"Latidos De Pánico" aka "Panic Beats" of 1983 is a neat little Horror film that mainly profits from a load of sleaze and Spanish Horror/Exploitation-icon Paul Naschy, who serves as leading man, writer and director. Paul Naschy enjoys a cult-status among my fellow fans of European Exploitation cinema, and, as far as I am concerned, his reputation is more than deserved. While the films he was involved in (as actor, writer, and sometimes, such as in this one, as director) may not qualify as being masterpieces or milestones, all Naschy films I've seen so far are highly entertaining, sleazy and violent little films that any fan of trashy low-budget Eurohorror should enjoy. What is most important, however, is that all of the man's films have a certain inimitable charm to them that can not be found anywhere but in a Naschy film. Naschy is probably best known for his role as Werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, whom he played in thirteen films so far, most famously in "La Noche De Walpurgis" of 1971. The character of the blood-thirsty knight Alaric De Marnac, whom Naschy plays here, is more sardonic than the Werewolf character, and, once again, the film has to do with a family curse. Naschy had already played Alaric De Marnac once, ten years earlier, in "El Esperanto Surge De La Tumba" ("Horror Rises From The Tomb", 1973). In addition to a creepy atmosphere and the usual Naschy-esquire charm, this sequel has a wonderful sense of black humor.In the 16th century, the insane knight Alaric De Marnac (Naschy) terrorizes rural France with his blood-lust, using mainly his favorite weapon, the flail. Centuries later, his ancestor Paul Marnac (also Naschy) comes to his family's old castle with his wife, who needs the rural air in order to cure her heart disease... The film may not have the most logical storyline ever, but it delivers more than just diverting sleaze and gore. Naschy the director delivers a wonderful atmosphere, and Naschy the actor delivers an awesome lead. Sexy Paquita Ondiviela gets naked at every occasion and she also fits very well in the female lead. Paul Naschy plays his two roles with his usual greatness. Some may disagree, but I am personally a massive Naschy-fan, as he makes every film worthwhile, and his status as a Eurohorror-icon is more than justified. And while "Latidos De Panico" is maybe no milestone, I highly recommend it to my fellow fans of Eurohorror. Even if cheesy, this is great fun and a film that Exploitation lovers should enjoy. Not to be missed by my fellow Naschy-fans!

Paul Naschy was quite an important contributor to the industry of European horror films, and I'm an unusually big fan of his work and persona, but he undeniably never accomplished anything major or classic during all his years of film-making. The titles in his repertoire provide large portions of gore and sleaze (thumbs up for that!) but his screenplays are generally uninspired and too often revert to the same old and repetitive basic premise. Apparently, Mr. Naschy just loves to play his own descendant in stories that revolve on ancient folklore legends and family curses. The entire "Hombre Lobo" cycle is based on this principle as well. "Panic Beats" is sort of like a re-telling of Naschy's earlier film "Horror Rises from the Tomb", as both films feature a murderously mad 16th Century knight - Alaric de Marnac - who supposedly returns from the grave to slay unfaithful women. In this film, 20th Century sleaze-ball Paul uses the petrifying myth to scare his wife to death, inherit her family fortune and marry a young & viral beauty. But, unfortunately for Paul, there's a lot more treason going on behind his back and he also never took into consideration that the myth of his malevolent ancestor might have some truth in it. The plot of "Panic Beats" is overall very dull and it doesn't feature a single story-element or twist that you can't see coming from several miles away. Every dire cliché and stereotype you can think of regarding isolated country mansions and medieval curses is predictably processed into the script, including the loyal old servant and the knight's armor that seemingly moves all by itself. But hey, as usual it was the high gore & sleaze factor that eventually convinced me to reward "Panic Beats" with a positive rating after all. There are a handful of truly nasty murders, committed with axes and other typically medieval armory. Beautiful feminine nudity is provided by luscious women such as Silvia Miró and Paquita Ondiviela, who both go full frontal without hesitating. I just wished Paul Naschy didn't insist on showing so much of his own naked and unusually hairy torso. Oh well … Recommended to all fans of trashy euro-horror, and the Mondo Macabro DVD is a real treat full of phenomenal extras!

Cult Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy not only stars in Panic Beats—he wrote and directed it too; I guess that puts the majority of the blame for this dreadful mess squarely on his massive hairy shoulders.Taking the basic premise of French classic Les Diaboliques for the first half of his story—someone plots to kill their spouse by scaring them to death—and then veering wildly off in to all manner of convoluted goings on, until the final supernatural ending, Naschy delivers a muddled effort that bores more than it scares.The film starts rather promisingly with a nifty pre-credit sequence that sees a nekkid chick running for her life from an evil knight on horseback. Falling to the ground in terror, she is beaten to death by the knight—weapon of choice: a nasty looking flail with spiked metal balls.The rest of the film is set in the present day, and proves to be pretty uninspiring stuff, until about 20 minutes from the end, when viewers are treated to smattering of cheesy OTT gore. At least Naschy has the decency to feature a couple of Euro-babes in the altogether to keep us from completely glazing over; Paquita Ondiviela (¡Ay, caramba!) is particularly winsome as the wayward niece of Naschy's housekeeper.Panic Beats is a film I can see appealing only to die-hard Euro-horror completists; anyone else will have a hard time seeing this one through to the end.

This is a typical Paul Naschy movie and as such is difficult to describe to someone who hasn't seen one. On one hand, it is very old fashioned movie hearkening back to classic American thrillers like "Gaslight" or classic European thrillers like "Diabolique". On the other side, it opens with the scene of a completely naked women being chased through the woods by a knight on horseback and then brutally maced (in the medieval sense)into bloody pulp. (People who complain about the sexism and violence toward women in American films ought to take a gander at this).Naschy has a way of combining disparate horror themes and subgenres in what seems like a very random, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink manner (his werewolf films, for instance, have involved everything from Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde to Countess Elizabeth Barthory to a Himalayan yeti). In this film he uses the evil Count Marnac he created for an earlier movie, "Horror Rises from the Tomb", but rather than making a conventional sequel he freely re-writes the legend making the knight an avenging figure who punishes unfaithful women (in "Horror" the count's wife was a conspirator in his crimes, here she is his first victim). Then he proceeds to ignore the supernatural elements of the story until the very end to tell a "Gaslight"-like tale of a man (Naschy himself, natch) who is only using the legend to frighten his wife to death. He wants to be with a mistress, of course, but just to needlessly complicate things he has TWO mistresses--the very sexy "bad seed" niece of his housekeeper(insert audible drooling sounds here) and another woman (who seems to only exist to provide additional nudity and and another gory killing, but oh well). The whole thing really shouldn't work, but somehow it does.The recent Mondo Macabre disc this comes on is one of their best with a very interesting (but lamentably short) documentary that serves as an excellent primer for Spanish horror in general, and a longer, equally interesting interview with the erstwhile Spanish werewolf himself. This is neither the best or the worst Naschy movie I've seen, but this new disc should be a must-have for any Naschy/Spanish horror fan.