Horror Rises From The Tomb (1973)

My Helga Line scavenger hunt continues with a little Spanish horror entitled Horror Rises from the Tomb. The film stars Paul Naschy, a well known B-movie horror actor who not only stars in the film as multiple characters but also penned it's story. Unfortunately as it is with many films written by the leading actor, Horror Rises from the Tomb completely fails to horrorify or entertain, plus the very lovely Helga Line has less than five minutes of screen time combined!

Horror Rises from the Tomb is the story of a warlock in the 1400's named Alaric de Marnac (Naschy) whose beheaded along with his lovely mistress Mabille De Lancré (Line) for crimes of satanic worship, and cannibalism. Before his death Alaric puts forth a curse on the blood line of his captors, threatening to take his vengeance on them all when he returns. Fast forward a few hundred years to modern day France where a group of friends take it upon themselves to summon Alaric and seek out his remains. In the process they release his cursed spirit and reconnect him with his earthly body, releasing the wrath of Alaric on the small town responsible for his death hundreds of years prior. With Alaric terrorizing the village, his lovely mistress at his side, the survivors responsible for bringing him back to life must figure out how to stop him before they all die!

Horror Rises from the Tomb has a nice mix of blood, guts and bare chested women, but if your looking for a little substance with your horror it's not here. The simplistic storyline isn't entertaining, and the main plot quickly becomes watered down with repetition and multiple holes which succeed in making the story appear as if it was made up as it was filmed. But some credit is due to the special effects department and makeup artists who clearly put a lot of time and effort into the gore aspects of the film, a couple scenes are quite realistic and almost head turning.

As for Helga Line, viewers get a full on view of her in all her glory but that ends up being the full extent of her usage in the film, except for a few additional brief scenes in the end. It's clear she's here solely for sex appeal, which is fine, but at least give her more screen time, she's quite wasted in this role. Overall, Horror Rises from the Tomb excels in the gore and the girls but gets bogged down by the story, or lack of one, which really outweighs any truly positive aspects this film has to offer. As much as I really wanted to like this, the story quickly becomes dull, and the gore and nudity appear to become filler for a story that has no chance of resurrection.

5/10