The Hunchback of the Morgue is a wonderful film with a great pace, an engaging story, some outrageous gore, and real scares. As the doomed and misbegotten Gotho, Naschy gives one of his finest dramatic performances – it earned him a well-deserved prize at Sitges, and I think it would've even made Karloff or Chaney, Sr. proud. Naschy is able to make Gotho, an utterly clueless and abused hunchback/morgue-janitor, a sympathetic character despite possessing a nasty, vicious temper, and being both an accomplice to serious crime, and a latent necrophiliac. Naturally, I think he's quite adorable, and with Naschy writing the script, so does the leading lady, regular co-star Rosanna Yanni. The real villain of the film is one Dr. Orla (homage/rip at Jess Franco or Generalissimo Franco?) who takes full and horrible advantage of Gotho's hardships; Orla (excellently portrayed by genre-veteran Alberto Dalbes) leads Gotho down a truly sickening path involving corpse robbing (or corpse-creating) and some absolutely ungodly experiments. The film's climax shocked me when I first saw it – I wasn't expecting it to be so frightening. There's a build-up throughout the film as to what the experiment-generated monster actually looks like, and unlike most cases of this device, it ultimately pays off in spades. The gore and make-up is fabulous, as is the sound effect for the monster (it still sends chills down my spine to think of it). The Hunchback of the Morgue is a real benchmark of Spanish Horror, and certainly one of Naschy's career. But be warned, this film does contain a scene (it's most notorious) where real rats were burned alive.

From the jaunty circus music that plays during its opening credits to the closing shot of a steaming, bubbling pit of sulfuric acid, "The Hunchback of the Morgue," a Spanish offering from 1973, literally busts a gut to please the jaded horror fan. Cowritten and starring "The Boris Karloff of Spain," Paul Naschy, the film is a wildly over-the-top, cheesy affair that yet succeeds in its primary intentions: to stun and entertain the viewer. In it, Naschy plays the title character, Wolfgang Gotho, a hunchbacked janitor in the morgue of the Feldkirch Hospital, in what the viewer must infer is Germany, in modern times (although the film, with very minor revisions, could just as easily have been set 200 years ago). Shunned, reviled and even stoned by the town's populace, Gotho's only joy in life is bringing flowers to Ilse, a beautiful young woman in the hospital who is dying of some unspecified lung disease, and played by the luscious Maria Elena Arpon. When Ilse ultimately does expire, the distraught Gotho steals her body, hides it in the subterranean crypts (once a torturer's lair during the Inquisition) conveniently near the hospital, and asks the head man at Feldkirch, Dr. Orla (Alberto Dalbes), for assistance in bringing the dead lovely back to the land of the living. Orla agrees, but on one condition: that Gotho will help him in his experiments to create artificial life....As I said, "THOTM" really goes out of its way to present itself as some kind of total horror show. The film boasts any number of satisfyingly tacky grossout effects, including some slit throats, various dismemberments, decapitations, a nasty ax blow to the stomach (as mentioned, literally busting a gut!), rats, rats on fire (apparently, some animals really WERE harmed in the making of this picture!), rats nibbling on corpses, acid-melted bodies, a gruesome iron-maiden spiking and on and on. The creature that Orla creates, at first shown as a large jar of quivering viscera feeding on human heads, ultimately morphs into yet another pleasing horror image: a humanoid entity that looks like a glob of melted mud! Naschy is quite fine as the simpleminded Gotho, even eliciting viewer sympathy for the grotesque character, despite his murderous tendencies; the early scenes between Gotho and Ilse are actually fairly touching, and even--dare I say it--a bit poetic! Besides the catchy circus music that opens the film, composer Carmelo Bernaola has also provided a morbid, dirgelike piece that permeates the picture very appropriately, and director Javier Aguirre does a better than competent job at creating an atmosphere of decay and unease. On a personal note, as an old fan of horror great H.P. Lovecraft, I must automatically give extra Brownie points to any film that mentions the "Necronomicon," as this one so cleverly does. "THOTM" may be some kind of perfect film to watch with your favorite 12-year-old nephew, who will surely delight at the loopiness of the plot and the film's many yucky visuals.As for the Mya DVD that I recently viewed this picture on, it looks good enough, I suppose, if a tad dark in sections, but sports subtitles (for the English, Spanish and Italian language options) that have been very poorly rendered and, in spots, amusingly translated. Thus, in one scene, Elke--a beautiful psychologist at a women's prison from which Gotho is abducting some victims, and played by Rossana Yani--says to Gotho, "I'll medicate your wounds." But at least the DVD comes with more extras than you might expect to accompany a film of this nature. Bottom line: a highly pleasing horror outing, one that I have a, um, hunch that you'll enjoy, although not terribly scary. Indeed, the film's single most frightening scene might occur at the very outset: the sight of one of Gotho's future victims downing TWO gallon-sized glasses of beer in rapid succession. Now THAT'S scary!

Paul Naschy stars in a version of Frankenstein that features a bit more gore than the original.He is a hunchback in love with a dying girl (María Elena Arpón), who is the only one who treats him decently. After her death, he enlists the help of a mad scientist that promises to reanimate her. He is, however, only interested in creating life a la Dr. Frankenstein, and has Gotho (Naschy) running all over for body parts.The film features decapitation, spilling guts, and rat scenes that are all the more creepy when you know they are real.Fans of Eurohorror will find much to enjoy here.

Hunchback of the Morgue (1972) ** 1/2 (out of 4)A deformed hunchback (Paul Naschy) is picked on by everyone except for a beautiful woman. When that woman dies the hunchback goes to a scientist in hopes that he can bring her back to life. The doctor says he can but in return he wants the hunchback to do some killing for him. Loosely based on Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, the film also mixes in elements of Frankenstein and the end result is a rather entertaining movie that works on several levels but the biggest is the fact that the movie is just downright nasty at times and it takes pleasure in it. HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE offers Naschy a tasty role and he really delivers.The film works best as long as you don't take it too serious or go into it expecting some sort of art film. I mean, the movie is pretty sleazy throughout but things get really crazy during the second half when we get all sorts of strange violence from body parts being cut off to guts pour out and there are even rats eating faces. All of the gore is handled quite well and the overall sleazy nature of it perfect fits the atmosphere of the movie as well as the beautiful set design.As far as Naschy goes, he got to play just about every monster possible and this here was certainly his most sympathetic role, which is shocking when you consider that this character is a murderer. I thought the actor did a very good job in the role and the sympathetic nature was a major plus. The supporting cast are all fine as well but there's no question that the picture belongs to Naschy.