Maria Perschy Movies

Toward the end of 1918, soldiers in the Austrian army were well aware that things were not going well. In this story, an army cadet arrives to serve in Belgrade and receives orders to serve in a regiment which is accompanying a Hanoverian princess on her return to Vienna. While in Belgrade, the young man and the princess are able to meet, and they fall in love. The cadet knows that it is foolish to expect the Slavs, who have been drafted into the army, to fight very hard for an empire they would happily see dissolved, but his superior officers are oblivious to this simple fact, and as a consequence, they suffer serious military reverses. Inspired by their ancient code of military honor, the regiment's officers fight and die to preserve the regiment's battleflag, which comes into the keeping of the cadet. He is entrusted with the task of returning it to the Hapsburg royal family. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This is the third installment in Amando de Ossorio's "Blind Dead" series featuring the legions of the undead Knights Templar -- a sect of medieval monks who were executed in the 15th century for their occult practices and who periodically rise from their tombs to torment the living. This chapter puts the Templars on a ghostly Spanish galleon (which looks like it was built from a ship-in-a-bottle kit), cloaked in perpetual fog and roaming the seas in search of victims. When two bikini models are set adrift as part of a sporting-good chain's publicity stunt, they are seized by the flesh-eating ghouls. The company's frantic CEO sets out in his yacht to find them, accompanied by the head of the modeling agency, one of the models' friends, and an expert on Templar lore. They eventually collide with the galleon, whereupon the meandering plot finally gets down to business. The blind, slow-moving zombies shamble up from below decks and wait patiently, as always, for their shrieking, flailing victims to stumble into their clutches. This is one of the creepier entries in the series, making good use of the confined, fog-shrouded sets (presaging very similar scenes in John Carpenter's The Fog), and only wavers during long shots of the cheesy-looking model ship. The shock ending is also remarkably effective. Followed by the final chapter, Night of the Seagulls. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Spanish horror auteur Paul Naschy (aka Jacinto Molina) takes a crack at the demon-possession subgenre with this dull rip-off of The Exorcist. The story involves a young woman's unknowing participation in a Satanic ceremony which causes her to be possessed by the vile spirit of her late father. She promptly begins exhibiting the standard symptoms -- guttural curses, projectile pea-soup vomiting, and so on -- even twisting the heads of a few people 180 degrees. Naschy appears as the village priest summoned to perform the rites of exorcism, and must fend off the possessee's lewd advances before casting the unclean spirit out of her body... and into the family dog. Although certainly as silly and derivative as it sounds, this is not goofy enough to suffice as enjoyably bad cinema, and tired pacing takes all the punch out of the occasional gruesome shocks. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this gory horror movie one of society's pariahs finds the will to live when he receives the tender, innocent affections of a young girl. Unfortunately, she dies. The man refuses to let go and so engineers a replacement. Blood and gore ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jesus Franco's campy women's prison film, though both stereotypical and rare to find in its original version, is worthwhile for genre devotees primarily due to an outstanding cast. Mercedes McCambridge is unintentionally hilarious as sadistic lesbian warden Thelma Diaz, spitting tacky dialogue with exuberant venom in a performance so overbearing that it verges on classic. The plot is standard for the genre, as three women (Maria Rohm, Elisa Montes, Luciana Paluzzi) are sentenced to an island prison off the Panamanian coast, only to encounter torture, rape, and lesbianism. When sympathetic Warden Caroll (Maria Schell) replaces Diaz, the prisoners assume that conditions will improve, but their agony only worsens until they decide to escape. Rosalba Neri co-stars, and Herbert Lom runs the corrupt men's prison nearby. 99 Mujeres was heavily censored in various prints, with versions running anywhere between 70 and 108 minutes. Edits running 84, 86, and 94 minutes are most commonly available. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This extremely low-budget adventure was director Jesus Franco's second Fu Manchu film for British producer Harry Alan Towers. Christopher Lee returns as the Asian madman, who has developed a way to turn the oceans into ice as part of his plan to rule the world. Kidnapping famed Prof. Herakles (Gustavo Re), Fu forces the doctor to help him with his diabolical plan. When Herakles' health starts to fail, Fu kidnaps two more people (Guenther Stoll, Maria Perschy) for a transplant operation at his Istanbul headquarters. Fu's old rivals Dennis Nayland Smith (Richard Green) and Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion Crawford) come to Turkey to foil his evil experiments. Rosalba Neri, Jose Manuel Martin, and Werner Abrolat co-star in this poor fifth installment in the popular series. The film is so poorly conceived that -- although it was made in color -- the shipwreck caused by Fu is actually a black-and-white scene borrowed wholesale from A Night to Remember. For completists only, this disastrous entry also stars Herbert Fuchs and Tsai Chin, while Franco makes a cameo as a Turkish detective. Various versions run 92, 86, and 85 minutes. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In this drama, two Polish brothers escape from a Russian labor camp and try to join the exiled Polish Army in Afghanistan. While awaiting the man who will sneak them over the border, they rent a room. There, one of them falls in love with the landlord's wife, and the other for a local waitress. The Russian secret police are everywhere around them, so every action is taken with great anxiety. The pressure of waiting mounts as the days stretch on. One of the brothers was injured in labor camp and is rapidly losing his vision. The other is struck down by typhoid on the day they are to leave. He must immediately have adrenaline or he will die and so begs the landlord to get it for him. While the landlord is gone, the almost-blind brother makes love to the landlord's wife, and afterwards the guilt-filled wife attempts suicide but is saved by the ailing brother. The landlord returns, and the brothers attempt their escape. The landlord, his wife, the smuggler, and his family go too, but, unfortunately, they are spotted at the border. The brother with typhoid makes one final sacrifice to assure the safety of the others. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

While traveling through Hong Kong, Bob Mitchell (Robert Cummings) accidentally stumbles into the middle of criminal negotiations between a mean gang, the Five Golden Dragons, and the local mobsters. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The quest for a fortune gold bullion provides the impetus for this adventuresome crime drama set in Southwestern Africa. It all begins with a plane crash. The pilot barely survives. When he awakens he sees that he is near an abandoned, wreck of a wagon. He ends up taken in by a couple who talk about the wagon and its mysterious cargo. Soon after the pilot's return to Johannesburg, he finds that the wagon is purported to have been filled with gold. Excited, he, and others, including his son and his son's girl friend, return to the location and begin their search. Unfortunately, the couple who rescued him lie in wait and take them all hostage. For the second time in the story, the wife attempts to seduce the pilot and was with the first time, the pilot says no. Realizing that she was wrong to have done that, the repentant wife frees the captives, an act that costs her life. Later, the searchers find the treasure, but unfortunately, things are not as they seem to be and violence ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide