Severin Films unleashes The Night of the Walking Dead as part of their magnificent Danza Macabra Volume Three: The Spanish Gothic Collection, and this 1975 vampire masterwork proves that León Klimovsky could craft intimate gothic romance just as masterfully as his monster mash collaborations with Paul Naschy. Also known as Strange Love of the Vampires and El extraño amor de los vampiros in its original Spanish release, this atmospheric shocker represents the final entry in Klimovsky’s unofficial vampire trilogy alongside The Vampire’s Night Orgy and The Saga of Dracula.

Set in a 19th-century village ruled by superstition, The Night of the Walking Dead follows vulnerable young aristocrat Catherine (Emma Cohen) as she suffers from a terminal disease that leaves her isolated and yearning for connection. When the mysterious Count Rudolph van Windberg (Carlos Ballesteros) appears seeking shelter during a storm, their meeting sparks a doomed romance that blurs the lines between salvation and damnation, love and death, mortality and the eternal hunger of the undead.

This isn’t your typical Hammer Horror vampire tale despite sharing similar gothic DNA. Klimovsky eschews the usual Universal Monster formula in favor of creating something more emotionally complex and visually distinctive, crafting a film that functions equally as supernatural horror and tragic romance. The result feels like a fever dream filtered through Spanish Catholic guilt and Franco-era repression, creating unique atmosphere that distinguishes it from its British and Italian contemporaries.

Table of Contents

• When Love Bites Back
• Klimovsky’s Gothic Poetry in Motion
• Emma Cohen’s Consumptive Beauty
• Spanish Gothic Under Franco’s Shadow
• Audio-Visual Quality That Resurrects the Dead
• Special Features Worth Sinking Your Teeth Into
• Final Verdict: Strange Love Indeed

When Love Bites Back

The Night of the Walking Dead opens with a controversy over the burial of a female corpse, establishing the film’s central tension between scientific rationality and folkloric superstition. Progressive Dr. Patrick (Lorenzo Robledo) refuses to allow the villagers to drive a stake through the woman’s heart, dismissing their fears as medieval nonsense. His skepticism proves costly when three vampires emerge from the darkness to remove the stake and resurrect their new sister into their underground community.

Klimovsky’s vampires operate according to unique mythology that distinguishes them from traditional Dracula lore. These undead form a literal underground society that escapes their graves every ten years to run wild through the countryside, preying on the living while maintaining aristocratic pretensions. The concept creates fascinating parallels to Spain’s own buried aristocracy during Franco’s dictatorship, suggesting political subtexts beneath the gothic romance.

The film’s structure divides roughly into two distinct halves. The first hour establishes Catherine’s isolation and illness while building atmospheric dread through village legends and supernatural hints. The second half explodes into full vampire territory with a memorable undead party sequence that ranks among Spanish horror’s most memorable set pieces, featuring aristocratic vampires engaging in decadent revelry that scandalized censors.

Count Rudolph van Windberg emerges as one of cinema’s most sympathetic vampire protagonists, portrayed by Carlos Ballesteros with debonair melancholy that recalls Frank Langella’s romantic Dracula. Unlike typical bloodthirsty monsters, Rudolph genuinely loves Catherine and sees in her terminal illness a kindred spirit already touched by death. Their relationship develops with surprising emotional depth for a genre piece.

The tragic irony driving the narrative centers on Catherine’s choice between certain death from disease or uncertain eternal existence as a vampire. Klimovsky presents this dilemma without easy moral answers, suggesting that love might justify even monstrous transformation. The film asks whether embracing darkness is worth avoiding inevitable loss, questions that resonate beyond genre boundaries.

Klimovsky’s Gothic Poetry in Motion

Argentinian-born director León Klimovsky brought distinctive visual sensibilities to Spanish horror that separated his work from other Euro-horror contemporaries. Working with cinematographer Miguel Mila, Klimovsky emphasizes autumnal landscapes and atmospheric exteriors that make the natural world an active participant in the supernatural drama rather than merely decorative backdrop.

The film’s color palette emphasizes earth tones and muted colors that reflect Catherine’s wasting condition while creating visual poetry from decay and decline. Grey skies, barren fields, and leafless trees blowing in constant wind become characters themselves, lending melancholy beauty to scenes that might otherwise feel routine or derivative.

Klimovsky’s approach to the vampire mythology shows remarkable creativity within genre constraints. The underground vampire community exists in elaborate caverns decorated with gothic furniture and lit by countless candles, creating a decadent aristocratic world that exists parallel to the surface reality. These sequences feel like visits to an alternate dimension where different rules apply.

The vampire party sequence represents the film’s visual and thematic climax, featuring elaborate costumes, ritualistic dancing, and implied orgies that push against censorship boundaries while maintaining artistic legitimacy. Klimovsky stages these scenes with theatrical grandeur that emphasizes the vampires’ aristocratic pretensions while revealing their fundamental alienation from human society.

Production design creates authentic period atmosphere through careful attention to costume details, set decoration, and prop selection. The contrast between Catherine’s sickroom with its medical paraphernalia and the vampires’ candlelit chambers emphasizes the choice between scientific rationality and supernatural transcendence that drives the narrative conflict.

Emma Cohen’s Consumptive Beauty

Emma Cohen delivers the film’s emotional center through her portrayal of Catherine, a performance that balances physical fragility with inner strength. Cohen, known for her work in Horror Rises from the Tomb and The Cannibal Man, brings intelligence and dignity to a role that could easily have become merely pathetic or exploitative in less capable hands.

Catherine’s terminal illness provides metaphorical richness that extends beyond simple plot device. Her gradual detachment from her parents’ overwhelming care in order to embrace monstrous transformation reads as metaphor for young women’s sexual awakening in 19th-century repressive society, themes that resonated with Spanish audiences living under Franco’s authoritarian rule.

Cohen’s chemistry with Carlos Ballesteros creates genuine romantic tension that makes their doomed love story emotionally investment rather than merely gothic window dressing. Their scenes together develop with surprising subtlety, building intimacy through shared recognition of mortality and isolation rather than typical seduction scenarios.

The supporting cast creates a believable village community populated by distinctive character types. José Lifante makes a memorable impression as one of the vampire trio, while Barta Barri and Roberto Camardiel provide solid character work as local villagers caught between old superstitions and modern skepticism.

The film’s treatment of female sexuality shows remarkable sophistication for 1970s horror cinema. Catherine’s attraction to Count Rudolph stems from genuine emotional connection rather than supernatural compulsion, making her eventual transformation feel like conscious choice rather than victimization. This agency distinguishes the film from more exploitative vampire pictures.

Spanish Gothic Under Franco’s Shadow

Spain’s horror cinema during the early 1970s operated under unique cultural and political pressures that shaped The Night of the Walking Dead’s thematic concerns. Franco’s dictatorship was entering its final years when the film was produced in 1975, the same year the dictator died, creating an atmosphere of cultural transition that influences the movie’s treatment of authority and tradition.

The film’s exploration of underground communities and hidden societies carries obvious political resonance for audiences living under authoritarian rule. The vampires’ existence as literal underground aristocrats who emerge periodically to terrorize the surface world suggests parallels to Spain’s buried nobility and repressed political movements waiting for their moment to resurface.

Censorship restrictions forced creative solutions that ultimately enriched the film’s artistic impact. José Lifante noted in special features that during Franco’s dictatorship, the word ‘suck’ was forbidden, forcing filmmakers to say ‘Dracula drinks blood’ instead. These linguistic limitations pushed directors toward more poetic and metaphorical approaches to horror imagery.

The film’s treatment of Catholic imagery and religious themes reflects Spain’s complex relationship with church authority during the Franco era. Catherine’s cross necklace and religious iconography throughout the film create visual tension with the vampire mythology, suggesting conflicts between official religious doctrine and deeper spiritual needs.

Spanish Gothic cinema of this period was characterized by daring concepts, lush visuals, extreme sexuality, and distinctive aesthetic choices that separated it from British Hammer productions or Italian giallo films. The Night of the Walking Dead exemplifies these qualities while maintaining its own unique identity within the broader European horror movement.

Audio-Visual Quality That Resurrects the Dead

Severin Films’ presentation of The Night of the Walking Dead showcases their commitment to rescuing obscure genre gems through exceptional restoration work. Scanned in 2K from the negative for the first time ever, this transfer reveals details and textures that were previously invisible in the film’s various bootleg and VHS iterations that circulated for decades.

The color reproduction captures the film’s sophisticated palette of earth tones and muted colors, from the golden warmth of candlelit vampire chambers to the grey melancholy of autumnal exteriors. The improved contrast range allows appreciation of Miguel Mila’s cinematography, revealing subtle lighting choices that enhance the gothic atmosphere.

Image stability and grain structure maintain the organic texture of 1970s film stock while eliminating the print damage that plagued previous releases. Fine details in costume design, set decoration, and makeup work become clearly visible, enhancing appreciation for the production values that make the film’s supernatural elements convincing.

The English and Spanish stereo audio tracks provide clear dialogue reproduction and appropriate dynamic range for Máximo Barratas’ romantic score. The musical compositions draw comparisons to Carlo Rustichelli’s work in Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body, creating brooding, lonely melodies that perfectly complement the film’s melancholic imagery.

English subtitles for the Spanish track remain readable and unobtrusive, allowing non-Spanish speakers to experience the film in its original language while maintaining visual composition. The subtitle translation captures dialogue nuances that help convey the story’s emotional subtleties.

Special Features Worth Sinking Your Teeth Into

Severin Films provides substantial supplementary content that contextualizes The Night of the Walking Dead within Spanish horror history and León Klimovsky’s filmography. The included special features demonstrate the label’s commitment to educational value alongside entertainment, making these releases valuable for both casual viewers and serious film scholars.

Audio Commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of Daughters of Darkness, offers detailed analysis of Klimovsky’s career and the film’s place within Spanish Gothic cinema. Ellinger’s expertise in European horror provides valuable insights into the production’s cultural context, genre influences, and artistic achievements that might otherwise go unnoticed.

“A Deadly Invitation to Another Dimension” – Appreciation by Ángel Sala, Head of Programming at the Sitges Film Festival, provides broader perspective on Spanish horror cinema during the Franco era. Sala’s discussion places the film within the larger context of European genre cinema while explaining its unique contributions to vampire mythology.

Interviews with actor José Lifante and writer Juan José Porto provide firsthand accounts of working with director León Klimovsky, offering behind-the-scenes insights that illuminate the creative process behind this distinctive horror film. These conversations reveal details about production challenges and artistic decisions that shaped the final product.

The package also includes extensive archival materials and promotional content that document the film’s original release and subsequent cult following. These materials help viewers understand how the movie fit into 1970s exploitation cinema while demonstrating its lasting influence on subsequent filmmakers.

Final Verdict: Strange Love Indeed

The Night of the Walking Dead stands as one of León Klimovsky’s finest achievements, demonstrating how talented filmmakers could work within genre constraints to create something genuinely distinctive and emotionally resonant. The film succeeds both as gothic horror and tragic romance, proving that Spanish cinema of the 1970s could compete with the best European genre productions.

Severin Films’ restoration work makes this formerly obscure title accessible to contemporary audiences while respecting its original artistic vision. The technical improvements reveal craftsmanship that was previously obscured by poor-quality prints, while the comprehensive special features provide context that enhances understanding of the film’s cultural significance.

For Euro-horror enthusiasts, The Night of the Walking Dead offers a sophisticated example of how vampire mythology could be adapted to reflect specific cultural anxieties and artistic sensibilities. The film demonstrates León Klimovsky’s ability to create intimate character drama alongside supernatural spectacle, skills that distinguished his work from more formulaic monster movies.

Modern viewers will find The Night of the Walking Dead surprisingly relevant for its treatment of illness, isolation, and the search for connection in an indifferent world. The film’s themes about choosing between certain death and uncertain transformation speak to universal human fears that transcend genre boundaries and historical periods.

The Night of The Walking Dead can be rented or purchased on Amazon Prime Video or found as part of Severin Films’ Danza Macabra Volume Three collection.

For more Severin Films coverage, check out our reviews of Ed Wood’s adult features, Russ Meyer’s restored trilogy, and the Folk Horror Volume Two collection from Severin’s extensive catalog of cult cinema restorations.