One would think a franchise of four zombie Knights Templar movies would have been sufficient for the Spanish market in the early 70s, yet there is 1975’s The Devil’s Cross trying to get a piece of that action.
The director of the better-known series (relatively speaking, for such a very niche genre) was Amando de Ossorio. But the person at the helm of this one is John Gilling, who had gone to bat several times for Hammer Studios.
The good news is there is 100% less rape in Gilling’s film than in the works of de Ossorio. Actually, this is a shockingly chaste production, complete bereft of nudity and a minimum of gore. About the latter, all that I can recall is a severed head that made my eyes roll, as it is so unbelievable that I was surprised the eyes didn’t roll out of its head. I had the same reaction to the extreme flimsiness of this story.
This takes place in the late 18th century, the perfect time in which to set a gothic horror film. It opens with imagery of the undead Crusaders killing Mónica Randall, who is the sister of a writer played by Ramiro Oliveros. At least, this what he sees in his mind, likely courtesy of that primo kief he’s been smoking. It is Carmen Sevilla, as his lover, who shows him a book about the Knights Templar which confirms for him who those assailants were.
The next morning, he receives a letter from Oliveros telling of her worries following a miscarriage, that her husband (Eduardo Fajardo) will not forgive her. I guess Spain of that era is like Texas at the time I write this, and any woman who has a miscarriage is responsible for that. Personally, I think Fajardo would likely be more upset that she has been getting some of the side from Adolfo Marsillach. That the other man is bald, short and a slimeball doubtlessly makes that even more of an insult.
When Oliveros and Sevilla arrive, they learn Randall is dead, though reportedly from a botched robbery attempt, as a key piece of jewelry was missing from her person. There is a man arrested for it, even though he doesn’t have that missing item on his person. He conveniently commits suicide while in custody before Oliveros can talk to him. A prisoner just happens to kill themselves in jail–why am I suddenly thinking about Texas again?
Eventually, the four leads will go to the area where she died, which happens to be the place of the title, where the titular sculpture is planted in the ground. This thing looks impressive. It is supposedly forged from the armor which clad a robber tormenting the people. But, when he was apprehended, there was nobody inside the suit of armor. I guess the only thing to do when a supernatural being has been robbing people is to melt down its armor and make a monument to it. Also, I was wondering how anybody was able to stop this spectral thief in order to obtain that armor.
What this has to do with undead Knights Templar is beyond me. I also couldn’t figure out what this has to do with the death of Oliveros’s sister. Or why she was dressed as nun in her coffin. Or why some guy tried to kill Oliveros in the streets of Madrid. Or why rural Spain seems to have human skeletons just laying around the roadside (really, they need to discover the American concept where stretches of highway are cleared of liter by various sponsors). Or what any of this has to do with a ring Oliveros owns that was his mother’s. Or why that ring figures into a tale from a great many years before, one which is told at an inn where everybody stops on their journey.
Marsillach tells this tale, which is of cousins Fernando Sancho and Emma Cohen, who fall in love. That’s icky, but typical of life in those times. She gives him a task to prove his love, which is retrieving a scarf she lost when they had been riding in the area of the devil’s cross. It is no surprise this doesn’t go well.
Weird aside, but Sevilla is greatly impressed by a tattoo Marsillach shows her, which looks to me like it was done in ballpoint pen. I wonder if her interest suggests she has her own ink, and I thought it would hilarious if she was revealed to have a tramp stamp.
Returning to the main timeline, the men (now sans Sevilla—I don’t feel like going into it) find themselves making an unexpected stop at a house where two people played by Sancho and Cohen live. They act dodgy and are the same age as when we saw them in that story told of a time long ago. Are these somehow the same characters? Are they ghosts? The script doesn’t care to investigate these possibilities, so why should we care?
If there is one thing which stay with me about this picture, it is how much Oliveros looks like a young John Travolta. Especially odd is how he seems to have the same haircut that actor was wearing in Pulp Fiction, so it as if that has been transplanted onto the version of Travolta from the early 80’s.
Also, I wish I had known about this film back when I was taking Spanish in middle and high schools, as the script is composed largely of very common and simple words from that language. That the actors also tend to speak slowly and enunciate clearly also helps comprehension. This picture would be a strange tool to use in Spanish education, but it probably could be used in middle school, given the lack of nudity and realistic gore.
I saw that as one of the few elements to recommend Cross of the Devil. This is a lifeless affair, and a cash-in on a very niche subgenre of horror. It would honestly be more enjoyable if it leaned harder into the potential camp elements. Hell, it has a guy in a ski mask and all black sneaking around the scenes, so it almost could have been the film repurposed in the Beastie Boys’ “Body Moving” video. Instead, that “honor” went to Mario Bava’s Diabolik.
Dir: John Gilling
Starring Ramiro Oliveros, Carmen Sevilla, Adolfo Marsillach
Watched as part of Severin’s blu-ray box set Danza Macabra: Volume Three: The Spanish Gothic Collection