For proof positive that other countries can do the shlocky African safari flick just as well as we Americans, look no further than the 1973 Spanish production "The Night of the Sorcerers." But wait: This bizarre horror outing gives us not just a corny African jungle pic, but conflates the vampire, zombie and soft-core skin flicks as well, for one mind-boggling mix. Here, giallo favorite Simon Andreu plays Rod Carter, a journalist who comes to the wilds of the fictitious country of Bumbasa, along with a scientist dude and three truly dynamite-looking women, to do a little research on endangered fauna. Too bad they fetch up in the Yaru district, where the spirits of dead voodoo doctors rise at night to whip the clothes off of captured women, decapitate them, and (somehow...don't ask) turn them into bloodsucking, undead, fully noggined leopard women! Anyway, though admittedly cool sounding in synopsis, "TNOTS" is really nothing to get excited about. The picture is a pretty slow-moving affair that is never very scary, although writer/director Amando de Ossorio does manage to create some nice nocturnal atmosphere in certain segments. The jazzy, Euro-lounge background music by Fernando Garcia Morcillo, nice as it is, hardly seems appropriate for a jungle horror film, and the picture feels hopelessly padded with extraneous wildlife, native-dancing and soft-core makeout footage. On the plus side are those three aforementioned hotties (especially Kali Hansa, playing the toughest and most sympathetic of the trio, Tanika), but sadly, only the slowest witted of viewers will have trouble figuring out what fate this film dishes out for them. Truth to tell, "TNOTS" is really hopeless junk, but is such a loopy piece of junk that one part of me couldn't help but be entertained. This DVD, from the fine folks at Deimos, looks just fine, by the way, with excellent subtitling and lots of interesting extras. This prematurely defunct outfit surely did leave us too soon....

If it's gratuitous nudity, sadism, or sadomasochism you're looking for, look no further: you've found it. (If you're a masochist...) I rate this one a three for three reasons: some very fluid, almost lyrical slow motion tracking shots of the leopard vampire women running through the jungle; some very effective music that, in more capable hands, could've underscored some brilliant sequences; and an fx shot of a man, now a zombie, set ablaze in a gasoline-drenched tent, who lifts his head once as he's immolated to look around before giving up (and giving up the proverbial ghost). Other than that, I can't recommend this one on the grounds that to do so might tend to incriminate me.

Amando de Ossorio will always be best remembered for his Blind Dead series of films, and that's a very good thing as the films he made outside of that trilogy aren't nearly as good - this one is a prime example. The subject of voodoo is an interesting one, but it never seems to cross over very well to movies, as just about every film I've seen on this topic has been disappointing and unfortunately, this one is no different. It's a real shame too as a film with these elements really could have been a lot better, but Amando de Ossorio isn't able to create an interesting plot around the central idea and unfortunately it falls flat. The film starts with a sequence that sees a woman have her head cut off during a voodoo ceremony. From there we focus on a team of researchers who head out into Africa in an attempt to find out why elephants are disappearing from the area. They soon discover that the locals are afraid of a legend about some voodoo witches in the area, and naturally this turns out to be true and some of the researchers get killed...etc etc.I'm not sure if it was just a problem with the copy I saw (apparently, there's a remastered DVD out now), but this film is very dark and it's often difficult to make what - if anything - is going on. The cinematography is nothing special either and that's a shame because any film set in Africa has the potential for plenty of interesting shots but that isn't capitalised on. Amando de Ossorio does manage to pack some gore and nudity into the film, though it's scant consolation for the rest of the film. The sorcerers themselves also don't manage much in the way of intrigue as they don't appear all that often and when they do, not a lot happens. The plot surrounding the team of researchers is completely worthless and didn't generate anything that I cared for, which gives the film a rather flimsy backbone. Simón Andreu is the only name on the cast list that I recognised and he doesn't do enough to stand out. To the film's credit, the women featured are invariably very nice looking. Overall, this is not a great film and I can't recommend it; see Ossorio's Blind Dead series or The Loreley's Grasp instead!

OK, this is not a good film. But I think it is somewhat underrated, while the director Amando Ossorio's more famous "blind dead" series is somewhat overrated (especially the last two). Instead of undead Teutonic knights, in this film we have a tribe of living voodoo-practicing Africans. Of course, voodoo sacrifices have been practiced historically in places on the "dark continent", but this bunch are little more than cartoon stereotypes (all they need is a big pot to cook people in). I suppose it doesn't help that the tribe exclusively captures white women, whips all their clothes off, rapes them (at least in one case), and then decapitates them--which somehow causes them to become undead "panther women", prowling half-naked through the jungle in slow motion (and WITH their heads). But is this the only film of the 1970's to portray black Africans as "primitive", or to play on the illicit thrills of interracial sexuality? Hardly. All those who call this racist and/or sexist really need to see more European exploitation films of that era. This is actually pretty weak tea.It's also a very typical low-budget Spanish horror film--short on a logic, long on atmosphere, extremely confusing but with a generous helpings of nudity and violence (at least in export prints). It's certainly more incompetent than Ossorio's best films, but I'd put it on the level of a mediocre Paul Naschy flick, and it has the same scruffy charm as a lot of those. There's also a couple of recognizable actors among the European characters who come to a bad end at the hands of the African voodoo cultists and "panther women", including Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor, as the expedition leader, and the slinky and sexy cubana Kali Hansa as the "half-breed". It's out on DVD now and is worth a rental, if maybe not a purchase, for fans of Spanish horror.