An Indian mystic (Paul Naschy) uses magical chants to raise women from the dead, then sends them out to perform revenge killings for him.As with many (most?) of Naschy's films, he wrote his own script. In other reviews, you might see people complain about the mix of voodoo and Hindu mysticism, which are two very different, unrelated things. And while that may be a fair critique, it distracts from a bigger point: it does not matter, so long as the movie is enjoyable. (When Naschy mixed his werewolf with Elizabeth Bathory, was there outrage that Bathory -- historically -- never met a werewolf?) But Naschy himself was aware that the blend -- and its finished product -- were strange and unconventional. He later wrote, "I must have been under the effects of hashish or, like Bram Stoker, I had one hell of a nightmare." The true origin of the tale is up to viewers to decide. And directing is Naschy's long-time collaborator, Leon Klimovsky, who had recently directed Nashy in "Werewolf Shadow" (1970).The film, as far horror goes, is quite good with its shady characters, dark plots and plenty of blood. The makeup is excellent, both on the zombie women but even more so on Naschy's satyr character. The makeup effects person, Miguel Sese, should be better known; he was thrice nominated for a Goya and won with "Juana la Loca" (2001), but does not seem to have gained much traction outside of Spain.One of the strange things about Euro-horror films is the path they take on the festival circuit and beyond. The cuts, the multiple name changes. In America, one of the men responsible for bringing the film to theaters was John J. Burzichelli, the son of a New Jersey politician and a politician in his own right. Who knew the world of Democratic politics overlapped with screening sleazy Spanish films?Now (2017) Scream Factory brings us the film on Blu-ray, looking and sounding better than ever. We also have the option to watch it with clothed sequences or not. Unfortunately, this is one of the two films in the Paul Naschy set not to have an audio commentary, but the movie really does speak for itself and should be enjoyed no less just because we cannot hear scholars ramble over the top of it.

The opening sequence is very cool and quite scary. An evil couple is apparently robbing the dead of their jewels at the mausoleum. And, in a nod to karma, they are killed by an avenging zombie. Abruptly, the film begins and the locale changes completely--and you really aren't sure what this has to do with the rest of the film.A woman is naturally feeling troubled following the murder of her father (whether or not this is the man in the opening scene, I don't know) and so she seeks solace from an Indian mystic. However, she is attacked several times by zombies (what a bummer) and ultimately is carried by one of them into a weird Satanic ceremony filled with green-faced zombies. There, the Indian mystic is dressed like the Devil (the outfit and makeup are pretty cool but they later refer to him as 'Baron Samedi'--the voodoo spirit of death) and the lady is stabbed and he drinks her blood. But, just as she's about to die, she awakens to find it's all a dream. Despite this freaky dream or vision or whatever it was, the lady remains at the mystic's home--proving she's pretty dumb.In the meantime, various murders take place--orchestrated by the same masked person you saw at the beginning of the film. As for the murders, by today's standards they are tame--they were, for their time, very bloody and graphic....and featured a bit of gratuitous nudity. This is probably NOT a film to show your mother-in-law! After these killings, you finally learn from some Scotland Yard folks that those killed were all somehow related. It seems that they all came from British families of people who remained in India following independence in 1947. In 1957, some sort of evil event occurred--and the families returned to India and did not talk about this incident. So, it appears that perhaps the mystic is using Haitian voodoo to exact revenge for this 1957 incident. Tune in if you want to find out where it goes next.This story has a lot of good and a lot of bad. The killings are pretty graphic and there are plenty of scary moments. But, the plot often makes little sense (such as why the lady never called the police and why all the victims of the zombies just stood there waiting for the slow-motion killers to get them!). If you love Spanish horror films, this is worth seeing--otherwise, it just didn't quite work. The writing certainly should have been better.By the way, in one scene a guy is apparently killed by a can--yes, a can. How this killed him, I have no idea--it sure seemed pretty stupid as well as impossible. Also, a live chicken is actually beheaded for the film--a rather cruel way to get some chills.

VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES has a lot going for it: Paul Naschy, doing triple duty as a guru, the guru's doppelganger, and Satan himself (in FRONT of the camera; he also wrote it as well); a veritable plethora of unusual characters (besides the three played by Naschy); some interesting no-budget makeup fx; and some genuinely decent direction (again) by Leon Klimovsky. There are some genuinely creepy moments in this one (the appearance of one woman actually startled me) and Klimovsky once again uses slow motion to great effect. The only real problem I had with this one was the decapitation of the chicken: I tend to think of all animals as children and seeing an animal sacrificed on a celluloid altar just ain't justifiable in my book.

The Best print of this film is the video release from Long Gone All Seasons Entertainment which clocks in around 90 minutes, making it the longest version available w/ fantastic print quality. Check ebay, you might find one, although, now that EVERYONE know's this is the version to have, plan on paying the price. But, again, well worth it!Seems that there are so many DVD companies jumping on the band wagon and releasing horrible TV prints or cut prints of older films. Do you homework people before you spend your hard earned money of junk.P/s, All Season Entertainment released a number of rare films on VHS (video) in large cardcoard boxes which collectors pay good money for so refine your searches in google search or ebay search and I'm sure you will come up with something.