The Deathhead Virgin
The Deathhead Virgin
R | 25 October 1974 (USA)
The Deathhead Virgin Trailers

A treasure hunter finds a sunken Spanish galleon off the coast of a Philippine island. What he doesn't know is that the ship is guarded by the spirit of an ancient Moro princess

Reviews
Woodyanders

Filipino horror films don't come much worse than this unbearably dull, drawn-out stiff which boasts a decent enough plot, but precious little energy in the telling of said story. In short, what we have here is a classic case of cruddy schlock movie-making that crucially lacks the necessary trashy vitality to pass muster as a fun, worthy fright flick. Jock Gaynor, who was also one of the co-producers ("A Taste of Hell" 's John Garwood was another one) and designed the many boring underwater sequences featured herein, listlessly plays a treasure-seeking deep sea diver who discovers a fabled 1850 sunken galleon which contains the corpse of a legendary Moro tribe virgin princess. When Gaynor steals a priceless amulet from the princess' skeletal remains, the skull-faced sea siren (the gorgeous Iraida Arambulo, who's naked throughout the entire film except for a hokey monster mask that covers her cadaverous face) comes back to life and forces Gaynor to kill seven virgins in order to appease the god that the princess was sacrificed to a century earlier.Despite a goodly serving of both gratuitous nudity and bloody violence, plus the enticing sight of sexy female leads Diane McBain and Kim Ramos walking about in skimpy bikinis, "The Deathhead Virgin" proves to be a static, lifeless, sleep-inducing waste of time thanks to Norman Foster's drab direction (Foster, who started out as an actor prior to becoming a director, had a very uneven career which includes several episodes of Disney's "Davy Crockett" series), Fredy Conde's clunky, grainy cinematography, Ward Gaynor's arid, dead obvious, gab-ridden script, such excessive padding as tacky night club scenes, a horrible comic sequence in which Gaynor and his fellow diver buddy Larry Ward get drunk together on the beach, and a cock fight, the pitiful wasting of the great Vic Diaz in the nothing role of an investigating police chief who tries to piece together the whole fantastic story in a logical manner (Vic does what he can with a thankless part, but even he's let down by lousy dubbing -- some drip with a flat, hollow tenor substitutes for Diaz's wonderfully ripe and oily baritone!), cheesy solarization effects, uniformly indifferent performances from an understandably out of it cast, and Richard La Salle's slushy, overbearing score. So bad that it doesn't even qualify as enjoyable junk, this terribly lame loser of a flick should be avoided at all costs.

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Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic)

1970's Filipino made horror is an acquired taste, and I must admit not getting it. THE DEATHHEAD VIRGIN is about on par with DAUGHTERS OF Satan, low budget potboilers set in the Philipines for the cynical reason that it was cheaper to make the movie there than anywhere else. The story idea is not without merit: Damned soul of a virgin girl sunk with a galleon comes back to haunt the beaches and resort communities leased by the film company for their off-season shoot. She walks around wearing a mask and not much else, thought strategic hair placement keeps whatever nudity there was from sullying our eyes.The problem is that not much happens, and other than some interesting slow speed filming and some interesting underwater photography the movie exists without the thrill factor needed to make something like this work. I bailed out at like the 70 minute point when like another commenter I realized that the director had reached his conclusion at about 62 minutes but exposed a bunch of other footage & felt compelled to use it, probably because he had to. Just ask The Beatles; Those Filipino entertainment unions can be murder.One curious footnote about the movie is the opening titles. At roughly thirteen minutes into the feature the words DIRECTED BY NORMAN FOSTER flash onto the screen, producing the film's only genuine laugh. My guess is that Mr. Foster had just seen ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, who's titles go on for about three quarters of an hour. The difference of course is that they were not arbitrarily inserted by an editor who probably never saw the finished result. I don't blame him.

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Volstag

Another plodding, and ultimately boring, b-movie. There isn't much here for bad movie fans. There's no insane dialogue, directing, acting, etc. The problem with this movie is that it simply does nothing. Norman Foster (the director) spent way too much time filming scenes that have NOTHING to do with the story. They, literally, leave nothing to the imagination in this flick. We see endless amounts of footage of the main characters strolling around town, swimming in the ocean, drinking, eating, sleeping, performing menial tasks, driving, etc. This movie could have been a documentary of two idiotic Americans squandering their lives in the Philippines.What's the movie about? Well, ostensibly, it's about a "deathhead virgin" who is awakened by our Americans (whilst exploring undersea wreckage). The "deathhead virgin" occasionally surfaces, and occasionally murders some poor sot. In the meantime, our American divers mess around on shore, and make perfunctory dives to the previously mentioned wreckage. That's about it.Is there anything here for the bad movie fan? Unfortunately, no. Other than the aforementioned tons of useless footage/dialogue, there isn't much to sink your "bad movie teeth" into. Really the only highlight of this film, if you happen to be a heterosexual male, are the incredibly attractive Philippino women. Not enough to carry a bad movie (or a good movie, for that matter).Bad Movie Score: 5/10 Good Movie Score: 3.5/10

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stlo112

As a child at summer camp, the councillors were hard pressed to find an effective way to punish our cabin for out mis-doings. Well, the day that they made us watch this film in its entirety (without letting us fall asleep), was the day that they found that effective punishment. This film is actually painful to watch. I am not exaggerating!

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