THE LORELEY'S GRASP [1973]

 DID THE MAESTRO OF THE BLIND DEAD GIVE US A FOLK HORROR MOVIE HERE???

  I think so.  THE LORELEY'S GRASP is concerned with German mythology; particularly the Nibelungen saga.  The Lorelei (the spelling I know) is the daughter of Wotan and she's living in a vast stone catacomb underneath the Rhein river.  She's accompanied by another character from the myth:  Alberic the guardian of the Nibelungen treasure who has the strength of 12 men.  These elements alone, by definition, drag this movie into the folk horror milieu.  Young women are being ripped apart by some sort of beast and the German village is living under a pall of terror.  A blind street violinist (Francisco Nieto) plays a haunting theme which he reveals is the song of the Lorelei; one of the monstrous sirens (primarily known from Homer's ODYSSEY and the myth of Ulysses).  The Loreley must be back and she's here to rip out the hearts of her victims in order to prolong her eternal sleep. 

We get views of a clawed green-scaled hand ripping victims to shreds during the attacks as well as some fleeting glimpses of a razor-toothed green reptile face underneath a hood.  All great stuff.  There's a girls school nearby and teacher Elke Ackerman demands the Mayor protect them.  They hire a hunter named Sigurd (Tony Kendall) to stay at the school and patrol the grounds to kill the monster. 

The "girls" at the school all look to be in their early 20's and spend most of their study time prancing around their swimming pool.  Sigurd's early-70's striped, skin-tight pants and open shirt revealing his hairy chest force Elke to ban Sigurd from using the swimming pool since her students are already over-excited there's a man about.  Instead, Sigurd decides to use the nearby swamp for a dip (!). 

There he sees a beautiful, bikini clad woman who flees from him.  We have seen this woman before; she has been glimpsed inside a coach a discreet distance away from the funeral ceremonies of the latest murder victims.  One time, during a game of "catch me catch me", the mysterious woman lets Sigurd catch up to her and she reveals to him that her name is Loreley. 

Sigurd doesn't believe in the legendary monster and, for most of the movie, doesn't even develop the first inkling that the monster Loreley the entire town is hunting and the mystery woman named 'Loreley" could be the same person!!!  Yeah, Sigurd doesn't appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed.  There's a scientist who seems to have figured out in some roundabout way how to make a dagger infused with radioactivity (I think) which will kill the Loreley.  Loreley and her faithful Alberic (Luis Barboo) kill the scientist and burn his notes -- but leave the dagger behind.  Sigur, who earlier had a talk with the scientist, takes the dagger for himself.  At some point, Sigur gets some scuba gear and dives into the river where he finds the underground grotto.  Alberic greets him in the air-filled chamber and gives him a red cape and some 'Robin Hood'-looking duds to put on before he goes to meet the Loreley.  You see, throughout the course of the picture, Sigurd and Loreley have fallen in love.  Dressed in the fancy duds, Sigur goes before Loreley on her throne and she offers him eternal life at her side. 

She dangles a huge jewel to hypnotize him and smooth the process along.  There are assorted hijinks galore culminating in Loreley's wish to rip out Elke's heart as the final victim!

 

Amando de Ossorio is, of course, the director of the 'BLIND DEAD' quadrilogy and here he brings the same sensibility to THE LORELEY'S GRASP.  Copious amounts of blood and gore feature in the kill scenes usually ending in a shot of a blood-spurting heart being ripped out of a chest.  In the underwater cavern, there are also some dessicated corpses that resemble the blind templars.  Combined with this is a weirdly Grimm's fairy tale vibe with echoes of the Harryhausen/Schneer  JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS/SINBAD movies.  The movie is really shot beautifully with lots of nice Spanish scenery (masquerading as Germany) and the entire cast is pretty much all excellent.  Screen goddess Helga Liné is always ethereally beautiful and is perfect casting as the mythical Loreley.  'Other' screen goddess Silvia Tortosa is equally beautiful and perfect as the school teacher Elke.  And both women are excellent actresses in their own right.  Tony Kendall (Komissar X himself) is also quite excellent as our hero Sigurd; despite being saddled with a character who sometimes does dumb things.  At all times, Kendall retains his dignity and authority as well as being the requisite 'horn dog' in the part.  

There are major goofy problems with the script including Sigur's ridiculous attitude of hunting a murderous monster named Loreley and falling in love with a woman named Loreley and not questioning anything.  Other characters make ridiciculously stupid decisions i.e. Elke deciding to take a moonlight stroll in the garden in the midst of a murderous monster rampage!  So these dopey doings prevent this from becoming a classic but it is a really fun monster movie in the stylish hands of Amando de Ossorio and for that alone, it's a keeper.