BEAST OF MOROCCO (1966)
aka The Hand of Night
Article 2299 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-12-2007
Posting Date: 11-28-2007
Directed by Frederic Goode
Featuring William Sylvester, Diane Clare, Aliza Gur

An architect, haunted by the guilt of the death of his family, goes to Morocco, where he meets a dark-haired woman who may be a vampire.

The movie opens with a dream sequence which is a bit of goofy fun, and I quite like some of the surreal and dream-like touches that pervade this movie. Some of the themes are also rather intriguing, and the ending is quite memorable. Nevertheless, this movie is a real slog; the acting is uneven, the score is terribly repetitive, and the direction is very flat. The script is also a little too obvious in its handling of its themes; it harps upon its darkness/light dichotomy so endlessly that it gets tiresome, so much so that even the fairly benign symbolism of making the good woman a blonde (for the forces of light) and the evil woman a brunette (for the forces of darkness) comes across as pushy. It’s a bit of a shame; the movie has a unique feel, and the Moroccan settings make it quite exotic. As it is, it’s a weak vampire movie that had the potential to be a lot better.