Ultimo Deseo

The People who own the Dark
Planeta Ciego

Spain 1976
directed by Leon Klimovsky
starring Alberto de Mendoza, Nadiuska, Paul Naschy, Maria Perschy, Teresa Gimpera, Emiliano Redondo, Julia Saly, Tomas Pico, Diana Polakov, Antonio Mayans, Leona Devine, Ricardo Palacios, Tony Kendall

review by
Mike Haberfelner

But they haven't even started the party yet does a nuclear explosion shatter the foundations of the mansion. & would you know it, everybody from the outside world is blinded by nuclear radiation but our dozen of perverts, who were sufficiently shielded from the blast by the dungeon's walls. They now decide to spend the next couple of months in the dungeon to let the radiation go by, but they do need provisions, so the men go into the next village to get some. But when they meet the village's many blind inhabitants, Victor loses his cool & shoots some of them. He is rewarded for his efforts by being killed himself by the remaindeer of the blind population.

Back at the mansion, doctor Robertson soon reverts to animal state (rather inexplicably), while Vassily & Marion - rather stupidly - decide to leave the others to head for the village again - where they are promptly killed by the blind (now what did they expect ?).

Once they have tasted blood, the blind soon head for the mansion & want to kill the others too, so they finally really hide in the cellar of the mansion - which was their original plan they just never put into effect. But the blind soon find a way to pour gasoline into the cellar & want to burn them alive - but thank god Lily knows a secret passageway to the outside - but then Bornet shows his true colours, too, as he ruthlessly refuses to help Robertson & Mercier make an escape & watches them burn before his very eyes, then chasses the others throught he passageway at gunpoint.

Once outside though, Lily directs the blind's attendtion to Bornet so theyacan easily make him out & kill him - even if that means her own death, too.

In the end, only Fulton & Claire - whom Fulton has fallen for in the first place - are left alive, & they are even picked up by a gouvernmental decontamination bus ... but of course, they are not decontaminated but gassed in the bus ...

Borrowing deliberately from Night of the Living Death as well as Richard Matheson's novel I am Legend (on which both Last Man on Earth from 1961 and The Omega Man from 1971 were based) & H.G. Wells' short story The Country of the Blind (on which, to my knowledge, nothing was based - which is a shame), Ultimo Deseo turns out to be nothing more than one of these post-nuclear-desaster movies, that - like most desaster movies - suffers most of all from way too many lead characters who make the proceedings too difficult to follow, the characters on the other hand not being fleshed out at all though, let alone of much interest, & the story being pretty predictable in the first place - even the shock ending was by 1976 a tried & true formula.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find The People who own the Dark at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find The People who own the Dark here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai

Thanks for watching !!!