Even though it doesn't feature one, I can't think of a better example than HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE for a film capturing an all-encompassing feeling of atmosphere and oddity that surrounded those side show carnivals that were equal parts curiosity, repulsion, and pathos for the things paraded on display. FREAKS has the revenge tale morality of its real life freaks covered, carrying with them a sense of uneasy understanding and likability. But HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE is more designed like one of those things in a jar that pits your stomach against your lunch like it used to when you saw a preserved human limb suspended in a laboratory vat, while also being inspired by Naschy's own unnerving personal experience with a miss-fortuned humpback. There is no denying the exploitative nature of the attractions.
HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE invites the viewer from its opening polka like musical theme, to a seemingly sleepy little Austrian town in the fall or summer depending on what version you see, but it was shot in the summer. Paul Naschy plays the titular hunchback Gotho, who works at the local morgue 'cleaning' up and falls in love with Ilsa, a young women at the infirmary who eventually dies. He meets a deranged scientist who promises to help bring Gotho's love back if he'll supply his experiment - in Burke and Hare fashion - with fresh cadaver parts.
Like director Javier Aguirre's other Naschy vehicle COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, the star is painted as sympathetic and world weary from his lot in life, but who's prone to indefensible acts with corpses also, and like a malignancy his madness grows from his obsession to restore Ilsa. The film works off this to a delirious pitch shifting from sick dismemberment, heart felt romanticism, obligatory female nudity, and scaling stunt theatrics at the drop of a hat; with Naschy supplying one of his most physical performances. Cobble this with the authentic air of subterranean catacombs from The Crusades as a backdrop for the depravity that poses a genuine stench of decay and mystery, as science takes the place of religion blinded by its own power, and shot in an expressionistic style for optimum effect.
The film never loses sight that it's an anomaly of the absurd though, embracing it to the very end when the thing in the jar breaks loose in a folly of gelatinous mass. Whatever it is hardly matters, its fitful existence doomed by the hands of its creator. A suitable hodge-podge of every mad doctor film that came before it, Hugo's Quasimodo, with characteristic elements of over the top dramatics and carnality that signified Naschy's unbridled charm.
Just pull back the curtain...
9/10
HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE invites the viewer from its opening polka like musical theme, to a seemingly sleepy little Austrian town in the fall or summer depending on what version you see, but it was shot in the summer. Paul Naschy plays the titular hunchback Gotho, who works at the local morgue 'cleaning' up and falls in love with Ilsa, a young women at the infirmary who eventually dies. He meets a deranged scientist who promises to help bring Gotho's love back if he'll supply his experiment - in Burke and Hare fashion - with fresh cadaver parts.
Like director Javier Aguirre's other Naschy vehicle COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, the star is painted as sympathetic and world weary from his lot in life, but who's prone to indefensible acts with corpses also, and like a malignancy his madness grows from his obsession to restore Ilsa. The film works off this to a delirious pitch shifting from sick dismemberment, heart felt romanticism, obligatory female nudity, and scaling stunt theatrics at the drop of a hat; with Naschy supplying one of his most physical performances. Cobble this with the authentic air of subterranean catacombs from The Crusades as a backdrop for the depravity that poses a genuine stench of decay and mystery, as science takes the place of religion blinded by its own power, and shot in an expressionistic style for optimum effect.
The film never loses sight that it's an anomaly of the absurd though, embracing it to the very end when the thing in the jar breaks loose in a folly of gelatinous mass. Whatever it is hardly matters, its fitful existence doomed by the hands of its creator. A suitable hodge-podge of every mad doctor film that came before it, Hugo's Quasimodo, with characteristic elements of over the top dramatics and carnality that signified Naschy's unbridled charm.
Just pull back the curtain...
9/10