t interpret it that way.
There are better ways to open a tomb, if that was the intention, it’s ludicrous, and that brings up a point.
‘Oh my God’
Yeah we ran out of vampire make-up after doing Hannah.
But, rubbish vampire to one side, listen to what he says…
‘Kill me.’
Regular viewers will know I have a soft spot for these Euro horrors and this was released the same year
and shares star Mark Damon with the endearingly silly The Devil’s Wedding Night.
'Well, I seem to have arrived in time for the fun.'
But this is not silly. It’s serious. Which is great
but if you’re going for serious then you have to answer the serious questions.
When the tomb is opened, Chris thinks this is a 700 year old corpse,
which is an issue in itself,
the locals think it’s a vampire.
Why not stake her?
If she’s dead, nothing lost; if she’s a vampire, something gained. Similarly…
‘With a little bit of muscle we can do the job and we can do it quickly.’
Boy is that against all evidence.
Day one they raise the lid.
After which, they never do another stroke of work to get the corpse out which I’m inclined to say, was a one day job.
‘Don’t. She’s in there.’
It’s almost as if the film needed an excuse to open the tomb and keep it open so Hannah could just come and go.
And yet no one pops in during the day to stake her.
Now if this was Devil’s Wedding Night I wouldn’t care, probably wouldn’t notice
– it’s a film in which someone has sex with a giant bat –
but here, the serious tone means you notice things like how easy it is to kill a vampire,
admittedly this doesn’t quite finish her.
I like the extra crispy Hannah, in fact I think Hannah is a very well-realised vampire full stop
but again; could have burned her any time, she’s just been lying there.
Also, super-slow.
That said, quite a cool twist at the end.
Thanks for watching. If you like vampire stories, check out my book The Immortal Dracula,
there’s a link in the description below.
What films are serious when they ought to have been fun or fun when they ought to have been serious?
Let us know in the comments below.
'Ok, schools out.'