Filipino horror is often overlooked or dismissed as badly made low budget rubbish. Those who say that have clearly only ever watched the trailers or seen stills from the films, as any connoisseur of exploitation films will tell you, there’s so much to enjoy.
Langdon (Ashley) is a reprehensible character, who is lost in the woods while escaping during World War II. It’s there he comes across Satan himself (a stocky and unlikely Diaz), who offers to save his life if he becomes his servant. He’s a bad boy anyway, so what’s he got to lose? Well, he doesn’t realise that for the next few decades he has to keep inhabiting other bodies and wreaking havoc along the way. That is until he’s in the body of a chap named Phil. Langdon decides to take control of his destiny again. Big mistake, as it causes him to change into a porridge-faced murderous creature.
Eddie Romero’s Beast of Yellow Night might not be as well-known as his ‘Blood Island’ trilogy, but it’s certainly worth seeking out, particularly in VCI’s dual format release. Scanned in 2K from the original negative, it looks stunning. Colours pop and the night-time scenes are actually watchable now compared to previous versions. It was also the first film made by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures strand, which gives it more sheen (not to mention gratuitous exploitation) than it perhaps would have had as a movie financed solely in the Philippines.
Although the cheesiness of the visuals and story might provoke more laughs than chills, there is much more going on here. There’s a dichotomy of good and evil in Langdon that opens up some interesting angles to the concept, in a similar way that Universal’s Wolf Man Larry Talbot was tormented by his metamorphosis, so is Ashley’s character.
The release also contains a decent array of extras. It’s mostly made up of talking head footage, but certainly interesting to fans of Filipino cinema. One section focuses on star John Ashley and features contributions from his widow and high profile fans/friends such as Fred Olen Ray, while another has interview sections with much of the talent involved in the making of the film, including the director (taken from the 2010 documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed!). Like the film itself, while these are not really essential, they are very entertaining. If you have the patience for schlocky seventies horror, this should be right up your street.
BEAST OF YELLOW NIGHT (1971) / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: EDDIE ROMERO / STARRING: JOHN ASHLEY, MARY CHARLOTTE WILCOX, LEOPOLDO SALCEDO, VIC DIAZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (US)
