atau dikenal sebagai
Jose Luis Merino (10 June 1927 – 2 July 2019) was a Spanish film writer and director who developed a cult following among horror film fans.
He was born in 1927 in Madrid, Spain, as José Luis Merino Boves, and went on to direct around 30 films during his long and varied career as director and writer (1958–1990), most of them action/adventure films, crime dramas , spaghetti westerns, war movies and costume dramas involving Robin Hood, pirates, Zorro etc.
He is known to horror film fans for the two horror movies he directed in the early 1970s: Orgy of the Dead ( aka The Hanging Woman ) and Scream of the Demon Lover (aka Ivanna ), which have both become cult classics over the years.
Merino never considered himself a horror film director, he chose rather to favor his many action/adventure films.
He died on July 2, 2019, at age 92.
This movie doesn't have any coherent plot. It's the portrait of the lives of different people in the hard years of post-war in Spain (the 40's), and how they manage to survive in a country desolated by the war. Like other films: La colmena or Roma (Fellini) it shows us lots of characters and some moments of their lives.
Private detective Germán Areta el Piojo investigates the life of a gay man who has apparently abandoned his partner. When they both turn up dead, it seems one killed the other before committing suicide, but Areta is not convinced.
Private detective Germán Areta el Piojo gets a terminally ill client who wishes to see his long lost, runaway daughter before he dies.
José is a happily married executive, with children, a flat in Madrid and a house in the suburbs. It's Friday and the weekend seems to follow the usual pattern: football match with mates, travel to the mountains and family visit. Nevertheless, José feels no motivated by his routine, he no longer distinguishes leisure from their obligations, all of which result in an unexpected final decision by his attentive wife.
A child is witness to an assault on a monk by the gang of Lorenzo the Fifth. The monk escapes and takes refuge in the estate of Doña Carlota, a countess who lives with her son Juan and daughter Beatriz. Basilisa, the maid, conjures the devil to free her son from an irreversible illness, but to do so the evil must be transmitted to an innocent soul, and for that she chooses Beatriz. The child begins to be the victim of a possession, for which everyone blames the monk.
Upon his uncle's death, Serge Chekov journeys to a spooky Scottish village for the reading of the will. But when he inherits the estate, Serge runs afoul of his uncle's jealous wife , his business partner , his maid and others. It's not long before zombies join the fun in this Italian supernatural thriller, also starring Paul Naschy as a nutso gravedigger.
Former pirate chief MacDonald has gone to England and won amnesty for his band of buccaneers, promising to reform them into peaceful colonial ways. But what follows is an engaging and ruthless tale of deceit and treachery as MacDonald faces ruin due to traitors who plot to overthrow him and seize Blood Island whose waters contain a valuable treasure.
The story of a group of American commandos assigned to kidnap General Rommel. But the soldiers are caught by the Germans who decide to use their plan against them. Replacing the American soldiers with German soldiers, and with the help of a fake "kidnapped" Rommel, they plan to kill General Eisenhower
When a beautiful biochemist arrives at a foreboding castle to work for a sinister baron, she unlocks a nightmare of dark romance, sexual violence, and grisly family secrets.
The Allied D-Day invasion is a success, and German forces begin leave Normandy. After an ambush takes out a set of Panzer tanks led by German Lt. Hunter, he finds himself alone with his unit in what may be the last Panzer that's still operational. While traveling through the French countryside, Cooper meets Jeanette, a woman who offers to lead the troops back to Germany, but his feelings for her get in the way of his survival instincts.
Returning home, Ross Logan immediately gets into conflict with the Carranza gang, which had just crossed the Mexican border and has occupied a nearby Hacienda. After his brother is killed he plans a cold blooded revenge for which he separates the gang's most dangerous members by using their individual weak points and the general discordance amongst them. The time for the final confrontation is set by the astronomically interested Logan amidst an eclipse.
Little Europe, a town in the American West, is chosen as the site for a European Music Festival to be internationally broadcast via television. The peace of the village is put in jeopardy when it comes to electing judges because the dormant antagonisms of the descendants of Italian, Spanish, French and Germans will be awakened, but the good sheriff easily resolves the dispute. Then the problem becomes more acute when the lawyer Betty, a comely young lady, who is late in coming to the event because she was seized by the henchmen of an industry bully who wants to influence the victory of one of his favorite songs.
A news story in the newspapers announces the investigation by the police of a major scam. Precisely, following the steps of the author of that crime, we will know the cabaret where the whole action of this drama will take place. A place where the paths of a multitude of characters cross and where it is possible to find men and women of great humanity.