Nattens Engel is a Danish flick that’s gotten a couple words added
in the translation, most likely to avoid confusion with Dominique Othenin-Girard’s
underrated Night Angel (1990). It has more in common with
that film, in fact, than any of its Lars Von Trier-influenced Danish counterparts
(see Possessed) because they’re both dumb, poorly-plotted and make no sense,
but have a visual style that somehow manages to be worth checking out.
“Somewhere in central Europe—Today” begins our
tale, where a young woman has just inherited a big, creepy castle.
Her boyfriend and best friend are along, and she begins to tell the tale
of the place. “There is something you should know. It could
be scary,” the woman warns.
The whole problem with the place began in 1850, where a priest sent to track down a vampire that’s been killing girls (and, apparently, one boy) ends up being turned into one. In fact, after being attacked by the floppy-eared vamp that looks like a Chiodo Brothers critter, he becomes something of a king vampire named Rico and turns from a mild-manned Hugh Grant-ish priest to a Danny Trejo-ish monster.
The priest, natch, is the lead girl’s great-grandfather, and the trio goes down into the cellar where they find a bleeding coffin, complete with Rico’s bones. This barely elicits a response from her two pals, who get bored and go upstairs! Her perky friend even calls a wooden stake a dildo and they keep questioning the lead girl about really stupid things.
Further flashbacks ensue. The next involves a vampire hunter in what looks to be the ‘80s. He and his gang try to hunt Rico down and end up becoming his slaves. They go to a strip joint, are attacked by a black kung-fu vampire and say things like “They stink of death got stronger with us every step.” Meanwhile, the great-granddaughter drops blood on the bones of her ancestor (intentionally) and brings him back to life, knowing she’ll just have to kill him. Her boyfriend and best friend have sex upstairs after reading the vampire lore book, which leads to, yep, another flashback about a woman carrying Rico’s baby.
It’s obvious in a case like this that a good percentage of the movie was lost in the dubbing. Characters make no sense, do and say completely irrational things and parts of it seem like the dubbers were just making a big joke out of the proceedings, a la What’s Up Tiger Lily? Even so, it’s hard to throw all the blame on them. A cab driver has no reaction when one of his passengers is covered in blood, and the leads are obviously so stupid to begin with that it would have been hard top resist the urge to just make a mockery of the whole thing.
However, despite all of this, the movie looks good. It’s got some slick production values, a large cast, and it’s well-paced, with loads of action scenes and a healthy amount of bloodletting and atmosphere. The tone (until the characters open their mouths) is almost akin to a Hammer film, with castles, cobwebs and candles and the occasional opening of an artery.
It’s a Fangoria Films import, and you’ve got to wonder why they didn’t know better, however. Why, for example, are some of the credits covered in a cheap-looking red background? Why do the title cards read the same things that the narration already explains? Why is the dubbing so godawful? The tape is nicely letterboxed, but it seems that if they really cared about the original film, they’d have taken it a bit more seriously and transferred it right. If this were a new Michele Soavi film, there’d be an outcry.