El jorobado de la Morgue (1973)

Paul Naschy plays a hunchback with below average intelligence who works at the morgue. He is in love with a sickly girl who happens to be the only person who is kind to him. Each day he ... See full summary »

Director:

Javier Aguirre

Writers:

Javier Aguirre (screenplay), Alberto S. Insúa (screenplay),

Stars:

Paul Naschy, Rosanna Yanni, Víctor Alcázar

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Paul Naschy	...	Gotho
Rosanna Yanni	...	Elke (as Rossana Yanni)
Víctor Alcázar	...	Tauchner (as Vic Winner)
María Elena Arpón	...	Ilse (as Maria Elena Arpon)
Manuel de Blas	...	Police inspector
Antonio Pica	...	Police inspector
Kino Pueyo	...	Hans (as Joaquin Rodriguez 'Kinito')
Adolfo Thous	...	3th Man killed by Gotho in the crypt
Ángel Menéndez	...	The Commisoner (as Angel Menendez)
Fernando Sotuela	...	Udo
Antonio Ramis
Alfonso de la Vega
Sofía Casares	...	Eva (as Sofia Casares)
Antonio Mayans	...	Hans' friend
Susan Taff	...	Nurse

Storyline

Paul Naschy plays a hunchback with below average intelligence who works at the morgue. He is in love with a sickly girl who happens to be the only person who is kind to him. Each day he brings her flowers until the day she dies. He never really accepts her death and believes she is just sleeping. The girl eventually ends up at the morgue where she is being prepared for burial. Naschy's character flips out at the desecration of the girls body and stabs and decapitates the men in the only scene of gore in the movie. The police begin to look for him. This is when the Hunchback meets up with a mad scientist who's work isn't accepted by the general society. The scientist promises the Hunchback that he would re-animate the girl's body if the Hunchback brings him fresh bodyparts from the graveyard and live victims. He uses the parts to create a monster.

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Plot Keywords:

hunchback | morgue | gore | monster | death | 

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Taglines:

Beware The Hunchback! A freak of nature whose crimes go beyond your wildest terrors!

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

September 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hunchback of the Morgue

Filming Locations:

Guadarrama, Madrid, Spain

Box Office

Gross:

ESP 18,780,557 (Spain)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Eva Film, Janus Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the most talked-about scene, Paul Naschy was set upon by real rats. He had to be inoculated against possible rabies. It was also María Elena Arpón, and not a mannequin, lying on a slab with the rodents nestling and nibbling all over her. Some of the rats were burned alive on camera.

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Connections

Featured in Eurotika!: Blood and Sand (1999)

User Reviews

A gory, Gothic, trashy Naschy classic.

A surprisingly jaunty theme tune introduces what proves to be one of Paul Naschy's more exploitative and downbeat movies, a gory Gothic tragedy in which the Spanish horror star plays Gotho, a hunchbacked morgue attendant in love with a terminally ill girl named Ilse (María Elena Arpón). When Ilse finally pops her clogs, a grief stricken Gotho steals her body (after brutally killing the doctors who try to half-inch her necklace), and takes her to a subterranean hideaway where he assists a trio of slightly mad scientists to construct a laboratory (in record time) with which they can create life, a process that requires a continuous supply of fresh body parts...

Taking its cues from the classic horror novels of Victor Hugo and Mary Shelley, The Hunchback of the Morgue is full of irresistibly silly horror clichés—a sympathetic 'monster', a dusty Spanish Inquisition torture chamber, grave-robbing by moonlight, a sulphuric acid pit—and also benefits from some delightfully tacky special effects: a gory decapitation, a gutsy evisceration, assorted dismemberment, Ilse's corpse being devoured by rats (which, in a shocking moment of genuine animal cruelty, are set on fire by Gotho), and a delightfully daft man-made creature that consumes everything from live frogs to human heads, and ends up looking like a giant walking turd.

It all adds up to a whole lot of demented fun, easily the most entertaining Naschy film I've seen so far.