Heart Beat (1983)

Heart Beat: Directed by Paul Naschy. With Paul Naschy, Julia Saly, Lola Gaos, Silvia Miró. A man moves his ailing wife to his family’s ancestral house for a period of recovery. Things are not what they seem to be, when the wife becomes plagued with terrifying visions, which begin to worsen her ailment.

“This is a typical Paul Naschy movie and as such is difficult to describe to someone who hasnu0026#39;t seen one. On one hand, it is very old fashioned movie hearkening back to classic American thrillers like u0026quot;Gaslightu0026quot; or classic European thrillers like u0026quot;Diaboliqueu0026quot;. 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).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNaschy 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, u0026quot;Horror Rises from the Tombu0026quot;, but rather than making a conventional sequel he freely re-writes the legend making the knight an avenging figure who punishes unfaithful women (in u0026quot;Horroru0026quot; the countu0026#39;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 u0026quot;Gaslightu0026quot;-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 u0026quot;bad seedu0026quot; 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 shouldnu0026#39;t work, but somehow it does.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe 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 Iu0026#39;ve seen, but this new disc should be a must-have for any Naschy/Spanish horror fan.”