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Event
THE SEVEN VAMPIRES
a/k/a: As Sete Vampires
Dir. Ivan Cardoso, 1986
100 min, Brazil
In Portuguese w/ hard-burned English subs.
With our SOUTH OF HEAVEN: Supernatural Mexican Westerns series all but a distant rider in the sunset, Spectacle has partnered with our pals at Camp Motion Pictures to bring the early works of Brazilian basement & beach auteur Ivan Cardoso to Brooklyn's big screen. Cardoso, though champion of genre film back home, was largely unknown in these United States (outside of VHS releases by Something Weird Video) until only very recently. This July we're presenting his first four forays into film in the form of 1 short and 3 features featuring more tropes than you can shake a stake at - vampires, mummies, carnivorous plants, masked villains, radio detectives, unlicensed Alfred Hitchcock overdubs, Coffin Joe cameos, and more.
"Cardoso favors a genre he himself dubs "Terrir" - a play on "terror" and "rir" (laugh) which builds on cinematic codes already internalized by the spectator, specifically those of the classic horror film. With Cardoso we have a parody of parody since the chanchada was already parodic. In a Brazilian synthesis of Roger Corman and Mel Brooks, Ivan Cardoso gives new life to generic cliches, vampirizing, as it were, preexisting films and genres absorbing and preforming the "blood" of other texts." - Brazilian Cinema by Randal Johnson, Robert Stam.
At no point in his career is the above quote more presciant than in THE SEVEN VAMPIRES. The film is truly all over the place zigging and zagging til it seems like it could burst of out of the screen at any second.
Botanist Frederico Rossi receives a meat-loving-but-mute poisonous plant that his wife immediately dislikes. His futile attempt at making an (pl)antidote only see him devoured and Sylvia mutilated, losing not only her arm but also her interest in dance and socializing. She ages rapidly and takes the last of the antidote and though it seems to help at first it becomes apparent that all is not well...
Not long after, Sylvia is approached about essentially getting the band back together and, rekindling her love of dance combined with her newfound love of vampiric murder, creates "The Transylvanian Follies" a flock of fanged femme fatales.
Graveyard fights, the aforementioned Hitchcock overdubs, and 50's pop songs lifted straight from HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT 2 (the superior PROM NIGHT film) follow in rapid succession leaving the viewer with nary a moment to catch their breath.
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LocationSPECTACLE THEATER (View)
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11249
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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