Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

Directed by William Grefé [Other horror films: Sting of Death (1966), Stanley (1972), Impulse (1974), Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), Whiskey Mountain (1977)]

To be honest, I wanted to like this one. I mean, a low-budget horror film made in Florida by Grefé (see resume above)? Sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Sadly, though, more than anything else, Death Curse of Tartu is pretty dull.

The best thing I can say about the performances is that Maurice Stewart and Mayra Gómez Kemp looked cute during the ridiculously groovy dance scene. Otherwise, Babette Sherrill and Fred Pinero, not to mention most everyone else (save perhaps Bill Marcus) were overly stilted and the dialogue generally just felt awkward.

Setting the story in a Florida swamp had potential, and even filming most everything during the day was a somewhat daring move, but due to the sluggish pace of the film, it doesn’t really help all that much.

See, the thing is, watching a snake chase someone for four minutes isn’t exciting, nor are most chase sequences in the film. The only exception that comes to mind is a scene toward the end with Tartu (Doug Hobart) chasing Sherrill’s character, and it was filmed in a pretty solid way. Everything else, though, just felt uninspired and quite dull.

Death Curse of Tartu could probably be a pretty cool movie had it been done entirely differently. The potential is there, but it just didn’t show at all, which wasn’t really surprising, but I will admit to being disappointed. For the 1960’s, the color here was nice, but it didn’t save the sluggish pace, and I can’t really see myself sitting through this one again sober.

5.5/10