Panic Beats
By Chris Hyde
April 19, 2005
An early '80s gem by Spanish superstar of horror Paul Naschy shows up in a shiny new package.
When you think of countries that have contributed to the celluloid output of world horror, Spain is unlikely to be one of the first that springs to mind. The reasons are both cultural and political — but the fact that the nation has had a historic reticence towards the fantastic should not be read to imply that the strains of the mysterious do not lurk somewhere inside the Spanish character. This should be evident from work by natives such as Jose Larraz, Jess Franco, Jorge Grau and the man born Jacinto Molina — who is better known by his Americanized alias Paul Naschy.
One of the primary people in Spanish horror, Naschy got his start as a writer and actor but then also ultimately ended up behind the camera. His legendary 1971 film Werewolf Shadow was an entertaining but flawed piece of work that became a smash hit success and helped kick off a sort of Golden Age of films of terror for Spain’s cinema industry during the 1970s. Remaining a devout fan of fantastic film throughout his career (though it is in no way the only genre in which he has worked), this seminal figure has continued to ply genre trappings right up to the present day.
With some 80 films as an actor and another 14 as director, Naschy has certainly made a lasting contribution to his home country’s output of films of the fantastic. One particular project of note is a 1982 movie in which he stands both in front of and behind the camera called Panic Beats. Though uneven at times, this cynical tale of evil is a representative sample of the man’s work and has plenty of nasty moments to recommend it — and as it makes its region one debut in a typically pristine version purveyed by Mondo Macabro, there’s all the more reason for the horror film fan to take note.
The storyline of this one revolves around a man named Paul Marnac (played by Naschy himself) whose rich wife (Julia Saly) is fraught with health problems. The family doctor suggests a nice stay in the countryside, so the couple sets off for Marnac’s ancestral home. An old woman (Lola Gaos) who has tended the home since its patriarch was a boy as well as her lovely young niece (Silvia Miro) greet them there - though also looming over the place is the spirit of Marnac’s ancestor, an unsettling figure whose legend suggests that he slaughtered his unfaithful wife and family five hundred years ago.
In a standard horror movie trope, the scary tale of this historic killer also suggests that his phantom appears every hundred years or so to wreak vengeance on the female associates of the Marnac clan. But it just may be that the whole enterprise is an ugly scheme cooked up by the head of the household to frighten his infirm wife to death, steal her inheritance and shack up with a young vixen whose badness may even surpass his own. To complicate matters further, yet another representative of Marnac’s outside interests appears as his mistress shows up to wonder when she’ll get a piece of the action.
As you may imagine, these interpersonal machinations result in much mayhem and fateful consequence for the participants, nearly all of whom are of pretty questionable character. There are some slight pace problems as things unravel, but in the main Naschy does a solid job of peppering his narrative with interesting moments and bits of gore. While the film’s underlying themes are fairly misanthropic in tone, the proceedings are an enjoyable trip into the dark side and there’s enough action to keep the slower portions from dragging the whole venture down. Additionally, this film shows off Naschy the auteur quite well, as he wrote, directed and stared in Panic Beats — a situation that allows the viewer as undistilled a look at the man’s work as you’re ever likely to get.
If you’ve been keeping an eyeball peeled towards the Mondo Macabro releases since they opened a domestic wing for releases in the Region 1 area, then you have probably already become accustomed to their high standards of quality. The release of this disc is no exception, as this genre film is shown off in beautiful fashion here. The 1.78:1 widescreen transfer has a brilliant depth of color and very few noticeable imperfections; and the Spanish audio is a solid sounding Dolby soundtrack with accompanying (but optional) English subtitles.
But I ask you; what sort of a MM release would it be without some nice bonus material to round out the main event? The extras here are topped by a very nice 20-minute or so featurette on the horror movie in Spain that briefly details some of the big names and cultural mores that have influenced the course of the fantastic film in the European nation. There’s also a great interview with Jacinto Molina aka Paul Naschy that gives a huge amount of depth of understanding on both his career and the specific film featured on the disk. Closing out the DVD are the requisite still and poster gallery and the usual combo trailer reel, showing off older releases from the company as well as giving a teaser look at much anticipated future things such as Satanico Pandemonium and The Girl Slaves of Morgan LeFay.
Overall, Panic Beats stands as yet another in a long line of finely rendered products from one of the most reliable of cult movie purveyors. After many months of reviewing this company’s releases it’s awful hard for me to regale their line without endlessly repeating platitudes that have been previously issued in this space. But my inability to come up with fresh ways of describing the topnotch efforts of Mondo Macabro is indicative of the consistently entertaining choices that they make in selecting films - as well as denoting the always topnotch level of quality that they demand in choosing elements that are of sufficient caliber for restoration. There are few DVD outfits that have as reverent an outlook towards their chosen material as does this one, and this guiding philosophy makes their release slate a constant source of surprise and wonder. Me, I sure can’t wait for the next one.
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