Sound of Horror (1966)

Somewhere in the hills of rural Greece, a Professor Andre, trying to unearth a hidden treasure trove of priceless artifacts, is setting off dynamite inside an isolated cave. As the legend goes, these antiquities were stolen decades ago and then passed down by several generations of thieves until they were all (allegedly) hidden away from the plundering Nazis when World War II broke out.

First getting wind of this secret-stash while fighting in said war, Andre (Casas) and his old platoon pals, Asilov (Philbrook) and Dorman (Bódalo), got their hands on part of a map that led them to this particular cave. Thus, while those other two track down a lead on the other half of parchment that hopefully has the 'X' that marks the actual spot, Andre, accompanied by his niece, Maria (Miranda), and fellow archeologist Stavros (Piquer) have been excavating around rather blindly. And so far, they have only managed to unearth the mummified remains of a ‘neanderthal' and a fossilized egg of some unknown dinosaur.

Unbeknownst to our trio, however, this latest blast unearthed not one, but two, dinosaur eggs; one of which rolled away unseen while the other is taken back to the cottage they've been squatting in, where they find Calliope (Gaos), the cook and local doomsayer, warning them to abandon this fool's quest and the cave, which is, according to local superstition, an accursed place of evil.

Meanwhile, Asilov and Dorman have triumphantly returned with the other half of the needed map. And while Maria gets acquainted with Asilov's latest girlfriend, Sofia (Pitt), and their hired driver, Pete (Fernandez), who, frankly, seems more interested in his car than the girls, the rest of the men return to the cave where, sure enough, Andre was digging in the wrong place. And so, moving a few paces to the left, they start digging again and soon come upon another obstruction that calls for more dynamite -- and after seeing some pictures of these fragile artifacts alleged to be hidden here, one can only wonder what will be left of them once these idiots finish blasting them out. 

Leaving Stavros behind, who's been busy examining that mummified caveman, the others return to the cottage for more explosives. Again, no one notices the other dislodged egg, which quietly cracks open, regurgitating something covered in goo that quickly and mysteriously disappears. But we do hear its harsh and hungry cries as it quickly draws a bead on the unsuspecting Stavros...

A ripping yarn of treasure hunting, explosions, shrieks in the night, and a rampaging dinosaur that we cannot see, the history behind the production of Sound of Horror (1966) is very fluid and in a constant state of flux. For just when you think you've gotten a handle on it and things start to cohere, you unearth another nugget that lays waste to the existing fossil record, cinematically speaking. Thus and so, to start from the beginning, we need to talk about Sam Abarbanel.

Now, Abarbanel had worked as a promoter for Republic Pictures before serving a hitch in the infantry in World War II. And when he got out of the army, he moved to Los Angeles and started working as an independent publicist, promoting such films as High Noon (1952) for the majors and Hot-Rod Girl (1956) for the minors along with several imports like La Strada (1954) and The Red Balloon (1956) in-between. He even took the plunge into feature filmmaking, producing the exploitation-minded Prehistoric Women (1950), which boiled down to a battle of the sexes amongst a segregated tribe of cave-dwellers, which he shared a co-writing credit with Gregg Tallas -- who directed the film, and who would also play a part in our featured feature today. 

See, around 1963, Abarbanel hooked up with a Spanish outfit, Zurbano Films, where he produced a couple of frijole refritos westerns shot in Mexico -- Los pistoleros de Casa Grande (Gunfighters of Casa Grande, 1964), and El hijo del pistolero (Son of a Gunfighter, 1965).  And around this same time, he concocted another film with Callas to cash-in on the American monster movie boom of the late 1950s, which were finally showing up in Spain, for producer Gregorio Sacristán: El sonido de la muerte -- The Sound of Death. 

To realize this eerie opus, enter Spanish filmmaker, José Antonio Nieves Conde. Apparently, Conde was a movie buff since childhood but was pursuing a law degree when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, which found him on the Nationalist side fighting for Franco. When the war ended, Conde abandoned college and got a job as a newspaper film critic, eventually serving as the senior editor for several film fanzines, making contacts with several directors, who eventually nudged Conde behind the camera, which resulted in Surcos (1951), where a rural family moves to the city and comes to ruin. And while the film kinda boils down to a propaganda piece for Franco's dictatorial regime, it's still championed as one of Spain's greatest films. After, Conde's films started having troubles with the censors and the Church for broaching taboo subjects, which derailed his career for a while, leaving him ripe for the plucking to direct a certain independent horror movie. 

Now, to add even more confusion, we also need to talk about Samuel Bronston. Born in Russia, Bronston had migrated to the United States in 1939, where he caught on at MGM. But it wasn't long before Bronston formed his own company, Samuel Bronston Productions, which cut its teeth on a couple of bio-pics for Jack London (1943) and John Paul Jones (1959). However, Bronston's biggest claim to fame came in the 1960s with a series of large-scale, Cinerama blockbusters, involving star-studded cast of thousands, including King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). 

To save costs on these massive and monumental productions, Bronston struck a deal with Franco and set-up shop in Spain, building a gigantic studio in Las Rozas, just south of Madrid. This, obviously, brought a lot of money into the local economy. And other producers, also looking to save money, filmed in Spain using Bronston's facilities as well, including Ken Annikan for his World War II misfire, Battle of the Bulge (1965); a film Dwight D. Eisenhower himself denounced for its glaring historical inaccuracies; a film that was shot, edited, scored and released in just a staggering eight months; and a film that still came in under-budget, whose surplus, as one unearthed rumor has it, was partially skimmed off and commandeered to finance The Sound of Death, which also utilized several of Bronston's locations, including the central cave, which leaves me to boggle that the cavernous home for Casper the Killer Dinosaur might also have served as the tomb for our Lord and Savior in King of Kings. Noodle that for a bit, why don't ya. Wow. 

And on top of all of that, there's even some confusion when trying to actually date the origin of The Sound of Death, too. Some sources say it was released in 1964, others 1966. Even its American debut is in dispute as either 1967 or 1968, depending once again on your source. Regardless, it did get here. 

Now, it should be noted that producer Sacristán made this type of genre picture for the express purpose of an easy international sale. And he immediately found a buyer with Europix Consolidated (-- later morphing into Europix-International), who repackaged El sonido de la muerte as the bottom bill for Mario Bava's Operazione paura (1966), re-tagging them as Sound of Horror and Kill Baby Kill. 

Europix had already imported several Euro-Shockers, turning La lama nel corpo into The Murder Clinic (1966) and Il mostro di Venezia into The Embalmer (1965), pairing that last one up with La Sorella di Satana a/k/a She Beast (1966) for a fantastic double horror-terror show. Given the same ballyhoo, Sound of Horror and Kill Baby Kill were unleashed as 'The Big SQ Show', promising you'd Shiver 'n' Quiver and Shake 'n' Quake with each elapsed reel. 

This combination proved quite the hit and Europix kept cashing in, selling the features off for TV syndication, where it was packaged with several other fright films throughout the 1970s on many a Creature Feature program. But Europix kept re-titling and re-releasing their features theatrically, too; most notoriously as a Drive-In triple-bill avalanche of grisly horror -- “The Orgy of the Living Dead.” 

Also of note, Europix used the same dubbing studio (-- most likely, Titra Sound,) as many other imports, as we hear the same voices at work here in numerous Godzilla movies, vintage anime, spaghetti westerns, Hercules and his progeny, and the far flung denizens of Gamma One.

Getting back to the film proper, aside from that convoluted origin and its notoriously transparent monster, Sound of Horror's biggest claim to fame is the two burgeoning Cult Movie Queens leavened into the cast. 

Born in Spain, Soledad Rendón Bueno was one of six children. And to help the family make ends meet, she started flamenco dancing for a traveling troupe of entertainers at the age of 8. Bitten by the showbiz bug early, she decided to become an actress, drawing her new stage name, Miranda, out of a hat. And the newly christened Soledad Miranda immediately found work as a background dancer or bit player in a couple of Spanish films, soon drawing the attention of American producer, Sidney Pink, who cast her in The Castilian (1962) and the fairly under-appreciated revenge drama, Pyro: The Thing Without a Face (1963), before she wound up in Sound of Horror. 

After, her career kinda stalled until she entered Jess Franco's orbit, where she became his personal muse for Count Dracula (1969), Vampyros Lesbos (1970) and She Killed in Ecstasy (1970). Alas, this tale ends tragically. For just when it appeared that her career was really gaining traction, Miranda was killed in an auto accident while en route to sign a multi-picture deal with Franco's producers in August, 1970.

Soledad Miranda / Ingrid Pitt  

As for her co-star, born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland, at the age of five, Ingoushka and her mother, who was Jewish, were sent to a concentration camp when her father, a noted engineer of German descent, refused to help the Nazis with their V2 program. There, the family survived for nearly three years before making a harrowing escape, spending the rest of the war hiding out with partisans and sympathizers. Her father and an older sister were sent to a different camp but also survived and the family was eventually reunited.

When the war ended, Ingoushka found herself in Berlin on the wrong side of the wall. Salvation came when she married an American GI, Laud Roland Pitt, and migrated to the United States around 1950, taking the name, Ingrid Pitt. This marriage did not last long, however, and Pitt soon moved back to Germany, where she studied acting at the famed Berliner Ensemble, honing her craft onstage until making her screen debut in Sound of Horror. A few uncredited parts followed until her big break came starring opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare (1968). Hammer and Amicus came calling after that, and the rest is Horror Queen history. 

Both women are simply gorgeous, Miranda hauntingly so, with Pitt already showing a brassy edge. Sadly, all they're really used for in Sound of Horror is set dressing and sounding boards for the men to schmooze or to reassure themselves when the crap hits the fan and their dreams of fortune and glory run into an invisible raptor out for blood. That, and a couple of Bouzouki-fueled dance numbers that serve no purpose other than to show off some ... *ahem* ‘assets’ and kill off a reel of film. 

Which brings us to the real star of our show: the invisible monster; who is not only an invisible dinosaur hatched out of a centuries old egg with the metabolism from hell, but an invisible dinosaur vampire as it seems hell bent on slashing open all of its victims to drink their blood and leave the rest of the body intact and uneaten. No. Really. Cheap on the surface, and absolutely silly everywhere else, at least in theory, but still, once one realizes how much Sound of Horror presages the shrieking POV crash-cut attacks of the forest demons of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (1981), which prove just as effective in 1960-whatever as far as I'm concerned, your perspective kinda changes. 

With each attack, we hear the beast first with its trademark shriek, starting with Stavros as he's torn to pieces in the cave, never knowing what hit him. This is a bit of a shock as Stavros, a man of science, who would normally be the heroic voice of reason set against the fortune hunters, was the seemingly obvious romantic interest for Maria. Well, think again. 

From there, the movie follows a familiar pattern as the survivors hole-up in the cottage and start bickering on what to do. For, they have no means to track the monster laying siege on them, and they have no means of escape thanks to a temperamental automobile that refuses to start and no time to find out why before becoming dino-kibble. This rising tension is then short-circuited somewhat by the intrusion of the actual romantic interlude, where Pete forgets the car long enough to hook up with Maria. This is then followed by the rational-explanation portion of our program, until the proof (-- remember that other egg?), hatches above the fireplace. Luckily, this hatchling is quickly dispatched, rather gruesomely, before it can engage its bio-camouflage and escape. 

But, after some dubious exposition as to why they can't see the creature (-- but none, oddly, on its rapid rate of development), once its established and accepted, there are a few original twists that follow, especially when these hardened veterans, with their goal so close to hand, actually side with the superstitious Calliope, who convinces them to abandon the area as soon as possible after citing how hard it is to spend all that loot when you're dead. And so, it's decided to make another run for the car come morning. 

Alas, Calliope does not heed her own advice when she carelessly retrieves some water from the nearby well and gets shredded quite horrifically. Later, Andre meets the same fate, whose motives for clandestinely going back to the cave are a little muddled -- Was he taking one more shot at the buried treasure? Or was he trying to seal the monster inside it? For whatever reason, he doesn't make it.

Again, I cannot stress how savagely effective and unsettling these attack scenes can be. Watch as the unseen monster howls, and its victims, none of whom go quietly, scream for their lives as we hear their clothes and flesh ripped open and slashed to pieces for untold minutes until they finally and mercifully succumb. (Poor Stavros is split open from pelvis to hyoid.) And though we never really get to see the monster, we do see the damage as it is dished out and the ghastly end results of those claws and teeth. 

Thus, it isn't all as laughable as you'd think. Kudos to editor Margarita de Ochoa for making this work so well, and composer Luis de Pablo, whose pulsing riffs really drive the terror home. In fact, the only time the film really falters is with the fleeting glimpses we actually do get of the beast, which, honestly, looks like a close-up of one of those old rubber monster-knobs I used to stick on the end of my Ticonderogas back in grade school. 

"Raaarrrgh!"

[In Unison/]  "Raaarrrgh!" [/In Unison]

Anyhoo … When the crap really hits the fan, the creature manages to sneak inside the house (-- don't ask), which also leads to their eventual salvation as our heroes finally find a way to track the thing due to some footprints found in the spilled flour on the kitchen floor. Thus, a trap is set, leading to a fairly hilarious sequence when Asilov and Pete chuck a couple of axes at the monster, which then stick into nothing and start moving around. But then, somewhat inexplicably, the creature's blood turns visible once bled out, leading our group to believe the thing was mortally wounded. And so, they make another run for the car and finally manage to get it started. 

Once safely away, however, the front windshield soon becomes occluded with blood! That's right. The monster was hiding on the roof of the car the whole time! And while the others abandon the vehicle, the wounded Dorman sacrifices himself by staying behind, igniting several petrol cans, which explode, immolating him and the monster both, allowing the survivors to walk to safety. Hooray! 

I guess when all is said and heard, Sound of Horror gets an enthusiastic passing grade from me. But! I also freely admit the film is wildly uneven and it's overall plot makes not one lick of sense. At all. It takes some time to get properly going, too; and when the monster isn't attacking our characters, they spend way too much time navel-gazing on how they all got here and taking political shots at the superpowers, bemoaning how the Atomic Age has basically rendered everything pointless when we can all go *poof* at the push of a button. Not to mention all the time wasted on repetitive reconnoitering sequences as characters cover the same ground, go to the cave, or load and unload everybody into the car only to abandon it, again and again and again -- like when Calliope goes to the well not once, but twice, and we get to see her every step before she meets her doom. 

Still, I can at least safely say Sound of Horror is a lot better than its dubious reputation as that 'el cheapo horror flick with the invisible monster in it.' Don't believe me? Well, you could always just watch and then not see it for yourselves. 

Originally posted on March 1, 2014, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.  

Sound of Horror (1966) Zurbano Films :: Viñals Distribución :: Europix Consolidated Corp. / P: Gregorio Sacristán / D: José Antonio Nieves Conde / W: Sam Abarbanel, Gregg Tallas, José Antonio Nieves Conde / C: Manuel Berenguer / E: Margarita de Ochoa / M: Luis de Pablo / S: James Philbrook, Arturo Fernández, Soledad Miranda, Ingrid Pitt, José Bódalo, Antonio Casas, Lola Gaos, Francisco Piquer