THRILLER PART 2
ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972) -
Right off the bat, I could see that this Italy/Spain co-production
was going to be a very interesting giallo flick. It stars a cast of
giallo pros, it's directed by the man who made my favorite giallo
film of all time (TORSO -
1973; the majority of his films have never let me down) and it begins
with one of the most surreal dream sequences I have seen in quite a while.
The dream consists of a dentally challenged ugly woman (Vera Drudi; LET
SLEEPING CORPSES LIE - 1974) in a Baby Jane wig showing off
her blackened teeth, while a pregnant woman on a hospital gurney is
in the position to drop her baby, holding her stomach. We also see a
clock with no hands lying on the floor, as well as a close-up of a
man's haunting and unusual deep-blue eyes. We then see Jane (the
beautiful Edwige
Fenech; STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER
- 1975) screaming,
while the ugly woman is taunting her. The dream ends with Jane dead,
her stomach cut open and bloody, the ugly woman turning into a
mannequin, as we then see a car's POV as it slams into a tree. Jane
then wakes up and takes a shower in her bedclothes (Giving us a great
wet t-shirt shot of Fenech. Damn, she is beautiful!). Her
fiancé, Richard (George Hilton; THE
KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN - 1973), a London pharmaceutical
salesman, comes home, finding Jane in the shower (he knows what is
wrong with her or, he thinks he does) and puts her back in bed,
making her take her pills (which turns the glass of water a bright
blue color), telling her that they are "vitamins", but they
make her sick. We then see Richard making love to Jane (did I mention
how beautiful Fenech is?), but she starts screaming. She tells
Richard that her sister Barbara (Nieves Navarro, as "Susan
Scott"; TORMENTOR
- 1972) said she should see her psychiatrist boss, Dr. Burton (George
Rigaud; EYEBALL - 1975), because he
could probably make the nightmares stop. Richard says no, she should
keep psychiatry away from her "problem". We then find out
what is causing the nightmares. Jane recently lost her unborn baby in
a car accident and Richard thinks she doesn't need her head shrunk,
she just needs time to recover. Richard reminds her not to forget, it
was his baby, too. Richard leaves for work, walking outside and
seeing two young lovers hugging each other, the look on Richard's
face telling us he wishes Jane wouldn't be so afraid of a little
affection like that. Who is the woman in the apartment across from
Jane's, who looks out her window at Richard with lust in her eyes?
Jane, who is looking out her window, sees the woman, who then closes
her curtains. That woman is Mary Weil (Marina Malfatti; SEVEN
BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS - 1972) and very soon she will be
involved in Jane's life, with deadly results.
Jane tells Barbara that she knows Richard loves her, but he doesn't
understand her, Barbara saying she knows that and has set up an
appointment with her with Dr. Burton, fully aware that it is against
Richard's wishes. While sitting in Dr. Burton's waiting room, Jane
sees the man with the blue eyes (Ivan Rassimov; SPASMO
- 1974) from her nightmares sitting on the other side of the room,
staring at her. When talking to Dr. Burton, Jane explains that the
pregnant woman in her nightmare is her mother, describing to him how
she saw her mother murdered by a man with piercing blue eyes when she
was five years old. When the doctor asks Jane if she has told her
husband the details of her nightmare, she tells him no, she and
Richard are not married and she's afraid he will not understand. She
also tells the doctor that ever since the car accident, she is not
"comfortable" with sex, but she does not believe the
accident is the cause, she believes the image of the blue-eyed man is
the cause, but she can't tell Richard because she's afraid that he
will leave her ("I already make his life so difficult.").
She tells the doctor about the blue-eyed man in the waiting room and
he says she must be mistaken, he never has his patients wait
together. He takes her to the waiting room and, sure enough, no one
is there. Jane asks Barbara if she saw a man in the waiting room and
she says yes, he wasn't a patient, but he wanted to talk to the
doctor. He suddenly got up and left without saying a word. The doctor
apologizes to Jane, also telling her that at their appointment they
will talk about why she is so frightened of the blue-eyed man and to
stop taking the "vitamins" Richard is giving her, telling
Jane, "Your worst enemy is loneliness." Jane then takes the
subway home and at the next stop, everyone else get off, leaving Jane
alone with a solitary figure at the other end of the subway car. It's
the blue-eyed man and he approaches Jane (the subway car goes from
darkness to light and every time it goes to light, the man is closer
to her), but she is able to get out of the car at the next stop. The
man meets her on the street, causing Jane to run home screaming,
"Why are you following me?!?" She meets Mary at her front
door and she invites Jane over for some tea. Over tea, Mary invites
Jane to have lunch at her place tomorrow, telling Jane that she knows
she is alone all day and could use some company. Jane agrees and goes
home, where she gets a phone call from a lawyer named Francis Clay
(Luciano Pigozzi, as "Alan Collins"; LIBIDO
- 1965), who tells her to come to his office tomorrow at 3:30 PM
because he has something important to tell her. When Jane asks him
what it is about, he hangs up the phone.
When Jane looks out her window that night, she sees the blue-eyed
man walking down the street, so she goes outside to investigate,
accidentally locking herself out of her apartment building. Jane
begins to get very nervous and begins knocking on Mary's door, but no
one answers. Just when Jane is about to lose it, Richard shows up and
unlocks the door. She tells him about her day and, the next morning,
Richard is at Barbara's apartment, chewing her out for taking Jane to
a psychiatrist (and ogling her while she is getting changed!).
Barbara tells him, like it or not, Jane will continue to see Dr.
Burton, saying "Jane is a slave to her childhood, but I bet you
blame that on me!" What did she mean by that and is there
something romantic going on between Richard and Barbara? We then
discover that Richard was driving the car that hit the tree, killing
Jane's baby. Barbara asks Richard if he wonders if that's the
reason Jane won't marry him and he storms out of her apartment. Yes,
this film is full of little surprises, but the best is yet to come.
Mary and Jane are walking in the park, where Jane begins talking in
strange ways, first saying, "Listen to the birds. They are
complaining that we are here." Jane asks Mary if she would
believe that a killer from her childhood is following her. Mary turns
to her and says, "I believe in a lot more." What does she
mean by that? Mary tells her that she, too, had major problems
when she was a child, but she found a way to destroy those memories.
She then asks Jane if she knows what a "Black Mass" is (Uh,
oh!) and Jane says that Mary is scaring her. Mary says don't be
frightened, you, too, can put all your bad memories behind you. Jane
then says, "But...what do you want from me?" Mary tells her
to stop going to a psychiatrist, she has a "friend" who can
cure her of her troubles. Jane asks who is this person, Mary
replying, "My friends don't like questions. They just want
trust. They're waiting for you." Jane wants to meet her
friends, so Mary tells her to meet her at her apartment at exactly a
5:30 this afternoon. If she is not on time, she will leave without
her. Jane then drives to go see lawyer Francis Clay and begins to
walk up several flights of stairs to get to his office. Suddenly, an
animal skull comes rolling down the stairs, followed by the blue-eyed
man, who tries to kill Jane with a hand axe. Jane runs down the
stairs, out the building and into her car, where, after a few false
starts (her car won't turn over), she drives to go meet Mary. She
tells Mary that the blue-eyed man tried to kill her, so Mary drives
her to a mansion, where they witness (and participate in) a Black
Mass. Jane sees the cult's leader, J.P. McBrian (Julian Ugarte; FANGS
OF THE LIVING DEAD - 1969), slit the throat of a live fox
(!) and drain its blood in a ceremonial goblet, which the cult
members and Jane drink, culminating in an orgy, where Jane is passed
around, naked, to the cult members and, finally, to their leader (who
sports enormous black metal fingernails on all his fingers). That
night, Jane is able to make love to Richard without being repulsed,
for the first time since she lost the baby. So, is witchcraft the
answer to Jane's problems? Jane thinks so, but if we know one thing
about the supernatural, it is this: No matter how good the results,
you always have to pay the Devil. What does this cult want from Jane?
Could it be her soul or something more dastardly?
Richard is so happy with Jane's lovemaking that he takes a rare day
off of work so he and Jane can have lunch at a restaurant. Richard
leaves the table to make a phone call and Jane sees Mr. Blue Eyes
skulking outside. Jane runs out of the restaurant's back door, hails
a cab and goes home, not thinking about Richard. Jane finds a book on
magic and the supernatural among Richard's things and when Richard
comes home, demanding an explanation on why she left him in the
restaurant, she demands to know why Richard has this book. He
tells her he bought it at a used bookstore, but doesn't tell her why
he bought it (looking guilty about something). The next time we see
Jane, she is back at the mansion in the middle of another Black Mass,
where she stabs and kills Mary with a ceremonial dagger (Mary
welcomes it). Jane believes she is finally free, but when she is in
the park, the blue-eyed man, whose name is Mark Cogan, grabs Jane by
the arm and says, "Now you're one of us. You can't turn your
back on us any more. Come, he is waiting for us!", leading her
into the mansion and the blood-filled Black Mass room. J.P. McBrian
appears and says to Jane, "With us you won't be alone any more!
You belong to us forever, Jane!" She asks where Mary is,
demanding to see her and
McBrian says, "As you wish. Mary wanted to be free. Anyone who
wants to go free has to bring a new adept (replacement)." Guess
who that is? What has Jane gotten herself in to? If you want to find
out, you'll have to watch the film, because most of the grisly
thrills and surprises come after what I have just described to you. I
will tell you this: The harder Jane tries to get away from the cult,
the more painful it becomes for her (physically and emotionally),
until she cannot trust those closest to her.
Director Sergio Martino hasn't let me down yet when it comes to the
giallo films he has directed (THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH - 1971; YOUR
VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM... - 1972; the aforementioned TORSO
- 1973; and even THE
SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS - 1982 to some extant) and he
certainly doesn't disappoint with this film (the only Martino giallo
film I haven't seen is THE CASE OF
THE SCORPION'S TAIL - 1971, but that will be rectified soon).
Filmed much in the same way as his other giallo flicks
(cinematography by Miguel Fernandez Mila [THE
LORELEY'S GRASP - 1973; THE
PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK - 1975] and Giancarlo Ferrando [who
shot many of Martino's other genre films, including THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973; THE
SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR - 1975; and MOUNTAIN
OF THE CANNIBAL GOD - 1978]) and loaded with his patented
flourishes, such as using a fisheye lens to film the Black Mass and
orgy scenes, giving them an otherworldly feel, as well as implying
that psychiatry is a cure for witchcraft (!), this film is never
boring. Weird? Yes, but boring? Never. Besides those flourishes,
there is plentiful nudity by Edwige Fenech, who I consider to be one
of the most beautiful and talented women in Italian film history (and
not just genre films). Most of the other actresses also have nude
scenes, making this film easy on the eyes. If I do have one complaint
(and it's minor), it's that this film is missing the graphic violence
we expect in a giallo film, but when it does happen (the fox being
killed, seeing Mary's dead body for the first time, the bloody
finale), it is shocking. When it comes to mixing giallo and
supernatural horror elements together, this film would be
hard-pressed to be beaten, mainly because Martino is at the helm. He
knows what makes these films work and he doesn't disappoint here. The
screenplay for this film was written by his longstanding
collaborator, Ernesto Gastaldi, who also knows what makes a giallo
film work, as he has written some of the best of them, including A...FOR
ASSASSIN (1966); THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH (1968); DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972) and many, many more. So sit back,
try to relax (it won't be easy here) and enjoy a film from one of the
best giallo directors. And, oh, that ending! It certainly surprised
me and I hazard to guess it will you, too.
Shot as TUTTI
I COLORI DEL BUIO (a literal translation of the review
title), this film was released to U.S. theaters as THEY'RE
COMING TO GET YOU (distributed by Independent-International
Pictures) in edited form, shortening the orgy and nudity sequences. Super
Video then released it on VHS under the title DAY
OF THE MANIAC, shorn of even more footage. It was then
released uncut and in widescreen on DVD by Mondo Macabro (long OOP).
If you have an all-region Blu-Ray player, British outfit Shameless
Films offer it in that format. I saw it on YouTube in a nice, uncut
widescreen print, in Italian with English subtitles, the way it
should be seen. This is a film screaming for a U.S. Blu release. I
wish some enterprising stateside company would jump on this ASAP!
Also starring Maria Cumani Quasimodo (RIOT
IN A WOMEN'S PRISON - 1974), Dominique Boschero (WHO
SAW HER DIE? - 1972), Renato Chiantoni (GANG
WAR IN MILAN - 1972), Tom Felleghy (THE
NIGHT CHILD - 1975), Gianni Pulone (THE
CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS - 1971) and the prolific Carla
Mancini (DEATH
SMILES ON A MURDERER - 1973). Although the U.S. Theatrical
version was Rated R, this version is obviously Not Rated.
UPDATE: The fine folks at Severin
Films have released a beautiful Blu-Ray
& DVD of this title (The Limited Edition Blu-Ray comes with a CD
of Bruno
Nicolai's memorable music soundtrack!). Jump on it!
AMERICAN
NIGHTMARE (1981) - I've always
considered this film a sleazier low-budget Canadian version of director/writer
Paul Schrader's HARDCORE
(1979) and once you watch it, I think you will see the similarities,
too. Just like Schrader's film, this one is about a man completely
out of his element, who makes some surprising choices along the way
in search of someone he loves. The film opens with stripper/hooker
Isabelle (Alexandra Paul; SPECTRE
- 1996) in a cheap motel room, naked in bed and smoking a joint. She
is talking to a man in the bathroom (we never see his face or hear
his voice), who is washing his hands and putting on a pair of
surgical latex gloves. Isabelle is apologizing about some videotapes
being made and swears she didn't know anything about it. The man
comes out of the bathroom dressed in
nothing but a towel, mounts Isabelle and then graphically slits her
throat with a straight-razor. We are then introduced to Isabelle's
brother Eric (Lawrence S. Day), a Classically-trained pianist and
best-selling recording artist (he has the gold records hanging on his
walls to prove it!), as he knocks on Isabelle's apartment door (he
hasn't talked to Isabelle in quite a while, but she sent him a letter
saying that she was in big trouble and needs his help), but gets no
answer. Her cross-dressing across-the-hall neighbor Dolly (Larry
Aubrey; THE VINDICATOR -
1986) informs Eric that Isabelle is a stripper that uses the name
"Tanya" ("They always change their names when they do
it.") and that he hasn't seen her in a couple of days. This
leads Eric on an odyssey of the seedier side of life, where the
streets are full of strip clubs, porno stores, porno theaters and
prostitutes. He is truly a stranger in a strange land. When Isabelle,
a.k.a. "Tanya", doesn't show up for her normal stripping
gig, club manager Wally (Peter Lavender) asks the off-duty Tina
(Lenore Zann; HAPPY
BIRTHDAY TO ME - 1980) to fill in for her (Wally says about
"Tanya": "Shit, she's probably so spaced out on
'ludes, she can't dial a phone!"). Tina agrees because Tanya is
a friend and doesn't want her to be fired, so she goes on stage (she
wears a Devil costume and dances provocatively with a pitchfork),
much to the dismay of her boyfriend Mark (Page Fletcher; HUMONGOUS
- 1981), who would rather Tina come home with him. Eric confronts his
estranged father, Hamilton Blake (Tom Harvey), the owner of the huge
corporation Blake Industries (who are holding some kind of telethon
called "UNI Saves" in the very near future), with the note
Isabelle sent him and asks for help in finding her, but Hamilton says
it was her and Eric's choice to leave the family and he wants nothing
more to do with her. When Eric leaves, Hamilton pulls a photo of
Isabelle out of his desk and fondles it, so we know there is more to
the story. Eric starts interviewing "Tanya's" friends:
strippers Louise (Lora Staley; THIEF
- 1981) and Andrea (Claudia Udy; NIGHTFORCE
- 1986), but comes away with little information. He then goes to the
police, where he talks to Sgt. Skylar (Michael Ironside; SCANNERS
- 1980; here billed as "Mike Ironside"), who tells Eric
that he doesn't have much faith in what strippers say, but he will
look into it. Meanwhile, the faceless killer murders Andrea by
slitting her wrists and drowning her in the bathtub, making it look
like a suicide. As the killer is exiting the building, he bumps into
the cross-dressing Dolly and he gets a good look at the killer's
face. Louise doesn't believe that Andrea committed suicide and Eric
asks her for help at Andrea's funeral. At first she turns him down
("You're asking me for help at a funeral?!?"), but when the
killer tries to murder her and fails, she forms an uneasy alliance
with Eric to discover the truth. Hamilton's right-hand man, Tony Shaw
(Neil Dainard), asks Eric to play the piano at his father's telethon,
but Eric tells Tony to tell his father to go to hell (clue alert!).
Eric thinks he can trace Isabelle/Tanya's whereabouts by finding out
what telephone calls she received from her answering service (the
same service Louise uses). Eric and Louise get a list of numbers
after bribing the lady at the answering service and notice there were
several calls made by someone known as "The Fixer" at a
cheap hotel. Dolly decides he is better off leaving town for good,
but he chooses too late, as the killer grabs him in an alley and
stabs him in the heart. Eric and Louise are nearly mugged, until Eric
intervenes and turns the table on the mugger (I guess playing the
piano gives you strong hands!). After Louise witnesses Eric saving
her life, they become lovers and have sex at Eric's palatial
apartment. While Louise is sleeping, Eric sneaks out and heads to the
cheap hotel and strong-arms the hotel manager (Paul Bradley). The
manager tells him that The Fixer videotapes all the girls having sex
with their tricks, but only The Fixer has the videotapes and he has
no idea where he is. Eric and Louise look through the slimier streets
of town (where we see a theater marquee advertising the porn film THE
SECOND COMING OF EVA - 1974) looking for The Fixer (this is
after Louise goes through an embarrassing "audition" for a
role in the UNI Saves telethon, but she has a callback) and when
Louise goes home because she is tired, Eric finds The Fixer (Mike
Copeman) in a porno theater and uses The Fixer's own gun to force him
to tell Eric where the videotapes are (at a bus station locker).
While Mark is being sweated by Sgt. Skylar as the possible killer,
the real one shows up after hours at the strip club and slices Tina's
throat with a knife. When Eric watches the videotapes, he sees a
familiar face on one of the tapes and it ain't his sister's (well,
half of it is)! It's Hamilton fucking his own daughter and when Eric
confronts him with the evidence (Hamilton says he been screwing his
own daughter since their mother died!) and says he is going to turn
it over to the Press and the police, Hamilton commits suicide by
shooting himself in the head. As you can guess by now, Hamilton is
not the killer; it was Tony (Eric also discovers it
is
him when he finds Dolly's body and he is holding a key piece of
evidence in his dead, clenched hand), who was trying to keep his boss
squeaky clean by burying the evidence and the people involved. Eric
must race to the UNI Saves auditions, where Louise is
"rehearsing" for Tony. Can Eric save Louise in time before
Tony takes her life? This is a cheap, tawdry look at a slice of
life that most of us never see and, therefore, is must viewing for
people interested in the subject matter. It is full of tits and ass
(but no bush) and has enough bloody violence to satisfy early-80's
gorehounds, too. Director Don McBrearty is better known for directing
episodes of Canadian TV series and TV movies (such as THE
HAUNTING OF LISA - 1996), which he is still doing at the
time this review was written. Screenwriter John Sheppard (BULLIES
- 1986; Dolph Lundgren's DETENTION
- 2003) definitely got the impetus for this film from Schrader's
movie, except it is much more down and dirty than the George C.
Scott-starrer. I actually prefer AMERICAN
NIGHTMARE over Schrader's film because it is able to go
places and show things not acceptable in a big-budget film. Producer
Ray Sager got his start as an actor in a few films by goremaster H.G.
Lewis (eventually appearing in the title role in Lewis' WIZARD
OF GORE - 1970), before becoming a respected Producer of
Canadian genre films, including all three sequels
to PROM NIGHT (1980), as
well as many Canadian TV movies and television series up to this day.
This film was his first as a Producer. One of the Executive Producers
was Paul Lynch, who also has a healthy career as a director, making
the aforementioned PROM NIGHT, HUMONGOUS and BULLIES,
as well as one of my favorite 90's action films NO
CONTEST (1994). He is still very active today, especially on
Canadian TV. Both Michael Ironside (who is given very little to do
here) and Lenore Zann would appear together in the horror film VISITING
HOURS, made the same year as this film. Lead actor Lawrence
S. Day (who is not bad here) did one more film in 1992 before
retiring from acting. Keep your eyes peeled for a juggling stripper
and a poster for SCORCHY (1976)
in one scene. Originally released on fullscreen VHS by Media
Home Entertainment that was much too dark, with a budget VHS
from Interglobal
Home Video to follow (which was even worse to watch). Be aware
that the DVD offered by Scorpion Releasing is also a fullscreen print
and was taken from a less-than-pristine negative. There is a
disclaimer before the film starts that says this was the only element
of the film that could be found and is not up to Scorpion's usually
great quality, but it is still better than the VHS print because you
can see what is going on in some of the darker scenes. It is full of
grain, dirt and emulsion scratches, but I think it adds just the
right amount of ambiance to the film's subject matter. Also starring
Bunty Webb, Nancy Oliver, Martin Doyle and Don MacQuarrie as the
mugger. A Scorpion Releasing
DVD Release. Rated R.
AN
AMERICAN TERROR (2012) -
You would think that a film that begins with a quote by Charles
Manson would be complete trash, but this film turns into a socially
relevant tale of bullying and school shootings. First off, here's the
Manson quote:
"Look
down at me and you see a fool -
Look
up at me and you see a god -
Look
straight at me and you see...yourself."
We
then see high school punker Josh (Graham Emmons) get out of bed at
6:56 AM and then look at himself in the cracked bathroom mirror (a
not so subtle way of saying this boy has some problems; we also hear
his thoughts telling him to stay in bed and not go to school). He
then has some breakfast while his mother and father totally ignore
him and gets picked up by friends (and fellow punkers) Ray (Joseph
Abplanalp, in a terrific performance) and Sammy (Taylor Hulett) in
Roy's van and head off to another day of school punishment. Brandon
(Nathan Green) and his usual bunch of superior-thinking jocks make
comments like "Cheerleader pussy rocks" and Brandon's
cheerleader girlfriend Tasha (Louise MacDonald) hears him and remarks
that he will be lucky if he gets any. Brandon and the jocks do their
daily bullying routine of the three punkers, telling them
they need Brandon's permission to cross the football field and
Brandon hauls off and punches and spits on Ray for talking back to
him. We then see the three punkers in a basement watching a revenge
movie on TV that night and when they get out of school the next day,
someone has spray-painted "FAGS" across the passenger side
of Ray's van. The cheerleaders laugh hysterically and take pictures
of the van with their camera phones. The punkers are tired of being
bullied because they dress and act differently from everyone else
(this goes on daily in reality in almost every school in America), so
Ray blurts out "We need guns!" (He wants to pull off a
Columbine on the jocks and cheerleaders). The best they can do is
come up with a 50 year-old handgun from Sammy's stepfather, but Ray
sees a redneck (an unrecognizable Brian Thompson [COBRA
- 1986; NIGHTWISH
- 1988]) hauling a refrigerator away from Tasha's house (she needed
to get rid of it and offered it free on an internet site saying
"first come, first served") and makes Josh write down the
company's phone number down. Ray says to the other two that the best
place to get guns is from a redneck, so they do a reverse phone
search of the number and find that the redneck's location (the end
credits list Thompson's character name as "The Junker", but
I'll stick with "redneck" since that is what the punkers
call him) is 40 miles away from Denver (this film was lensed in
Denver, Colorado). Ray and Josh plan to drive the 40 miles to the
redneck's junkyard, while Sammy goes to the hardware store to get the
components he needs to make pipe bombs. Ray tells Sammy if they don't
return on time, he is to go through with the act of revenge, but make
sure it is during Homecoming Night, when the jocks and their
cheerleader girlfriends will be there. Ray and Josh drive to the
junkyard, where Josh makes a phone call to the redneck saying there
are some antiques that need to picked up immediately in Denver (Josh
give him Brandon's address!). The wait for the redneck to leave in
his truck and the two punkers break into the redneck's trailer, but
find no guns. They do find a secret passageway in the trailer that
leads to a huge underground bunker and they will need to use it when
the redneck makes an unexpected return. They see that the bunker is
full of automatic weapons and they suddenly hear loud gunshots,
thinking that the redneck is shooting at them, so they run further
down the bunker until they find what looks to be some type of torture
room. They still hear the gunshots, so they hide in the room. The
sounds they hear are not shots at all, but the sound of the redneck
tipping the refrigerator ass-over-tea kettle until he gets it to the
torture room. When he opens the refrigerator, Ray and Josh see that
Tasha is inside, still alive but has duct tape over her mouth (it
really does have many uses in films!) and is tied-up. The redneck
puts Tasha in a special torture chair, but Ray talks Josh out of
saving her, because she was going to be one of the targets on
Homecoming Night anyway. The redneck hears Ray talking and grabs him
(he doesn't see Josh), while Josh hides for his life.
HOMECOMING
DAY 11:27 AM: The redneck has Tasha and Ray prisoner. The
redneck straps some strange gear on his body (including a mask with a
huge beak on it, not unlike the one Nivek Ogre wore in SCREAM
PARK - 2012) and begins to videotape what is about to
happen. The redneck pulls off Ray's eyebrows with a pair of pliers
(ouch!) while Ray prattles on about how they could work together to
kill their enemies. The redneck has heard enough and puts a bullet in
Ray's head, killing him, and then leaves the room. Tasha is still
alive and Josh tries to save her. The first thing he does is pull the
duct tape off her mouth and she screams (the stupid bitch), so Josh
puts the duct tape back over her mouth. The redneck returns to the
room carrying the corpse of another woman and he screws the corpse on
top of a table while watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons (which could
explain the mask). The redneck then falls asleep and Josh frees Tasha
(who seems to be drugged) and they try to escape the underground
bunker, while a groggy Tasha hampers their speed and keeps passing out.
HOMECOMING
DAY 3:42 PM: We watch Sammy making some pipe bombs, totally
unaware of what has happened to Roy or what Josh is going through.
The redneck wakes up and notices that Tasha is missing, so he grabs
his pistol and goes looking for her. Josh and Tasha are still in the
bunker thanks to Tasha's drugged-out state, but the more they get
through the many corridors, the more dead bodies they find, which
means that the redneck has been doing this for a very long time. The
redneck soon finds the pair and chokes Josh unconscious, while Tasha
grabs the redneck's pistol from its holster, but she misses the
redneck with her first shot and drops the gun (We could blame the
drugs for making her miss, but she was no more than three feet away
from him, so even a blind man could have hit him. And she drops the
gun because it makes a big bang, proving that it takes a special
breed of idiot to become a cheerleader). The redneck knocks her out
with one punch. When Josh wakes up, he is tied-up and in an empty hot
tub with the redneck. The redneck (who is smarter than you think) has
created a machine that will slowly burn Josh's body away as acid
fills the tub and he whispers into Josh's ear (the first time we
really get a good look at Thompson's face) that he knows what Josh
was going to do that night (thanks to Ray telling him), but it looks
like he is not going to be there. The redneck flips the switch that
turns on the acid machine and Josh can see the acid traveling down
some clear tubes. Tasha suddenly appears and hits the redneck over
the head several times with a sledgehammer and tries to free Josh,
but she's too stupid to figure it out in time and just pumps bullets
into the hot tub, so the acid flows out. The redneck wakes up with
what is probably Excedrin Headache #1, but Josh and Tasha have
booby-trapped the room and the redneck trips it, causing a big metal
gate to come flying at the redneck, hitting him hard. Josh and Tasha
make it outside by crawling through a window in the trailer, but the
redneck grabs Tasha's leg and Josh chains his arm to a pole. Josh and
Tasha use a bulldozer to drop a bunch of junked cars on the trailer,
killing the redneck. Suddenly, Josh says, "Fuck, it's not over!"
HOMECOMING
NIGHT 7:15 PM: Josh has to stop Sammy from going through with
the massacre, but he doesn't have the keys to the car, so he has to
go down to the bunker and get the keys out of Ray's pants pocket (he
also leaves a sign in the torture room as a tribute to his two
friends). He gets the keys and he and Tasha race back to Denver, but
it is 40 miles away and time is coming close to the massacre. Sammy
walks into a convenience store, where he asks the nerdy teen behind
the counter why he is not at the Homecoming Dance. The teen says
"Are you kidding me? Just look at me!" and Sammy shakes his
hand (It's a telling moment.). While Sammy is walking down the road,
he gets hassled by a cop, who wants to know where he is going
("The Homecoming Dance.") and why he is dressed that way
("This is the way I always dress."), but the officer makes
his life a living hell, just like the jocks, so he blows up the
police car and the officer with a pipe bomb. Josh makes it to the
high school just in time and tries to talk Sammy out of the massacre,
but then suddenly Josh is woken up by his alarm clock at 6:56 AM,
goes to the bathroom and looks at his reflection in the cracked
mirror and has breakfast while his parents ignore him. Is Josh caught
in a time loop? Turns out that Josh actually talked Sammy out of the
massacre and he has become the hero of the school. Donald and the
rest of the jocks still treat him like shit, but Josh has a new
outlook on life and puts Brandon in his place, something he has never
experienced before. Tasha (who is now Josh's girlfriend) yells to
Brandon: "Cheerleader pussy...it does rock!" and kisses
Josh. Make sure you stay through the end credits, because the final
stinger is very important (I'm not going to spoil it for you, except
to say that the redneck is not alive), as the title of the film
changes to AN AMERICAN TERROR 2.
What
looks like a film that is going to turn into a tale of violent
revenge and retribution (Something we have seen much too often in our
schools the
past few years, turning our educational system into a virtual prison
with "zero tolerance", such as a fourth grader who drew a
gun in art class and was suspended from school. For drawing a gun!!!!
Another younger kid took a two week rip for making his thumb and
forefinger in the shape of a gun!!!!! That is not "zero
tolerance", that is adult ignorance.) actually turns into a
parable about redemption and forgiveness. Everyone, including Josh,
can change the future (and sometimes become a hero in the process),
but you have to apply yourself and sometimes turn the other cheek.
Director/screenwriter/editor/sound designer Haylar Garcia (this was
his first feature-length fictional film), was actually an acclaimed
musician/songwriter/music producer before he decided to go into
filmmaking (I must confess that some of the thrash metal songs
playing during some scenes were a distraction to me, but I get the
feeling that Garcia was actually speaking to teenagers with this film
and not old fogies like myself) and I sincerely hope he sticks with
filmmaking, because he actually pulls great performances out of the
young cast (This is the first feature film for the actors who play
Josh, Ray and Sammy) and holds you in suspense in some scenes. This
film is basically serious stuff (but a hand gesture Thompson's
character makes sure gave me a good laugh) and teaches both young and
old what effect bullying has on people (I know some people who still
have emotional scars from being bullied in school and that was over
40 years ago. These are emotional wounds that are hard to heal.) This
film may not be for all tastes because, at times, it can be a little
"torture porny", but people looking for some social
significance to go along with the thriller elements should appreciate
this film. It may have cliched portrayals of cheerleaders (Tasha does
some really stupid things in this film, but not all cheerleaders are
as ditsy as her), but Tasha has one of the best final comeback lines
I have heard in quite a while. An enjoyable low-budget film that is
as inventive as it is relevant. Besides, any film that makes Charles
Manson look like an ass is OK in my book. We are all individuals. We
just have to remember that. Also starring James Miller, Michael
Haskins, T. Alex Demos, Jennifer Wilde, Kathryn Gould and Troy Alan.
An Uncork'd Entertainment
DVD Release. It is actually a DVD-R, since Amazon (the exclusive
distributor of disc) only produces them MOD (made on demand). It is
available on many streaming services, though. Not Rated.
APPOINTMENT
IN BLACK (1990) - We watch
as a local butcher rapes a young, frightened teenage girl in the back
of his butcher shop, picking her up, placing her on a counter
(beneath his meathooks), ripping off her clothes and removing his
belt. Thankfully, we don't see what happens next. Fifteen years
later, we watch the beautiful Angela Baldwin (Mirella Banti; TENEBRE
- 1982), dressed in a slutty red dress, enter a "sex cinema"
(porno theater) and use the ladies bathroom, where she is violently
raped and assaulted. Is the mysterious man wearing blue jeans and
sunglasses (Daniele Stroppa; RUSH
- 1983; also this film's screenwriter)
responsible for this? Angela's diplomat husband, John Baldwin (Andy
J. Forest; MARK OF THE SCORPION
- 1986), is having an affair with Angela's best friend, beautiful
model Eva (Mary Lindstrom). He blames Angela for her rape, asking her
why she went to a porno theater dressed like a slut (remember this
was long before the #MeToo movement). He tells Eva he wishes her
could get rid of his bitch wife, but a divorce would ruin his
political career. Eva has another idea on how to get rid of Angela
and it doesn't require a divorce (She would like to become the next
Mrs. Baldwin). The sex cinema's projectionist, Frank Evans (Franco
Citti; WATCH ME WHEN I KILL
- 1977), approaches Angela and blackmails her for a large sum of
money, telling her he installed a peephole in the theater's womens
bathroom and saw her fake her own rape (In flashback, we see Angela
in the bathroom tearing her dress and even slicing open her lip to
make it look like she was violently raped). If she doesn't want her
husband to know what she did, she better fork over a lot of cash and
he really rapes her as a down payment! I guess the real question is
this: Why would Angela fake her own rape and even report it to a
female Police Inspector (Sonia Viviani; THE
POSSESSOR - 1975)?
At one of John's diplomatic parties at their home, Angela gets drunk
and dances provocatively in front of everyone, pissing off John. The
mysterious man in blue jeans and sunglasses attacks Angela in the
bathroom, but John doesn't believe her, that is until he sees
"You're Dead, Angela" written in lipstick on the bedroom
mirror. Is Angela faking it again or is something else going on?
John orders the Police Inspector to protect his wife better, but
it's easy to see he's mad that Angela's rape in a sex cinema made the
newspapers and couldn't care an iota about her safety. The Inspector
is having none of John's macho bullshit and tells her female
assistant (Ann Margaret Hughes; BLUE
TORNADO - 1990) that John is "tedious" and she
would love to lock him up (It is possible that the Inspector is a
lesbian, but it is never made clear).
John and Eva can't keep their hands off each other and have sex as
much as possible, but they can't hide it from the maid, Rosy
("Roxana Cox"; Real name: Rossana Coggiola), because maids
see and know everything that goes on in the homes they work at (Yet,
Rosy won't talk to the Police Inspector.). When the Inspector is
questioning Angela and Eva, Angela get a phone call from the
mysterious man, who tells her he will be visiting her again very
soon. For some reason, Angela searches Eva's purse and finds a
receipt from a local joke shop, so Angela goes there and purchases a
joke cigarette lighter shaped like a small pistol. Oh, and it also
shoots blanks. The clerk tells Angela that the cigarette lighter can
be dangerous, even deadly, if the blank cartridges were replaced with
actual gunpowder (This film is beginning to push the unbelievability
factor to eleven, as it telegraphs everything that will come later in
the film).
Angela finds a child's doll in her car with a switchblade shoved in
its mouth and reports it to the Inspector. She tells Angela that she,
too, was sexually assaulted when she was a young girl. We then find
out that fifteen years ago, it was a young Angela who was raped by
the butcher and her father was arrested for killing her rapist,
forcing Angela to spend her teenage years in a "home" until
she became of legal age to be on her own. The Inspector apologizes to
Angela for judging her too hard, but we then discover that Angela may
have indeed killed her rapist fifteen years ago, not her father, who
may have taken credit to save his daughter from serving prison time.
In flashback, we see someone killing the butcher by using his meat
slicer to cut off his hand and then slice his throat open, the blood
gushing out like a river.
John and Eva continue to fuck like rabbits, John telling Eva not to
worry about Angela catching them in the act because she takes a
handful of sleeping pills every night just before she goes to bed.
Not this night, though, as Angela watches from the shadows as her
husband and her best friend do the dirty in the swimming pool (I hope
there's a lot of chlorine in the water to kill the deposits!). The
next morning, Angela is reading the newspaper, where the headline
reads "PROJECTIONIST KILLED BY HIT AND RUN DRIVER". We then
see Angela with the mystery man in blue jeans and sunglasses. Turns
out he's Angela's brother, David, who everyone thinks is dead. He is
actually the one who killed Angela's rapist fifteen years ago and
when their father discovered David was the killer, he went to the
police and confessed to the crime. We also learn that their father
died in jail. It shouldn't come as a surprise that David also killed
the projectionist, as we watch Angela give her brother an envelope
full of money and an airline ticket to Brazil. She also gives him the
joke cigarette lighter as a going away gift (I know what you are
thinking and you're right!).
Eva tells John to be nice to Angela so she doesn't get suspicious
that she won't be around much longer. John then makes love to Angela
(Where does he get the stamina?!?), but Angela lies on the bed like a
corpse, showing no emotion while John bumps and grinds away. The
Inspector's assistant tells her that the dead projectionist worked at
the same sex cinema that Angela was raped in and she becomes
instantly suspicious. We then discover that Angela and Eva are
actually working together to kill John so Angela can inherit all his
money and split it with Eva. Rosy hears their plans, but they catch
her, chase her down and kill her. As they are shoving her dead body
in the trunk of a car, they are almost caught by the Inspector. She
tells Angela that Frank Evans was probably her stalker, because since
his death, she has had no threats on her life. Does the Inspector
really think this or it it only a ruse? John leaves on a business
trip and gives Angela a pistol to protect herself if the stalker
should come back when he is gone. We then learn that John is not on
a business trip at all, as he meets Eva in a local hotel to prepare
for Angela's murder that night. So who's playing who? Are Angela and
Eva really together or is Eva actually working with John? Or is this
story open for another "twist"? If you want to find out,
I'm afraid you'll have to watch the damn film for yourself. I'll just
say this: Think of the most outrageous thing that could possibly
happen and you are probably correct. Oh, and that joke cigarette
lighter? It plays a major role in the film's closing shot.
This cliche-ridden pseudo-giallo flick, an Italy/Germany
co-production, has one good thing going for it, namely a ton of
full-frontal nudity from the mostly female cast. Director Antonio
Bonifacio (who also made another late-in-the-game giallo called THE
STRANGE STORY OF OLGA 'O' - 1995; as well as being Assistant
Director on ZOMBIE
5: KILLING BIRDS - 1987), working with a screenplay by
"Daniel Brados", who is actually co-star Daniele Stroppa
(writer of such films as DELIRIUM:
PHOTO OF GIOIA -1987; WITCHERY
- 1988; and the awful THE CRAWLERS
- 1990), doesn't fail to miss one giallo trope here, especially
during the film's final five minutes, where all logic is tossed out
the window in favor of the film's "surprise" final twist.
It wasn't a double-cross, a triple-cross or even a quadruple-cross,
but a quintuple-cross! I have to say that even though the film is an
assault on the brain of any logical thinking person, it is still very
easy on the eyes, thanks to the non-stop female nudity. That is by no
means a ringing endorsement, but I have certainly seen much worse
pseudo-giallo films in my life. So enjoy the non-sensical plot
and stay for the constanty naked female flesh. Remember when you
could enjoy films like this without feeling guilty?
Shot as APPUNTAMENTO
IN NERO (a literal translation of the review title) and also
known as BLIND DATE,
LADY IN BLACK
and SCANDAL
IN BLACK, this film didn't receive a theatrical or legitimate
VHS release in the United States (even though the IMDb states it had
a U.S. theatrical release in 1991, something I was unable to verify),
making its first appearance in the States as a DVD from Mya
Communications in 2010, under the BLIND
DATE title. No Blu-Ray at the time of this review. It's also
available streaming on YouTube from user "Film&Clips",
who offer a nice anamorphic widescreen print dubbed in English (even
though it is apparent everyone is speaking English). Also featuring
Marina Hedman (PLAY MOTEL
- 1979), Laura Piattella (THE
STENDHAL SYNDROME - 1996), Vincent Regina (THE
SECT - 1991) and George Sessax (APOCALYPSE
MERCENARIES - 1987). Not Rated, obviously due to the
frequent nudity and some nasty bits of gore.
AUTOPSY
(1973) - Downright weird Italian thriller that mixes elements of
giallo with horror. The film opens with close-ups of sun flares (the
film's Italian title is MACCHIE SOLARI,
which translates to "Sun Spots"), as we watch several
people in Rome commit suicide. A topless woman slits her wrists with
a razor blade. A businessman puts a plastic bag over his head,
tightens the drawstring and jumps into a river. Another man lights a
match inside his car, which is doused in gasoline, and blows himself
up (we see a shot shot of him burning to death). A
father kills his two young children with a machine-gun before turning
it on himself. Just what is the cause of these suicides? Is it a case
of mass hysteria (Rome is going through a sweltering heatwave) or are
there more sinister causes at work?
The job of finding answers falls on pathologist Simona Sanna (Mimsy
Farmer; FOUR FLIES ON
GREY VELVET - 1971; THE
PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK - 1974), who is interning at a
teaching hospital until she finishes her college thesis on
"simulated and authentic suicides" (try not to think too
hard about this!). Simona, who is over-worked and over-heated, has a
freak-out scene where she imagines all the dead bodies in the morgue
come to life and have sex with each other (it must be seen to be
believed!). Simona is a new resident at an apartment complex, where
she meets her upstairs neighbor, red-headed Betty Lenox (Gaby
Wagner), who knocks on Simona's door to borrow an envelope. Betty
hears her phone ring, runs upstairs and we can tell by the look on
her face that the phone call is trouble. She runs out of the
apartment complex, nearly gets raped by two drunk pedestrians, goes
to church and then is picked up by someone she knows (but we don't
see) . The mystery begins.
The next day, Simona is in the morgue when the newest
"suicide" is brought to her. It is the body of a young
woman who stuck a pistol under her chin and pulled the trigger (We
see her face which is missing teeth and one eyeball is hanging out of
the socket!). We then watch as demented morgue assistant Ivo (Ernesto
Colli; THE TEMPTER -
1974) fixes her face with putty so the police can take a picture of
her for the newspaper (Ivo makes sure that his hand brushes against
her cold naked breast). It turns out that this female stiff is the
body of Betty Lenox without her red wig. A priest named Father Paul
(Barry Primus; THE DION BROTHERS
- 1974) shows up at the morgue and insists that Betty was murdered
and could not have possibly committed suicide because he gave her
absolution from her sins the night before. You see, Father Paul's
last name is Lenox and Betty was his sister. Simona's
photographer/race car driver boyfriend, Riccardo (the late Ray
Lovelock; LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH
- 1978), recalls that Father Paul was once a famous race car driver
that was committed to a mental institution after causing a major
accident at a racetrack where people were killed (Riccardo tells
Simona that it is not such a far leap from a loony bin to a man of
the cloth!). Right away, we see that Father Paul is a sandwich short
of a picnic, as he yells to Simona, "Show me some respect! Show
me some respect!" when she questions his sanity after seeing him
punch out the apartment complex's caretaker (Leonardo Severini) for
calling Betty a prostitute. Making matter worse, someone is stalking
Simona, trying to kill her. But why?
There are many people who could be the stalker, as they are also
hiding secrets of their own. Besides Father Paul and the caretaker
(whom we see beating his dog for barking), there's Riccardo, who
seems to know more than he is telling; Simona's father, Lello (Carlo
Cataneo), who buys a pistol from the caretaker for reasons not yet
made clear; Lello's former lover Danielle (Angela Goodwin), who is an
artist of grotesque paintings of death (she works at a "criminal
museum" that is full of photos of real-life death and wax
figures of murderers); Simona's Uncle Gianni (Massimo Serato; DON'T
LOOK NOW - 1973), who lies to Simona on when he arrived in
Rome. Even Simona herself is a strange bird, as she cannot make love
to Riccardo without seeing the bodies of corpses coming to life. It
seems that everyone in this film has secrets they would kill for.
Simona and Father Paul find the caretaker hanging by his neck in his
bathroom (he used his belt as a noose). Father Paul tries to revive
him (in one of the strangest resuscitation methods that I have ever
seen, moving his arms up and down like some air pump!), only to
witness him take a final breath before he foams at the mouth and
dies. Then Lello jumps (or is pushed out) a window in Betty's
apartment and he fractures his back, causing him to become a
paraplegic, unable to talk. Just moments before, Lello and Gianni
discover a letter written by Betty where she says she wishes she
could become Lello's wife, but since she can't, she has taken the
only action that makes sense. Yes, this could be looked at as a
suicide note, but an important document (a revised will) is missing,
which could prove Betty was murdered. Simona and Father Paul decide
to hook up Lello with an experimental machine that will enable him to
answer questions with his eye movements. Once hooked up to the
machine, they ask him if he tried to commit suicide, but all he is
able to communicate are the letters "SIMONASEI" before he
convulses and dies, foaming at the mouth just like the caretaker did
(The letters are part of a quotation in Italian, but it is not
translated for English speaking audiences. It really doesn't matter, though.).
The reveal of the killer is a cheat on the audience, as we are never
clued-in on the killer's motivations until the film's final minutes.
It seems that Riccardo was injecting people with a deadly paralytic
agent to cover up the fact that he killed his father years earlier so
he could inherit his father's fortune. Betty had his father's revised
will, which disinherited Riccardo (which is why Betty wanted to
borrow an envelope from Simona). He killed everyone to get his hands
on that will to destroy it. His
last act is to inject Simona and Father Paul with the agent, strip
them nude, put them in Simona's bathroom and turn on the gas to make
it look like a double suicide. Only God is on the side of Father Paul
and Simona. They miraculously revive and ruin Riccardo's plans. He
dies by falling off scaffolding on top of an old church after getting
into a scuffle with Father Paul. Riccardo's final image is of
tourists crowding around his crushed body.
While we are never given a valid reason why some people are
committing mass suicide, Simona theorizes that it has something to do
with the solar flares that are causing the heatwave (It's a
throw-away line that is the only part of the film that is in Italian
with English subtitles). Every time someone kills themselves, we are
shown close-ups of solar flares shooting off the Sun. Besides the
sudden reveal of the killer and his motivations, this is an
atmospheric and creepy delight. It has wall-to-wall full frontal male
and female nudity and the music score, by Oscar®-winning composer
Ennio Morricone (who wrote the my favorite score of all time, the
soundtrack to DUCK, YOU SUCKER
- 1971) adds immensely to the proceedings. Director Armando Crispino (COMMANDOS
- 1968; THE DEAD ARE ALIVE
- 1972; FRANKENSTEIN
ITALIAN STYLE - 1975), who co-wrote the screenplay with Lucio
Battistrada (RIPPED-OFF -
1972), fills the film with weird visuals which will get your mind off
of some of the story's gaping plot holes. But that by no means
distracts you from the fact that this is an enjoyable, twisted flick
from those crazy Italians, whose country is shaped like a boot.
This was one of a long line of Italian
genre films that was released theatrically during the 1970's
& 80's. AUTOPSY was
released in 1975 (by Joseph
Brenner Associates) in a severely-edited R-Rated print, shorn of
15 minutes of footage (Mostly nudity, including an attempted rape of
Simona by Ivo, whom she stabs in the cheek with a fork. Which brings
up the big question: What in the hell is a fork doing in a morgue?).
The edited print was then released on VHS by Prism
Entertainment in the mid-'80s, with an uncut widescreen VHS &
DVD to follow from Anchor Bay Entertainment early in the New
Millennium (long OOP). The only way to go now is the beautiful DVD
from Blue Underground
(No Blu-Ray at the time of this review). The DVD is short on extras
(just a U.S. Trailer and an International trailer where it was known
as THE VICTIM), but if your interests run towards strange,
nudity-filled Italian thrillers, you won't be disappointed. Also
starring Eleonora Morana, Giovanni Di Benedetto, Pier Giovanni
Anchisi and Antonio Casale as clueless Police Inspector Silvestri. Not
Rated.
BAD
ASS (2011) - I love Danny Trejo.
Love him. And while this film may be considered a geriatric version
of DEATH WISH (1974, Charles
Bronson even gets a shout-out in this film), there is so much more
going on here than vigilante justice. Trejo has what is probably the
biggest role of his career (even bigger than his role in MACHETE
- 2010, as he appears in nearly every scene) as Frank Vega, an
elderly gent who is about to become a YouTube sensation. Frank has
had a hard life. After meeting his true love as a teenager, he
enlists in the military and fought in the Vietnam War for seven
years, the last year as a POW. He is shot in the leg while escaping
the POW camp and is honorably discharged by the military, returning
home to his true love (who promised to wait for him), only to find
her married with two kids. He applies to the police department to
become a cop, but is turned down due to his war injury. For the rest
of his life, he has supported himself (and his elderly mother) by
selling hotdogs from a cart, until one of those "boutique"
food truck takes up residence across the street from him, stealing
most of his customers. While taking the bus on the way home, two
punks hop on board and start harassing the passengers, so Frank takes
care of business and knocks the two punks out. People on-board the
bus take footage of Frank's fighting on their camera phones on and
post it on YouTube (called "YouSee" here, probably because
YouTube wouldn't give them permission to use their name), making
Frank an instant Internet sensation, who everyone dubs "Bad
Ass". Frank is lacking knowledge in the technical department,
as he doesn't even own a cell phone or a computer and wouldn't know
how to use either even if he did have them. When Frank's elderly
mother dies, she leaves her house to Frank, so he invites best friend
Klondike (Harrison Page; LIONHEART
- 1990), who saved his life during the war, to come live with him.
While they are getting drunk at the house, Klondike throws Frank an
envelope and tells him it contains a USB drive (Frank has no idea
what that is), explaining that if anything happens to him, he should
turn it over to someone he trusts. When Klondike leaves the house to
pick up a pack of Camels, he is shot dead by two guys looking for the
USB drive. They work for Panther (Charles S. Dutton; MIMIC
- 1997), a man who is in cahoots with the town's corrupt Mayor
Williams (Ron Perlman; TV's SONS
OF ANARCHY) to buy up property in the area and regentrify it
illegally. When Frank is notified of Klondike's death, he goes to the
police precinct to see what progress they are making. After being
assured everything is being done and then watching the detectives
playing a game of foam basketball in the precinct's break room, Frank
decides to take the law into his own hands. He becomes friends with
foul-mouthed kid Martin (John Duffy), who lives next door with his
physically abused mother Amber (Joyful Drake), who gets beat-up by
her boyfriend nearly every night. When Frank steps in and stops one
of those beatings, it becomes apparent that Frank and Amber will
become much more than friends (even though he is old enough to be her
father, but Trejo pulls it off magnificently). Martin shows Frank how
to use the USB drive that Klondike gave him and discovers Panther and
the Mayor's plan for their neighborhood. Frank gives the USB drive to
the only cop he trusts, Patrol Officer Malark (Patrick Fabian), who
Frank has gone on many "ride-alongs" with and have built-up
a friendship and then he begins to hunt down the people who killed
his friend, starting with the two people who actually killed
Klondike. He follows one of the goon's girlfriend to her home (he is
caught trying to break in by her diminutive neighbor, played by SEINFELD's
Danny Woodburn, but he gives him a pass because he recognizes Frank
as "Bad Ass"!) and finds the guy who actually pulled the
trigger, killing Klondike. Frank sticks the goon's left hand into the
garbage disposal until he gives up the location of Panther (As he is
walking out of the house, he says to the goon, "I hope you're a
righty!", one of the film's many little jokes that make this
film a joy to watch). Trouble is, Panther is waiting for him at the
warehouse and some more goons knock Frank out. When Frank wakes up,
he is connected to an electrical torture device (shades of LETHAL
WEAPON - 1987) and is shocked to give up the location of the
USB drive, Panther not knowing that Frank was tortured the same way
during his time as a POW and was never broken. Frank breaks free and
blows up the warehouse, which leads to Panther and Frank stealing
busses (Well, Panther really only steals a bus, as Frank is happily
offered another bus because the driver recognizes him as "Bad
Ass"!). A bus chase ensues (the only disappointing part of the
film, because it is obvious that this footage was cribbed from the
Schwarzenegger film RED HEAT -
1988 and digitally altered to substitute Los Angeles for Chicago),
both of them crashing the busses. Panther heads to Frank's home to
kill Amber, but Franks stops him in the nick of time, beating the
crap out of Panther. The next day the Mayor is arrested, thanks to
Officer Malark turning over the USB drive to the right people,
everyone else is brought to justice and Frank becomes an honorary
police officer. Not just a revenge film, but also an essay on
how we are so dependent on "instant access" in the Internet
Age, this thriller/action/comedy, directed and written by Craig Moss (BREAKING
WIND - 2012, also featuring Trejo), depends on the charisma
of Danny Trejo and I'm glad to report, he pulls it off with the
aplomb that he was never offered before. This may be the best role of
his career, as it does show what a full range Trejo is capable of. He
can be tough, tender, funny and romantic, sometimes all in the same
scene. As of this review, director Moss has finished a sequel, BAD
ASS 2: BAD ASSES (2013), which pairs Trejo with Danny Glover
and will be released sometime in 2014 (This film is hilarious and
full of action scenes. Trejo and Glover make a great team. See my
review in the DTV Section.) and BAD
ASS 3: BAD ASSES
ON THE BAYOU (also with Glover) to be released sometime in
2015. It's great to see Trejo get such big roles and recognition he
so richly deserves so late in his acting career, as he has been
appearing in bit roles and secondary characters in nearly 250 films
since 1985. Between this series and MACHETE
KILLS (2013), it is my hope that Danny Trejo stay on top for
years to come (It's hard to believe that Trejo will be 70 years-young
in 2014!). Also starring Richard Riehle (HATCHET
- 2007) as a priest, Duane Whitaker (TRAILER
PARK OF TERROR - 2008) as a pawn shop owner, Norma Michaels (THE
ZODIAC KILLER - 1971) as an elderly woman (she has one of
the film's funniest lines when Frank saves her from a drive-by
shooting) and a cameo by Craig Sheffer (NIGHTBREED
- 1990) as a lawyer. A Twentieth
Century Fox Home Entertainment DVD Release. Rated R.
BARRACUDA
(THE LUCIFER PROJECT) (1977) -
Here's a regional (Florida-lensed) conspiracy thriller that tried to
pull the wool over audiences' eyes by making them think they were
going to see a JAWS
(1975)-inspired tale about killer barracudas, thanks to a misleading
ad campaign. It didn't work. A chemical plant in the small coastal
town of Palm Cove is dumping some unknown substance into the ocean
via an underground runoff valve. Environmental professor Mike
Canfield (Wayne Crawford; SOMETIMES
AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS - 1971) tries to find proof
of the illegal dumping, only to be arrested by the town's friendly
sheriff, Ben Williams (William Kerwin; BLOOD
FEAST - 1963), on orders from the chemical plant's
megalomaniac owner Papa Jack (Bert Freed). Mike becomes friendly with
the sheriff's daughter, Eliza (Roberta Leighton), and together they
begin to uncover a deadly secret conspiracy that may reach to top
members of our nation's government. When swimmers and scuba divers
end up missing or dead (one girl and her dog discover a human head on
the beach), thanks to attacks by bloodthirsty barracudas, and
thousands of half-eaten fish are discovered washed ashore, Papa Jack
tries to cover it up with the help of some shady looking characters
wearing dark suits and sunglasses, but things take a turn for the
worse when the townspeople begin to get sick and act out violently,
like they have lost control of their emotions (something that was
covered more thoroughly in the similarly-themed film IMPULSE
[1984]). As more people end up dead at the beach, Mike is now getting
help from the Sheriff when the water samples Mike collected turn out
to have an unknown trace element that seems to change the behavior of
anyone or anything that ingests it (and it is in the town's water
supply). Mike takes his findings to seemingly kindly local doctor
Elliot Snow (Jason Evers; THE
BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE - 1962), who has been treating far
more sick patients than normal, only to discover that Dr. Snow may
just be the driving force behind all this secrecy. Mike, Eliza and
the Sheriff try to get outside help, but the subversive
powers-that-be do a pretty good job of covering it up, killing Mike
and the Sheriff in a typical nihilistic ending that the 70's so loved
to give audiences. This slow-moving thriller, directed by Harry
Kerwin, who co-wrote and produced with star Wayne Crawford (Crawford
is also credited with directing the underwater scenes), really
doesn't have much to recommend and seems to suffer from severe edits
to achieve a PG rating. As usual, Crawford sleepwalks throughout the
entire film and looks bored (or stoned) whenever he is on-screen.
Both Harry Kerwin, brother William (who also acted using the name
"Thomas Wood") and Crawford (who occasionally acted using
the name "Scott Lawrence") have worked together several
times before, most notably in Harry's two underrated films, GOD'S
BLOODY ACRE (1975) and TOMCATS
(1976), which makes BARRACUDA
a bitter disappointment in comparison. The violence here, unlike the
previous two films, is sparse and uninspired (the barracuda attacks
consists of someone shaking the camera while fake blood is released
into the water, followed by close-ups of obviously fake barracuda's
open mouths) and notable edits (even the music soundtrack jumps,
which seems to indicate that the films PG rating was decided after
post-production) robs the viewers of any carnage. The 70's turned out
a lot of "They Are Us" conspiracy thrillers thanks to
Watergate and it's aftermath, but BARRACUDA
is one of the weakest of the lot. One funny scene shows Mike turning
down a roll in the hay with Eliza because he doesn't want to
disrespect her father by screwing her in his house. Now I've heard
everything! Harry Kerwin puts in a cameo as an assassin who guns-down
three people in a local newspaper office when they get too close to
the truth. Also starring Cliff Emmich, Scott Avery, Bob J. Shields
and Bobbie-Ellyne Kosstrin. Originally released on VHS by VidAmerica
Inc. and available on DVD
from Dark Sky Films as part
of a double feature with ISLAND
FURY (1983/89). Rated PG.
BECAUSE
OF THE CATS (1973) -
Compelling thriller about a gang of well-dressed young men who rob
and rape wealthy people and the police inspector who is determined to
catch them. When the film opens, we watch as the six youths break
into the home of a wealthy couple and gang-rape the woman while
forcing the husband to watch. As the wife tells her story to
Amsterdam Police Inspector van der Valk (Bryan Marshall; THE
PUNISHER - 1989), she remembers something unusual that one
of the masked youths said when he refused to take part in her rape:
"The cats won't like it." The Inspector, who believes the
youths are well-bred and perform the robberies and rapes strictly for
kicks (they especially seem to find joy in destroying property more
than stealing it), begins his unorthodox investigation, first
sleeping with an expensive call girl named Feodora (Alexandra
Stewart) to get clues as to who these spoiled youths may be. It turns
out that the Inspector's suspicions were correct. Each one of these
youths comes from a well-to-do family and they have bonded together,
calling themselves "The Ravens". The only problem the
Inspector has is getting proof, since he runs into brick walls when
trying to get anyone to spill
the beans, since the kids' influential families can ruin them for
life. The newest recruit to The Ravens, Kees van Sonneveld (Nicholas
Hoye), may be the one person that breaks under the Inspector's
questioning, but first the Inspector must navigate the unfamiliar
world of society's rich, where the parents of the youths are just as
corrupt (if not more so) as their children. The parents put pressure
on the Inspector's superiors to get him to back off, but he keeps
chugging ahead trying to find out the meaning of "The cats won't
like it." The rest of The Ravens mistakenly believe that Kees
has spilled his guts to the Inspector, so they try to kill him by
running his scooter off the road, but he manages to escape. When Kees
is eventually found dead on the beach dressed in scuba gear, the
Inspector knows The Ravens are responsible, but will have a hard time
proving it, so he begins his own intimidation campaign against them.
Eric (Anthony Allen), the leader of The Ravens, begins an
intimidation campaign of his own, threatening Feodora for talking to
(and sleeping with) the Inspector. She finds her pet cats graphically
slaughtered in her apartment, a warning to keep her mouth shut or she
will be next. The truth is eventually exposed and the Inspector
arrests The Ravens for murder, but he also discovers just who the
"Cats" are (I won't spoil it for you) and that The Ravens
weren't acting on their own. They also have a Manson-like leader who
was guiding their every move. Can the Inspector find enough evidence
to bring this monster down? This slow, methodical thriller,
directed and produced by Fons Rademakers (whose 1986 film, THE
ASSAULT, won the Academy Award for best foreign film in
1987), begins with a graphically unpleasant and hard-to-watch gang
rape (which is edited out of some prints) and then proceeds to give
the viewers clues as to why these spoiled, privileged brats do what
they do. The screenplay, by Hugo Claus (based on a novel by Nicolas
Freeling), is not only an indictment against the wealthy and the
influence they hold over the common people, it's also an indictment
against parental neglect. Some parents, like Kees' father, are never
around (he's not even available to the police when his son is found
dead), some are protective only because they don't want their family
name sullied and some just don't give a shit. While the violence
(besides the rape) is fairly restrained (the shots of Feodora's
slaughtered cats is the bloodiest this film gets), the nudity,
including both full-frontal male and female, is graphic and borders
on pornography in some scenes (It was originally Rated X when
submitted to the MPAA and had to be shorn of some footage to receive
an R-rating). The final thirty minutes, where The Ravens'
Svengali-like leader is exposed and we witness a flashback involving
Kees' murder, an orgy and a ritualistic cat sacrifice, is about as
sexually graphic as a film can get without being covered in a plain
brown wrapper. While some of the ideals and morality (not to mention
the fashions) may seem dated today, BECAUSE
OF THE CATS is still an entertaining mix of heady themes
that makes for a satisfying thriller. The mod, brassy score, by Ruud
Bos, is also a highlight. Also starring Edward Judd, Sebastian Graham
Jones, Derek Hart, Christopher Blake, Delia Lindsay, Roger Hammond,
George Baker and Sylvia Kristel, who plays an important role in the
film's conclusion, besides being completely nude for the majority of
her screen time. Originally available on VHS from Prism
Entertainment in the compromised R-rated edit. The version I
viewed was an uncut, widescreen version that I downloaded from a
torrent site. Not Rated.
BLACK
ANGEL (1989) - Really bad
late-'80s Italian giallo flick, full of too many coincidences to be
believable, a horrendous performance by the lead actress and dubbing
that could be politely be described as amateurish. In other words,
it's bad enough to be attention getting, like watching a train wreck
where you think your closest friend has died. You don't want to see
it, yet you can't take your eyes off of it, hoping it will get
better, but you just know the result will be disastrous.
Arabella (model Tini Cansino; who is called "Deborah" in
the English dub, so I will call her that in this review) is married
to novelist Francesco Veronese (Francesco Casale), who is permanently
in a wheelchair, put there when Deborah decided to give him oral sex
while he is driving away from the church they just got married in,
causing him to get into a bad car wreck and losing the use of his
legs. Francesco hasn't made love to Deborah since the accident,
causing her to look for sexual thrills on her own in the middle of
the night. On one of those nights, Deborah visits an S&M
whorehouse and she watches, spellbound, people performing degrading
acts on each other (A woman shoving a baton up a male client's ass;
two gay men wrestling with each other; a two man, one woman
ménage a trois). Two men then walk up to Deborah and begin to
feel her up. She likes it, but when she is slapped by one of the men,
she tells him to stop (it is an S&M whorehouse, after all) and he
pulls out a switchblade, pressing it up against he neck. Luckily for
Deborah, the police raid the joint. Deborah hides and when she thinks
it is safe, she sneaks back to her car, only to get collared by a
cop. As the cop slaps the handcuffs on her, putting her hands behind
her back, she pleads with him, saying she is not a prostitute, she
just came to pick up a friend. The cop then rapes her (standing up,
the Italian's favorite way of having sex, at least in films of this
type) and when he is done, he removes the handcuffs and says,
"You were right, you are not a whore!", telling her to go
home. The whole time this is happening, a Private Detective (Giose
Davi) is snapping away with his camera, taking photos of Deborah, but
who hired him?
The next morning, Deborah makes breakfast for Francesco and brings
it to his home office, where he sits by a typewriter, suffering from
a severe case of writer's block. He screams at Deborah, telling her
to get out of the room ("Look at my wife. She's in love with a
cripple!"). She runs out of the room in tears and Francesco's
mother, Marta (Evelyn Stewart; THE
NIGHT CHILD - 1975), comforts her, saying her son will
apologize to her because he's a good boy at heart. The buzzer to the
front gate of their home goes off and Deborah can see by the security
camera that it is the cop who raped her the night before (she dropped
her purse when he raped her, which is how he knew where she lived).
Deborah runs to the front gate and offers the cop money to go away.
He's not interested in money, he just wants more of Deborah's sweet
body. Deborah tells him not here, as her husband might see them and
leads him to a nearby shed, where they begin to do the nasty.
Meanwhile, Francesco has come to apologize and when he can't find his
wife, he wheels himself outside, even though his mother tells him not
to. Francesco spies on his wife making love to the cop, but what he
doesn't expect is what Deborah will do next. Just as the cop is about
to climax, Deborah hits him over the head with a mallet, killing him.
This act of violence snaps Francesco out of his writer's block,
creating a character called the "Black Angel", about a
female vigilante who kills men who deserves to be killed, but he
needs more material to finish the novel, so he sends his wife out in
the night and when she comes back home, she tells him what she did
and saw that night, which Francesco "fictionalizes", giving
his novel an air of realism.
About the time this is all going on, a serial killer, who the press
have dubbed the "Scissors Murderer", is killing men at
night cutting off their penises (!), beginning with the Private
Detective we saw back at the S&M whorehouse. Female Police
Inspector Gina Fowler (Valentina Visconti) is put in charge of
finding the Scissors Murderer, but she has a secret that she only
tells to her lesbian lover and police partner, Agnese (Rena Niehaus; DAMNED
IN VENICE - 1978): When she was a young girl, she saw her
mother cut off her father's penis for being a serial adulterer. Not
one to keep a secret and looking to advance her career, Agnese
betrays her lesbian partner and tells her secret to the press, where
it makes the front page on all the newspapers the following morning,
calling Gina the Scissors Murderer. Sure enough, Gina is pulled off
the case and Agnese is now in charge, but something happens which
makes Gina look like the serial killer that even the police can't
ignore. The real Scissors Murderer calls Gina's phone, not knowing
she has been discharged from the force, and talks to Agnese, who
pretends to be Gina. She agrees to meet the killer that night, as he
has something he wants to give to Gina. Stupid dyke. Agnese is
viciously murdered that night and guess who's the prime suspect?
That's right, it's Gina and the police have issued an all points
bulletin for her arrest. Gina, who is hiding and trying to find the
serial killer on her own to prove her innocence, has a friend on the
force, a male detective named De Rosa (Carlo Mucari; BRIDGE
TO HELL - 1986). She asks him to give her 24 hours to find
the real killer and if she doesn't, she will turn herself in. So what
does this have to do with Deborah and Francesco? This is where the
believability-straining coincidences come into play (besides the big
one I have just described).
About two-thirds into the movie, we find out that Gina is
Francesco's sister (!). Think about that for a moment (I'll
wait)...... But, wait! It turns out that Francesco was never
crippled, he can walk! It turns out that he wasn't hurt in the
accident, he was pretending because, as he tells Deborah, it gave him
ideas for a book. Think about that for a moment (I'll wait)......
Yes, he purposely didn't make love to his wife all for the sake
of his book! So why did he have writer's block??? So who is the
killer? It's not that hard to figure out (Gina's Mother + Dad's Penis
= Francesco's Mother). About the only surprise this film offers is
when Francesco makes love to Deborah outside at night and Marta, who
was following Deborah every night and doesn't know her son can walk,
stabs Francesco in the back, killing him, thinking he was a rapist
attacking Deborah! The next time we see Deborah, she is back at the
S&M whorehouse, only this time she is a changed woman, much
different than she was when she first walked into the joint. Is it
possible she inherited her mother-in-law's penchant for cutting off
penises? Is she the new Scissors Murderer?
This sleazy Italian giallo doesn't have one good thing going for it,
but it has plenty of bad, enough to make you watch it from beginning
to end. Director Stelvio Massi (FIVE
WOMEN FOR THE KILLER - 1974; MAGNUM
COP - 1978; BLACK
COBRA - 1987; HELL'S HEROES
- 1987), using his pseudonym "Max Steel", loves to fill
this film with pubic hair, allowing the camera (he was also this
film's cinematographer) to linger on vaginas as much as humanly
possible. That may sound like a good idea to some people, but not in
this film. It's extraneous, put there to cover up the fact that the
story is weak. Every time you begin to realize that the plot is
nothing but puked-up giallo clichés, Massi throws in a vagina.
How did she die, it wasn't clear? Vagina! What, he can walk? Vagina!
This isn't a mystery, it's softcore bordering on hardcore porn. Vagina!
Add to that the acting "talents" of model Tini Cansino. As
an actress, she is a great model. Vagina! Even poor Evelyn
Stewart (real name: Ida Galli), who did her share of classic giallo
films (THE SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH
- 1968; WEEKEND MURDERS -
1970; THE BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY
- 1971; and Lucio Fulci's THE PSYCHIC
- 1977, just to mention a few), looks embarrassed appearing in this
dreck. Films like this give giallo a bad name.
Shot as ARABELLA L'ANGELO NERO
("Arabella The Black Angel"), this film never received a
U.S theatrical release and was released severely edited on VHS under
the review title by Imperial
Entertainment (cutting out the majority of vagina scenes). An
outfit called Cinema De Bizarre then released an uncut, badly
English-dubbed fullscreen print on DVD under the ARABELLA
title, which I saw on streaming channel B-Movie TV (Only available
through Roku). Even though it was free, after watching it, I thought
I deserved to be paid for doing so. Avoid at all costs unless you are
a masochist (Hey, I've been called worse!). Also featuring Renato
D'Amore, David D'Ingeo, and Vinicio Diamanti (TO
BE TWENTY - 1978). Not Rated. Vagina!
BLACK
BELLY OF THE TARANTULA (1971) -
You gotta love a film that opens with a nude Barbara Bouchet getting
a full body massage from a blind man (and getting aroused by it!).
Bouchet portrays Maria Zani, who we next see getting slapped around
by her husband, Paolo (Silvano Tranquili), after he receives nude
photographs of her with another man. After accusing her of
being a nymphomaniac and telling her he is being blackmailed, he
demands to know the man's name, but she refuses to tell him. We then
see some unknown person, wearing a trench coat, a big floppy hat and
flesh-colored latex gloves, preparing a long needle, then creeping
into Maria's house and inserting it into the back of her neck,
paralyzing her. As she lays motionless on her bed, she can only watch
(she can't even scream) as the killer slowly stabs her in the stomach
and moves the blade upwards, killing her. Police Inspector Tellini
(Giancarlo Giannini) interviews Paolo and finds out he and Maria were
separated for three months. Tellini also finds a torn half of the
blackmail photo, showing only a nude Maria and the mystery
gentleman's hands, but Tellini finds a smudge in the upper right hand
of the photo, which turns out to be a clue. Paolo has the other half
of the photo and hires a private investigator to find out the man's
name and where he lives. The killer then murders another female
victim, using the same method that was used on Maria: A paralyzing
needle to the neck followed by a knife to the stomach. Tellini can
find no connection between the latest victim (a cocaine trafficker)
and Maria. Paolo is considered the main suspect, but after professing
his innocence to Tellini, he goes on the lam and swears to find the
real killer. Tellini breaks one case (cocaine being transported in
containers of tarantulas!), but it brings him no closer to unmasking
the killer (he does learn about the symbiotic relationship between
tarantulas and wasps, though, which he will learn later is also an
important clue). Paolo, with the help of the private investigator,
finds his wife's lover in the photo, but a series of mishaps results
in Paolo falling off the roof of a highrise building and dying, while
the lover is run over by the killer (who's driving a red sportscar)
as Tellini is chasing him. Tellini discovers that all the killings
may be tied to a blackmail ring, but the killer keeps knocking-off
any potential witnesses. When the killer tries to take Tellini's life
(with a runaway pipe truck), Tellini must find a way to stop the
killer before it becomes even more personal. This early 70's
Itallian/French giallo, directed by Paolo Cavara (MONDO
CANE
- 1962; DEAF SMITH
& JOHNNY EARS - 1972; PLOT
OF FEAR - 1976) is a pretty tight little murder mystery that
contains all the giallo staples: A mysterious gloved killer, some
brutal murders, plenty of red herrings and lots of nudity. Scripter
Lucile Laks also puts us deep into Inspector Tellini's personal life,
introducing us to his flaky wife, Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), who, at
one point, sells all the furniture in their apartment, leaving them
only with a bed (!), but it proves
to
be an integral part of the film. When Tellini discovers homemade
movies the dead blackmailer had in his apartment, the whole detective
squad watch them and discover footage of Tellini making love to his
wife, which results in laughter from the squad and embarassment
and anger from Tellini. Throughout the film, Tellini tells his wife
that he's going to quit the force because he feels that he's not
"up to it", but time and time again he proves to us that he
is probably the smartest man in the department. The murders, while
not particularly gory, are still brutal in their execution; the
beautiful Barbara Bouchet's (CRY
OF A PROSTITUTE - 1974) being the most memorable. This would
make the perfect companion piece with HANNIBAL
(2001), if only to imagine star Giancarlo Giannini playing an older
version of his Tellini character in that film (Their characters are
strikingly similar in both films, right down to having wives needing
money and wanting to leave the police force). BLACK
BELLY OF THE TARANTULA was released theatrically in the U.S.
by MGM in a severely-edited 89 minute version as part of a double
feature with WEEKEND MURDERS
(1970). For a lot of American audiences, this was their first taste
of giallo. Not a bad way to be introduced to the genre, if you ask
me. As with a lot of giallo films, the opening scenes are an
important clue to the killer's identity. Also, the use of primary
colors play a role in telling the story. Here, red is the dominate
color. Try to spot how many scenes director Cavara uses red in the
background or on objects and clothing. Ennio Morricone once again
provides an evocative and powerful music score to compliment the
murder and action set-pieces. A young Barbara Bach (THE
HUMANOID - 1979; THE
UNSEEN - 1981) appears briefly as Jenny, who does a
striptease and then ends up with a needle in her neck. Even though
Claudine Auger (BAY OF BLOOD
- 1971) is given second billing, she's on-screen for less than five
minutes. Also starring Rossella Falk, Giancarlo Prete, Daniele
Dublino and Ezio Marano. Blue
Underground offers the fully-uncut 98 minute version in a nice,
but not perfect, widescreen print on DVD. Not Rated.
BLADE
(1972) - For the first time on U.S. home video, thanks to DVD
label Code Red, we are now
able to see this TV staple in its unedited glory (well, maybe glory
is going too far). The version shown on TV and VHS for all those
years was heavily edited, removing all instances of violence and
nudity and new footage was shot in 1979 (including the opening, in
which we can plainly see a theater marquee advertising the film APOCALYPSE
NOW) to pad out the film to 79 minutes so it could be shown
in a 90-minute time slot. This is the full 90-minute theatrical
version (lensed in New York City) and even though it was directed by
Ernest Pintoff (DEATH OF A HOOKER
- 1971; JAGUAR LIVES -
1979) and co-written by Pintoff and Jeff Lieberman (the director of
such cult films as SQUIRM
- 1976, JUST BEFORE DAWN
- 1980 and SATAN'S
LITTLE HELPER - 2004), the film itself is a mixed bag. The
movie opens with well-dressed woman-hating psycho
Frederic Peterson (Jon Cypher; THE
FOOD OF THE GODS - 1976) watching white girl Melinda (Jeanne
Lange) making out with black man Henry (Ted Lange; THE
LOVE BOAT - 1977-1987) in his car. When Henry leaves,
Frederic follows Melinda into her apartment complex, where he
brutally kills her using karate moves and slamming her head
over-and-over on a stair bannister. High-price call girl Karen (Raina
Barrett; STIGMA - 1972) descends
the stairs after her weekly meeting in the penthouse with her wealthy
john and spots Frederic in the complex entrance (but she doesn't see
the murder), even offering to make a date with him in the future
(Frederic follows her home to find out where she lives). It turns out
that Melinda was the daughter of crooked Congressman Powers (William
Prince; THE GAUNTLET - 1977),
who is now running for President on an anti-drug and anti-pornography
platform (The speech he gives about the Middle Class is as relevant
today as it was back then). When it is discovered that Melinda was a
drug addict and Henry was not only her boyfriend, but also her
supplier, Powers' spin doctor, Steiner (Keene Curtis; a popular TV
series guest star, probably best known for his recurring role as
millionaire "John Allen Hill" on CHEERS
from 1990 to 1993), calls up Police Chief Rearson (John Schuck; who
would soon become Rock Hudson's sidekick on TV's MCMILLAN
AND WIFE
[1971-1977] and previously appeared as suicidal Captain
"Painless" Waldowski in the movie M*A*S*H
- 1970) and tells him to keep the drug aspect of the murder case out
of the newspapers. Since Rearson is as crooked as a corkscrew, he
agrees, but he has to contend with Lieutenant Tommy Blade (John
Marley; THE CAR - 1977), a
no-nonsense honest cop (practically the only one in this film) who
decides to investigate Melinda's murder his own way after arresting
Henry and knowing he is not the killer (Reardon threatens to put in
Blade's retirement papers if he doesn't listen to him). Blade is a
divorced cop who lives with much younger novelist Maggie (Kathryn
Walker) and doesn't see his young son as much as he should (He
confiscates a .22 caliber zip gun off his son, which will prove handy
later on). Blade gets a call and pays a visit to Black Panther-type
leader Chris (an early role for Morgan Freeman), who tells him that
he better release Henry, otherwise there will be a black militant
uprising. Blade treats everyone the same: He says what he means and
doesn't care what the consequences are. When Frederic murders Karen
(he gives her a few katate chops and kicks, then strangles her with a
telephone cord) so she can't identify him to the police, only Blade
notices the similarities between Melinda and Karen's deaths. Another
crooked cop, also on Congressman Powers' payroll, steals Karen's red
appointment book (which could sink the Congressman's presidential
aspirations) and locks it in his car's glove compartment (but he
doesn't even bother locking his car doors!). Blade picks the glove
compartment lock and steals the appointment book, which is a treasure
trove of important information. Meanwhile, female secretary Jill
Connors (Karen Machon) knows something is hinky with new hire
Frederic Peterson and does some investigation into his background
with the help of ex-CIA operative Gail (a cameo by Rue McClanahan)
and discovers that Frederic Peterson's name is actually Frederic
Powers and he was dishonorably discharged from the Marines during the
Korean War for the brutal beating death of a Korean girl. Yes,
Frederic is actually Congressman Powers' brother and the Congressman
has been
covering-up Frederic's murderous ways ever since he was released from
a mental institution after the war. Frederic was sent to live with
his elderly Aunt Cynthia (Katherine Squire), who makes sure he stays
out of trouble (she doesn't do such a good job). When Frederic kills
Jill and then Aunt Cynthia (for ratting on him to his brother), he
sets up Blade (who quits the police force in disgust) for a final
showdown in a wooded park with Maggie as bait, where he beats the
snot out of Blade before Blade shoots him dead with the zip gun. A
final on-screen scrawl tells us that Congressman Powers won the
election by only 1,800 votes and Blade was found not guilty of
murdering Frederic (after Reardon and several cops were convicted of
corruption), being reinstated to the police force. First of
all, the print used by Code Red, although shown in its proper aspect
ratio, is a total mess (They did much better with their uncut DVD
version of director Bert I. Gordon's THE
MAD BOMBER - 1972 [under its alternate title THE
POLICE CONNECTION], which was butchered for U.S. TV and
VHS). It is full of emulsion scratches and dirt (even a hair or two),
is missing some frames (which makes us miss some dialogue here and
there) and even shows us the reel change dots in the upper right hand
of the screen (Code Red founder Bill Olsen wants us to believe this
is a grindhouse experience, as it is apparent that no restoration at
all was even applied to the film's less-than-stellar celluloid
elements). There's not much action in the film and even less
violence, just Frederic kicking the shit out of women and Blade (it
is brutal, but not as bloody as it could have been). There is plenty
of nudity, though, including Karen's ditzy porn actress roommate,
Claudell (Geri Miller), who is topless in all her scenes (Steve
Landesberg puts in a comedic appearance as Claudell's porn director).
The film looks like it was edited with a trowel, as one scene jumps
to the next, many of them without any connective tissue at all (The
majority of the film also looks to have been lensed with hand-held
cameras). John Marley is good in the role (much of his dialogue seems
improvised), but his attire, including wearing a hankerchief around
his neck like it was a tie, definitely shows the film's early-70's
roots. BLADE
doesn't quite deliver as a thriller, action or exploitation film. It
feels more like a 70's TV cop movie with added nudity and curse
words. It's good as a time capsule (many of the actors here have
since passed away), but not much else. Also starring Michael McGuire,
Joe Santos (who is wasted in a nothing role as Blade's partner),
Peter White and Marshall Efron. Originally available on VHS in the TV
edit by Video Gems
and then as a budget VHS (recorded in the lousy EP mode) by Star
Classics. Code Red has released the theatrical version as part
of a double feature DVD,
the other film being the Franco Nero-starrer RING
OF DEATH (1969). Rated R.
A
BLADE IN THE DARK (1983) - The
career of director Lamberto Bava is a very erratic one. It seems for
evey good film we got (MACABRE
a.k.a. FROZEN TERROR -
1980), we also got a terrible one (DEVIL
FISH - 1984). He gave us the superbly twisted DEMONS
(1985) and the fair-to-middling DEMONS 2
(1986), but then also gave us the supremely bad DEMONS
III: THE OGRE (1989; but, to be fair, that was an Italian TV
movie). In other words, Bava's output was a little schizophrenic, but
there was always one thing you could count on in both his bad and
good films: you would get plenty of gory violence. Personally, I
think he has more hits than misses, but some of his films defy
description, such as DELIRIUM:
PHOTO OF GIOIA (1987), and even his minor films, such as BLASTFIGHTER
(1984) and BODY PUZZLE (1992),
gave us the over-the-top violence we craved in the 80's &
early-90's (He would usually use the pseudonym "John Old
Jr." on his minor or bad films as a tribute to his father, genre
maestro Mario Bava, who used the pseudonym "John Old" on
some of his older films,
before he became an established name of quality entertainment). Which
brings us to A BLADE IN THE DARK,
which was a late entry in the giallo genre with a little of Alfred
Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) and
Brian De Palma's BLOW OUT
(1981) mixed in for good measure. It's not the greatest mystery
thriller, but it is an entertaining one that gives us more than
enough nudity and violence to make up for some huge holes in Dardano Sacchetti (THE
PSYCHIC - 1977; THE BEYOND
- 1981) and Elisa Briganti's (MANHATTAN
BABY - 1982; HANDS
OF STEEL - 1986) screenplay. The film opens up with two
young boys pressuring another young boy to enter the basement of what
is probably a haunted house. They tease him by repeating. "You're
a female! You're a female!..." and throw a tennis ball down the
stairs, telling him if he doesn't want to be called a female, he will
go down the stairs and get the ball. The young boy slowly walks down
the stairs, while we hear the sound of a heartbeat on the soundtrack.
When the boy disappears in the shadows and then screams, the
heartbeats stop and someone (or something) throws the tennis ball up
the stairs, it hitting a wall and leaving a round bloodstain where it
impacts. The two young boys flee as if their lives depended on it
(and probably crapping their pants in the process). We are then
introduced to film composer Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti; Lucio Fulci's THE
NEW YORK RIPPER - 1982, which he acted in using the
pseudonym "Andrew Painter"), who is about to compose music
for his first horror film. His agent, Tony Rendina (future director
Michele Soavi; STAGE FRIGHT
- 1987; THE CHURCH -
1989; he's an Assistant Director on this film and is badly dubbed),
has rented Bruno a secluded villa where he can concentrate on
creating music without distractions, but as we will soon find out,
that is not going to happen. The director of the horror film, Sandra
(Anny Papa; THE GREAT ALLIGATOR
- 1979), will not give Bruno the final reel of the film, rather
letting Bruno's seclusion and imagination take over in composing the
soundtrack. She believes her horror film needs a music soundtrack
from a composer that has never done a horror film before (Actually,
the music we hear Bruno composing comes from the outstanding de
Angelis brothers, Guido and Maurizio, who have done the soundtracks
to such genre films as THE
MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD [1978]; ALIEN
2: ON EARTH [1980] and many others, sometimes using the name
"Oliver Onions") The only other person around, who lives in
a guest house next to the villa, is caretaker Giovanni (Stanko
Molnar; Bava's MACABRE
- 1980), who basically keeps to himself, even though he looks
sinister. When Bruno goes to sit at his piano and record his first
session to the soundtrack, he notices that a nude photo of one of the
women in his girly magazines has been sliced-up (We earlier see an
unknown person with one of those retractable X-Acto knives [the kind
that "clicks" when you move the blade up or down], slicing
up that picture while Bruno is not present), but Bruno thinks it was
Giovanni and one of his quirks and continues composing. Bruno think
that Giovanni is the only other person around. That is, until he
finds Katia (Valeria Cavalli; MOTHER
OF TEARS - 2007) hiding in one of his closets (She is a
neighbor from down the road and wanted to meet her new neighbor).
Before they can talk, Tony calls on the phone and Katia goes to use
the bathroom, but when Bruno is done talking to Tony, Katia has
disappeared. He discovers Katia's diary in the closet and begins
reading it, where she says that she is about to reveal a big secret
to someone very soon. Bruno continues to record the soundtrack, while
a killer with the same X-Acto knife attacks Katia outside, slicing
her face and her hand, but she gets away, only to get caught behind
some chicken wire fencing where the killer graphically cuts Katia's
stomach and slices her throat through the openings in the chicken
wire. Bruno can't hear her screams because he is playing the piano
and recording it. He plays back his recording while the killer is
dragging the dead corpse of Katia away, where he hears a strange
abnormality on the tape. It sounds like a woman's voice, but he can
only make out "Secret...yes, Linda...no one must know" and
writes it down on a piece of paper (It seems to be almost the same
thing Katia wrote in her diary). Bruno steps outside to smoke a
cigarette and nearly catches the killer dragging Katia's body away,
but when he steps back inside to find droplets of blood on his pants,
he goes outside again to discover even more blood, but no body. He
once again returns to the inside of the villa, only to find his
recording destroyed and pages from Katia's diary burning in the
fireplace. Someone is trying to cover up their tracks. Bruno's
actress girlfriend, Julia (Lara Naszinski; Lucio Fulci's AENIGMA
- 1987), pays him a surprise visit, and when he mentions that Katia
payed him a visit and he thinks she now may be dead, she acts like a
jealous bitch and leaves (not even caring that Katia, whom she
thinks Bruno believes is more beautiful than her, may have been
murdered). Bruno does some research and discovers that a woman named
Linda rented the villa before him and Tony tells him that he put some
of her stuff in a locked room in the cellar. Tony tells him to forget
about the room and finish his music soundtrack when Bruno asks for
the key. Katia's friend Angela (Fabiola Toledo; Bava's DEMONS
- 1985) stops at the villa to talk to Bruno and ask if she can
use
the pool. Bruno has no objections and we then see the killer
watching Angela strip naked in the pool-house to get into her bathing
suit. While Angela is swimming in the pool, she discovers the X-Acto
knife at the bottom and places it at the edge of the pool. Bruno has
made a trip to the film studio, where both we and Bruno discover that
the scene we saw at the beginning of the film with the three boys is
actually part of the final reel of Sandra's horror film, while Bruno
plays the scene in forward and reverse to get a sense on how to score
it (What the two mean boys call the other boy turns out to be a major
clue as to who the killer is). The killer, who we now discover has
hands with red nail polish and wears a nice pair of black pumps,
plunges a knife into Angela's hand while she is washing her hair in a
sink, pinning her hand to the counter. The killer murders Angela by
putting a clear plastic bag over her head and banging her cranium
over and over on the porcelain sink until the plastic bag fills with
her blood (there's a particularly nasty scene of the knife that is
pinning Angela's hand slicing it until her hand is free). The killer
pulls the knife out of the counter and cuts Angela's throat for good
measure. Eerily, the killer seems to be disturbed by all the blood
that is scattered throught the bathroom (and it is a lot!) and takes
the time to clean it up before leaving. Now is the time I ask readers
a few questions, because I never give away the ending of a giallo
film in my reviews. Here are the questions: Is the mysterious Linda
involved because she is hiding something (or someone) in that locked
room in the basement? Is Julia so jealous that she will kill any
woman who gets close to her boyfriend (she shows up during the final
third of the film holding a big knife)? Is Sandra using Bruno as a
pawn to come up with a good final act to her film? Could Bruno
actually be the killer since we never see him and the killer in the
same shot (not even when he discovers the blood on his pants)? What
about Giovanni, as we never see him leave the property or even have a
girlfriend? And what does a cedar chest full of tennis balls have to
do with it all? I've given you more than enough clues. Now you need
to figure it out. Actually, the killer's identity is rather
easy to figure out since there are precious too few red herrings. I'm
not going to tell you who it is, but it all makes sense in the end.
Lamberto Bava borrows many themes from other giallo and slasher
films, but he gives us some wince-inducing moments here, especially
Angela's pinned hand slowly being sliced open between her fingers as
the killer is bashing her head in, putting pressure on her hand to
move backwards, as the camera lovingly stays on the hand as it is
being sliced open. As a giallo film, this is just average and full of
holes (The villa that Bruno is living in is supposed to be secluded,
but he sure gets a lot of visitors and it seems to be a short car
ride to the film studio), but it is still entertaining nonetheless.
The trick here is that every person in the film holds some type of
bladed weapon at one time or another in the film, so any of them
could be the killer but, as the film progresses and the small cast
begins getting killed, it is obvious at the halfway point that only
one person could be the killer. There's a quite surprising death in
the finale, but I will not spoil it for you, other than to say I
thought that person would survive. The film made its premiere in
edited form on VHS from Lightning
Video and then was released supposedly uncut on VHS and DVD
early in the New Millennium by Anchor Bay Entertainment in a
104-minute version. Blue Underground then gained home video rights
and delivered a beautiful fully uncut 109-minute version in
anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) from original vault materials. If you
are a giallo completist (and what genre fan isn't?), then A
BLADE IN THE DARK should be part of your library. Also
featuring Giovanni Frezza and Marco Vivio. A Blue
Underground DVD Release. Not Rated.
BLOOD
AND LACE (1970) -
This is probably the sleaziest and bloodiest film to ever receive a
PG (or GP) rating. As I was watching it, all I could do is think
about how the MPAA must have been napping when this film was
submitted for a rating. The film open with an unseen killer murdering
a women sleeping in bed with the claw end of a hammer (the
imaginative POV shots are taken from the perspective of the hand
holding the hammer) and then setting fire to the room. Ellie (Melody
Patterson), the dead woman's wise-ass daughter, looks to find out who
killed her mother, even though she knows her mother was the town
slut. Since Ellie is underage,
she gets put in the orphanage run by Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame; THE
NESTING - 1980), who receives a $150 a month stipend for
every orphan she houses. That's all fine and dandy, until we find out
that Mrs. Deere likes to spend the money on herself and leaves the
orphans hungry most of the time and is not above killing those who
try to run away. She simply puts their bodies in the basement freezer
and puts them in the infirmary when the clueless Dr. Mullins (Milton
Selzer) comes to visit to take his monthly head count. When Ellie
arrives there, she almost immediately knows something wrong is going
on (it doesn't help that she finds one poor girl chained up in the
attic, dying of thirst). Ellie strikes up a friendship with fellow
orphan Walter (Ronald Taft) and makes an enemy in female orphan Bunch
(Terri Messina), who has a crush on Walter. Meanwhile, Tom (Len
Lesser), the orphanage handyman, has just chopped-off the hand of a
runaway orphan with a meat cleaver, which upsets Mrs. Deere. Not
because he chopped-off the hand, but because the orphan got away!
Mrs. Deere will do anything to keep collecting $150 per orphan. It
doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, but she must have a body.
As Ellie investigates further, she becomes aware of Mrs. Deere's evil
doings and finds out that when the orphan supply becomes low, parents
turn up dead in town. Is it possible that Mrs. Deere is responsible
for Ellie's mother's death? If you think you have it figured out,
think again. The subject matter of this film is so slimy,
you'll need to towel-off after watching it. Every adult in this film,
including the film's part-time detective Calvin (Vic Tayback), who
considers Ellie "good breeding stock", are portrayed as
sleazy, conniving individuals who only care about their own
satisfactions. When the killings begin, it plays like a mystery film
with enough blood and guts to keep you asking yourself, "Is this
really rated PG or did someone fuck-up royally?" There's hammer
and cleaver violence, attempted rape, catfighting teens in their
underwear, partial teen nudity, kids being tortured, implied incest,
shots of open wounds bleeding and other politically incorrect doings
going on. By the time the killer is unmasked (literally) in the
film's finale, you'll be shaking your head in disbelief at some of
the things you'll see and hear. This is the closest thing to PG-rated
porn that you will ever see. In other words, if you haven't seen
this, you should as soon as possible. Be on the lookout for a very
young Dennis Christopher (FADE TO BLACK
- 1980) as Pete, one of the unlucky orphans. Directed by one-hit
wonder Philip S. Gilbert, who disappeared after making this. Maybe
the orphans got him. Scripter Gil Lasky also wrote the screenplays
for THE NIGHT GOD SCREAMED
(1971), THE MANHANDLERS
(1973) and MAMA'S DIRTY GIRLS
(1974) and produced them all with then-partner Ed Carlin. Also
starring Peter Armstrong and Maggie Corey. Future PSYCHO
FROM TEXAS director Jim Feazell was an electrician on this.
I got this off eBay on a DVD-R
which was copied from and English language, Dutch-subtitled VHS tape. Rated
PG.
UPDATE: This film was finally released on home video for the first
time in the United States by Scream
Factory in a beautiful DVD/Blu-Ray
Combo Pack. One caveat: Scream Factory slapped their own
R-Rating on the packaging (there is no MPAA logo to be found
anywhere), taking away one of the film's biggest pieces of notoriety.
Since there is no extra footage (the film is in anamorphic
widescreen), just commentary from film historian Richard Harland
Smith, an alternate opening title card and a theatrical trailer,
Scream Factory blew the chance of advertising this film as the
bloodiest PG-Rated film ever made. Whomever decided to make this
blunder should be fired immediately or face the person holding the
bloody hammer.
BLOODRAGE (1979)
- This
film, also known as NEVER
PICK UP A STRANGER,
oozes the atmosphere of the sleazy 70's and is bound to upset even
the steadiest of stomachs, not because it is overly bloody (it's not)
but because of the matter-of-fact way that
director Joseph Bigwood (actually Joseph Zito using a pseudonym)
treats the material and characters. While the storyline is of the
basic "serial killer murders prostitutes" formula, the
acting and situations seem so natural and unhampered by not having a
big budget (this is an extremely low budget effort) that it makes the
killings all the more horrendous. A young peeping tom named Richard
(Ian Scott) graduates from watching prostitutes doing their business
to killing them. After his first kill (he finds it enjoyable) he
moves to a room in the seedy Times Square area to be closer to his
prey. As his killing spree continues, he becomes facinated with a
prostitute (Judith-Marie Bergan) who lives across the alley. He
watches her undress through the window and we hear his innermost
thoughts via voice-over monologues. This proves to be his undoing. He
is dogged by a vigilante cop (James Johnston) who would like to see
him pay for the death of his hooker girlfriend. When Richard finally
makes contact with the prostitute across the alley, she rebuffs his
advances and he tries to kill her. She proves to be quite a fighter
though and attacks Richard with a razor while two pimps (one being
B-movie staple Irwin Keyes) hold him. The cop comes in the nick of
time to save Richard. Without saying a word, the cop grabs hold of
Richard and throws him out the window, sending him to his death. End
of film. BLOODRAGE,
the precursor to HENRY:
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
(1986) contains the same gut-grabbing intensity as John McNaughton's
classic and should be on everyone's list as a must-see. I doubt that
you'll find a more disturbing foray into the mind of a mass murderer.
Also starring Lawrence Tierney (RESERVOIR
DOGS
- 1992). Joseph Zito also directed Judith-Marie Bergan in ABDUCTION
(1975), as well as making THE
PROWLER
(1981), INVASION
U.S.A.
(1985) and many others. A Marquis Video Corp. Release. Originally
released on VHS by Best Film & Video. Unrated
for pure sleaziness.
BODY
PUZZLE (1992) - Another late
entry in the giallo genre by director Lamberto Bava (A
BLADE IN THE DARK - 1983; BLASTFIGHTER
- 1984; DEVIL FISH -
1984). Just like his DELIRIUM:
PHOTO OF GIOIA (1987). it doesn't quite work, even though he
throws in some bloody set-pieces and actors (in supporting roles) who
have appeared in a few of Italy's more memorable '70s genre films.
Still, the story is maddening, offering very little logic for people
(like myself) who
demand a good mystery to go along with the killings. Also, there is
absolutely no nudity, another thing giallo fans (like myself) expect
from this type of film. It is an interesting failure, though, if only
for what it doesn't show.
We see a young man (François Montagut) sitting in front of a
piano, listening to classical music on his Walkman (remember them?)
while thinking about a motorcycle accident, where he apparently died.
He then goes to a confectionery store and stabs the clerk over and
over with a large knife, all the while listening to classical music
through his earbuds. He then goes to the home of book editor Tracy
(Joanna Pacula; THE KISS - 1988),
sneaks in (almost getting caught by Tracy's saint bernard, Beau) and
leaves something in her refrigerator. We don't see what it is (at
this moment), but police detective Michael (Tomas Arana; THE
SECT - 1991) arrives at the confectionery store and
discovers the killer cut off one of the clerk's ears. The next
morning, when Tracy goes to the cemetery to visit the grave of her
dead husband Abe, the cemetery director (Gianni Giuliano) tells her
someone stole her dead husband's body out of his grave. To make
matters worse, when Tracy goes home and grabs something to drink out
of the refrigerator, she discovers the ear in a plastic bag, her name
written on a piece of paper in what turns out to be in her dead
husband's handwriting. Michael questions Tracy and discovers a clue
under her refrigerator, a piece of cloth from her husband's coffin.
Why is the killer obsessed with Tracy and why does classical music
turn him in to such a vicious killer?
The next time we see the killer, he is in a womens bathroom in a
mall. He grabs a woman's right hand from under a stall and cuts it
off, the hand falling into a toilet. When Michael and his team arrive
at the mall, he discovers the woman's chest was also cut open. He has
a couple of officers watch Tracy's home in hopes the "homicidal
maniac" will return. Michael pays another visit to Tracy and
tells her there has been another murder. He checks her home to make
sure it is secure and tells her to lock her windows and doors as he
leaves. A short time later, Beau begins whimpering at the front door
and Tracy stupidly takes him for a walk outside. She gets the feeling
that she is not alone and turns around, finding the severed right
hand hanging from her front door. Once again, Michael comes to her
house and asks Tracy to tell him about her dead husband. She tells
Michael that Abe was well-liked by her family and friends and, oh, he
was a concert pianist! Michael then goes to the home of Abe's best
friend, Morangi (Giovanni Lombardo Radice; THE
HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK - 1979), who tells him that he
identified Abe's dead body after his motorcycle accident (Tracy never
did see his dead body). He then shows Michael a photo of Abe (with
another man). It comes as no surprise that the photo of Abe is also
the killer we have been seeing. Morangi lets Michael search
Abe's work desk and he finds an address book hidden in one of the
drawers. One of the officers protecting Tracy discover a case in her
refrigerator that is dripping blood. He calls Michael to tell him
what he found, when Abe appears (a stocking pulled over his head) and
he throws the officer in Tracy's indoor pool and makes a hasty retreat.
The only name that pans out in the address book is that of a female
psychiatrist named Dr. Jennifer Corti (Erika Blanc; THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE - 1971). She tells
Michael that Tracy was her patient and that she changed her last name
when her brother died, She also tells him that she had a patient
named Timothy Bell, who was obsessed with Tracy. Dr. Corti knew
Timothy could be very violent, so she had him committed to a
psychiatric facility for Tracy's well-being and safety. She also
tells Michael that she never met Tracy's husband. It doesn't take a
genius to figure out that all this has something to do with the
killings, but what comes next is truly mind-boggling (and not in a
good way!). Michael and Tracy soon have romantic feelings for each
other, putting his life in danger. Abe then kills a lifeguard
swimming in a pool and cuts off his penis and, yes, mails it to
Tracy. Michael intercepts it before Tracy can see the lifeguard's
package in the package. The coroner (Guido Quintozzi) tells Michael
that he discovered something he didn't notice before: all three
victims had some of their internal organs removed, as if the killer
were a skilled surgeon. The Police Chief (Gianni Garko; NIGHT
OF THE DEVILS - 1972) warns Michael to act professional and
not to have feelings for Tracy, but he can't help himself, as he and
Tracy make love that night. Michael discovers that Timothy Bell
escaped from the loony bin fifteen months ago, but what is his
connection to Abe? I have no idea, because this film is all over the
place! The coroner tells Michael that all three murder victims
received transplanted organs, the same organs the killer removed. The
coroner also tells him that all the victims received their
transplanted organs from the same donor: Abe. OK, now I'm really
confused. Is Abe alive or what?!?
Morangi tells Michael that he just saw Abe and he must have
misidentified his body when he "died" in the motorcycle
accident. Michael notices that Morangi is drunk and scared, but is he
lying? Michael discovers that two other people are still alive with
transplanted organs from Abe. Both of them are women. One is a
teacher of young children and the other one is pregnant and in the
hospital. Can Michael save them in time? Michael also discovers (He
does a lot of discovering in this film!) that the photo Morangi
showed him of Abe also contains the image of Timothy Bell. That's
right, the person we (and Michael) thought was Abe is actually
Timothy Bell, who worshiped Abe and is collecting Abe's organs to
make him whole again (remember, he stole Abe's body from the
cemetery). Or so I thought...
In a series of coincidences that would even make God blush, we
discover the killer is actually Abe (I know, I know!) and he kills
the school teacher in front of her young charges (her blood splashes
on a young boy sitting in the front row). Since only the pregnant
lady is left, can Michael save her and solve this extremely confusing
mystery? Let's hope so, because I can't think straight!
While this film has plenty of violence, all I could think about is
that the camera pulls away just as it is about to get interesting. We
never see the killer remove the organs, or even the ear and the
penis. We only see them after the deed is done (As for the penis, we
never see it at all, as the
camera gets close to showing us the lifeguard without his pecker,
but just as the camera moves down his body, it switches to another
scene). Since this film is considered a giallo, the mystery is at the
forefront, yet it is so confusing and senseless (screenplay by Bruce
Martin, his only film credit and it's easy to see why, from a story
by Domenico Paolella, director of STUNT
SQUAD - 1977), that I got a migraine headache trying to
unravel it. It is obvious that Lamberto Bava saw BODY
PARTS (1991) before making this film because the plot of
this film follows that film very closely, almost to the point of
plagiarism. There is also no nudity here (just like the organ
removal, when Tracy removes her clothes to make love to Michael, it
switches to another scene) to keep our minds off the amazing
coincidences that happen, which is a major sin for a giallo film.
Director Bava has delivered a polished film which, unfortunately,
goes nowhere, especially the super-quick finale which tries to wrap
things up, but delivers more questions than answers. Films like this
are why giallo flicks went out of fashion. People didn't grow tired
of them, they grew tired of all the cliches filling the later films,
such as this one. This film doesn't conclude, it just ends.
Released to Italian theaters in severely truncated form as MISTERIA,
missing most of the violence, which was a flop. It was released on fullscreen
VHS by Triboro Entertainment in the U.S., uncut for the very
first time. This edition also was released on DVD by many budget
labels, such as Madacy Entertainment and EastWest Entertainment. If
you must watch this film, please go for the uncut, anamorphic
widescreen DVD from Raro Video
(It does not have "New and Improved" English subtitles or
is it in its original Italian language, as it states on the back of
the DVD sleeve, a rare mistake from Raro). Unlike most Raro releases,
the disc contains no extras, not even a trailer. It does come with a
booklet (scanned HERE),
where ex-Fangoria editor Chris Alexander praises this film. I don't
know what film he was watching, but it definitely wasn't this one!
The DVD is cheap, at $6.99 (on Amazon), so you won't feel cheated. As
far as I'm concerned, Lamberto Bava has made more
less-than-satisfying films and only a few good ones (MACABRE
- 1980; DEMONS - 1985). Also
starring Matteo Gazzolo (SPECTERS
- 1987), Susanna Javicoli (SUSPIRIA
- 1977), Bruno Corazzari (SEVEN
BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS - 1972), Ursula von Baechler,
Sebastiano Lo Monaco, Giuseppe Marini and Francesco Romano as the
lifeguard without his manhood. Not Rated.
THE
BOSTON STRANGLER: THE UNTOLD STORY
(2006) - It's time once again for another one of director/producer/screenwriter
Michael Feifer's wildly inaccurate accounts of a well-known serial
killer. This time it is Albert De Salvo, a.k.a. "The Boston
Strangler", and like most of Feifer's serial killer flicks (see
my review of B.T.K. -
2007), this one is more about stunt casting rather than actual facts
(although there are a few truths in this film here and there). David
Faustino ("Bud Bundy" on TV's MARRIED
WITH CHILDREN [1987 - 1997]) plays the vertically-challenged
Albert (with a piss-poor Boston accent) who, during the 1960's,
supposedly strangled and raped thirteen women, sending Boston into a
serial killer panic. The film opens in 1973, with an already
incarcerated Albert agreeing to tell his life story to a
psychiatrist. We then flashback to the early 60's, during the middle
of the Boston Strangler panic, as we witness the Strangler killing
Jennifer Mitchum (Jen Nikolaisen) in her home. Police detective John
Marsden (Andrew Divoff; THE RAGE
- 2007) is assigned to the Strangler case, but he is handcuffed by a
police captain (Timothy Oman), who keeps supplying the newspapers
with vital information that should be kept secret. Marsden
believes that there are two stranglers at work here (he's right),
but Mayor Arthur Winfield (Joe Torry, in a wince-inducing
performance) doesn't want to hear it and threatens Marsden's job if
he makes that fact public (Marsden dreams of a future when forensic
evidence, like DNA, will help nab killers, but the police chief
shakes his head and says, "Not in my lifetime."). Albert
fools one young woman into believing he works for a modeling agency
and talks her into going back to her place so he can take her
"measurements". As soon as he tries to guess her breast cup
size (by putting his hands on her tits!), the young woman realizes he
is a fake, so Albert rapes and strangles her with a stocking tied in
a bow, based on evidence he read in the newspapers. This film
purports that the real Boston Strangler was an unknown criminal and
that Albert De Salvo was merely a copycat killer, raping and killing
because his mail-order Russian bride, Claudia (Tara Shayne), won't
have sex with him. In 1964, Mayor Winfield creates a "Strangler
Squad" and appoints a clueless paper-pusher to head it,
insulting Marsden even more because he has to report to him, which
turns his job into nothing but an unfunny and political joke. Albert
is arrested and put in a cell with violent criminal Frank Asarian
(Kostas Sommer; Feifer's DRIFTER:
HENRY LEE LUCAS - 2009) and, before long, Frank has scammed
Albert into confessing that he's the Boston Strangler to shyster
lawyer Stuart Whitmore (Corin Nemec; Feifer's CHICAGO
MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK - 2007), who agrees to take the case
for a third of the reward money. Marsden doesn't believe it for a
second, but the case is a political hot potato and the rest, as they
say, is history (at least revisionist history). Triple-threat
Michael Feifer, who is also responsible for the serial killer films ED
GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD (2007) and BUNDY:
A LEGACY OF EVIL (2008), manages to coax pretty good
performances out of David Faustino (phony accent not withstanding)
and Andrew Divoff (who doesn't even attempt an accent), but the film
is so flat and uninvolving, it's hard to get worked-up over the
proceedings. The violence level in this film is bloodless, since most
of the killings are stranglings and the instant comraderie between
Albert and Frank when they meet in their cell seems forced and
unreal. The film's implication that Frank may have been the real
Boston Strangler may be this film's biggest conceit has to offer (not
to mention the HUGE coincidence that Albert is thrown into the same
cell with him!), not to mention that the flick also suggests that
Albert was killed in prison in 1973 because he was about to expose
Frank as the real Strangler. It's not only a jump in logic, it's a
giant leap of faith. The film ends with a disclaimer that in 2001,
the Strangler's last victim was exhumed for DNA evidence under her
fingernails and undergarments (You mean to tell me she was buried in
the same panties she was raped in?) and the evidence came up with two
different individuals. Neither of those individuals was Albert De
Salvo. Read into that what you want, but as far as movies go, rent or
buy the DVD of the 1968 film, THE
BOSTON STRANGLER, with Tony Curtis as Albert. The facts may
also be extremely fudged in that film, but it is much more
entertaining than this version. Also starring Johnny Liska, Caia
Coley, Sonia Curtis, Jack Stehlin, Jay Pickett and Sal Catalano. A
Weinstein Company Home Entertainment/Genius Products LLC DVD Release. Rated
R.
BUNDY:
A LEGACY OF EVIL (2008) -
Another "true-life" serial killer flick from
director/producer/screenwriter Michael Feifer, who also gave us other
serial killer films such as THE
BOSTON STRANGLER: THE UNTOLD STORY (2006), ED
GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD (2007) and B.T.K.
(2007). In this film, which mixes some facts with mostly fiction, Ted
Bundy (Corin Nemec; MANSQUITO
- 2005) is first seen drunk around a campfire, pulling a tied-up girl
out of his Volkswagen Beetle (the real Bundy did drive a Beetle) and
telling her in no uncertain terms that she is about to die
("After I kill you, I'm going to burn you. I'm going to burn
your head in the fucking fire and I'm gonna watch your pretty face
melt and your eyeballs fall out of your fucking head! Look at the
sky. I want you to see the stars while you die!"). He then kills
the poor girl by pummelling her with a shovel and then challenges God
to strike him dead. The next time we see Bundy, he's in a prison cell
awaiting execution. The Warden (Kane Hodder; who played both Ed Gein
and the B.T.K. killer in Feifer's other films) informs Bundy that his
latest appeal has failed and his "luck" has run out. Bundy
would rather think of it as "fate", since he has found
religion in prison (don't they all?) and the Warden hands him a tape
recorder so he can record all his sins before he does the dead man
walking routine. The
film then flashes back to when Bundy was a young boy, reading violent
comic books (yeah, they turns us all into killers!), while the adults
in his life argue about telling Teddy "the truth" (his
sister is actually his mother; a true fact). We then switch to the
University of Washington in 1966, where handsome student Bundy woos
pretty co-ed Stephanie (Jen Nikolaisen, a regular player in Feifer's
films) by quoting Shakespeare and eventually moving in with her (It's
really the only stable relationship he's had with anyone in his
entire life before it all turns to shit). Bundy has a problem with
premature ejaculation when he tries to make love to Stephanie, which
causes all kinds of problems in their personal life (She callously
says to him: "I can have better sex with a damn retard!"
Yee-ouch!). Stephanie breaks-off the relationship and Bundy begins
his killing spree, leaving school and traveling to Burlington,
Vermont, where he was born (another true fact). He goes to the county
hall of records, where he finally learns the truth about his
sister/mother and the next time we see him, he has just raped an
unfortunate hitch-hiker (no premature ejaculation here), tied her up
like a dog and then kills her in the basement of a burned-out home in
the middle of the desert. Now it's 1971 and Bundy is working at a
suicide hotline in Seattle, Washington, where he proves to be a
natural (many sociopaths are good at adapting to their surroundings,
especially when they can relate to the subject). At the same time, he
is luring a series of girls into his red Beetle and then raping and
killing them (at one point, we watch as he throws the severed head of
one of his victims into a fireplace and he gets-off watching it
burn!). It's now 1973 and Bundy is working on Washington State's
gubernatorial election. Bundy reconnects with Stephanie while on a
trip to San Francisco. He proposes marriage to her in a crowded
restaurant and she accepts, but when he goes to the mens room, he
doesn't return, leaving Stephanie to look like a fool (Maybe she
should go fuck a damn retard!). Meanwhile, Bundy continues his
cross-country killing spree (we will never know the exact number of
his victims), until he is captured by a cop while sleeping in his
car. Bundy escapes from a Colorado jail (his first of two jail
breaks) and continues his killing spree until he is eventually caught
again and sentenced to the electric chair, which we see carried
out. As with most of Michael Feifer's serial killer films,
there are germs of truth to Bundy's life story, but there is more
"artistic license" than fact. Corin Nemec (who also had a
role on Feifer's Boston Strangler film and also portrayed Richard
Speck in Feifer's CHICAGO
MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK - 2007) is quite good as Ted Bundy,
who is appropriately charming when he needs to be and then creepy as
hell the next moment. While there are a couple of gory killings, most
of Bundy's murders are kept off-screen, as director/writer Feifer
seems more interested in Bundy's internal demons (he keeps flashing
back to when Bundy was a little boy in a cowboy hat). Don't get me
wrong, there are some graphic scenes of violence on display,
especially during the final third (including Bundy killing two
sleeping co-eds with a baseball bat and then breaking into another
girl's apartment, where he brutally beats her with his fists and a
telephone), but this film is more of a psychological piece, showing
how Bundy used his good looks and high intelligence to nearly get
away with all his killings, but like all narcissists, his own
inflated ego gets the best of him (especially when he acts as his own
defense attorney in his trial for killing the two sleeping co-eds).
As far as Feifer's serial killer films go, this one rates better than
most, so if you are hesitant about which one of Feifer's serial
killer films to start out with, try BUNDY:
A LEGACY OF EVIL first. Also starring David DeLuise, Shannon
Pierce Wilkins, Kristen Clement, Molly Fix, Alyson Hope, Rachael
Kollman, Tim Oman (another Feifer regular player), Jay Pickett and
Angela Padilla. A Lionsgate Entertainment
DVD Release. Rated R.
THE
CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL
(1971) - "There's a crime behind every
great fortune." When it comes to giallo flicks, it's
very hard to beat those directed by Sergio Martino. This is his
second giallo film, following THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH (1971) and preceding ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972), YOUR
VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972) and TORSO
(1973), my favorite giallo film of all time. This film is right up
there when it comes to an involving mystery, plenty of red herrings,
lots of nudity, graphic violence and some exotic locales, but, most
of all, it holds
your attention for the entire 95-minute running time. Thanks to Arrow
Video and their marvelous Blu-Ray,
we can see the film the way it was meant to be seen, as well as
offering a plethora of informative extras.
The film opens with Lisa Baumer (Evelyn Stewart; THE
PSYCHIC - 1977) walking down a busy London street, wearing a
bright red hat (making her stand out from the crowd). When she gets
home, she calls her nameless lover, telling him that her husband,
Kurt (Fulvio Mingozzi; SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED
ORCHIDS - 1972, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo, but his
photo is prominently displayed throughout the film), has left for
Tokyo and she really needs to see him, so come over right away. When
he comes over they make love (look for a bottle
of J&B Scotch next to the record player, one of many
appearances it makes in this film), which is juxtaposed with footage
of Kurt's plane in the air, headed for Tokyo. Just as they finish
making love, we then see the plane explode, giving a whole new
meaning to the word "climax"! A short time later, Lisa (who
is sleeping in bed with her lover) gets a phone call telling her that
her husband is dead, one of thirty-five people killed when the plane
exploded. The question becomes: Did Lisa or her lover have anything
to do with the plane exploding or is it something even more sinister?
(Martino keeps the viewer off-balance, zooming the camera in tight on
Lisa and her lover's eyes and even zooming in on a photo of Kurt that
resides on Lisa's nightstand, so we can't decide who the killer
actually is, making them all look guilty. It's an often-used giallo
trope, but it works here.).
A short time later, an insurance executive named Mr. Brenton (cameo
king Tom Felleghy; EYEBALL - 1975)
contacts Lisa and tells her to come to his office. When she arrives,
he tells Lisa that her husband took a life insurance policy on
himself while he was in Greece, naming her as the beneficiary. Lisa
tells Mr. Brenton she had no idea her husband took out the policy,
explaining that she and Kurt led independent lives. His business was
located in Greece, where he spent most of his time and every once in
a while he would come to London, staying no longer than a couple of
days (Where can I get a marriage like that!?!), Mr. Brenton then
tells Lisa that the policy was for one million pounds, payable to
her, but only after the "necessary formalities" are
completed. When Lisa walks out of the room, Mr. Brenton tells his
secretary to contact "Peter Lynch", he needs to talk to
him. I wonder if Peter Lynch is part of those necessary formalities?
When Lisa leaves Mr. Brenton's office, it is obvious she is being
followed by a man with blond hair. He follows her taxi and watches
her exit the cab and go into a phone booth, where she calls her lover
and tells him everything went smoothly, she will travel to Greece to
cash-in the life insurance policy and then they can be together all
of the time, revealing to the viewer that she knew about the policy
well before Mr. Brenton told her, but did she have anything to do
with her husband's death (making her a mass murderess)? When Lisa
exits the phone booth, she notices that the blond-haired man is
following her. It turns out he is an ex-lover of Lisa's named Philip
(actor unknown, but familiar), who tells her he has a certain letter
she wrote that will implicate her in her husband's murder. It
turns out Lisa left Philip because he became a hopeless drug addict,
so she asks him how much he wants for the letter (he knows about the
insurance policy). He tells her it is going to cost her a large sum
of money, because his drug habit has become bad. He needs five hits a
day and that is an expensive habit. Lisa agrees to pay him and gives
him a hundred pounds to start him off, promising to give him more
money later that night, neither of them noticing that another man in
sunglasses is watching them. A short time later, Lisa sneaks into
Philip's apartment to look for the letter, but she finds the place
ransacked, the letter missing. She then notices Philip stabbed in the
stomach, his dying words are Lisa's name (Just before Lisa entered
the apartment, we see a man in a hat and a trenchcoat walking away,
putting a letter in his coat pocket. Could it be the letter Lisa is
looking for? Count on it!).
Lisa then flies to Greece and checks into a hotel, a strange
handsome man following her (Lisa seems to attract strangers!). When
the man approaches Lisa at the dinner table, she tells him she knows
who he is. He's Peter Lynch (George Hilton; THE
CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS - 1971) and Lisa knows he is an
insurance investigator for the company that her husband insured his
life with, telling Peter that she, too, has informants. Peter is not
surprised, telling her that nothing is really private these days (He
should see what it's like today!) and admits defeat. Lisa tells him
to quit wasting his time, confessing that she cheated on her husband
and then excuses herself, saying that she must leave, she has another
appointment. She gets up from the table and walks away, but we see
another man, John Stanley (Alberto De Mendoza; A
LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN - 1971), is watching Lisa and Peter
from another table, giving Peter a knowing glance. So who is John
Stanley? (I wouldn't be giving anything away by saying he's an
Interpol Agent.).
We then see Liza take a taxi to her next appointment and goes to an
empty theater, where she meets Lara Florakis (the late Janine
Reynaud; BLINDMAN - 1971)
and her lawyer Sharif (Luis Barboo; THE
LORELEY'S GRASP - 1973), the man in the sunglasses who was
watching Lisa in London and who may be responsible for Philip's
murder. Lara accuses Lisa of killing Kurt, telling her that her
husband was going to divorce Lisa and marry her. Kurt was going to
change the life insurance policy and name Lara as the beneficiary,
accusing Lisa of finding that out and killing Kurt before he could
make the changes. Lara says the million pounds belong to her, but
Lisa tells her that no court in the world would recognize that Lara
had any right to that money (she has a point). Lara tells her
(actually, she threatens her) that Sharif is not much of a lawyer,
but he has a special talent for making people disappear without a
trace (Sharif doesn't say a word, he just stands there looking
extremely dangerous). Lara once again accuses Lisa of killing Kurt
and tells her she is going to pay for what she lost. Lisa says she
didn't kill anyone, so Lara says she can tell that to the inquest
commission who are investigating the plane crash. If Lara reports her
to the commission, the insurance company will block payment of the
million pounds. She then tries to make a deal with Lisa. If she were
to sign a document giving Lara half the money, Lisa could count on
her showing her "gratitude", otherwise she will get revenge
on Lisa for killing Kurt. Sharif slowly approaches Lisa, so she runs
away, Lara telling Sharif to stop her. As Sharif and Lara chase Lisa
down a long metal spiral staircase (there are two spiral staircases
in this film), Peter is waiting at the bottom, saving Lisa from
certain harm.
The next morning, Lisa goes to the bank to cash her million pound
check, the bank manager telling Lisa that it would be safer to
transfer the money to her London bank, but Lisa says no, she wants it
in cash, so they give it to her in a black leather case (it looks
like a woman's makeup case), She then goes to a travel agency and
books a first class plane ticket to Tokyo, which leaves at 9:00p.m.
that night. Why in the world does she want to go to Toyko? Think you
know? You may be right in your assumption, but there are many more
surprises to be had in this twisty mystery, which is like a
crossbreed of giallo and Eurocrime genres. What I have described in
this review happens in the first thirty minutes of the film and if I
tell you any more, it would deprive you of discovering why Sergio
Martino is a master of the giallo genre. The screenplay was also
written by three masters of the giallo genre, namely Ernesto Gastaldi (DEATH
WALKS ON HIGH HEELS - 1971), Eduardo M. Brochero (HUMAN
COBRAS - 1971) and Sauro Scavolini (director/writer of LOVE
AND DEATH IN THE GARDEN OF THE GODS - 1972), who supply a
very intriguing mystery as well as offering a nice dose of police
work, courtesy of Inspector Stavros (Luigi Pistilli; THE
KILLERS ARE OUR GUESTS - 1974), an Athens Police detective
who becomes involved in the case when people end up murdered. One
memorable gag shows an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on Inspector Stavros'
office desk. We see the puzzle being slowly pieced together to
completion the closer he gets to solving the murders (Pay close
attention to who completes the puzzle). I can't tell you who ends up
dead because I need to leave you, my dear readers,
with something to discover on your own. Needless to say, the people
killed in this film are important to cracking the case, so if you
want to know if Lisa murdered Kurt (or if there is some other
explanation), you are just going to have to watch the film. I can
promise you one thing: If you are a giallo fan (and who isn't?), I
can guarantee you will not be disappointed. There is violence (some
of it quite graphic for its time), female nudity, especially by the
lovely Evelyn Stewart and Anita Strindberg (WHO
SAW HER DIE? - 1972), who portrays female reporter Cleo
Dupont, a character I haven't mentioned in this review, who teams up
with Peter to try and solve the case (and becoming his lover), as
well as some unusual camera angles (check out the scene where
Inspector Stavros asks to check Peter's hands) and unusual locations
(including the Parthenon and an underwater cavern). I can't tell you
much about Cleo without giving away the core of the story, but I will
tell you this: She is important to getting to the bottom of the
murders, but, please, don't make me tell you any more. Believe me
when I say I want to, but I can't in good conscience (Okay, just one
slight hint: The killer wears a wetsuit.). So what does a scorpion
have to do with anything, since it is mentioned in the title? It
seems the killer lost a cufflink during one of his murder attempts
and it is, yes, a scorpion cufflink. Tracking down the Turkish
jeweler who made it leads to the killer's identity (Now I've said too much!).
Shot as LA
CODA DELLO SCORPIONE ("The Tail Of The Scorpion"),
this film had neither a theatrical or VHS release in the United
States, making its first appearance here as an uncut,
widescreen DVD from NoShame Films. This review is based on the
wonderful Blu-Ray
released by Arrow Video. It's
a tad expensive, but well worth the money, as it is chock-full of
extras, including new 2018 interviews with Sergio Martino and George
Hilton (both interviews are very entertaining and full of information
I never heard before, especially what Hilton says about Anita
Strindberg's breasts!), as well as an informative 40-page booklet on
the making of the film (which I have scanned HERE).
The disc offers the film in two versions, English dubbed or in
Italian with easy to read English subtitles (my preferred way of
watching these films). I may go broke purchasing the many Arrow
Blu-Rays of Italian genre films, but I can't think of a better way of
losing all my money. Just leave me enough money for food and I'll be
a happy man. Also featuring Annalisa Nardi (THE
MURDER MANSION - 1972), Franco Caracciolo (KILLER
NUN - 1978) and Tomas Pico (THE
PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK - 1975) as George Barnet, an air
steward who the killer graphically stabs in the eye with a broken
bottle before finishing him off with a switchblade to his heart (He
is someone we saw much earlier in the film, but he didn't have a name
then. Hint!). Not Rated.
CAT
IN THE CAGE (1978) - Unbelievably
bad thriller that involves a man (Behrouz Wossoughi, the only dubbed
voice in the entire cast) returning home after a short stay in a
mental institution. His father (Frank De Kova, Chief
Wild Eagle on TV's F TROOP)
has married his dead wife's nurse (Sybil Danning [PANTHER
SQUAD
- 1984], spelled "Cybil" in the credits). Together with the
chauffeur (Mel Novak), she plans to bump off De Kova, and inherit his
vast fortune and estate. She runs into problems with Behrouz (he
can't stand her) and his cat, Samson, who attacks her at every
available moment. The first problem with this film is the cat. Samson
is as about as vicious as a toothless frog (having two cats myself, I
know what I'm talking about). The film's idea of showing his
viciousness is by dangling a piece of string in front of him and
photographing him swatting at it. In one flub, the cat is shown
rubbing against Danning, showing her affection. Another detraction is
the presence of Wossoughi (who is given an English name "Tony
Bova" in the end credits), a Pakistani (?) actor (?) who looks
out of place among the other players. He looks as much like De Kova's
son as Eddie Murphy would look like David Duke's. It looks like
someone owed somebody a big favor. Even though Colleen Camp (DEATH
GAME - 1977; DEADLY
GAMES
- 1980) is top-billed, she has very little to do except to play
Wossoughi's girlfriend (she's a great actress) and sing the title
song. Technical gaffes, flubbed lines and some of the worst canned
music to bleed my ears in quite a while flesh out the film. Speaking
of flesh, Danning exposes a lot of it here (the only saving grace).
Recommended for Danning completists only. Genesis
Home Video offers this tape for $9.99 and can be found at finer
(?) video stores and retail outlets. Director Tony Zarin Dast (a.k.a.
Zarindast) went on to make the action thriller HARDCASE
AND FIST
(1989) and the ungodly howler WEREWOLF
(1995). Unrated.
THE
CENTERFOLD GIRLS (1974) - Psychopath
Andrew Prine disposes of various naked centerfold girls with his
trusty straight razor because he thinks the girls are corrupting the
minds of the people who view their photos. That's basically the whole
story except for the way it is told. This film is
in three parts, each part focusing on a particular centerfold girl
that Prine stalks. The first part is about a nurse who travels to a
camp to apply for a job. Her home is invaded by hippies, who force
her to drink alcohol and nearly rape her. She escapes and runs to the
camp where owner Aldo Ray saves her. Ray then attempts to rape her,
but gives up, saying she's not worth the trouble. Prine, who has been
tracking her, enters the house and slits her throat. The second part
concerns a model who travels to a secluded island with an entourage
for a photo shoot. Prine follows the model onto the island and kills
everyone one by one. The third part is about a stewardess (Tiffany
Bolling; KINGDOM
OF THE SPIDERS - 1977) who realizes that Prine is after her
after finding her look-alike friend dead in her apartment. She moves
out and tries to hide, but Prine finds her. She escapes in her car,
has a flat and gets picked-up by a couple of Marines who drug and
rape her in a motel room. Prine finds her, they struggle and she
stabs him repeatedly with a hunting knife. As he lies dying, Prine
moans, "All I wanted to do was help you!" The End. If you
like nudity (who doesn't?), you won't be disappointed with this film.
Most of the actresses are naked the majority of the time. There's not
much else to recommend here. The acting is sub-standard, the editing
is terrible and the blood quotient is rather low. Andrew Prine (GRIZZLY
- 1976) walks around in a daze, wearing black pants that are way too
short with saddle shoes (quite a fashion statement!). Director John
Peyser also made FOUR
RODE OUT
and KASHMIRI
RUN
(both 1969). The executive producer was Arthur Marks, who directed BONNIE'S
KIDS
(1972) and others. For nudity fans only. THE
CENTERFOLD GIRLS also stars Ray Danton (who directed the
American inserts for the abysmal CRYPT
OF THE LIVING DEAD
- 1973; and also directed the much better DEATHMASTER
- 1972 and the strangely satisfying PSYCHIC
KILLER - 1974), Francine York, Jeremy Slate and Mike
Mazurki. A Media
Home Entertainment Video Release. Also available on DVD
from Dark Sky Films. Rated
R.
CHOSEN
SURVIVORS (1974) - A group of
diverse people are drugged and helicoptered to a top secret
underground government base, where a female government official with
the name of Mary Louise Borden (Kelly Lange) pops-up on a giant
computer screen to inform them that a global nuclear war has broken
out and they were picked to "continue the human race". Ms.
Borden also informs them that there are twelve other installations
just like theirs scattered throughout the United States and that they
have enough food and provisions to live underground for the next five
years. Ms. Borden also tells them that when radiation levels on the
surface reach the point that allows human life again, the elevator
doors will open and let them return above ground. Major Gordon Ellis
(Richard Jaeckel) then appears in person and shows them satellite
footage of a nuclear-ravaged Earth. We are then introduced to all the
characters and their idiosyncracies: Ray Couzins (Jackie Cooper), a
corporation genius who doesn't buy into the nuclear war scenario and
is looking for a way out; Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman), a
psychologist who studies the group and makes observations into a tape
recorder; Kristen Lerner (Christina Moreno), a nutritionist who
doesn't want to live; Alana Fitzgerald (Diana Muldaur), a
Congresswoman; Woody Russo (Lincoln Kilpatrick), an Olympic gold
medal winner;
Steven Mayes (Alex Cord), a novelist; Luis Cabral (Pedro Armendariz
Jr.), an oceanographer; Carrie Draper (Gwenn Mitchell), an ecology
expert; Dr. Lenore Chrisman (Barbara Babcock), a Nobel Prize-winning
medical researcher; and Claire Farraday (Nancy Rodman), a biologist.
Before this group has a chance to worry about the predicament that
they are in, they are attacked by a hungry swarm of rabid vampire
bats. That's right, vampire bats. The bats have disrupted the
lighting system (they only attack in the dark), so Major Ellis sets
up an alarm system to warn them when the lights go out (the first
attack happens when everyone is sleeping). Ray starts getting drunk
and begins telling everyone how he feels (He tells Woody, "You're
nothing but a goddamn stud!"), thinks this is all a conspiracy
(he just may be right) and tries to rape Dr. Chrisman (turns out she
likes it!). When Luis is killed by the bats, one of the members
reveals that this was all an experiment (not much of a surprise), but
when he tries to contact his superiors, he finds the bats have
destroyed the rescue signal. He also makes it known that the
government planned to kill them once the experiment was over. They
have five more days of avoiding the bats (there's a failsafe
involved) before troops come down to the base. Will anyone make it
out alive? This study in paranoia and isolation went virtually
unseen after it's 1974 theatrical release (It did play on Canada's
Scream channel, but how many people actually have that channel?)
until it was released on DVD in 2007 as part of 20th Century Fox's Midnight
Movies series. This is a rare bad guy role for Jackie Cooper and
he's pretty good here, boozing it up and spouting vitriolic dialogue.
He goes around pitting people against each other, bribing some with
money and blackmailing others and does it with glee, making his
character just as dangerous (if not moreso) as the bats. Even though
he's the bad guy, it's his actions which gets everyone saved (even if
they were strictly self-serving). The rest of the cast are pretty
dreary (to be fair, their roles are underwritten) and take backstage
to the bat attacks, which are filmed with a blue filter, probably to
hide the more bloody attacks (since this is rated PG). The novel
approach with how the group handle the bats (everyone gives a pint of
blood, which they smear on a homemade electrified fence) is very well
done, even if it doesn't work. I also liked how the daily
pre-programmed videotaped announcements by Ms. Borden still played
every morning, even after the ruse was exposed. Ms. Borden would tell
them in different ways every day how important they were and how they
should get on with repopulating humanity, making everything after the
expose quite sarcastic. The film reminded me of THE
ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), with it's themes of isolation and
both contain outside forces beyond their control (deadly germs vs.
deadly bats) and a long, dangerous climb up a shaft to safety. CHOSEN
SURVIVORS does contain some bloody scenes that belie it's PG
rating (Kristin & Woody's deaths), but this was the 70's after
all. Directed by Sutton Roley, who mainly directed episodic TV (he
died in 2007), but he did direct one other theatrical film, THE
LONERS
(1972), as well as the MFTV films SWEET,
SWEET RACHEL (1971) and SATAN'S
TRIANGLE (1975). Filmed in Mexico City's Churubusco Studios.
A 20th Century Fox DVD
release as part of a double bill with THE
EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964). Rated PG. Other 70's
films concerning bats include THE
BAT PEOPLE (1974) and NIGHTWING (1979).
THE
COMEBACK (1977) - Director Pete
Walker makes a bloody good thriller here as retired pop singer Nick
Cooper (Jack Jones) decides to come out of retirement after
divoricing his wife (Holly Palance) of six years. In the beginning we
witness the bloody slaughter of his wife
with a sickle (her hand is chopped off and face and body brutally
slashed) by someone wearing a rubber witch mask. Nick's manager
Webster Jones (David Doyle) sets him up in an old mansion in England
to settle down and write and record some new songs. Pretty soon he
begins hearing the cries and screams of a woman at night and views a
rotting body in a wheelchair and then the maggot-filled head of his
ex-wife (who he doesn't know is dead) in a hatbox in the
basement. He cracks up and is committed to an institution as no
one else, including housekeeper Mrs. B (Sheila Keith) can see or hear
the body and noises. He is then set free and sets out to solve the
mystery of who is trying to drive him mad. Could it be his manager?
His new girlfriend (Pamela Stephenson)? Mrs. and Mr. B (Bill Owen)?
Or is he just mad, like everyone thinks? Needless to say, the
denouement is outrageous (you would never guess why in a million
years) and the outcome bloody and inconclusive (as the final
freeze-frame accentuates). Real-life singer Jones makes a better
singer than actor, but he begins to get into a groove here that makes
the proceedings seem more realistic than if a professional actor were
to have taken the role. There are exactly three murders here and they
are bloody and shocking (especially Holly Palance's). The blood is
extremely red and flows freely. Sheila Keith is no stranger to Pete
Walker films, appearing in his HOUSE
OF WHIPCORD and FRIGHTMARE
(a.k.a. FRIGHTMARE II -
both 1974), THE CONFESSIONAL
(1975) and HOUSE OF
THE LONG SHADOWS (1983). Her looks could melt cement and her
acting ability always induced goosebumps. This is one old lady you
would not want to have as a babysitter! THE
COMEBACK, also known as THE
DAY THE SCREAMING STOPPED, HALLUCINATIONS
and ENCORE, is one of Pete
Walker's best films and I, for one, wish he would get back in the
directorial chair and make the kind of films that made England famous
in the 70's: namely, blood-soaked psycho-thrillers that keep you
guessing and make you jump. A Karl Lorimar Video VHS Release. Also
available on DVD & Blu-Ray
from Redemption Films/Kino
Lorber. Not Rated.
CROSS
CURRENT (1971) - This giallo film
opens with some unknown person reading a letter, crumpling it up,
grabbing a gun out of a desk drawer and then kicking a door in, the
gun ready to fire. The film then switches to a cigarette boat race on
the ocean. Someone has tampered with the pin of the steering column
of a boat piloted by Marco Breda (Philippe Leroy; MILANO
CALIBRO 9 - 1972), causing
the boat to crash while traveling at a high rate of speed and
putting Marco in the hospital with serious head trauma. The doctor
explains to Marco's wife, Monica (Elga Andersen) and his brother,
Burt (Ivan Rassimov; SPASMO
- 1974), that the only way to save Marco's life is with a risky brain
operation. Monica tells the doctor to perform the operation and Marco
survives, only he has lost his memory. Marco returns home (he insists
that he drives home, even though he has a chauffeur, something he
never did pre-memory loss) and is surrounded by people that are his
friends, although he doesn't remember any of them (he does have quick
flashes of the boating "accident"). At a dinner party at
his home, Marco receives a phonecall by someone claiming to be Sante,
Marco's former gardener. He tells Marco that he "must
remember" and to meet him at the cemetery alone at midnight,
which seems to visibly upset both Monica and Burt. That night, while
Marco waits at the cemetery, someone wearing black gloves strangles
Sante and then runs over him with a car. Police Inspector Baldini
(Julio Pena), who is already investigating Marco's boating mishap (he
hints that he thinks it was sabotage), arrives at the villa to inform
everyone that Sante is dead and he believes the last phonecall made
to him came from a phone booth located just outside the villa gates.
Both Monica and friend (and fellow boat pilot) Tommy Brown (Franco
Ressel; EYE IN THE LABRYINTH
- 1972) let Marco believe that they saw him sneak out of the villa
the night before, but Marco denies it. That night, someone stabs
Tommy at the boatyard, killing him. As the plot becomes much too
complicated to describe here, Marco begins to get his memory back
little pieces at a time. As he tries to fit the puzzle pieces of his
life back together, a few questions rise to the forefront: Why won't
Monica make love to Marco? Just what was Terry's (Rosanna Yanni; HUNCHBACK
OF THE MORGUE - 1973) relationship with Marco
before
his accident? Is it possible that Marco is actually the killer or is
someone setting him up? When Marco seemingly kills himself trying to
get away from the police in a car chase, the antagonists turn on and
then kill each other until only one is left. If you haven't already
guessed, there's a surprise ending that explains everything.
This fairly standard giallo film, directed by Tonino Ricci (PANIC
- 1982; RAIDERS OF THE
MAGIC IVORY - 1988), is pretty rough going for seasoned
giallo fans, but casual viewers will probably be more entertained.
The fact that it took five people (including Ricci) to write this
film's screenplay, a routine "lets frame the brother/husband for
murder since our attempt on his life failed and another attempt to
murder him would throw up too many red flags", makes the viewer
wish there were more meat to the plot. Setting the film in the realm
of cigarette boat culture (where the speedboats spend more time in
the air than the water as they zip across the surface of the ocean)
is a unique idea, but it's unfortunately underused. Toss in a severe
lack of nudity (only one scene) and bloody violence and all the
viewer has to occupy their time is the mystery itself and it's not a
hard mystery to solve. The use of amnesia as a major plot element is
nothing new, especially in mystery films, and it's woefully
mishandled here. As with most 70's giallo films, there's a scene at a
disco (miniskirt alert), POV shots by the killer (always wearing
black gloves, of course) and a short car chase. I really can't
recommend this film (just because it's rare doesn't mean it's good)
unless you're a gialli completist or newbie. The only true highlight
is Giorgio Gaslini's infectious music score, including the unusual
opening tune, which has a hook that will take days to leave your
head. Future director Flavio Mogherini (THE
PYJAMA GIRL CASE - 1977) was the Art Director here. Also
starring Franco Fantasia, Rina Franchetti, Giorgio Cerioni, Liana Del
Balzo, Carla Mancini, Franco Balducci and a cameo from Italian
speedboat champion Vincenzo Balestrieri. Never legally available on
U.S. home video, the print I viewed was taken from an English-dubbed,
Greek-subtitled VHS tape. Not Rated.
DARK
FORCES (1980)
- When
magician/clown Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell) cures terminally ill
child Alex Rast (Mark
Spain) at his birthday party, it brings him to the attention of
Alex's father, Nick Rast (David Hemmings), a prominent politician who
is the unknowing puppet of spinmaster Doc Wheelan (Broderick
Crawford). Wolfe also brings out the interest in Alex's mother,
Sandra (Carmen Duncan), who begins to fall in love with him. The
whole premise of this film is if Wolfe is the real deal; a healer who
can perform miracles or a con man with ulterior motives. No one is
able to dig up any information on his past, so Doc Wheelan fabricates
some incriminating information on Wolfe to turn Nick and Sandra
against him. Wolfe performs some feats of magic at a dinner party
(including cutting a dove in half with a flying cymbal and moving an
absess from the mouth of a wealthy dowager down to her fingertip). Is
Wolfe real or a fake? Is he just a hypnotist and magician or
something beyond the natural? You'll have to watch the film to get
the answers because to say any more would be revealing too much.
Director Simon Wincer, who made such films as THE
DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN (a.k.a. NIGHT
AFTER HALLOWEEN, a.k.a. SNAPSHOT,
a.k.a. ONE MORE MINUTE
- 1979), HARLEY DAVIDSON AND
THE MARLBORO
MAN (1991)
and TV's miniseries LONESOME
DOVE
(1989) and other TV Westerns as of late, has crafted a sly political
thriller with supernatural overtones. Robert Powell (THE
ASPHYX
- 1973) is simply astounding as Wolfe (as in sheep's clothing),
keeping the viewer off-balance as to who, or what, he really is. This
film, also known as HARLEQUIN
(due to the costume Powell wears at the film's conclusion) throws the
viewer subtle clues to Wolfe's real identity, but you'll probably
have to watch it several times to get it all (HINT: Video cameras
don't lie.). This is an excellent way to spend 96 minutes, especially
if you don't mind using your brain instead of witnessing mindless
violence. A Media
Home Entertainment VHS Release. Also available on a beautiful widescreen
Blu-Ray from Scorpion Entertainment.
Rated PG
due to the dove incident and several gunshot wounds. This is for fans
of cerebral thrillers and should not be missed!
DARK
SANITY (1978) - Technically
inept but strangely intriguing psychological thriller. Ex-alcoholic
wife and
workaholic husband move into a house where a brutal murder occurred
a year before. A woman was chopped to pieces with an axe and
her head was never found. As soon as the wife steps through the door
she begins to have visions of the murder much to the disapproval of
her husband. She had a nervous breakdown due to alcoholism years
before and her husband does not want it to happen again. This
self-serving bastard cares more about making a good impression with
his boss than with the welfare of his wife. She meets some strange
people in her neighborhood: Her next door neighbor, a woman with a
cheating husband, introduces herself with some sexually frank talk.
Her gardener, a balding weirdo, loves to get media attention.. An
ex-cop (Aldo Ray) has the same visions she does. He believes the
wrong man was convicted of the murder and the killer is still at
large. He was right. It turns out that their visions are not of the
past murder but of a future murder. Choppy editing, canned music,
vaseline lenses, flubbed lines and bad acting actually add to the
ambience of this rarely seen film. This one was made during the nadir
of' the late Aldo Ray's career and he lends an air of professionalism
to an otherwise amateur affair. While most of you will probably think
I'm nuts for recommending this one, it did keep my attention. That's
more than I can say about most of' the films I watch. Although this
film is Unrated
it would probably get a PG-13
today, as there is no nudity, only mild swearing and shots of a
decapitated head and hand. It is still facinating to watch if you are
in the right frame of mind. Also starring Kory Clark and Charles
Jamison. Directed by Martin Green (FOOTSTEPS
IN THE SNOW
- 1966). DARK
SANITY
is also known as STRAIGHT
JACKET.
A Prism Entertainment
Home Video Release.
DEADLY
GAMES (1980) - Rule Number One
when making a thriller: Have an ending that doesn't make you scream,
"What the FUCK!!!.". Someone dressed all in black
(including ski mask) is killing the loose women of a small town.
Keegan Lawrence (Jo Ann
Harris of RAPE SQUAD, a.k.a. ACT
OF VENGEANCE - 1974), the sister of one of the dead
women, comes back to the town looking for answers. What she finds is
a town of offbeat women and even stranger men. She strikes up a
relationship with police detective Roger Lane (Sam Groom of DEADLY
EYES - 1982), who has a sickly and scarred friend named
Billy Owens (Steve Railsback of ED
GEIN - 2000) that Roger saved during the Vietnam War. Billy
runs the local movie theater where it seems only old films are shown.
More women are killed and Keegan starts falling for Roger (who has a
hidden mean streak). Since there aren't that many red herrings in
this film to fill a can of sardines, it's easy to spot who the killer
is. It's just that the ending is shot haphazardly and stops on a
freeze frame that makes no sense. I wanted to reach through the TV
and grab director/writer Scott Mansfield, shake him violently and let
him feel how all the viewers of his film must have felt after
watching 85 minutes of his film without getting a payoff. The action
is bloodless, the suspense lacking and the nudity is non-existant
except for the first five minutes. Not much of a thriller if you ask
me unless you like endless talking and inane dialogue. Is it too much
to ask for my 85 minutes back? Also starring Coleen Camp, Dick
Butkus, Denise Galik, Robin Hoff and a blink-and-you'll-miss cameo by
June Lockhart. Shown on TV under the title THE ELIMINATOR. A Monterey
Home Video Release. If you want a real laugh, read the first
paragraph on the back of the video
box. It's a real hoot. Rated R.
DEADLY
HARVEST (1977) - In the year
1979, the United States suffers it's second straight year of drought
and lack of crops, forcing the government to impose martial law and
curfews, closing up all the borders and stopping all long distance
phone calls (One government official suggests that euthanasia should
be lawful and that all the elderly and prisoners should be killed!).
It's not long before everyone becomes hungry and people begin
breaking the law to get their hands on anything edible. Midwest
farmer Grant Franklin (Clint Walker) and his family must protect
themselves and their small food reserves from raiders. Things go bad
when their last cow is shot and stolen by the evil Mort Logan
(Nehemiah Persoff) and his sons (they sing "Old MacDonald Had A
Farm" as they drive away with the cow's carcass). Grant's
hothead son Michael (Geraint Wyn Davies, billed here as "Gary
Davies") joins forces with corrupt town sheriff Frank Wilcox
(Dwayne McLean) to patrol all the farms for interlopers and becomes
directly involved in giving an old man (Tim Whelan) a heart attack,
killing him. The old man's son, Charles Ennis (David Brown) vows
revenge. Ennis goes to black marketeer Mort Logan and makes a deal
with him. Ennis knows that Grant's daughter Susan (a young Kim
Cattrell) is getting married tomorrow (where all the neighbors plan
to show up with gifts of food) and he will give Logan all the details
for a percentage of the food. Logan and his goons invade the wedding,
steal the food and kill Grant's wife Leah (Dawn Greenhalgh) and
Susan's new husband John (Jim Henshaw), when Wilcox and Michael get
into a shootout with them. The normally peaceable Grant shifts into
revenge mode and heads to the big city to get some justice. Grant
first stops at Ennis' house, where he learns of Michael's involvement
in the death of Ennis' father and that Logan is on his way back to
Grant's farm for some payback (A guilt-ridden Ennis poisons his
family's last meal, killing them all [off screen]). Grant races back
to his farm, where Michael is holding off Logan's men with a rifle.
Grant arrives and has a final showdown with Logan, crushing him in
his car with a bulldozer. I just love a happy ending. This
minor Canadian-made thriller is too preachy for it's own good. While
director Timothy Bond (THE SHADOW MEN
- 1997, and too many Canadian TV series to mention) does a good job
portraying a society that would do nearly anything to get their hands
on their next meal, he pulls back when it comes to showing the
violence. The bleak Canadian landscapes (substituting for the Midwest
U.S.) greatly enhance the proceedings (global warming has made it
snow in August), but the total lack of action, even during the
wedding raid and the final assault on Grant's farm (which consists of
a couple of bullet hits and a lame-ass car chase) makes it a long,
boring ride for most viewers. Clint Walker (KILLDOZER
- 1974), who normally makes for a stiff hero, is positively wooden
here and is not given very much to do but act as the voice of reason.
Even when he gets his revenge on Logan in the finale, he still does
it with a stiff upper lip. The Al Gore documentary on global warming, AN
INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006), had more action than this did. DEADLY
HARVEST is deadly dull. While I applaud its ideas, the
execution is lacking. This film is boring with a capital B. Scripter
Martin Lager, also wrote some episodes for the boring TV Series THE
STARLOST (1973-74) and the screenplay to the snoozefest
called THE SHAPE OF
THINGS TO COME (1979), which helps explain why this film
moves slower than molasses in winter. Also starring Tami Tucker, John
Stoneham, Cec Linder, Jan Rubes and Peter Jobin. A New
World Video VHS Release. Also available on a budget DVD from
Westlake Entertainment and about a dozen other budget DVD companies. Not
Rated, but no stronger than a PG.
DEADLY
MEMORIES (2002) - More of
director Donald Farmer's no-budget madness, a revenge thriller in
need of a better editor (at 106 minutes, it's at least 30 minutes too
long). Auto body shop owner Art Gary (producer & co-scripter
Phillip Newman) is driving his wife and young daughter Sally to
church one lazy Sunday morning when they are run off the road by some
punk and his two never-do-well female companions, who have just
robbed a convenience store and also beat the crap out of the store's
clerk (played by Robert Z'Dar; EVIL
ALTAR - 1988). Art's car explodes (in one of the worst
staged car wrecks in recent memory), killing his wife, putting Sally
in a coma and giving Art a permanent limp (Art nearly dies, but his
wife comes to him as an angel and convinces him to return to life for
the sake of their daughter!). Two years pass and Art still runs his
auto body business and the still-comatose Sally lives with him at
their house next to the business, yet there is something drastically
different about Art. He's still a religious man, but there is
vengeance in his heart, which may be why he is now having severe heart
problems that can only be controlled by medication. A surprise visit
by the robbed convenience store clerk (who now sports a large facial
scar from the attack two years earlier) gives Art the chance to get
revenge on Hailey (Tina Krause), one of the female teens involved in
the fatal crash. Her car is disabled on the side of the road, so Art
tows it and offers Hailey a warm bed to sleep in until her car part
arrives the next morning. That night, Hailey is stripped naked, bound
and gagged, brought to the car painting shed in Art's garage and
spray painted a nice shade of blue by someone wearing a welder's
mask. The question soon becomes: Is Art the murderer or is it someone
else? Could it be the convenience store clerk? How about Billy Ray
(L.P. Brown III), an old friend of Art who has just returned to town
after a mysterious two-year absence? Could it be Sheriff Taggart
(William Smith; MERCHANT OF EVIL
- 1991), who has a lot of respect for Art? Or is it someone else?
When a snooty female representative from the Department of Human
Services threatens to take Sally away from Art and put her in a
state-run hospital unless she sees progress in her condition within
thirty days, Art goes to a bar with Billy Ray to blow off some steam.
In the bar is the punk who ran him off the road and Art nearly chokes
him to death on a pool table, but Billy Ray intervenes. Later that
day, someone blows up the punk and his girlfriend in their car with a
rocket launcher, the same rocket launcher that Art keeps in his home
(What the hell would a church-fearing man be doing with a rocket
launcher? Oh, never mind!). After an obnoxious customer and the
female DHS representative are brutally murdered, the identity of the
killer is revealed. The finale is a mish-mash of useless
sentimentality (Sally wakes up from her coma at the same moment the
killer is dispatched) and "What The Fuck?!?" moments (How
does someone survive a point-blank shotgun blast to the chest?).
Though not as gory as most of his other films, director/co-scripter
Donald Farmer (VAMPIRE COP
- 1990; CHAINSAW CHEERLEADERS
- 2008) keeps many of his other trademarks in abundant supply:
Questionable acting (Big Bill Smith and Robert Z'Dar excepted);
painfully long takes that tax the viewer's patience; cut-rate special
effects (done here by Brett Piper, director of such films as PSYCLOPS
[2002] and BACTERIUM
[2007], who is also this film's cinematographer); and, of course,
copious amounts of female nudity (At one point in the film, a topless
female is seen jumping up and down on a trampoline in the middle of a
rock quarry. What the hell is a trampoline doing in the middle of a
rock quarry?). Phillip Newman, who looks like Conway Twitty's brother
(the soundtrack is also full of third-rate Country music tunes), does
a halfway decent job in his role as Art, but the character is
woefully underwritten, making Art a hard person to root for even
though it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out he's not the
killer. And therein lies this film's major problem: While the film is dialogue-heavy,
most of it is useless to the audience, as it does nothing to advance
the plot. Besides a bloody drillbit-through-the-forehead gag and lots
of nudity, DEADLY MEMORIES (originally shot under the title BODY
SHOP) is a deadly long and boring revenge thriller. Filmed in
Tennessee, where, apparently, acting is cheap. Also starring Rachael
Robbins, Colby Newman, Sabrina Newman Stidham (I smell nepotism!),
Shelly Holmes, Linda Kelly and Tracey Wofford. Available on DVD from
Pendulum Pictures as part of their CATACOMB
OF CREEPSHOWS 50-Movie compilation. Also available on
stand-alone DVD from Midnight Releasing. Not Rated.
DEAR
DEAD DELILAH (1972) - Gothic
thriller directed and written by novelist John Farris (his only
directorial effort, although he did write the screenplay to Brian
DePalma's THE FURY [1978], based
on his novel of the same name), produced by musician Jack Clement
(known for his collaborations with Johnny Cash) and starring a cast
of veteran genre actors, many who are no longer with us. DEAR
DEAD DELILAH opens in Nashville, Tennessee in 1943, where a
young Luddy Dublin makes a living drawing portraits in chalk for
$1.50 each. It's apparent from the opening moments that Luddy has a
screw loose, as she primps in front of a mirror, complains about the
heat, talks to her mother (who never answers back) and pines for her
lover Don (his photo is in a frame with cracked glass), who she says
she is going to marry once he comes home from the war. When we
finally get a good look at Luddy's face, it's easy to see that she
has taken a beating, as she is sporting a fat lip and a black eye and
the front of her slip (exposing a pregnant belly!) is covered in
blood. And her Mother? Well, she is dead and leaning up against the
kitchen stove and her hacked-off (with an axe) right arm is lying on
the floor in the hallway! The next time we see Luddy (Patricia
Carmichael), it's almost thirty years later and she's being
discharged from the mental institution she has just spent nearly
three decades of her life in. The overweight and white-haired Luddy
hops on a bus (where, in the time she has
spent "recuperating", the fare has gone up from a dime to
a quarter!) and later on she gets off to draw some guys playing
football. When Richard (Robert Gentry) accidentally knocks the wind
out of Luddy when trying to catch an errant pass, he and wife Ellen
(Elizabeth Eis) invite Luddy to stay with them at the palatial estate
lorded over by Ellen's invalid Aunt Delilah Charles (Agnes Moorehead; FRANKENSTEIN:
THE TRUE STORY - 1973). The crusty old Delilah is one tough
broad (yet, she still talks to her dead father for advice) and,
together with family lawyer Roy Jurroe (Will Geer; THE
MAFU CAGE - 1978), is about to drop a bombshell announcement
that is sure to displease her brothers, Morgan (Michael Ansara; THE
MANITOU - 1977) and Alonzo (Dennis Patrick; HEATED
VENGEANCE - 1984), and sister, Grace (Anne Meacham; SEIZURE
- 1974). Luddy, who is prone to blackouts (especially whenever she
sees an axe), finds an ally in Alonzo, who is a doctor with a bad
drug habit (besides Alonzo being a junkie, they do have a lot in
common, like their love of children) and they become fast friends.
Ellen, who is Delilah's nurse, knows all about Luddy's history and
hires her to be a housekeeper anyway (Ellen tells Luddy that she'll
keep Luddy's murderous history a secret. Now why would she do that?).
Richard is having an affair with Grace and they are plotting to
murder Delilah. Luddy and Delilah also become fast friends and she
tells Luddy that as long as she is here, she's part of the family
(While Delilah is saying this, Luddy is getting mighty queasy
watching two men chop wood with axes). When Morgan arrives on the
estate with his ditsy girlfriend Buffy (Ruth Baker), Delilah
announces over dinner that she has sixty days to live and she has
willed the estate to the State of Tennessee. She leaves her brothers
and sister the paltry sum of $5,000 each, but tells them that
somewhere on the estate, their dead Papa has hidden $600,000 and
whoever finds it can keep it. Let the killings begin! As a tale
of gothic revenge, DEAR DEAD DELILAH
works in the same vein as WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO BABY JANE (1962) and HUSH...HUSH,
SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964; also featuring Moorehead), as
director/screenwriter John Farris places the majority of the action
on a Southern plantation with plenty of unlikable characters. It's
obvious someone is setting up Luddy to take the fall for all the
murders, but which family member is it? As the film progresses and
more members end up dead (Roy has his hand chopped-off and dies in
front of Luddy and Alonzo while grasping his severed hand in his
other hand; Morgan and Buffy meet the sharp end of an axe when they
are digging for the treasure at night; Delilah is "killed"
[offscreen] by someone pretending to be Papa; a drunk Grace is
beheaded by someone on horseback while she is taking a ride in
Delilah's wheelchair [the film's standout gore scene]; Alonzo is
given an overdose of his drug of choice and is left to die), it is
obvious who the killers are, but they didn't count on Luddy being the
sanest member of this whole crazy clan, as Richard gets a face-full
of buckshot from a not-quite-dead-yet Delilah (a very gory scene) and
Luddy saves Alonzo and then turns the plantation into an orphanage
(or at least I think they do, although the ending can also be read as
two extremely fractured people living in a world of their own
delusion). The acting is excellent across the board (Agnes Moorehead
is both cantankerous and sympathetic, a rare trait that most young
actresses today could take lessons from) and the gore is sparse, but
effective. This story about a group of privileged people (who argue
whether martinis should have olives in them or not!) getting their
comeuppance should appeal to those that appreciate a good,
old-fashioned gothic tale with some gore trimmings. Also starring
John Marriott as Marshall the butler. Originally released on VHS
by Embassy Home Entertainment
and not available on DVD. Rated R.
DEATH
STEPS IN THE DARK (1977) -
This Italy/Greece co-production is a bloody and funny giallo film
from the director of TORMENTOR
(a.k.a. DEATH CARRIES A CANE
- 1972), helped immensely by a cast of seasoned pros and its Athens,
Greece setting. While hardly original, it is still different enough
to please diehard giallo addicts (like myself), thanks to the cast,
some bloody murders, some welcome nudity and, yes, humor.
The setup is fairly simple. When playboy photographer Luciano Morelli
(Leonard Mann; THE
MONSTER OF FLORENCE - 1985) is on a train from Istanbul to
Athens, someone wearing black gloves goes into the bathroom and cuts
the fuse box, causing the train to go dark when it passes through a
tunnel. When the train leaves the tunnel and it becomes visible once
again, Luciano and the other people in the train car discover one of
the passengers, a young Greek woman (Anthi Andreopoulou), has been
viciously murdered, Luciano's letter opener sticking out of her
chest, stabbed in the heart. Luciano is the main suspect and he must
prove himself innocent.
The train makes its scheduled stop in Athens, where a nameless
Police Inspector (a dubbed Robert Webber; HIT
SQUAD - 1976) questions Luciano and takes his passport, not
believing his story that he is innocent, but also not sure that he is
the killer (Luciano tells him, "I photograph beautiful women, I
don't go around killing them!") The Inspector has four other
suspects he must question besides Luciano: Lebanese Catholic priest
(!) Omar Effendi (Antonio "Nino" Maimone; HORROR
EXPRESS - 1972); mysterious snobby woman Ida Tuclidis
(Barbara Seidel; this film's Assistant Director); button-down
businessman Ben Amuchin (Nazzareno Macri) and ditzy Swedish model
Ingrid Stelmosson (Vera Kruska), who all give the Inspector the
details of what they were doing when the train car went black, but
one of them is lying (When the Inspector questions Ingrid,
asking her if the murder "struck" her in any way, she takes
off her hat and checks her head!). Maybe all of them are lying, but
does it make any of them the killer?
Ingrid, who knows Luciano, trys to help him solve the murder, along
with Luciano's black female friend Ulla ("Susy Jennings",
real name: Marie Elise Eugene; who we first see having a lesbian
encounter with a beautiful white woman back at her place. Nudity
alert!), only Luciano doesn't know that Ulla has a friend and lover,
Raul (Nikos Verlekis; THE
DEVIL'S MEN - 1976), who was also on board the train
and he is blackmailing the unknown killer, as he has one of the
killer's gloves he found on the train, asking for $10,000 to return
it. Raul watches the killer deliver the money at the agreed-upon
location and then drive away, only when Raul goes to collect the
money, the killer is waiting for him and slashes Raul's throat,
killing him and taking both the glove and the money. When the
Inspector arrives at the crime scene, he finds two train ticket stubs
on Raul's body (The Inspector says to his nameless partner [Lefteris
Giftopoulos], " A man doesn't buy another man a first class
ticket from Istanbul to Athens unless he's gay... Wait a minute, was
he gay?) The Inspector then questions the train's conductor, who
tells him that the punch marks on the stubs are his, but he has no
way of identifying who the tickets belonged to. The Inspector gets a
search warrant for Luciano's home after discovering that Luciano
withdrew $10,000 from his bank a few hours before Raul's murder.
Luciano knows he looks guilty, so he dons a disguise (a blond woman's
wig!) and calls his home, where Ingrid is waiting, not realizing the
Inspector is already there, listening on the phone (a really comical
moment). Luciano then goes undercover as a hooker in a bright green
miniskirt (!) to contact his friend, Greek dockyard worker and petty
criminal Salvatore (Anestis Vlahos), to give him a place to hide out,
not knowing that the Inspector is much smarter than he looks.
Salvatore gives Luciano a shack next to the railroad tracks to hide
out in and, a few days later, Ingrid stops by to give him newspapers
and food (and another comic scene, where a train rumbles by, shaking
the shack as if an earthquake hit it). Luciano tells Ingrid he used
the $10,000 he withdrew from the bank to buy some black market
cameras, but he couldn't tell the Inspector that because the
transaction was illegal. Ingrid then mentions that the "black
chick" (Ulla) was Raul's lover, so Luciano says he will talk to
Ulla, but first, he makes love to Ingrid (nudity alert!).
We then discover that the uptight Ida is getting a divorce from her
nameless husband (Andrew Johnson). She has the divorced planned out
to the very last detail, as we watch her tell her soon-to-be-ex how
it is going to be played out. Her husband asks her if there is
another man and she says no, if he wants to know why she wants a
divorce, he should talk to her lawyer. Is this going anywhere to
advance the plot? Read on... The husband tells Ida that he wants a
separation immediately and asks her if she wants the name of the
hotel he is staying at. Ida says no, it's not important to her (I can
see why divorce is imminent!).
We then see Ulla singing in a nightclub (Her lips don't match the
lyrics we hear!), while Luciano and the nameless businessman watch in
the audience. Luciano threaten Ulla, saying that he will spill the
beans about her lesbian habits to her boss if she doesn't tell him
what Raul was up to. Ulla says not here, meet her back at her hotel
room tomorrow morning. I think we all know what that means. Ulla
phones her nameless (there's a lot of it in this film!) lesbian lover
(Imelda Marani; MILANO CALIBRO 9
- 1972) and tells her to clean out her hotel room of any
incriminating evidence. When her lesbian lover arrives at the hotel
room, she is murdered by the killer (all we see of the killer is an
extreme close-up of one of the killer's blue eyes), who first drowns
her in the swimming pool's filter (!) and then slices her throat with
the straight razor (talk about overkill!). Ulla then comes home,
strips naked (nudity alert!) and takes a bath. While she is in the
bathtub, she turns on the faucet, but all that comes out is bloody
water (it is never explained how the pool's filter is connected to
the bathtub's water supply!). She screams out her lesbian lover's
name (I couldn't make out what the name was, even after rewind the
scene several times), only to have the killer pin her head with the
bathroom door and finish her off with the straight razor to her neck
(shown in extreme close-up, as we watch the razor bloodily slice her
neck open).
A short time later, the Inspector looks over the two bloody bodies
and wonders out loud why everyone Luciano knows is being murdered
(The Inspector's partner asks him how he knew the bodies were there.
"I received an anonymous phone call" says the Inspector.
The partner then says, "From who?"!). The hotel's female
concierge (Jessica Dublin; SEX
OF THE WITCH - 1973) informs the Inspector that she may have
heard a scream last night, but she has no idea what time it was. When
the Inspector shows her the front page of the newspaper, where the
photos of all five suspects are displayed, she recognizes one of them
(but we are not privy as to which one it is), telling the Inspector
that "he" tried to rent a room the previous day. Does this
mean that Ida is off the hook?
We then see Omar Effendi in a hotel room with a naked woman. It
turns out he is not a priest at all, telling his lover that he had to
don that disguise when leaving Istanbul, because someone was
following him. Meanwhile, Luciano comes up with a plan to unmask the
killer, but Ingrid will have
to pretend to be a Swedish journalist so she can interview an art
gallery owner (Nikos Vandoros), who has an expensive gold plated bust
of Ulla in his gallery (he was also Ulla's "sugar daddy").
Is the bubble headed Ingrid up for the challenge? The Inspector
catches Luciano in yet another disguise (as a bearded hippy!), but
when a drug dealer offers hashish and cocaine to Luciano in front of
the Inspector, he slaps the cuffs on the drug dealer and gives
Luciano 48 hours to prove his innocence. Will Luciano be able to
unmask the killer with Ingrid's help or will he fall victim to the
killer's wrath? What do you think?
Director Maurizio Pradeaux (CHURCHILL'S
LEOPARDS - 1970; the aforementioned TORMENTOR
- 1972) gives this film what most giallo flicks are missing: A
healthy dose of humor. Nearly every scene that Robert Webber is in
has at least one comic moment, some that work and some that don't
(When the Inspector's partner asks him if he found any fingerprints
on the train, he says, "Hundreds of them, There's a beauty in a
smear of shit like someone wiped his ass with his fingers.
Incredible!"). The screenplay, written by Pradeaux and Arpad
DeRiso (HERCULES
AGAINST THE MOON MEN - 1964; CROSS CURRENT
- 1971; and nearly all of Pradeaux's directorial films, including the
two I mentioned), is not interested in proper names, but contains all
the giallo staples, including full-frontal female nudity, gory
murders and plenty of red herrings, as well as a decent mystery that
ends much in the same way as Pradeaux's TORMENTOR
did, by breaking into a house and discovering the evidence needed to
reveal the killer's identity. The dialogue between Ingrid and a woman
we have never seen before the finale is priceless, where the woman
describes to Luciano and Ingrid how her grandfather, a master
safecracker, swallowed all the tools of his trade just before he was
arrested, crapping out the tools (using a powerful magnet!) and using
them to escape from prison! While I wouldn't say that this film is
required viewing for giallo addicts, it is good for a guffaw or two,
especially how Luciano unmasks the killer (So to speak. You'll know
what I mean when you see it.). The prolific Riz Ortolani (DON"T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972; SEVEN
DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE - 1973; HOW
TO KILL A JUDGE - 1974) supplied this film's effective music score.
Shot as PASSI
DI MORTE PERDUTI NEL BUIO ("Death Steps Lost In The
Dark") and also known as LADYKILLER, this film never
received a theatrical or home video release in any format in the
United States (it is available on DVD-R from many gray market
sellers). I saw an uncut, slightly letterboxed print on YouTube, now
my go-to place to view rare Italian genre fare, thanks to a user with
the name "Giallo Realm" (Type that name into YouTube's
search bar). Also starring Albertina Capuani (SPECIAL
SQUAD SHOOTS ON SIGHT - 1976), Luigi Romano and Bartolillo
Palma. Not Rated.
DEATH
VALLEY (1981) - Uneven mixture
of family drama and slasher genres. A young boy named Billy (Peter
Billingsley; A CHRISTMAS STORY
- 1983) is separated from his father Paul (Edward Herrmann; THE
LOST BOYS - 1987) when divorced mom, Sally (Catherine Hicks; CHILD'S
PLAY - 1988), decides to take an extended vacation and
uproots Billy from his New Jersey home and heads to Death Valley,
Arizona, where Sally reconnects with high school boyfriend Mike (Paul
Le Mat; GRAVE SECRETS -
1989). Young Billy, who is a stickler for details, takes an instant
dislike to Mike and proves to be a handful, as the trio head off on a
road trip through the desert, their destination being a Wild West
show at a popular ghost town tourist attraction. On their way, they
pull over to stretch their legs and Billy wanders off, ending up in a
parked RV where an unseen serial killer has just murdered a young
couple. Billy notices a frog-shaped necklace on the RV's floor and
pockets it, but before he can discover the dead bodies, Mike enters
and they leave. The killer, who drives a late-50's gold-colored
Chevrolet (the
type with a bullet-shaped front bumper), thinks Billy knows something
and begins following the trio. When they stop at a diner for a bite
to eat, Billy notices that one of the workers, Hal (Stephen McHattie; THE
DARK - 1993), is wearing the identical frog necklace that he
stole from the RV. At the scene of an accident (it's actually the RV
that the killer dumped over an abutment), a guilt-ridden Billy turns
the necklace over to the Sheriff (Wilford Brimley; AMERICAN
JUSTICE - 1985), who immediately recognizes it. It seems a
series of similar murders have been plaguing the area for years and
the Sheriff now has a clue as to who the killer is. When the
Sheriff goes to Hal's home and confronts him with the evidence, Hal
tells him that it must be his brother Stu's necklace, but when the
Sheriff leaves the house, someone plants a pickaxe in his chest. At
the Wild West show, the killer disguises himself as one of the
stuntmen and tries to kill Billy with real bullets, but fails.
Oblivious to what is happening to them, Billy, Sally and Mike
continue on with their vacation and Billy begins to warm to Mike. Mom
and Mike leave Billy with a babysitter while they have a night on the
town and the killer strikes, slitting the babysitter's throat. Hal
makes an unannounced visit to Billy's motel room, but Billy manages
to escape. The film concludes with Mike killing Hal and the real
killer finally revealing himself. If I have to tell you who it is,
it's time for you to get a brainscan, because you may have a tumor
blocking your basic reasoning skills (And, no, it's not Billy's
father!). This is an unfortunately easy-to-solve whodunit which is
marred by way too much family drama and too many convenient
coincidences (especially the conversation Mike overhears in a bar
that lets him know that Billy is in real peril). Director Dick
Richards (FAREWELL MY LOVELY
- 1975; HEAT - 1986), working with
a screenplay by Richard Rothstein (HUMAN
EXPERIMENTS - 1980; UNIVERSAL
SOLDIER - 1992), offers too many obvious misdirections, as
it should be clear to even the most brain-damaged individuals that
when Hal mentions his brother Stu, it has to be a twin brother. That
can be forgiven if all the personal issues between Billy and Mike
weren't so pat and unrealistic. While I have no problem with Billy
disliking possible new stepfather Mike, I do have a problem with Mike
telling outright lies to Billy about the history of the Wild West,
especially since Billy is so well versed on the subject. Wouldn't
Sally have informed Mike about what a smart little pecker Billy
really is? This film is so full of questionable situations like that
and they all go unanswered. The violence is also fairly mild for a
slasher flick, just a couple of sliced throats, the pickaxe murder
and a shooting. There's one brief shot of nudity early in the film
and then it's boob-free (unless you count some of the characters'
motivations). Peter Billingsley, in his feature film debut, gets to
fire a real gun in the finale, which is the film's most disturbing
scene. An unsuccessful mixture of KRAMER
VS. KRAMER (1979) meets FRIDAY
THE 13TH (1980). The desert location photography is the
film's best asset, but not enough to save it. Also starring Mary
Steelsmith and Jack O'Leary. Released on VHS by MCA Home Video in the
early-80's and not yet available on DVD. Rated R.
DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972) -
Famous model Valentina (Nieves Navarro, as "Susan Scott"; THE
SLASHER...IS THE SEX MANIAC! - 1972) is visited in her
snazzy ultra-modern apartment by her reporter friend Gio Baldi
(Simón Andreu; NIGHT
OF THE SORCERERS - 1973) and a doctor, who injects Valentina
with an experimental hallucinogen called "HDS", while Gio
records the session with a tape recorder and begins to take photos
with his camera. As the hallucinogen takes affect, Gio asks Valentina
what she expects from life and she answers, "purple ice
cream". Valentina starts tripping while Gio
snaps away with his camera. Valentina then tells Gio that she likes
"church organ music" and "red priests" and then
stares Gio in the face, saying she doesn't like him because he has a
"monkey face" and begins laughing hysterically, also
telling Gio that all she sees are "colors" (Where can I get
some of this shit???). Valentina then has a vision where she sees a
young woman being murdered by a man wearing a large leather glove
where spikes protrude from the knuckles (we get a good look at the
man we think is the murderer, but is he really, or is Valentina just
tripping?). The killer bashes the young woman's head over and over
with the spiked glove until blood fills the screen, Valentina
collapsing, telling Gio that she has seen a "man with an iron
glove" ("Stop him! Stop him!"). Instead of comforting
Valentina, Gio continues snapping away with his camera. Why did
Valentina agree to be injected with such a strong experimental drug?
The next morning, Valentina is fired from her job as a reporter for
a fashion magazine because Gio published the photos he took of her
tripping in an National Enquirer-like rag called "Novella
2000", complete with the story she told him about the murder
with the iron glove. She confronts Gio, who tells her that she agreed
to take this HDS so he could tell the story about how it affects
people and that any publicity is good publicity (True back then and
even truer today, thanks to the internet). Gio has security throw
Valentina out of the building and when she sees Gio smiling and
waving goodbye to her through his office window, she picks up a rock
and throws it through the window, shattering the glass into tiny
pieces. Police Inspector Serino (Carlo Gentili; THE
DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT - 1973) pulls Valentina into his
office for breaking the window (Asking her if she is a fascist or a
Communist!) and is ready to arrest her, but Gio shows up to save her ass.
Back at her apartment, Valentina is visited by ex-husband Stefano
(Pietro Martellanza, as "Peter Martell"; THE
FRENCH SEX MURDERS - 1972), who is pissed that she took
drugs and appeared in a trashy magazine article ("Sometimes you
amaze me. How can you still be so middle-class?"). It turns out
that Valentina agreed to take HDS so Gio could report on the effects
of the new drug for Novella 2000, but Valentina was supposed to wear
a mask to protect her identity, Gio reneging on the last part of
their deal. Valentina tells Stefano that everything in the article is
true, especially the part about the murder with the iron glove. Her
doorman (Manuel Muñiz; KILLING
OF THE DOLLS - 1975) delivers a note that says: "I saw
the article in Novella 2000. I need you for a new product ad. Would
you come to Flat 21 at Via Lanciani at noon?" The note is
unsigned, but it doesn't take a genius to know the note is from the
killer. Neither Stefano or Valentina are geniuses, as Stefano offers
to go in her place, but Valentina says no, she'll go because it is
just around the corner.
Valentina walks to the location and we can see the man from her
vision is following her. She enters Flat 21 and finds it empty, but
she can see Stefano in her apartment clearly from Flat 21's window.
She goes to leave when the man exits the elevator and begins chasing
her. She locks herself in Flat 21 and screams for Stefano, but he
can't hear her. She then breaks a mirror (Seven years bad luck!) and
uses a piece of it in the sun to try to get Stefano's attention and
he finally sees her screaming bloody murder. The man breaks down the
door with his iron glove, but before he can kill her, Stefano shows
up. He doesn't believe Valentina's story, thinking it is nothing but
a publicity stunt (Hey jerk, look at the fucking door!), as we see
the killer silently sneaking away (taking full advantage of the
widescreen image). Gio meets Valentina and Stefano in the lobby of
her apartment building and Stefano says to Valentina, "Next time
they try to kill you, give me a call, right?" and then walks
away (telling us clearly why he is her ex-husband!).
Valentina can't get anyone to believe her story, but Gio tells her
that a young woman was killed with an iron glove...six months ago and
she probably had the vision because she read it somewhere (it still
doesn't explain how she saw the killer's face). Gio even goes as far
as to accuse Valentina of lying to him when they have lunch together,
but she sees the killer in a crowd and runs after him, with Gio not
far behind. The killer loses them and Gio accuses her of leading him
on a wild goose chase (Why is she still friends with him?). Inspector
Serino tells Valentina that the man who killed the young woman six
months ago is currently in prison. The man volunteered to be a guinea
pig in prison, being dosed with HDS. Gio does some digging and then
tells Valentina that the woman who was killed spent four years in
prison in Hamburg, Germany for being a drug dealer and her killer was
never in prison, he was committed to an insane asylum and the asylum
director, Professor Otto Wuttenberg (Ivano Staccioli; THE
DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES - 1971), is willing to talk with her,
for a price, which Valentina is willing to pay. On the street,
Valentina is stopped by a woman, Verushka (Claudie Lange; FLASHMAN
- 1967), who wants to talk to her in her car. She tells Valentina
that she is the sister of the murdered woman and she shows Valentina
photos of her sister. Valentina tells Verushka that it is not the
woman in her vision, she was a brunette and her sister isn't.
Verushka drives her to the asylum to meet the killer, but what is she
trying to prove? Verushka wants to know why the killer murdered her
sister, since he didn't even know her. (Think you have it figured
out? Read on...).
Once in the asylum, Verushka and Valentina meet a nun while walking
past some of the asylum's inmates (including a tap-dancing nut,
portrayed comically by Giacomo Pergola; THE
MAD BUTCHER - 1972)). The nun shows them to Nicola Ravelli
(Giorgio White), the supposed killer, who has his back to them.
Verushka wants Valentina to walk up to him and identify him as her
sister's killer. She does just that, but it is not the man she saw in
her vision. For some reason, Verushka runs away and Valentina meets
the crippled asylum director, Professor Otto Wuttenberg, who shows
her the way out, Valentina not seeing the iron glove hanging on a
door as she leaves (I would not be giving too much away by telling
you that Verushka is Professor Wuttenberg's sister). Valentina takes
a taxi home, when she sees the killer in a hearse passing them. She
tells the taxi driver to follow the hearse and when the hearse gets
to its destination, the taxi driver, knowing who Valentina is, tries
to get fresh with her (!), so she knees him in the balls, losing the
killer. She flags down the police, who take her to the Inspector. She
tells him everything, but the Inspector accuses her of lying to him
and threatens to arrest her and Gio (For what???), but she does learn
some important information on the murdered woman, which leads her to
a nightclub, where she participates (partially) in a drug-fueled
orgy, but leaves before it gets interesting. As she is walking home,
she is chased by the killer, but loses him when she hails a cab. She
goes to Stefano's workshop, where he is watching a Japanese friend's
two young children. Valentina begins to cry, so Stefano comforts her
by taking her to bed and making love to her. They later play with the
children, who tell her that they saw her sleeping with "Uncle
Stefano". Stefano takes her to an art gallery displaying some of
his sculptures. The art gallery owner tells Stefano that someone
hired him to build a funeral sculpture at a local graveyard, so
Valentina accompanies him. She meets Verushka at the graveyard and
someone tries to kill Valentina by toppling a heavy metal angel
statue on her, but fails. She then meets Professor Wuttenberg at the
graveyard and he acts strange, calling her a strange name. She and
Verishka drive away, but they are being followed. Think you have it
figured out? Why does the dead woman's handyman, Pepito (Fabrizio
Moresco; THE RED QUEEN
KILLS SEVEN TIMES - 1972), keep bumping into Valentina? I
have given you all the clues, so put on your wrinkled trenchcoat and
play detective.
This is the second of director Luciano Ercoli's (THE
FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION - 1970; THE
MAGNIFICENT DARE DEVIL - 1973; KILLER
COP - 1975) "Death Walks" giallo films, the first
one being DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS
(1971). This is a fairly involving giallo with a twist, as we know
who the killer is, but we must find out why he is doing it and how
HDS is involved. The screenplay, by Ernesto Gastaldi (THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH - 1968) and
May Velasco (WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?
- 1976), with a story by Sergio Corbucci (CASTLE
OF BLOOD - 1964), is fairly light on graphic violence, but
when it happens, it is quite brutal. It is also light in the nudity
department, just flashes of Valentina's breasts and very quick
glimpses of the orgy, but this film has a wicked sense of humor,
especially the way Valentina reacts when she is accused of lying. Her
scenes with the Inspector are priceless and Susan Scott (who was
married to Luciano Ercoli from 1972 until his death in 2015) has
never been better than she is here. She and Simón Andreu have
a chemistry that cannot be faked, thanks to them appearing in a few
films together, including this film's companion piece and TORMENTOR
(1972). If it seems my review mentions every bit of minutia in this
film, it's because it is integral to the plot, even the Japanese
children. Our old friend, hunchback actor Luciano
Rossi (DEATH
SMILES ON A MURDERER - 1973) puts in an appearance in the
excellent (and superbly choreographed) rooftop finale as Hans
Krutzer, a maniacally-laughing drug dealer, who has his face planted
in a mound of lye by Stefano. This is a film you have to watch very
carefully to pick up the clues. Movies like this are why I love
giallo films so much. It is a feast for both the eyes and the brain.
Filmed as LA
MORTE ACCAREZZA A MEZZANOTTE ("Death Caresses At
Midnight") and also known as CRY
OUT IN TERROR, this never had a U.S. theatrical or VHS
release, making its first appearance on these shores on DVD from
NoShame Films and then as a DVD box set titled "Death
Walks Twice" from Arrow Video,
containing both films from this series with plenty of extras (both
are long OOP). Arrow later released both films in their own
Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs, also containing plenty of exclusive extras.
I saw this for free streaming on Amazon Prime in a beautiful uncut
widescreen print in its original Italian with English subtitles.
There's a funny scene where the Inspector and his assistant stop
talking in their native language and switch to talking perfect
English, showing us that he is much more intelligent than he lets on
to Valentina. This film is full of these little surprising scenes,
especially the finale, which I cannot describe any further without
giving the surprise away. Needless to say, if you are a giallo fan
(and if not, why???), this film is a must-see. It's suspenseful,
funny and full of surprises. Also starring Claudio Pellegrini (STRIP
NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER - 1975), Alessandro Perrella (GIRL
IN ROOM 2A - 1973), Franco Moraldi (5
WOMEN FOR THE KILLER - 1974), Giuliana Rivera (TEENAGE
PROSTITUTION RACKET - 1975) and Raúl Aparici (KILLING
MACHINE - 1984). Not Rated.
DEATH
WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971) -
This is director Luciano Ercoli's second giallo film, following THE
FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION (1970) and
continuing with DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
(1972), featuring many of the same actors and behind-the-camera
personnel. This is also his most enjoyable mystery of the trio, for
reasons I will explain. This film also contains a gonzo performance
by hunchback actor Luciano
Rossi, who is quickly becoming my favorite Italian genre actor
because whenever I see his name in the credits, it usually means his
performance will be memorable, no matter
how small his role is.
An eyepatch-wearing man on a train gets ready for bed, putting the
German Luger he keeps tucked in his waist under his pillow. There is
a knock on his cabin door and the man on the other end tells him it's
the conductor and he needs to check his ticket, but when he opens the
door, a man wearing a ski mask (all we can see are his pale blue
eyes) slices his neck with a knife and then rifles through his
belongings, but apparently doesn't find what he is looking for. We
are then in Paris, where Nicole Rochard (Nieves Navarro, using her
pseudonym "Susan Scott"; ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK - 1972) and her fiancé, Michel
Aumont (Simon Andreu; THE
BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE - 1972), are in the back seat of a
taxi. It is obvious that they are very much in love, but as we have
learned in many giallo films, love is not the most important aspect
in a relationship. They arrive to their destination, the office of
the Chief of Police, who tells Nicole that over 700 million French
francs worth of diamonds have been stolen from the safe of a dealer
in Paris. Nicole's late father was a professional thief, his
specialty was cracking safes. It turns out that Nicole's father was
the eyepatch-wearing man we just saw murdered by someone trying to
get their hands on the diamonds. Nicole tells the Chief that her
father retired from the safecracking business a long time ago, he was
on the train because he was tired and needed a vacation. The Chief
warns Nicole that she better tell him all that she knows, asking her
if her father gave her the diamonds. If he did, then she is in
danger. Nicole says that her father gave her nothing, the last time
she saw him was two months before he was murdered. Nicole tells the
Chief that he's on the wrong track, smiling and laughing at the
unintentional (?) pun she just made, but the Chief is not smiling,
telling Nicole that she is making a big mistake. He hopes it won't be
too late when she realizes it. Michel interjects, saying to the
Chief, "Listen...if the sermon is over, I guess we'll be
off" and he and Nicole leave the Chief's office, but the Chief
tells them not to leave Paris without giving him the address where
they will be staying.
Nicole, who is a performance artist/stripper, gets a phone call from
a stranger using a portable voice box, pressing it against his throat
and saying that he must see her privately as soon as possible. Nicole
tells him to quit busting her balls, her performance at the Crazy
Club starts in two minutes and she will be stark naked, thinking it
is Michel playing a practical joke on her. We then see Nicole
performing at the Crazy Club, dancing provocatively in a sequin bra
and g-string, wearing a short black wig and wearing dark makeup all
over her body, making her look like a black woman (and a damn fine
one at that!). A man in the audience then begins filming her with an
8mm movie camera. He asks one of the waiters her name and to ask her
to join him at his table, but the waiter (after giving him her name)
tells him he doubts she will join him because she has another show to
do at the Kit Kat Klub right after this performance. Nicole is met in
her dressing room by Michel (He says to her, "I like it when
you're all black", rubbing cold cream on her body to remove the
dark makeup [Lucky guy!]) and she gets turned on when he continues
rubbing his greasy hands all over her body, so they make love. As
Nicole leaves to do her other show, Michel asks her why they only
make love between her shows and she says sarcastically, "Listen,
darling...someone has to work to keep things going, while you wait to
be offered a position as an ambassador. So in the meantime, it's all
up to me." Michel tells he she's not funny and she leaves by
taxi to do her second show, telling Michel not to drink too much.
Remember what I told you about love in giallo flicks?
At the Kit Kat Klub, the same man who was filming Nicole at the
Crazy Club is in the audience for this performance (Here, she looks
like Cher, complete with shiny beaded wig [looking very bonable!]).
This time, the man is waiting for her in her dressing room, telling
her that he enjoys watching her performances. She strips naked in
front of him and has him zip up her dress, promising to return for
future performances and then shakes her hand and leaves. When he
leaves, Nicole gets another phone call from the voicebox-using man,
who tells her if she doesn't want to end up like her father, she'll
tell him where the diamonds are. She tells him that she doesn't know
anything, a sound of fright in her voice. The man says, If you don't
talk, I'll kill you. You'll see, you'll recover your memory very
soon." Nicole walks home, but a woman is following her. Nicole
walks faster and faster, only to discover that the woman is an
overweight street hooker looking for a light for her cigarette (When
Nicole walks away in a huff, the hooker says, "How rude!").
When Nicole gets home, she pours herself a drink and a knife goes
whizzing past her and sticks in the wall. It was thrown by a drunk
Michel (they have been living together for two years) and he laughs,
but Nicole doesn't find it funny, telling Michel if he is so good at
throwing knives, he should get a job at the circus. Michel then makes
fun of her, telling her to "wiggle her ass" for him, but
Nicole has heard it many times before from Michel, especially when he
has been drinking, which has been happening a lot lately. Michel
tells Nicole that she's a beautiful woman (she really is), but he can
manage without her, her money or her ass. He's tired of people
thinking that he is her pimp, which is why he drinks. He's also tired
of waiting for her at home all night (Hey, Michel, get a hobby!).
Michel then drunkenly leaves their home, where we see someone in a
ski mask and carrying a straight razor is watching Nicole. He enters
the home, puts the razor to her throat and rips off all her clothes.
He throws her on the bed and says (in his robot-like voice),
"With this razor you won't feel the pain right away, but it will
leave your body covered with horrible scars. Tell me where the
diamonds are and I'll leave." Nicole tells him she has no idea
where they are, so he traces the dull edge of the razor down her
body, telling her to think it over carefully, the next time he'll use
the sharp edge of the blade, then he leaves. Nicole goes looking for
Michel at his favorite bar, only to run into her not-so-secret
admirer, who tells her his name is Dr. Robert Matthews (Frank Wolff; THE
GREAT SILENCE - 1968) and even though he is slightly buzzed,
he would like to take her away by plane and have breakfast with her
(Handing her his business card and telling her that he is staying at
the Ambassador Hotel). Nicole is too frightened to hear a single word
he is saying and hops in a taxi to continue looking for Michel. When
she gets home, she finds Michel in bed and she tells him what
happened to her, but he doesn't believe her, telling her it was all
probably a dream (Why is she with this guy???). He then apologizes to
her, saying that trying to find a job and people thinking that he's
her pimp is driving him to drink (excuses, excuses). Then they make
love!!! (Maybe they do deserve each other).
The next morning, Nicole enters the bathroom, opens the medicine
cabinet and a piece of cloth falls out. Inside the cloth are two blue
contact lenses and what immediately comes to her mind is how her
assailant from the night before had the same blue eyes. She believes
Michel is the guilty party, so she leaves and goes to the Ambassador
Hotel to have Dr. Matthews whisk her away from here, but he tells her
that he must be in London tomorrow on business. Nicole goes to London
with Robert to get away from all the craziness in her life, but she
will soon discover that the craziness has followed her, there's no
escaping it.
Robert treats Nicole like a queen, buying her expensive clothes and
taking her to fancy restaurants, but it is quite clear he has only
one thing on his mind, getting Nicole out of those expensive clothes
and into bed. Nicole wonders why Robert doesn't ask her about her
past and he tells her questions like that lead to answers that are
disappointing, he stopped asking questions like that a long time ago
after years of a "stupid, monotonous marriage" to a woman
named Vanessa (Claudie Lange; FLASHMAN
- 1967). It turns out he is still married to her, as she refuses to
give him a divorce. He tells Nicole that thanks to Vanessa's money,
he has a successful clinic and considers himself a good doctor, but
his wife won't give him a divorce unless he returns all the money she
gave him, something he is not willing to do because it would mean the
end of his clinic (All this small stuff is essential to the plot, so
pay close attention!). Nicole shows her appreciation to Robert by
putting on private strip shows for him (Robert doesn't want her to
take her boots off when they make love because he likes the way they
look on her, contrasting with her body).
Back in Paris, Michel is trying to find Nicole and discovers from
the Ambassador Hotel's doorman that she left for London with Dr.
Matthews. Robert sets up Nicole with a nice seaside cottage as their
love nest, which Vanessa knows nothing about. Robert and Nicole enter
the small town's local bar, where he introduces Nicole as his wife to
barmaid Peggy (Rachela Pamenti) and the mysterious Hallory (Luciano
Rossi; THE
STRANGER'S GUNDOWN - 1969), who holds a cat in his left hand,
which is covered with a studded black leather glove. We learn that
Hallory is the cottage's caretaker and since he is played by Rossi,
it could only mean one thing: Wild and dangerous times are ahead. But
why does everyone stare at Nicole and why does Peggy give her the
cold shoulder? Hallory accompanies Robert and Nicole to the cottage,
which sits near the ocean and has it's own private dock, including a
small motorboat. Robert tells Nicole that when he is away on
business or at his clinic, if she needs anything, she should phone
Hallory, he's reliable. Nicole tells him that Hallory makes her
nervous and scared, so he shows her a hidden drawer under the
fireplace mantle that hides a pistol (I don't know about you, but red
flags are being raised in my mind!). He tells Nicole that she will
never have to use the weapon because nothing ever happens in this
old, backwards town (Telling her the residents consider the tango a
"sinful dance"). When Nicole goes to town to pick up a few
personal items, we can see that Hallory is following her. He even
watches her paint her toenails with lust in his eyes, but is he doing
all this on his own or did Robert tell him to keep a close eye on her?
We then watch as someone with a telescope is keeping close tabs on
Nicole, breathing heavy and watching her strip nude and go to bed. A
short time later, Robert and Nicole go to the bar and meet Captain
Lenny (George Rigaud; EYEBALL -
1975). Robert is looking to buy a bigger boat and Captain Lenny has
some photos for him to look at. Nicole then hears a voice that sounds
all too familiar and when she turns around, she sees a man on the
phone using a portable voicebox and the bad memories come flooding
back, begging Robert to take her back to the cottage. Once
there, she tells Robert to take her to London because she does not
like the way people look and talk about her in this small town,
calling it a "village of the dead". Robert tells her
to be patient, he'll ask Vanessa for a divorce and then they can be
married. He tells Nicole that he loves her and she apologizes to him
for being harsh at the bar. Later that night, the person with the
telescope watches Nicole get a visitor, a woman whose face we don't
see. She tries to hand Nicole a wad of cash, but she refuses to take
it, so she throws it at her and leaves the cottage. We then see
Nicole hide the money (so does the person with the telescope). When
Robert returns to the cottage, Nicole isn't there and Hallory tells
him he has no idea where she is, he thought she was at the cottage.
At the bar, Captain Lenny tells Robert that everyone in town knows
Nicole isn't his wife ("The village is too small to hide such
things. And people like to gossip, which is worse."). Robert
tells Captain Lenny that he is sure Nicole will return and gives him
his phone number in London, telling him to call him when she returns.
Holy Shit! This review is getting very long, so let me summarize the
remaining important plot points.
1.Robert operates on the eyes of a man named Smith (Jose Manuel Martin; CURSE OF THE DEVIL - 1973), removing his cataracts in some uncomfortable real-life surgery footage, telling Smith that soon he will be able to see again, but not to take the bandages off for any reason.
2.An unknown woman then enters his operating room, shoots and seriously wounds Robert.
3.Scotland Yard Inspector Baxter (Carlo Gentili; SILVER SADDLE - 1978) and his assistant, Bergson (Fabrizio Moresco; THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES - 1972), are assigned to the case and question "Mrs. Matthews", the real Mrs. Matthews, Vanessa. They hear a delirious Robert cry out Nicole's name, but Vanessa tells the Inspector she has no idea who Nicole is. The Inspector then questions a bandaged Smith, who tells him he heard a woman with heavy footsteps or it could be a man wearing women's shoes, running away after the gunshot. He also never heard Dr. Matthews mention the name Nicole.
4.Things get worse for Nicole when the Inspector discovers reel-to-reel tape recordings of Robert and Nicole making love. Michel is discovered blind stinking drunk at Peggy's bar and is brought to the cottage, where he tells the Inspector that Dr. Matthews stole Nicole from him. Before he is detained, Michel gets Captain Lenny to spill the beans to him.
5.The Inspector finds Robert's 8mm movies of Nicole's striptease act and confronts Robert, who tells him it wasn't Nicole who shot him, but refuses to say who did.
6.Things get really bad for Nicole when she is found dead, the apparent victim of a suicide ("apparent" being the key word).
7.Using the information he gleaned from Captain Lenny, Michel gets to the truth faster than the Inspector, but uses the truth to blackmail the guilty parties.
8.No surprise here, it was Vanessa who threw the money at Nicole, but did she shoot her husband?
9.Is Hallory the one with the telescope, or is he hiding something from everyone? Something that is very embarrassing for the time (but wouldn't even cause a stir today).
10.How
is all this tied to the missing diamonds?
I have given you everything you need to know to solve this mystery,
so read it again, put on your thinking cap and get to work. Oh, and
one more thing: The blue-eyed, ski mask-wearing killer pays Vanessa a
visit in London, graphically slicing one of her breasts and cutting
her throat (and then giving her a "Glasgow Smile") while
she is lying in bed, leaving behind a blue contact lens in her hair
as a clue for the Inspector to discover. Think you know who the
killer is? No? Okay, one more clue: Blocks of ice and a piece of rope
attached to a small boat's anchor may be all the Inspector needs to
solve this case.
There is a damn fine mystery in this film, particularly since no one
here is who they pretend to be, even Smith, who isn't as blind as he
acts, as he is connected to Nicole's father and the diamond robbery.
What confounded me is how underutilized Luciano Rossi is in this
film, unlike his role in DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972). In that film, he had a standout
fight scene on a rooftop that ended very badly for him, but in this
film he's nothing but a red herring (you can cross him off your
suspect list). We are given no reason
as to why he wears that studded glove on his left hand (unless I
missed it, but I'm particularly meticulous when it comes to giallo
films). Ha! Ha! Ha! Gotcha! Rossi's role is key to this film, but if
you want to see how, you'll have to watch the film yourself. Needless
to say, it's wild and memorable, something I have come to depend on
from him. He never disappoints. No one does crazy like Luciano Rossi!
But is he the killer? I'm not telling. It's a shame that Luciano
Ercoli only directed eight films in his career (including THE
MAGNIFICENT DARE DEVIL - 1973; and KILLER
COP - 1975), as he was a Producer by trade. All eight of his
films starred his wife "Susan Scott" and she's used to
eye-opening effect here, as her stripteases show off her fantastic
body, proving Ercoli was a very lucky man. I have never seen her more
fetching than in this film. (Ercoli passed away in 2015, still
married to her). The screenplay, by giallo veteran Ernesto Gastaldi (THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH - 1971; TORSO
- 1973) and Mahnahen "May" Velasco (an Assistant Director
on THE PRICE OF POWER
- 1969; THE HOUSE
THAT SCREAMED - 1969; and VOODOO
BLACK EXORCIST - 1974), who both co-wrote Ercoli's other two
giallo films, is a cornucopia of female nudity and fairly restrained
violence, that is until Vanessa is murdered, making her death all the
more shocking and about as gory as any modern-day slasher flick
(especially the blade ripping her throat open). If you are a giallo
fan, this film should be on your must-see list. It's intriguing, well
paced, titillating and full of surprises. It should also be noted
that the music soundtrack, by the late Stelvio
Cipriani, is way above average. You'll be tapping your feet,
especially during Ms. Scott's striptease scenes.
Shot as LA
MORTE CAMMINA CON I TACCHI ALTI (a literal translation of the
review title), this film never had a U.S. theatrical or VHS release,
making its first appearance on these shores as a DVD from NoShame
Films in 2006. Arrow Video then released both a DVD and Blu-Ray of
this title and it looks amazing, like it was shot yesterday. As with
most Arrow products, the extras on the disc are second to none,
including an introduction to the film by Ernesto Gastaldi and archive
interview with Ercoli and Susan Scott. The film is available in both
its original Italian with English subtitles or English dubbed. Amazon
Prime also offers the same print streaming, but only in Italian with
English subtitles (my preferred way of watching films). If you don't
like to read while watching a film (Don't laugh, I know people like
that!), then the Arrow discs are the only way to go. They are pricey,
but well worth the investment. Also featuring Osvaldo Genazzani (DYNAMITE
JIM - 1966) and Manuel Muniz (SUGAR
COLT - 1966) as fisherman Philip, who unknowingly unmasks
the killer with a single line of dialogue at the end of the film. Not
Rated.
A
DEMON IN MY VIEW (1991) - The
late Anthony Perkins, in one of his last performances, stars in this
German psychodrama
set in London. He plays his patented PSYCHO
(1960)-type role: an anal retentive, woman-hating strangler who can
only get his jollies by making love to a mannequin he keeps locked up
in the basement of the apartment complex he lives in. We can trace
his problems back to his childhood (shown in flashbacks). When his
mother died, he was forced to live with his aunt who treated him like
a girl. One flashback shows Perkin's aunt making him babysit a infant
girl while she goes out. He sticks the baby continuously with a
safety pin and washes out the bloody diaper to hide what he has done.
This leads to a series of unsolved strangulations of women which has
lasted well over twenty years. When a man (Uwe Bohn), who has the
same last name as Perkins' character, moves into his apartment
building, complications arise. This young man is carrying on a long
distance love affair with a married woman (Sophie Ward) and when he
burns Perkins' mannequin in effigy on Guy Faulks Day, Perkins goes
madder than usual and decides to get even. In between strangulations
he intercepts his neighbor's mail (remember, they both have the same
last name) and writes to the married woman, saying that the affair is
over. The plan backfires though, as the woman leaves her husband and
comes to London to find out what went wrong. In an ironic finale,
Perkins is shot dead by her jealous husband, who mistakenly thinks he
is her lover. Perkins made one more film (TV's IN
THE DEEP WOODS)
before succumbing to AIDS in 1992. I'm still reeling from the loss.
Unfortunately, A
DEMON IN MY VIEW
is not a fitting tribute to the grand master of psychotic roles. Not
that this is a bad film. As a matter of fact, Perkins is able to
display more emotion with a simple facial expression than most actors
would be able to do with twenty pages of dialogue. It's just that
this film is slow and uninvolving and lacks the gore and nudity one
expects from this type of film. Directed and written by Petra Haffter (CRASH
KIDS
- 1996). A Vidmark Entertainment
Release. Rated
R.
THE
DESIGNATED VICTIM (1971) -
We first see Stefano (Tomas Milian; SYNDICATE
SADISTS - 1975) lying in bed, taking fake photos of a naked
Fabienne (Katia Christine; FIVE
WOMEN FOR THE KILLER - 1974) by using his hands as an
imaginary camera. Stefano is co-owner of a successful designing firm;
his latest customer being a chocolate candy company in which he used
Fabienne to star in their commercial (It's a weird commercial with
Fabienne flying through the air everywhere she goes). The
married Stefano wants to sell his half of the company when someone
offers him 220 million lire for it, but his wife, Luisa (Marisa
Bartoli), who actually owns his half of the business, refuses to
sell. It's easy to see Luisa controls the money in their marriage
(she's rich with family money) and she refuses to sell because she
believes if she does, Stefano would leave her (She's probably right).
Stefano angrily tells her that she may have put up the money for his
half of the business but it was he alone who made it successful,
therefore he should be able to sell it, but Luisa stands pat in her
decision. Stefano is a womanizer and gambler who often loses big and
Luisa usually pays his debts, but she is growing tired of it. Stefano
keeps running into a strange rich man who introduces himself as Count
Matteo Tiepolo (Pierre Clementi; THE
YEAR OF THE CANNIBALS - 1970), who tells Stefano that this
is the third time in one day they have bumped into each other and if
it should happen a fourth time, their relationship will
"evolve". Guess what? Yes, they run into each other for a
fourth time that day and begin to have a conversation. Matteo asks
Stefano if he ever had the urge to kill someone and Stefano laughs,
not taking him seriously but answering yes, saying that his wife is
ruining his life. Matteo then agrees to kill Luisa if Stefano will
murder his brother Balsamo (Ottavio Alessi; one of the screenwriters
of DAMNED IN VENICE
- 1978), who often physically and mentally abuses him. Stefano thinks
Matteo is one strange duck and tells him he will think about it, not
taking Matteo seriously. Stefano will soon learn that Matteo is more
than he seems to be; he's a cold-blooded killer who is meticulous in
his planning and will soon destroy Stefano's life if he doesn't
complete his half of the plan.
For one thing, Matteo keeps showing up in all the same places as
Stefano, telling him it is just a coincidence, but we know it isn't.
Luisa also knows that her husband is having an affair with Fabienne,
thanks to a note Matteo attached to a card with a bouquet of flowers
he sent her; the card telling her everything about Stefano's plans
for the future, such as selling his half of the business behind her
back and moving to Venezuela with Fabienne. Luisa kicks Stefano out
of their home, telling him that when they first met he was a nobody
and now he is a nobody again; she's divorcing him and not giving him
a penny of her fortune. Matteo then keeps playing mind games with
Stefano, pushing him to the point of no return, but will he kill
Matteo's brother?
Stefano also has a one-night stand with pretty German tourist
Christina Muller (Alessandra Cardini; ROME:
ARMED TO THE TEETH - 1976) and after a night of passion, he
wakes up and can't remember a thing about the night before, only
knowing that he met a girl named Christina and nothing else. He
phones Luisa, hoping she will take him back, but Police Commissioner
Finzi (Luigi Casellato; THE
BLOODSTAINED SHADOW - 1978) answers the phone, telling
Stefano to come immediately, his wife is dead. With no recollection
of the night before, the time Luisa was murdered, Stefano must try to
get Commissioner Finzi to believe him that he had nothing to do with
his wife's murder, even though all evidence points to him as the
killer. Since Luisa's killer wiped all fingerprints from the crime
scene and walked away with all of her expensive jewelry, Stefano
becomes prime suspect #1, even though he swears to Finzi that he
didn't do it. The only person that Stefano trusts is his best friend
Bosco (Enzo Tarascio; THE
BLOODSTAINED LAWN - 1973), but even he comes under suspicion
in Stefano's untrusting mind. When someone leaves Stefano an envelope
at the hotel he is staying at, which contains a piece of Luisa's
jewelry, Stefano trusts no one. It doesn't help that Christina has
vanished, as if she never existed. Could Matteo be behind all this?
If you answered yes, you would be right. When Matteo's framing
evidence against Stefano is more than he can handle, Stefano decides
to go through with his half of the bargain, murdering Matteo's
brother, but in the surprise finale, where Stefano grabs a
high-powered rifle Matteo has left him and pulls the trigger with the
police rapidly approaching, we discover what Matteo was actually
trying to achieve. Don't
expect a happy ending, because that's not what this film is about.
The finale is bittersweet, to put it mildly (If you think I am going
to tell you what that is, you have another thing coming!).
If this sounds a lot like Hitchcock's STRANGERS
ON A TRAIN (1951), you would be correct, but this film does
go off in some surprising directions you will never see coming. Part
giallo and part Eurocrime mystery, this film, directed by Maurizio
Lucidi (PROBABILITY ZERO
- 1969; STATELINE MOTEL
- 1973; STREET PEOPLE -
1976; one of the fired directors of VAMPIRE
IN VENICE - 1988) and written by Fulvio Gicca Palli (TEMPLE
OF THE THOUSAND LIGHTS - 1965; HOW
TO KILL A JUDGE - 1975; MAGNUM
COP - 1978), contains some wonderful cinematography and
quite a few plot twists that should surprise you. Filled with copious
nudity, but very little graphic violence, this film is worth watching
if only to see a clean-shaven Tomas Milian portray a man whose life
is rapidly getting out of hand. Milian usually portrays a character
who makes other people's lives difficult, so it is refreshing to see
him playing an everyman whose life is being meticulously controlled
by Matteo, played extremely well by Pierre Clementi, who looks like
Russell Brand here. The more that Stefano tries to prove to
Commissioner Finzi that he is innocent, the guiltier he looks, thanks
to Matteo planning every aspect of Luisa's murder down to the
minutest detail, forcing Stefano to do the unthinkable, but as the
closing shot shows us, Stefano doesn't know what he has really done.
This is a quick-moving film that has much to recommend (Milian is
always good no matter what film he is in. He always makes a film seem
better than it actually is), so it comes recommended from this reviewer.
Shot as LA
VITTIMA DESIGNATA (a literal translation of the review title)
and also known as MURDER
BY DESIGN, this film had a 1972 U.S.
theatrical release by International CineFilm Corporation, but no
legitimate VHS releases in the States that I could find. No
legitimate disc releases in the States, either, but Sinister
Cinema does offer it in widescreen on DVD-R.
If you have an All Region disc player, British outfit Shameless
Screen Entertainment offers the film on DVD.
No Blu-Ray at the time of this review. Also available streaming on
YouTube from user "Der Joker", who offers it in anamorphic
widescreen and dubbed in English (which is how I viewed it). Also
featuring Bruno Boschetti (THE SLASHER...IS
THE SEX MANIAC! - 1972), Giuseppe Alotta (DOUBLE
GAME - 1977), Vittorio Pinelli (DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT - 1972) and prolific cameo queen Carla
Mancini (FLAVIA THE HERETIC
- 1974). Not Rated.
DO
NOT DISTURB (2008/2013) - Any
regular reader of this site knows that I am madly in love with
Tiffany Shepis (THE
FRANKENSTEIN SYNDROME - 2010; THE
VIOLENT KIND - 2010). She is such a great actress (and easy
on the eyes, too) that she elevates any film she appears in, even if
it is just a cameo role. One of the biggest mysteries in life is why
she hasn't become a major star in A-List Hollywood films. Besides
being a great actress, she has no problem shedding her clothes if the
role demands it (even showing the full monty in several films), but
she won't play the usual Hollywood "casting couch" game, so
this is probably why she hasn't been offered roles in major films. I
just thank my lucky stars that she does a whole lot of genre films,
because I love to look at her and watch her act her brains out (and
she has scruples, which more actors could use). I know I'm not the
only one to feel that way, but she has held a special place in my
heart ever since I saw her in that silver jumpsuit in THE
HAZING (2004) and then went out of my way to try and find
every movie she appeared in. Thankfully, she has a major role in this
film, although it is nothing like the DVD sleeve describes. First, a
little background on this film: This film was shot and
finished in 2008 (Shepis was engaged to the late Corey Haim at the
time and she brought him along on the shoot in Pennsylvania. Haim
asked if the script had a role for him, but there wasn't, so the director/screenwriter
wrote a role specifically for him.) and released in 2010 under the
title NEW TERMINAL HOTEL,
which ran 99 minutes. The film was then pulled and cut of 11 minutes
to tighten the pace and released in 2013 under the current title (the
end credits gives it a 2013 copyright, even though Corey Haim
tragically passed away of pneumonia in 2010). The film begins with
screenwriter Don Malek (Stephen Geoffreys; FRIGHT
NIGHT - 1985; MR. HUSH
- 2011), who has been in a career slump for the past two years due to
the tragic murder of the love of his life, Katherin (Laura Leigh),
and hasn't written a single word since it has happened. Don finally
gets his chance for retribution when Stan Glissberg (Anthony
Colliano), the person responsible for Katherin's death, agrees to
meet Don at his room the Terminal Hotel (a skid row type of joint
where you can just smell the piss in the hallways). Stan arrives and
Don lays out a couple of lines of cocaine for him and when Stan
snorts them, he becomes paralyzed, because Don laced the cocaine with
a paralytic agent. He puts Stan in the bathtub and removes his
appendix while he is alive and puts the organ in his freezer wrapped
in tin foil (Don wears a mask of a human face and a blonde wig when
he commits acts of violence), stitching up the incision when he is
done. Don's agent, Ava Collins (Shepis), who still has faith in Don,
even though he hasn't written anything in two years, makes an
unexpected appearance at Don's door and wants to know why he is
living in a fleabag hotel. All Don can say is, "I'm tired",
which infuriates Ava because she knows what potential he has. She
tries to get his blood boiling by saying "There are a line of
good writers waiting to fill your shoes.", but Don retorts,
"Are they any good?" Ava comes back by saying that she
could throw a stone and find a great writer, but Don says, "What
about a Killer? Could you find a great killer?" Things take a
sharp turn when Don Tells Ava to go look in the bathroom (Don:
"It's my greatest work." Ava: "Do you
want me to flush it for you?"). Ava sees Stan in the bathtub
filled with ice, still alive, but unable to speak, and she thinks Don
and Stan are collaborating on a script when Don shows her the
appendix in his freezer. She wants to see Don and Stan in her office
tomorrow morning to sign an exclusive contract, but Don says that she
has to come back to the hotel tomorrow night instead. Ava leaves and
Don goes back to the bathroom, where he removes one of Stan's kidneys
and stitches up the incision. Don plans on keeping Stan alive as long
as possible, feeling the pain that his love once felt. Ava arrives
the next night expecting to be handed a script, but Stan comes
stumbling out of the bathroom and Ava maces Don in his eyes because
she is scared for her life. Don assures Ava that he means her no harm
(He tells Ava that he is doing to Stan what Stan has done to him:
Tearing him down piece-by-piece for the past two years). When Ava
leaves, saying she expects a screenplay about his ordeal, Don takes
Stan back to the bathroom and hits him over his head several times
until he is still alive, but basically brain dead. He asks his
neighbor Spitz (Ezra Buzzington) for a major favor: He wants to
borrow his wheelchair (he is legless from the war), where he wheels
the braindead Stan to the hospital and drops him off, returning the
wheelchair to Spitz, where Stan is barely alive and put in Intensive
Care. Ava visits Don (he makes her take her shirt off to make sure
she is not wired, the closest we get to see Shepis nude in this
film), where she is worried that once Stan becomes conscious, he will
implicate Don, but Don tells her not to worry; he will never be able
to say anything. Ava thinks this screenplay will be a huge moneymaker
for her when Don writes the screenplay, but Don tells her he hasn't
written a word yet, it is still all in his head. Later that night,
Spitz wheels himself into Don's apartment with a huge open gash on
his chest and says he is calling in the favor. He wants Don to kill
the prostitute he was with because she is the one who cut him badly.
Spitz wants Don to take her behind the hotel and bash her brains in
with a brick. Don checks out Spitz's room and the naked prostitute is
still there and tells Don that Spitz is a degenerate. Don pays her
the $100 she is owed and tells her to leave, while Don checks out
Spitz's apartment and discovers that he is actually a degenerate. He
finds boxes of mutilated Barbie dolls and videotapes of Spitz abusing
the prostitutes he hires, including the last one he just let leave
(Don is appalled at what he sees on-screen). Don goes back to his
apartment and begins to stitch-up Spitz's gaping chest wound, while
listening to Spitz complain about his time in the military and what
happened to him ("All I can do now is eat pussy. And I have to
pay for it!"). Don mentions the torture tapes he found in
Spitz's apartment, where Spitz says he actually is fond of them and
watches them all the time. Don then gives Spitz a shot that he says
is a pain killer, but after Don gives it to him, he tells Spitz that
it is actually a paralyzing agent. Spitz will be unable to move but
will be able to see and feel everything. Spitz begins to wheel
himself out of Don's apartment, but only makes it halfway down the
hall before the drug takes effect. Don brings him to his bathroom,
puts on his face mask and blonde wig, throws Spitz into the bathtub
and cuts him into pieces while he is alive (The film's biggest flaw
is that we don't actually see any of the murders; they are only
implied. Only once in a while do we see the aftermath, like when Don
removed Stan's kidney). When another agent named Carter Ball (James
Grabowski) wants to steal Don away from Ava (We also learn that Stan
died in the hospital), Ana sets it up so Carter visits Don, expecting
Don to kill him. Another one of Don's neighbors, Jasper (Haim, doing
the lamest British accent I have heard in a while), mentions that he
saw Don wearing his mask and wig when he was wheeling Stan down the
hallway, so Don has no other choice but to beat his brains in with a
rock when they leave a bar. Don returns to his apartment, only to
discover that the police have taped-up his floor as a crime scene,
thanks to the police finding Spitz's body. Detective Turkovich
(Robert Di Donato) questions Don because Spitz's body was found in
pieces by a garbageman and the stitches on Spitz's chest are exactly
the same as the ones that were found in Stan's body in the hospital.
Don says he knows nothing about it and the detective leaves. Carter
pays Don a visit thanks to a collaboration between Ava and Carter's
prostitute girlfriend Rebecca (Tara Sukustis). Don wants to buy his
contract and Don tells him to come back tomorrow (uh-oh!). Don makes
love to the prostitute that Spitz abused, when he is visited by Ava.
The prostitute leaves and Ana demands a script, but Don tells her it
is still all in his head. Don wants Ava to just forget about him, but
Ava has a way of speaking
to
Don to make him stay in the game. Don says that she has to come to
his apartment tomorrow when Carter arrives (He says to Ava, "I'll
spin the web, but you're the black widow!"). When Ava leaves,
Don is once again visited by Detective Turkovich, telling Don that
there is video footage of Don and Stan entering the motel, but no
footage of either one of them leaving. Don kills the detective in the
bathroom with a claw hammer, scrubs the bathroom clean, fills a bunch
of hypodermic needles with all types of deadly drugs, puts a gun
under his chin and pulls the trigger, committing suicide (He leave a
note saying he is sorry and wishes Ava luck). Ava kills Carter after
seeing Don's body and reading the note. She stabs Carter with the
hypodermic needles Don left on the bathroom sink until Carter's chest
looks like a pin cushion. She laughs like a mad woman and then the
film ends with her screaming over Don's death (which she was mostly
responsible for and she realizes that there is no way she can get out
of this). More of a character study than a horror film or
thriller, this movie makes Don a decent guy who is deeply depressed
and he was just looking for revenge for his girlfriend's death and
then other people (especially Ava) get involved and it spirals out of
control. Don never wanted to be a mass murderer, but forces beyond
his control made him one. The fact that Don pays Spitz's prostitute
her $100 fee and then she joins him in bed a few days later proves
that he is a decent guy at heart. But revenge only leads to more and
more violence and Don learns it the hard way, but he gets his revenge
by blowing his brains out, since his "screenplay" was all
in his head. His suicide is a complete surprise to the viewer because
it is shown so matter-of-factly, but when you think about it long
after the film is over, you realize that it was the only choice that
made sense. The acting is effectively sleazy across the board
(Stephen Geoffreys pulls-back his normal over-acting here [unlike MR.
HUSH] and comes off like a depressed man who is just trying
to cope as things get worse and worse), but Corey Haim comes off the
worst because of his ridiculous British accent (which he said was a
tribute to Jason Statham!). While the blood and gore is kept to a
minimum (I can't really speak if there is more gore in the original
version, but it doesn't look like there was, since most of the
carnage takes place in Don's bathroom), there is plenty of topless
nudity (but none by Shepis, dammit!). The whole atmosphere of the
film feels dirty and grimy (like a fleabag hotel should), which I
think director/producer/writer BC Furtney (WEREWOLF
RISING - 2014) was aiming for. Still, for a film of this
type, a little more blood and guts wouldn't have hurt but, like I
said in the beginning of this review, I'll watch anything with
Tiffany Shepis in it and she shines here as an agent without a soul.
Executive Producer Jesse Baget directed the horror film WRESTLEMANIAC
(2006); was one of the directors on the anthology film ZOMBIEWORLD
(2014); and wrote the story to MISCHIEF
NIGHT (2013). Also starring Danielle Fortwangler, Sam
Nicotero, Wayne Kryka, Brain Derby, Danny Cooper and a quick cameo
from director BC Furtney as a bartender. An RLJ
Entertainment DVD Release. Not Rated.
DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972) -
An excellent giallo film from director/co-screenwriter Lucio Fulci.
If you are a fan of Fulci's earlier giallo flick, A
LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN (1971), which I am, you are going
to love this one. It is frightening, the plot complex, but
satisfying, and Fulci shows us he is a master storyteller, yet he
doesn't scrimp on the gory violence which would become his trademark
in the later film of his career.
In a small mountainside Italian city (filmed in Monte S. Angelo,
Italy), a woman named Maciara (Florinda Bolkan; FLAVIA
THE HERETIC -
1974) is digging through the dirt and uncovers the skeletal remains
of an infant. She picks up the bones and walks away. Two pre-teen
boys are smoking cigarettes under a bridge when they are joined by a
third boy, who says, "They're coming!" "They" are
prostitutes, who have set up a meeting place in an old shack near the
bridge. The boys are there to make fun of Giuseppe Barra (Vito
Passeri; THE BLACK CAT
- 1981), who is peeping on the prostitutes through a crack in the
door. The boys call out Guiseppe's name and he runs after them. We
then see someone sticking pins into a wax doll, while one of the
boys, Michele, uses a slingshot to shoot lizards off a rock (This may
not make sense now, but it will later in the film). Michele goes
home, where his frustrated mother (Rosalia Maggio) complains
constantly about her life and how she works too much. She hands
Michele a tray containing orange juice and tells him to give it to
new tenant Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet; THE
RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES - 1972), who is lounging totally
naked (A naked Barbara Bouchet? Lucky boy!). Michele delivers
the tray and Patrizia is not ashamed of her nakedness. As a matter of
fact, she encourages him to look at her as she pours the orange juice
between her breasts (Damn lucky boy!). Patrizia asks Michele how many
girls he has "had" and he answers "lots".
Patrizia calls him a liar and says he is full of shit because she can
believe one or two girls, but not "lots". A smiling
Patrizia approaches Michele and asks him, "Would you like
to go to bed with me?" (Fucking damn lucky boy!) Michele says
yes, but his mother interrupts their would-be tryst. Was Patrizia
serious or is she a cocktease?
That night, we see 12 year-old Bruno running for his life outside
his house when someone hits him and knocks him out. We then see the
Police Commissioner (Virgilio Gazzolo) and his entire force looking
for Bruno. His parents tell the Commissioner that they received a
ransom phone call demanding six million lire in cash for Bruno's safe
return. They are very poor and can't afford to pay such a large sum.
The Commissioner tells them not to worry about the ransom. Also
interested in this case is newspaper reporter Andrea Martelli (Tomas
Milian; ALMOST HUMAN -
1974), who alerted the police to the ransom demand, even though the
caller said that if anyone alerted the police, Bruno would be killed.
The police set up a sting at the ransom drop-off location and capture
Guiseppe Barra, who pleads he is innocent. The police make him talk
to Bruno's parents over the phone to see if the can identify his
voice as that of the kidnapper, and they do. Guiseppe then leads the
police to Bruno's grave, but he tells them he found Bruno's dead body
and all he did was bury the boy. Is he telling the truth? The
Commissioner calls Guiseppe an "imbecile" and believes they
have their kidnapper. We then see Maciara is at Bruno's gravesite,
but why is she smiling so slyly?
The killer strikes again, as we see an old woman scream when she
discovers the dead body a pre-teen boy floating in a well. Maciara
then buries a wax doll in a miniature grave. What's the connection?
Martelli then interviews new town priest, Don Alberto Avallone (Marc
Porel; BLAZING FLOWERS
- 1978), who tells Martelli that he has suspicions about Patrizia,
who was involved in a drug scandal in Rome before her father shipped
her off to this town until the heat blows over. One night, while it
is raining out, Michele discovers someone is digging a hole. He
smiles at the unseen stranger and then the killer strangles Michele
and throws his body in the newly dug hole. Police Captain Modesti
(Ugo D'Alessio), who is relieved when he is told none of the dead
boys have been sexually assaulted, questions Patrizia about Bruno's
murder. He believes she may have seen the killer, but Patrizia tells
him that she use to be a drug addict and it has affected her memory.
She doesn't know if she has seen the killer. Is she telling the truth?
At Michele's church funeral service, Maciara screams, "I know
he is here! I know he is here in the church!" and then runs
away. The police tell Martelli that the towspeople believe Maciara is
a witch who works with old man Francesco (George Wilson), who may
also be a witch. The police question Francesco and he tells them he
hasn't seen Maciara for months and believes she is hiding, but
doesn't know why. Is he telling the truth?
The State police are called in to perform a search and Martelli
wonders why, since no other children have been reported missing.
Martelli also has an interest in a woman (Irene Papas; RING
OF DARKNESS - 1977/1979) carrying a young girl named Malvina
(Fausta Avelli), who is deaf and dumb. Martelli asks a resident about
the woman and he says, "We put up with her because she is the
priest's mother." What does he mean by "put up"? The
police get a phone call from Mrs. Avallone and she tells them that
Maciara is hiding in a cave. The police go to the cave, but Maciara
is not there. A police dog uncovers the grave of a missing pre-teen
boy, who disappeared fifteen years earlier. It turns out the missing
boy was the son of Maciara and Francesco. The dogs also catch the
scent of Maciara and the police soon capture her. She confesses to
killing the three boys and her son, who she calls "the son of
the Devil." Maciara tells the police that she didn't strangle
them but she "put them to death in a different way. They asked
for it! They asked for death!" Are these the rantings of a crazy
women or is there a kernel of truth in what she says? The police
inject Maciara with truth serum and she describes how she made wax
dolls of the boys, stabbing each of the dolls thirteen times with
pins while reciting the words "you have to say to command the
devils. Thirteen devils enter someone's mouth. By the mouth infects
the blood...and he kills." When
the police ask her who "he" is, Maciara says,
"Anybody. Man or woman." Is it possible something
supernatural is at work or is it more down to Earth? I'm afraid
you'll have to discover that for yourself. Since this is a giallo
flick, you already know I never reveal the killer's identity in any
of my giallo reviews, but I have supplied you with enough clues to
figure out on your own.
This is a fantastic giallo film with many effective visual touches.
For those who think director Lucio Fulci is mainly a director of
mindless gore flicks and is not capable of delivering something
literate and intelligent, look no further than this film, as Fulci
gives us an experience that is so involving, you won't be able to
take your eyes off the screen. Pay particular attention to how
Michele firsts spots a nude Patrizia or the music used during
Maciara's killing by the villagers to see a true master of
storytelling at work. The screenplay, by Fulci, Roberto Gianviti (THE
PSYCHIC - 1977) & Gianfranco Clerici (THE
NEW YORK RIPPER - 1982), is simply wonderful and sharp as a
tack, as the story doesn't take a single wrong turn. The old ways
clash with modern times in a battle that will make you think. Is all
this modern thinking just a waste of time? Old towns have old legends
and, like most legends, they are based on a morsel of truth. I really
don't know why I waited so long to watch this film because I have had
the DVD for five years. Fulci throws so much up on the screen, from
human drama to haunted house themes, and none of it seems extraneous.
It feels necessary, as all the left-field plot devices gel to a
delicious whole, like finding that missing jigsaw puzzle piece that
you have been trying to locate for weeks, just so you can see the
entire picture. I really cannot recommend this film enough. It is an
important entry in the giallo genre that bridges the gap from pure
mystery to gory violence (the killer's death is especially juicy and
memorable). One of my new favorite films. I don't say that often.
Originally titled NON
SI SEVZIA UN PAPERINO ( "Do Not Torture A Little
Donald"; and, yes, Donald Duck, or at least his head, is a key
clue to the mystery), this film was never shown theatrically or
released on VHS during the '80s in the United States. Anchor Bay
Entertainment released it on VHS & DVD early in the New
Millennium, with Blue Underground
releasing a barebone DVD in 2011 (just a short Fulci biography) but,
luckily, the disc doesn't need any extras because the film is so
good. It is uncut, in widescreen and, while there is very minor
damage during reel changes, the film looks good considering its
vintage. Even the English dubbing is better than average and does not
distract from the performances the way so many dubbed films are
guilty of. It would have been nice if Blue Underground released it in
its original Italian language with English subtitles (I'm a purist at
heart), but I'll take this film any way I can get it. Available on
Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.
Also starring Andrea Aureli, Linda Sini, Franco Balducci, Gianfranco
Barra and John Bartha. Not Rated.
DOPPELGANGER
(1992) - Slow
and uninvolving murder mystery somewhat redeemed by an unexpected
slimy and splattery finale (supplied by the KNB effects wizards).
Drew Barrymore portrays a confused girl who believes she has a
doppelganger, an evil ghostly twin who murders people for the sheer
delight of it. After her mother is murdered in New York (the police
believe Drew did it but don't have enough evidence to hold her), Drew
heads to L.A. to escape her dilemma. She shares an apartment with
aspiring writer George Newbern (ADVENTURES
IN BABYSITTING
- 1987), who begins to notice that Drew is a little peculiar. After
talking to Drew's psychiatrist (Dennis Christopher), he learns that
Drew's father repeatedly raped her as a child. Drew's brother caught
him in the act and threw his father out the window, killing Dad and
putting poor brother in a permanent coma. Basically, Dennis explains
to George, Drew is an emotionally fucked-up wreck and her
doppelganger theory is her way to escape reality. Murders begin to
happen that are tied directly to Drew (including a knife attack on
her comatose brother) and George has a run-in with an FBI agent (who
doesn't really exist) and is chased down an alley by Drew's
supposedly dead father. Together with his writing partner (a star
turn by Leslie Hope), George slowly uncovers the mystery. When Drew
is abducted by her double, George steps in to save the day, unmasking
the killer as none other than headshrinker Dennis. Besides being a
damned good make-up artist, it seems that Dennis is madly in love
with Drew. Enough, in fact, to try and get her committed so he can
have her all to himself. Everything up to this point is standard
slasher material. If you have managed to stay awake this long, make
sure your eyes are open for the final ten minutes. It crosses over
into surreal territory and is a real surprise. Competently acted by
the cast, this film could have used a shot of adrenalin in its first
90 minutes. Drew does manage to appear nude once (in a blood shower
sequence, a common occurence in horror films). Director Avi Nesher
also made the comical fantasy SHE
(1983) and the excellent actioners TIMEBOMB
(1991) and MERCENARY
(1996). If DOPPELGANGER
had managed to maintain the kinetic energy of its final ten minutes
throughout the entire film, it would have been a classic. A Fox Video
Release. Rated
R.
A
DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE
(1973) - A junkie buys some smack off the street and drives home,
unaware that an unknown black-gloved, hooded killer is following him.
As the junkie is shooting-up in his home, the killer pulls out a
sword hidden in his/her overcoat and hacks the junkie to death.
Inspector Paolo Scaporella (Paul Naschy) is assigned to the case
because, just like another murder he is investigating, the killer has
left a dragonfly on the dead body. What could this possibly mean? The
killer strikes again, this time stabbing a prostitute to death as she
walks on the sidewalk. The dragonfly murders are a
make-it-or-break-it case for Paolo, as his superiors view him as a
hot-headed violent cop (when we first see him, he's about to strike
an elderly flasher), who's career could be over if he doesn't solve
this string of murders. The hooded killer than chops-up three naked,
drugged-out people in an apartment with a hatchet and then destroys
their stash of pot and pills. He also leaves a dragonfly on each
victim. Paolo sees a pattern emerging (can you?) and finds an
important clue: One of the latest murdered victims is clutching a
button that was ripped-off the killer's overcoat. Paolo's wife,
Silvana (Erika Blanc), who works for one of the country's top fashion
designers, is able to discern that the button has come from a woman's
coat, and an expensive one at
that. Paolo goes to a party thrown by Silvana's boss and a Professor
(Eduardo Calvo) there gives Paolo an historical (and valuable) lesson
in dragonflies and their signifigance in the murders. It becomes
apparent to the viewer that one of the guests at this party is the
killer, but which one is it? The Professor is into kinky,
necrophelia-like sex (where prostitutes lay in a coffin motionless),
but the stripper he is about to do it with is hacked apart by the
killer with a hatchet as she lays waiting in a casket (We see the
killer chop-off her hand). Paolo's investigation leads him to a
high-class pimp named Muhammed, who has secret dealings with Ingrid
(Maria Kosti), a member of the party that Paolo and Silvana attended,
but Paolo is beaten-up by a gang of Nazi paraphenalia-wearing goons
before he can question him. On Paolo's birthday the next day, a
giftwrapped package arrives at his home, containing the head of
Muhammed and a note from "The Dragonfly" telling Paolo that
he/she is going to clean up this "corrupt city" and that
he/she plans on murdering all those responsible "one-by-one
until the city is clean". When Paolo's stoolie ends up dead
(with a dragonfly stuffed in his mouth) after phoning him saying he
has important information, Paolo figures out that the killer is
someone he knows. Silvana's boss also supplies an important clue
about the origin of the button: A Hitler-worshipping designer who
committed suicide a week earlier. Can Paolo solve this mystery before
more people end up dead? Like all good mysteries, the denouement is a
killer. This Spanish/Italian giallo, written by Paul Naschy
(using his real name, Jacinto Molina) and directed skillfully by
frequent Naschy collaborator Leon Klimovsky (WEREWOLF
SHADOW - 1971; DR.
JEKYLL AND THE WOLFMAN - 1972; THE
PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK - 1975), is one of the best European
murder mysteries of the early 70's. This contains all the giallo
staples: A gloved, masked killer; plenty of gory murders; nudity; and
slowly unravelling clues. This mystery is very involving and some of
the murders are quite good, especially the stripper in the coffin. As
with most giallo films, there is no shortage of red herrings, but A
DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE contains people who are
necrophiliacs, transvestites, obviously gay (Silvana's boss), Nazi
bikers and gangsters. Also, as with a lot of giallo films, a photo
(and a drawing) holds an important clue in solving the mystery. When
Silvana thinks she's figured it out, a stubborn Paolo says to her,
"Conclusions! Intuitions! What I need are realities!" as he
storms out the door. This sets up the film's excellent conclusion,
which I will leave for you to discover. This is a rare example of
Naschy portraying a good, if flawed, regular joe rather than a
werewolf, hunchback or bloodthirsty criminal. The rest of the cast,
staffed by Spaniards, except for the lovely Italian Erika Blanc (THE
DEVIL'S
NIGHTMARE
- 1971; MARK
OF THE DEVIL PART II
- 1973), perform admirably, although the reveal of the killer at the
end could have used a little more punch. Also starring Susana Mayo,
Angel Aranda, Ricardo Merino and Ramon Centenero. Never legally
available on home video in the U.S., the print I viewed was ripped
from a British VHS tape from Video Unlimited. Not Rated.
EBOLA
SYNDROME (1996) - When Kai
(Anthony Wong) is caught screwing his boss' wife, he is forced to
kill his boss, cut out the wife's tongue and castrate a co-worker. He
is about to kill the boss' young daughter when he is interrupted. He flees
to Johannesburg, South Africa and takes a job as a waiter in a
Chinese restaurant. Ten years pass and guess who visits the
restaurant? Why, it's none other than the dead boss' daughter, all
grown up. She recognizes him and gets physically ill, not knowing
what she is going to do about the situation. Kai has a severe sexual
problem: He likes to rape women and will do anything to get a piece.
We witness Kai offering white women in bars money for sex only to be
rebuffed and thrown out. We also see Kai jerking off into a piece of
pork while listening to his boss have sex with his wife. He then
serves that piece of pork to a complaining customer! Things get
considerably worse when Kai and his boss visit an African village
looking for some cheap pigs to buy. Some of the villagers are dying
of some unknown disease but that doesn't stop them from buying the
pigs. On their way back the truck breaks down and Kai sees a Zulu
woman passed out in the grass. Not one to pass up an easy lay, he
rapes her only to have her die and spew fluid all over his face. He
is now a carrier of the Ebola virus and he will cause many people to
die before this film finally ends. This vile, nasty film is so
unpleasant to watch that I nearly turned it off. Nearly. Anthony Wong (HARD
BOILED
- 1993; DR.
JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
- 1999; THE MISSION - 1999; TIME
AND TIDE - 2000) plays Kai as a man with absolutely no
redeeming qualities. He takes advantage of every opportunity and
doesn't hesitate to rape and kill anyone he takes a dislike to. When
he finds out that he is carrying the Ebola virus, he runs around
spitting on people! This is strong stuff, folks, so be prepared for
scenes of rape, castration, beheadings, dismemberments, autopsies,
dead children and the effects of the Ebola virus. The camera shies
away from nothing here. The difference between this film and THE
STORY OF RICKY
(1991) is that RICKY's violence is so over-the-top that it's
funny. There's nothing funny about the violence in EBOLA
SYNDROME. Director Herman Yau (THE
UNTOLD STORY - 1992; COP IMAGE
- 1994; ADVENTUROUS
TREASURE ISLAND - 1996) has made a film so relentlessly
bleak that I cannot recommend it to anyone except those with an
ironclad stomach and a will to match. The English subtitles are good
for a laugh, though. When a character says "Fuck!" the
English subtitles translate it to say "Gee fuck!" This
could only happen in Hong Kong. Also starring Law Mon and Chan Mui
Ying. A Mo Asia DVD Release. Not
Rated.
ED
GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD
(2006) - Another serial killer film from writer/director Michael
Feifer (B.T.K. - 2007) that
plays fast and loose with the facts, stretching the credibility of
it's "Based On A True Story" disclaimer. The first fact you
will have to erase from your mind (if you are familiar with the Ed
Gein story) is that hulking actor/stuntman Kane Hodder (HATCHET
- 2006) is portraying Wisconsin killer Ed Gein. It is well known that
the real-life Gein was a somewhat scrawny man (Steve Railsback, who
portrayed Gein in ED GEIN
[2000], was much closer in body build and stature), so this was a
serious mistake on Feifer's part (nothing against Hodder here) if he
wants us to take the story seriously. Another distraction is the many
anachronisms on view (Calling 911 in 1957? I don't think so!), which
also hurts the film. The film opens with one of Gein's female victims
waking up, only to realize she is in Ed's barn, hanging by two hooks,
which have pierced the flesh of her shoulders. She wriggles free (the
flesh on her shoulders rips open, releasing her from the hooks) and
tries to escape, but Gein is waiting for her. The credits then roll,
showing a mixture of real newspaper and crime scene photos (even
showing a photo of the real Ed Gein!) with obviously fake ones
(including staged b&w gore photos of Ed's victims). The story
then shifts focus between Gein and way-too-earnest Deputy
Bobby Mason (Shawn Hoffman; Feifer's A
DEAD CALLING - 2006), who discovers the blood-stained car of
Gein's latest female victim and vows to solve the crime. Bobby (who
is based on real-life Deputy Frank Worden) has a lot going on in his
life, as he lives with his sickly religious mother, Vera (Priscilla
Barnes; TRAILER
PARK OF TERROR - 2008), wants to marry his virginal
girlfriend Erica (Adrienne Frantz) and is investigating a series of
grave robberies in the local cemetery. Those grave robberies, of
course, are being committed by Gein, with an assist by friend Jack
(Michael Berryman; THE HILLS
HAVE EYES - 1977; DEADLY
BLESSING - 1981), but when Jack refuses to help Gein
anymore, Gein kills him with a shovel and drags his body behind his
pickup truck, right pass a necking Bobby and Erica! When Gein
strangles local barmaid Sue (Caia Coley) and disposes of her body, by
crucifying and then cutting her into pieces with a hacksaw (Gein has
severe mother issues, as he sees his abusive dead mother's face
nearly every time he talks to a woman), her husband files a missing
persons report and Bobby is put in charge of finding her. Bobby makes
a connection between the grave robberies and the missing women when
he finds a key piece of evidence, but when his mother Vera ends up
missing from her job in the General Store, Bobby gets into a bad car
accident when he races back to Plainfield and Erica is badly injured
when she is thrown from the car. In one of the biggest plot
contrivances in film history, Bobby leaves Erica by the side of the
road while he sets out on foot to find help, only to have Gein show
up and kidnap her. When Bobby returns with help, Erica is gone (she
is now in Gein's barn having her broken leg set) and Bobby calls the
police station (He dials 911 on a rotary pay phone!), but nobody
answers! Can Bobby and the police department save Erica before she
becomes his next victim? While this pretends to be a serious
look at the life of an infamous serial killer (including numerous
references to God and religion, which is a cop-out in my opinion),
director/writer Michael Feifer (THE
GRAVEYARD - 2006), who lately seems to be carving (pardon
the pun) a career out of making "true life" serial killer
flicks (for more titles, see my review of B.T.K.,
also starring Hodder), piles-on inaccuracy after inaccuracy until
this film is nothing but a joke. When the Sheriff (Tim Oman) says,
"We want Plainfield to return to being...plain" to a bunch
of reporters outside the police station, I let out an audible groan.
When Bobby discovers his mother's butchered body in Gein's barn and
delivers a long speech to her corpse about telling his Daddy in the
afterlife that he will not give up until Gein is captured, I laughed
out loud. I hardly doubt that was Feifer's intentions. This is also
one of those films that is purposely drained of color, giving the
film a predominantly reddish brown tinge. I guess it's supposed to
give the film a 50's documentary feel, but it looks to me that it was
also done to soften some of the gruesome makeup effects, such as when
Gein wears the skins of his victims; his setting of Erica's broken
leg (the film's toughest scene to watch); and the cops' grisly
discoveries in Gein's house. One unintentionally funny death finds
Gein pinning a cemetery security guard's head between the fork of a
tree and then smashing his head in with a tree branch. I hardly think
that the life of a serial killer has to be embellished with
non-existent characters, half-truths and deaths that never happened,
but, apparently, that's exactly what Feifer thinks is needed to sell
DVDs. Also starring John Burke, Stan Bly and Matteo Indelicato. A Lionsgate
Entertainment DVD Release. Rated R.
THE
ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT (1987) -
I don't believe that director Paul Leder received the proper
attention he so richly deserved (he passed away in 1996). Most genre
fans recognize his name as director of the cleverly titled I
DISMEMBER MAMA (1972), but very few people seem to realize
that Leder was directing, producing and writing (and sometimes even
acting in) competently made
exploitation films since the late 50's. My favorite Leder film would
have to be MY FRIENDS NEED KILLING
(1976), an uncompromising and extremely downbeat look into the mind
of an emotionally damaged Vietnam veteran (Do not watch this film if
you are in a good mood, because it will destroy it for days after),
but he continued to churn out watchable thrillers and crime dramas up
until his death, including this one, which was retitled to the
generic BODY COUNT for its
VHS release (the copy I viewed was taken from a 1989 showing on HBO
under its original title). This is basically a reworking of I
DISMEMBER MAMA with a few minor plot changes (Leder based his
screenplay on William W. Norton's MAMA script, which was
originally known as POOR
ALBERT &
LITTLE ANNIE). The film opens with a female mental patient in
a red gown playing the violin on the grounds of a psychiatric
hospital, while a doctor inside tries to convince delusional patient
Robert Knight (Bernie White; QUARANTINE
- 2008), who is dressed as a priest, that his uncle Charles Knight
(Dick Sargent; THE CLONUS HORROR
- 1979) is a good man. Robert, who has been committed to the hospital
since he was a young boy, totally disagrees about his uncle; he is
convinced that he saw Uncle Charles kill his father and rape his
mother and had him institutionalized to cover it up. The years he has
spent at the mental hospital have not been good for Robert's psyche,
because he is now convinced that he is an instrument of God who must
save his nine year-old cousin Deborah (Lauren Woodland; the ALIEN
NATION TV series; 1989-1990; THE
DOORWAY - 2000) before Uncle Charles and Aunt Joanne
(Marilyn Hassett; MASSIVE
RETALIATION - 1984) ruin her. Robert says this about Deborah
to his doctor: "She is beautiful and innocent. She is not yet
infected with their sin." He also says this about Joanne and
Charles: "She and that vile man are the foxes. They're the
little foxes that spoil the vines." Charles and Joanne have been
trying to get Robert declared legally insane (they stand to inherit
the family fortune if he is) through their lawyer, Ralph Duris (Grag
Mullavey; who has appeared in many Leder films), but Robert's doctor
and orderly friend (James Avery; NIGHTFLYERS
- 1987) think Robert can be fixed and released back into society.
Charles has a nurse at the hospital on his payroll (she does arm
curls at her desk with white dumbbells!) and she does everything in
her power to drive Robert over the edge so she can perform
electroshock treatments on him at higher-than-recommended levels.
Robert finally has had enough. He steals the keys from a sleeping
Larry, retrieves his Bible (with a white cover) and is forced to kill
the bitch nurse when she tries to stop him from leaving (he stabs her
in the stomach with scissors). He steals the nurse's car and escapes
from the hospital; turning his attention towards his fucked-up
family. Joanne, who is a former Las Vegas "chorus" girl
(*cough*hooker*cough*), is having affairs with both Ralph and Tom
Leary (Steven Ford), Charles' personal assistant, and ignores young
daughter Deborah. The cop assigned to finding Robert, Lt. Louis
Chernoff (Thomas Ryan), is addicted to booze and Percodan
and
Charles uses that knowledge to get Lt. Chernoff to kill Robert once
he finds him. Robert kills the family chauffeur (he stabs him in the
stomach with a switchblade and throws him in the trunk of the
limousine) and kidnaps Deborah, but Charles and Joanne don't seem
concerned at all (they are a couple of real scumbags). Will Robert be
able to "save" Deborah from the family of n'er-do-wells or
will he be killed before he completes his "mission"?
Director/producer/screenwriter Paul Leder (A*P*E
- 1976; MURDER BY NUMBERS
- 1990; THE BABY DOLL MURDERS
- 1993) takes the MAMA premise (I like to think of this film
as POOR ROBERT &
LITTLE DEBORAH) and adds a few new twists, including his reliance
on the color white (see how many objects you can spot using that
color) to portray purity and the way it can be debased. Bernie White
is rather bland as Robert, but it is that blandness, whether it is
quoting verses from the Bible in his monotone voice or turning down
sex from an middle-aged motel clerk (who then threatens to turn him
into the police for diddling his nine year-old cousin), that makes
his killing spree so shocking. Sure, most of these people deserve
their fates (not too sure about the chauffeur, though), but he thinks
of himself as a man of the cloth and he takes his "orders"
from God, so he's not murdering these people, he is "saving"
them (just like all devoutly religious nutbags throughout history).
While not very bloody (just a couple of stabbings and bloody bullet
squibs), THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT
(that Commandment probably being, "Thou shalt not be a soulless
douchebag.") is an engaging way to watch bad people get their
comeuppance (the only good people in this film are Deborah and maid
Kim [Haunani Minn], who truly loves Deborah and is more of a mother
than Joanne could ever hope to be) and to watch religion take it on
the chin. Also starring Julia Campbell, Jennifer Rhodes, Dean Dittman
and Oceana Marr. Available on VHS from Forum
Home Video (under the BODY COUNT title) and not available
on DVD. Rated R.
EYEBALL
(1975) - I've been watching a shit-ton of Italian
genre films lately and I must confess that I love giallo films.
Love'em, love 'em, love 'em! Which brings me to this film. Most good
giallo films have received a Blu-Ray or DVD release in the U.S. but,
strangely, not this one. I don't know why; it could be a rights issue
or the owner doesn't want it in circulation because I had to pull my
old Prism Entertainment
VHS tape out of retirement in order to write this review.
Unfortunately, this is the R-Rated U.S. theatrical cut (distributed
by Joseph Brenner Associates)
that is missing nearly ten minutes of footage. I was hoping to hold
off writing a review until a disc company like Blue Underground or
Raro Video released a proper uncut, widescreen version, but I'm not
getting any younger waiting for that to happen (I'll bet a million
dollars that someone will now release it on disc. It always seems to
happen when I review a film only on VHS!).
A group of people are taking a bus tour of Barcelona, Spain (filmed
on location). They are being targeted by an unseen killer who removes
the left eyes of his (or her) victims. We are introduced to the group
and nearly all of them seemingly have something to hide. There's
Paulette Stone (Martine Brochard; THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973), a young redhead who cancels a
trip to New York City and instead decides to go on the bus tour
(Why?). Suddenly, her married lover Mark Burton (John Richardson; TORSO
- 1973) finds her (How?) and tells Paulette that his wife Alma (Marta
May; SHE WOLVES OF THE WASTELAND
- 1988) has been committed to a New York asylum because of a violent
incident that happened recently. He assures Paulette that he will be
with her from now on. Also on the bus is Reverend Bronson (George
Rigaud; LOVE
BRIDES OF THE BLOOD MUMMY - 1973), who is not as devoted to
the cloth as he pretends to be (He has an old photo of him with a
bunch of young children that he looks at often. I know what you are
thinking!). The bus tour guide, Martinez (Raf Baldassarre; THOR
THE CONQUEROR - 1983), is a practical joker. We watch him
put a wind-up mouse next to Paulette while the group are checking-in
to a hotel and she lets out a loud scream (Martinez finds it funny).
The first to die is Jenny Hamilton (Verónica Miriel), a young
woman who is traveling on the bus with her father (John Bartha; VIOLENT
ROME
- 1975). Rev. Bronson hears her screams and finds her dead on the
street with her left eye missing (Why doesn't the Reverend give her
Last Rites?). The tour's next stop is at an amusement park, but it is
raining out. Martinez hands out red ponchos to the group so they
don't get wet (Perhaps this is a tribute to Nicolas Roeg's DON'T
LOOK NOW - 1973?). The next to die is group member Peggy
(Olga Montes). She is riding in a car of a haunted house attraction
and when she gets to the exit, she is dead with her left eye missing.
Police Inspector Tudela (Andrés Mejuto), who has one more week
left until he retires, is assigned the case and he arrests Martinez
because a wind-up spider was found next to Peggy's body, the same
spider he used to play a practical joke on her earlier in the day.
Mark calls the asylum to check up on his wife, only to learn that
she was never admitted. He discovers that she is in Barcelona. This
triggers a flashback where Mark finds Alma unconscious next to a
pool; in her left hand is the same bloody dagger that the killer
uses. Also next to her is a human eye. Mark picks up the dagger and
pockets it, not telling anyone what he saw. This is why Alma was
supposed to be in the asylum. Back in the present, Mark discovers
what hotel Alma is staying at in Barcelona, but he just misses her,
as she has just checked-out. He discovers she is about to leave for
New York, so he goes to the airport, only to learn that she canceled
the flight. Is it possible that Mark is on a wild goose-chase and
someone is impersonating Alma?
The next to die by the killer (who is sporting red knit gloves) is a
young servant girl. Bus rider Robby Alverado (Daniele Vargas; THE
ARENA - 1973) is immediately suspected because he has fresh
scratches on his hands. Fellow tourist Lisa Sanders (Mirta Miller; COUNT
DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE - 1973; THE
ICEBOX MURDERS - 1982) suspects that Paulette is the killer
because she saw her washing off her shoes at a nearby well (The girl
was killed in a muddy area). Inspector Tudela has no other choice but
to free Martinez and he continues to be the tour bus guide (You would
think that the tour would have been canceled, at least after the
second murder!).
Lisa is the next to be killed as she is developing some photos in
her hotel bathroom. The killer, who is now wearing one of the red
ponchos to go along with the gloves, stabs Lisa in the torso and then
slits her throat, but doesn't take an eye. The killer rifles through
some developed proofs and almost gets caught by Lisa's lesbian lover
Naiba (Ines Pellegrini; ESCAPE
FROM WOMEN'S PRISON - 1978). When Mark hears Naiba's
screams, he runs to the hotel room, notices a torn photo of him with
someone else (that person's image is what is missing) and pockets it
(He couldn't look more guily if he tried, but that is what make
giallo films so fascinating. We must separate the guilty from the red herrings.).
Inspector Tudela believes that Lisa's killer may not be the same
person responsible for the prevoius murders, but his partner,
Inspector Lara (José María Blanco; KILMA,
QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE - 1975),
says that may be because Naiba interrupted the killer from doing so.
Father Bronson goes to visit Naiba in the hospital, but he disappears
just when the killer tries to kill Naiba, but fails. Now Inspector
Tudela is looking at the good Father as a suspect. He also discovers
that all the missing eyes were the same color and the killer is
right-handed. Once back in her hotel room, Naiba receives a package
sent by Lisa, which are some photos she developed previously. One of
the photos show who the killer really is. Naiba tries to find Rev.
Bronson, but he is nowhere to be found, not even in the local church.
Naiba makes a discovery at the church that puts her life in mortal
danger. She watches as the killer removes the eye of a dead young
girl (an uncredited cameo by Laura Trotter; CITY
OF THE WALKING DEAD - 1980). But just who is the killer? If
you have read my other reviews of giallo films, you know that I never
give away the killer's identity, but I have given you the clues to
the killer's real identity. So now it is your turn to play detective!
Directed by genre specialist Umberto
Lenzi (THE MAN FROM
DEEP RIVER - 1972; ALMOST
HUMAN - 1974; SPASMO
- 1974; EATEN ALIVE!
- 1980; CANNIBAL FEROX -
1981; and many others), with a screenplay by Félix Tusell (his
only writing credit), this film, shot under the title GATTI
ROSSI IN UN LABIRINTO DI VETRO ("Red Cats In A Maze Of
Glass") and also known as THE
SECRET KILLER, is light on both gore and nudity (just a few
quick topless scenes), but that can be chalked-up to the fact that
this is the edited R-Rated U.S. theatrical print. Still, this is an
enjoyable thriller which keeps you guessing until the film's
conclusion (Just like most giallo films, the opening scene is
integral to the plot). I love these Italian mysteries (this is
actually and Italy/Spain co-production) because I love to use my
brain while watching them. As I have stated previously, this film is
only available legally in the U.S. on VHS from Prism Entertainment,
which is long OOP. There are various DVDs available in other
countries, such as an English-friendly German DVD, but it is the same
print used for the Prism tape. It's is in widescreen though, so if
you have an all-region player, you can hop on the German Amazon site (www.amazon.de),
type in "Labyrinth des Schreckens" and get it for 12.95
Euros ($15.89 at the time of this review). Shipping may cost you more
than the disc. Roku-only streaming channel B-Movie TV airs an uncut
version of this film under THE SECRET KILLER title. Also
starring Silvia Solar (THE
WEREWOLF AND THE YETI - 1975), Olga Pehar, Richard Kolin and
cameo king Tom Felleghy as the coroner who examines Jenny's body. Rated
R.
EYE
IN THE LABYRINTH (1972) -
Julie (Rosemary Dexter) has a nightmare where her boyfriend Lucas
(Horst Frank) is viciously stabbed to death by some black
glove-wearing assailant. When she wakes up, she finds out that Lucas
is missing and hasn't shown up at the psychiatric hospital, where he
worked as a doctor. After leaving the hospital and going back home,
Julie finds a mysterious sunglass-wearing stranger waiting for her.
He slaps her around while asking her where Lucas is and when she
answers that she doesn't know, he leaves but warns her to keep her
mouth shut. Of course, curiosity gets the best of Julie and one word,
"Maracudi", seems to be the link to Lucas' disappearance.
The investigation leads Julie to the small strange town of Maracudi,
where someone tries to kill her (by dropping a ceiling on her in an
abandoned building) when she mentions Lucas' name. She meets an
all-too-friendly elderly gentleman named Frank (Adolfo Celi) in town
and he puts her up in a boardinghouse run by a weird spinster and a
peeping tom artist named Saro (Benjamin Lev). The boardinghouse walls
are full of paintings done by local artists and one of them will lead
Julie to the truth about Lucas' disappearance. Frank sends Julie to a
villa owned by Gerda (Alida Valli) that's a commune full of oddball
artists and actors, in her search for Lucas. Julie spends the night
(her clothes are stolen when she goes skinnydipping
in the ocean), plays Scrabble with the residents (she spells
"assassino", which visibly upsets some players) and notices
a book in Gerda's library which looks exactly like a book she gave
Lucas, but Gerda denies it (Later on, Julie sneaks down to the
library for a peek at the book and it is, indeed, the same book she
gave Lucas). Frank (who we find out is an American gangster living in
exile) takes an unhealthy interest in Julie, checking-up on her
constantly (even phoning her and hanging up) and he eventually tries
to kiss her, but she rebuffs him. In Julia's continuing
investigation, she discovers that Frank and Gerda were once lovers
and business partners (their business being of the illegal variety),
Lucas raped one of Gerda's residents, photographer Toni (Sybil
Danning, here billed as "Sybill Dunning") and that Saro may
have painted Lucas' murder. This all leads to another attempt on
Julie's life, where she is locked in a garage with a running car.
Frank saves her, but it becomes clear that everyone in this town
(including Julia) is harboring one secret or another. Will Julie be
able to uncover the truth about Lucas' disappearance before it's too
late? This Italian/German co-production, directed by Mario
Caiano (NIGHTMARE CASTLE
- 1965; THE MANIAC RESPONSIBLE
- 1975; NAZI LOVE CAMP 27
- 1977) is an interesting giallo film, full of weird angles and
camera flourishes. As the film progresses, it becomes apparent to the
viewer (and eventually Julie) that Lucas is/was a real
son-of-a-bitch. As we learn in flashbacks from the people in town who
have had contact with Lucas, he was a rapist, blackmailer (a
surprising scene where one of the major characters turns out to be a
transgender), drug dealer and much worse. We just have to figure out
who hated him the most (The answer is not that surprising, as the
clues are there if you look for them). While not particularly bloody
(save for the opening nightmare sequence, which looks to have been
influenced by German impressionist films of the 20's), the film is
still an enjoyable murder mystery, where the actresses get naked as
much as possible and Julie is constantly put in a lot of danger (the
brake line in her car is cut; someone shoots a speargun bolt at her;
etc.), but she somehow survives it all. The weird jazz soundtrack
also enhances the film, adding a spark of atmosphere to the chase and
death scenes. Adolfo Celi (MANHUNT
- 1972; LIVE LIKE
A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN
- 1976) manages to steal every scene he is in. He's able to invoke
sympathy and menace, sometimes in the same scene. Director Caiano
bathes the film in yellows (a giallo staple) and blues, lighting
scenes in neon colors and outfitting people in bright primary colors
(at one point, Julie drives her yellow Fiat into a BP gas station and
all we see is yellow!). Colors also play an important part in solving
the mystery, so pay attention from the very beginning. EYE
IN THE LABYRINTH
is an excellent giallo and, like all good giallo films, contains a
wicked sting at the end. Also starring Michael Mayen, Franco Ressel,
Gigi Rizzi, Peter Kranz, Gaetano Donati and Elisa Mainardi. Never
legally available on home video in the U.S., the version I viewed was
ripped from a widescreen Dutch-subtitled VHS tape on the Film Lab
label. Not Rated. UPDATE: Amazingly, this was released on an uncut
anamorphic widescreen Blu-Ray by Code
Red (Available only through Screen
Archives Entertainment and Diabolik
DVD) for the very first time in the United States. And it looks magnificent!
EYES
OF CRYSTAL (2004) - I have
to say that this film, an Italy/Spain co-production, surprised me and
gave me hope that the giallo genre isn't dead, it's just merely in
hibernation. Even though it was filmed in 2004, it reminded me of the
giallo films of the '70s, as it contains copious female nudity,
plenty of very graphic violence and a corkscrew mystery that will
keep you guessing up till the end. It also contains many other giallo
tropes (in this case, not a bad thing), such as: the killer's POV
every time he claims a victim; plenty of red herrings; a surprise
reveal or two you won't see coming; and many other staples. This film
also contains
an actor who starred in many giallo films of the '70s that we all
know and love. That actor is Simon Andreu, who starred in the giallo
flicks THE FORBIDDEN
PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION (1970), DEATH
WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971), DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972), TORMENTOR
(1972) and many other Italian genre films. He really shines here as a
Chief Detective who is dying of a brain tumor, whose fragile memory
may hold clues to who is killing people and collecting their body
parts. Before I get too far ahead of myself, here's a long synopsis
(Is there such a thing?) of the film's plot.
The film opens with Inspector Giacomo Amaldi (Luigi Lo Cascio) and
his partner, Inspector Nicola Frese (Jose Angel Egido), chasing down
a rapist, cornering him in an alley. After Giacomo slaps the cuffs on
him, he shoots the rapist in the leg, knowing his partner will back
him up, saying the shooting was necessary. As the opening credits
roll, we see someone killing a live squirrel (by injection), cutting
it open and then performing taxidermy on it, giving us a step-by-step
procedural of the process. The taxidermy man then goes to a field
with a high-powered rifle, pours resin on a tree branch and sprinkles
live worms on it, dropping a spool of fishing line in the process. He
hears a woman moaning and goes to investigate, finding an elderly
voyeur watching a young couple making love in the field. He shoots
and kills the old voyeur and turns the rifle towards the couple,
shooting the young man in the back and putting a big bullet hole in
the young woman's left breast (a very graphic image). He then
finishes off the woman by crushing her head with the butt of his
rifle, slamming it on her cranium over and over (the killings are
juxtaposed with a bird screaming on the tree branch, as it is stuck
in the resin and can't fly away). What we have just witnessed is a
serial killer in the making.
Giacomo and Nicola arrive at the crime scene and notice that whoever
performed these killings did so with extreme violence. Even stranger
is that the killer took the time to cut up a blanket and stuffed the
pieces in the woman's left breast, sewing it shut with fishing line,
as if he was trying to repair it. Is this the killer's signature?
Well, yes and no. Once the two Inspectors are back in their office,
Chief Detective Augusto Ajaccio (Simon Andreu; THE
BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE - 1972) tells them that he has to go
to the hospital because he hasn't been feeling well lately, so he
will be there for a few days while they run some tests. Pretty young
college girl Giuditta (Lucia Jimenez) walks into the department and
wants to talk to a detective, so Giacomo volunteers. She tells him
someone is following her and leaving creepy phone messages for her.
It's like this man knows everything about her life. It is rather
obvious that Giuditta and Giacomo are attracted to each other, so he
gets involved in her case heavily, maybe too much, but other more
pressing matters may push it to the background.
At the hospital, Chief Detective Ajaccio tells Giacomo and Nicola
that he just found out that he is dying of an inoperable brain tumor
and he only has a short time to live, continuing with he's led a
"wasted" life and that no one will mourn him when he passes
away, his whole life has been devoted to the police department and he
has no personal life. He then has some type of spell, caused by the
brain tumor, saying that he smells something burning and he travels
back to when he was a child living at an orphanage, where he sees a
mysterious young boy looking at him while the orphanage burns (later
we learn that two nuns and five young boys died in the fire). He
shows the two Inspectors some burn scars on his chest, something they
have never seen before, also not knowing that he was an orphan.
Ajaccio's physician, Dr. Civita (Eusebio Poncela; THE
APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR - 1972), tells Giacomo and
Nicola that the brain tumor is playing tricks with Ajaccio's memory,
but, as we discover as the film progresses, these memories are key to
solving the case.
We then see antique dealer Viviana Justic (Yordanka Kuzmanova) phone
the killer, telling him she has found an antique, anatomically
correct life-size doll, just as he requested. She tells him not to
worry about the price because his mother was good to her when she was
alive, so her price will be more than fair. When the killer arrives
at her shop, he is not interested in price, so he kills her. When
Giacomo and Nicola arrive on the scene, they discover that Viviane
Justic's arms have been cut off and replaced with the life-size
doll's arms, which are surgically connected to her body (the rest of
the doll is nowhere to be found). But it is what they discover the
killer did to her face, applying two hooks to the ends her mouth and
using fishing line to pull the hooks tightly, tying it to the back of
her head, giving her a macabre smile, that both Giacomo and Nicola
realize that this death is connected to the killings in the field.
They have a serial killer on their hands. Giacomo searches the
antique shop and discovers three small leaves tacked to the underside
of a drawer of Viviane Justic's desk. He knows they mean something,
but he doesn't know what, so he goes to his old college anthropology
teacher, Professor Avildsen (Carmelo Gomez), to find out what the
leaves mean. The Professor, who is also Giuditta's teacher, says he
is certain it does mean something, but before he says anything
concrete, he will have to do some research and will get back to him.
Back at the hospital, Dr. Cerusico (Ernestina Chinova) tells Dr.
Civita that some supplies are missing from surgery, namely a bone
saw, some scalpels and red grease pencils. Dr. Civita seems more
interested in romantically connecting with her (they were lovers
previously), but she tells him she is busy tonight, she has a date.
When Dr. Cerusico checks up on Chief Detective Ajaccio, she discovers
that someone has written his full name across his chest in red grease
pencil. Giacomo and Nicola question her about the grease pencil
(Giacomo found a red grease pencil line on Viviana Justic's neck) and
she tells them that red grease pencils are used to mark the area
where a surgeon is to make an incision, but before she can say any
more, she gets a phone call and tells the person on the other end
that she will see him tonight at her apartment, she is looking
forward to it. Wanna bet?
Giacomo does some research on the importance of leaves at the
library and runs into Giuditta, so they decide to go out to dinner.
In the middle of dinner, out of nowhere, Giacomo realizes that Dr.
Cerusico is in mortal danger, so he calls Nicola and tells him to
meet him at the doctor's apartment immediately (We see Dr. Cerusico's
"date" drug her wine and then see her tied-up on the floor,
where he approaches her with a bone saw). Giacomo gets up and leaves,
not even saying goodbye to Giuditta and when he and Nicola get to Dr.
Cerusico's apartment, they discover that her legs have been cut off
and surgically replaced with the doll's legs. Giacomo finds two small
leaves at the crime scene and now knows what they mean (even though,
previously, Professor Avildsen told him the supernatural meaning of
leaves in various cultures). It means the serial killer has two more
victims to go. All evidence points to the killer needing a human
torso and a human head to complete his "masterpiece".
Giacomo and Nicola also discover a phrase in Latin, written in Dr.
Cerusico's blood on a wall that will eventually lead Giacomo to
discover what "V.I.T.R.I.O.L." stands for. Will the serial
killer be able to complete his masterpiece and who will be his final
two victims? Or will Giacomo and Nicola be able to stop him?
This is just some of what happens next:
*Someone leaves a burned cat by the front door of Giuditta's home and Giacomo chases the person who left it. It turns out to be a college classmate of Giuditta's, Max (Federico Di Pofi). Giacomo catches him and points his gun in Max's face, ready to shoot him. Max tells him that it's not really a cat but some burnt hair and old bones, he was just playing a practical joke on Giuditta (some fucking joke!). Just as Giacomo is about to pull the trigger (he realizes Max is the person following Giuditta and leaving her creepy messages), Giuditta stops him and realizes that Giacomo gets off on violence. She is disgusted by his behavior and leaves him.
*Detective Di Fusco (Hristo Jivkov), who is tasked with watching Chief Detective Ajaccio at the hospital, hears Ajaccio say that he knows who the killer is, yet he doesn't tell him the name. Di Fusco leaves the room and phones Giacomo, telling him that Ajaccio knows who the killer is. Giacomo tells him to get back to Ajaccio's room immediately and when he gets there, the killer murders him (with a lethal injection to his neck) and cuts off Ajaccio's head, leaving the head of the doll surgically attached to Ajaccio's neck (We now know that the killer is the young boy in the orphanage that Ajaccio keeps seeing during his spells, but if I tell you who it is, it would ruin the film for you).
*The killer kidnaps Giuditta (he knocks her out with chloroform), throwing her in the back of his car and taking her to his lair, which is the former location of the orphanage, which burned to the ground, leaving only the stone foundation standing. Giuditta is to be the killer's "torso" but will a bruise on Giuditta's side force him to postpone finishing his "perfect masterpiece"?
*Nicola, who is at a glass eye factory, phones Giacomo and gives him the killer's name and address. Will Giacoma arrive in time to save Giuditta?
*When taxidermied animals are incinerated in the film's finale, all that is left of them are their eyes of crystal, giving the film it's name.
This film may remind people of David Fincher's SE7EN
(1995) or, especially, Russell Mulcahy's RESURRECTION
(1999), but I believe it lies
closer to the giallo films of the '70s in both spirit and execution,
helped by the fact that Simon Andreu is involved and one of the
screenwriters is Franco Ferrini, who wrote or co-wrote the giallo
flicks RINGS OF FEAR
(1978), NOTHING UNDERNEATH
(1985), DIAL: HELP
(1988), as well as Dario Argento's PHENOMENA
(1984), OPERA
(1987) and many of his other films in the '90s and New Millennium.
But the film really belongs to director/co-screenwriter Eros
Puglielli (AD PROJECT -
2006; NEVERMIND -
2018), who gives this film some great location photography (filmed
mainly in Bulgaria, which is why many of the actors here have the
letter "v" in their names) and some great cinematography
(including a shot of a fly Ajaccio sees in his hospital room that
must be seen to be appreciated). The technical and acting credits are
all above board, especially the acting by Luigi Lo Cascio as Giacomo
and Simon Andreu as Augusto Ajaccio, who has his head actually shaved
for the later scenes in this film (and it is easy to see it is not a
bald cap). What I particularly admired is that nearly every character
in the film is hiding a secret from their past that helps explain
their actions today. Giacomo tells Giuditta a story about something
that happened to him as a sixteen-year old that helps explains why he
shot the rapist in the beginning of the film. All these secrets a
make a nice heady stew for the viewer, giving each character more
depth than usual in this type of film. Another thing I admired is
that Giacomo and Nicola make a great team, but they do their best
work when they are alone, separated from each other. Those two
ingredients make this film memorable to me, as it has enough meat on
its bones to make a tasty gourmet dinner for your brain. I wish most
films today aspired to such lofty goals, but the sad fact is, most of
them are junk food. Yes, junk food is good every now and then, but
not every day, which is what makes this film a revelation to me and
gets my highest recommendation.
Shot as OCCHI DI CRISTALLO
(a literal translation of the review title) and also known as CRYSTAL
EYES, JIGSAW,
THE PUZZLE and V.I.T.R.I.O.L.,
this film had neither a theatrical or legal home video release in
any format in the United States, but if you have an all-region DVD or
Blu-Ray player, a DVD
can be easily picked up from British label Revolver Entertainment. Or
you could watch it, as I did, streaming on YouTube from user "Der
Joker", who offers a beautiful anamorphic widescreen print in
Italian with English subtitles. Also featuring Plamen Peev, Plamena
Getova, Branimir Milaninov, Tzvetan Philipov and Dessy Tenekedjieva
as Giuditta's roommate Lucia. Not Rated, but it would have to
suffer extensive cuts (in both nudity and violence) just to get an
R-Rating in the States.
FATAL PULSE
(1988) - Lower-tier slasher film nonsense with a slight giallo
vibe. When college boy Jeff (Ken Roberts) refuses the sexual advances
of the nearly naked Stephanie (the single-monikered Kitty) and leaves
her sorority house, she is visited a few moments later by an unknown
black-gloved killer, who chases Stephanie to her bedroom and
strangles her with one of her silk stockings. It seems Jeff is still
in love with ex-girlfriend Lisa (Michelle McCormick; SWEET
JUSTICE - 1992) and, after talking to Professor Caldwell
(Alex Courtney; PROGRAMMED
TO KILL - 1987) about losing his one true love years ago (all
this is happening while they are playing a game of chess, which Jeff
loses), Jeff decides to confront Lisa and win her back. It won't be
easy, though, because Jeff's ex-best friend Brad (Steven Henry) is
also romantically interested in Lisa and when Stephanie's body is
found by the police (one of the detectives is portrayed by porn star
Herschell Savage, here using the name "Harvey Cowen"), Brad
implicates Jeff of the murder in front of Lisa (Brad saw Jeff leaving Stephanie's
sorority house just before she was murdered). Jeff and Lisa rush over
to the sorority house just in time to see the body carted away and
when the detective asks Jeff his name, he runs away (Don't make
yourself look too guilty, Jeff!). The list of suspects in Stephanie's
murder doesn't just include Jeff. There's sorority house owner Ernie
(Joe Estevez; LOCKDOWN
- 1989; here using the pseudonym "Joe Phelan"), who suffers
from frequent Nam flashbacks; Professor Caldwell, whose discussion
with Jeff about lost loves makes him appear to be a misogynist; Brad,
who may be killing girls to make Jeff look guilty; Jeff's pot smoking
pal Mark (Blair Karsch), who may be hiding a deadly secret; or any
one of the sorority girls themselves, including Lisa. The next victim
of the black-gloved killer is music student Carol (Sky Nicholas), who
has her throat slit open with a record album (the film's most unusual
kill). Jeff tries to talk Lisa into moving in with him after Carol's
death and they get it on, which doesn't please Brad at all. Jeff and
Mark go to Carol's murder site to look for clues (because the police,
you know, don't know how to look for them), but they find nothing
except a chalk outline of Carol's body and a big bloodstain where her
neck was. Sheila (Maureen O'Hanlon) is the next to die, drowned in
her tub by the killer. Cassie (Cindra Hodgdon) is the next to bite
it; she's kidnapped while jogging and then electrocuted by the killer
with some strange get-up in the shower. Ann (Roxanne Kernohan) is
tossed out of the top floor window of the sorority house and Karen
(Christie Mucciante) is smothered in plaster of paris, as Brad and
the police chase Jeff throughout the college. When Jeff accidentally
knocks-out Brad, he makes a discovery that will clear his name and
point the police to the right person. Will Jeff save Lisa in time
before the killer makes her the final victim? The first thing
you'll notice about FATAL PULSE,
directed/produced by Anthony J. Christopher (THE
PLATINUM TRIANGLE - 1989; DAY
OF REDEMPTION - 2004) and written by James Hundhausen, is
how unlikely a heterosexual romantic lead Ken Roberts is as Jeff.
It's quite obvious by his speech patterns and mannerisms that Roberts
is a homosexual (if he's not, then I'm sincerely sorry, but I think
the only way you can accept him as straight is if you delude yourself
into believing that Kiki Dee actually broke Elton John's heart), so
casting him as the romantic lead is a huge misstep. His, and nearly
everyone else's, stabs at acting are of a sub-soap opera level. As a
matter of fact, the entire film has an 80's porn feel to it, from the
over-cranked synth score, barebones sets, substandard acting and flat
photography. At least director Christopher had the good sense to have
most of the female cast get naked, but the majority of the time,
their nakedness comes at the points of their demises (the killer has
a nasty habit of ripping off their tops before doing them in), so the
nudity is not erotic or titillating. Most of the killings are
bloodless (besides the record album throat slitting), as the killer
likes to use his hands more than any foreign objects. The killer's
identity is way too easy to guess, since it's obvious that all the
other suspects are blatant red herring material. The explanation for
the killer's motive comes straight out of Stevenson's "The
Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde" and is as ridiculous as
it gets. Good for an unintentional laugh or two, but not much else.
Originally released on VHS by Celebrity Home Entertainment and not
available on DVD. Not Rated.
THE
FIRST POWER (1990) - I knew
when I went to go see this film on opening day at a theater and there
were only about 15 other people in the seats, that this film was
going to bomb big at the boxoffice (It eventually made a little over
twice its $10 million budget, but when you factor in advertising and
print costs, it probably ended up losing plenty of money). Filmed
under the much better title TRANSIT (you'll get the inference
if you see the film), the film was changed to THE
FIRST POWER a couple of months before release to play up the
supernatural angle (that, too, also makes some sense if you can make
it through 3/4 of this film). To make matters worse, I remember going
to see the Denzel Washington film FALLEN
in 1998 and a severe case of deja vu came rushing over me. It was
nothing but a bastardization of this film, but
done much better (There's no one humming "Time is on my side,
yes it is." in the first film), but since this 1990 film was
directed and written by Robert Resnikoff, whose only other claim to
fame was co-writing the screenplay to the awful Jay Leno/Pat Morita
action comedy COLLISION COURSE
(made in 1986, but dumped directly to home video in the U.S. in
1989), this film offers very little to the supernatural action film
genre lover except for a larger-than-usual role for character actor
supreme Jeff Kober (AUTOMATIC
- 1994) and trying to spot some genre actors in small, nothing roles
(like Bill Moseley as a bartender). Besides a couple of good stunts
(you will know them when you see them), the film mostly comes up
snake eyes because the plot is very underdeveloped and once this film
was finished, Robert Resnikoff was never seen or heard from in the
filmmaking business again. That right there should tell you
something. Since MGM released a perfectly good anamorphic widescreen
release of this film on DVD in the early 2000's, it surprises me that
Kino Lorber/Scorpion Releasing would give this film the DVD and
Blu-Ray treatment (probably using the same print master as the MGM
DVD) when there are so many more MGM titles screaming to be released
on disc for the very first time. Maybe it was a contractual thing,
but it was a poor choice to release it as a stand-alone feature. This
at least belongs on a double feature Blu-Ray with some other film so
you can get more bang for your buck. This is just a minor potboiler
with lofty aspirations that it fails to achieve. The film opens with
Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen; LUCKY
STIFF - 1988; also with Jeff Kober) pleading with the
Cardinal (Philip Abbott; HANGAR 18
- 1980), the Monsignor (David Gale; RE-ANIMATOR
- 1985) and Father Brian (Hansford Rowe) that something must be done
about Satan and his minions. She tells them that Satan's powers are
growing and that there have been 15 women murdered this year alone in
this town with an inverted pentagram carved in their stomachs. As is
normal with religion, the males belittle the woman (The Monsignor
makes a joke about ending up on "Geraldo") and tell her to
go back to her convent and keep her mouth shut. Detective Russ Logan
(Lou Diamond Phillips; ROUTE 666
- 2001) is after a murderer called the "Pentagram Killer"
(the same person Sister Marguerite was talking about) and has hit a
dead end until he gets a phone call from Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith; SKEETER
- 1993), telling him that the Pentagram Killer will strike again
tonight on Sunset Boulevard (when Logan marks the location on the
murder map, it forms a perfect pentagram, a trope used in many other
horror films), but she has one strange request: If Logan catches him,
he cannot let the killer die on Death Row and she makes Logan
promise. Logan makes the promise, but he has no intention of keeping
it. That rainy night, a stakeout crew is sent out to the location
(including Brian Libby, who played a serial killer in the underrated
Chuck Norris film SILENT RAGE
[1982], who pretends to be a bum lying on the ground covered in
newspaper and he says, "Only a psycho fucking killer is smart
enough to stay out of the rain."). Logan is cruising the area
with his partner Detective Oliver Franklin (Mykel T. Williamson
[a.k.a. Mykelti Williamson]; SPECIES II
- 1997) when they get word that Officer Carmen (Sue Giosa), who was
the bait, is missing. They both race to an abandoned concrete
structure to save her, where we see her tied to the ground with the
Pentagram Killer (Jeff Kober) waving a knife around and wearing an
ugly old man mask. He is very polite in the way he tells Carmen the
way he is going to kill her and puts the mask over her face. Before
he can do anything to her, Logan and Franklin intervene. Franklin
gets knocked out, but Logan chases and catches him, even after being
seriously stabbed in the stomach by the killer (Logan is a highly
decorated officer who caught three serial killers in his short
career). We find out that the Pentagram killer is really Patrick
Channing, a mild mannered worker for the Public Water Department and
no one can understand how he could do such horrible things. He is
convicted in a court of law for 15 murders and sentenced to die in
the gas chamber in San Quentin Prison. Logan once agan gets a call
from Tess, who says he must keep his promise, but he and Franklin
watch a smiling Channing die in the gas chamber. Logan sees
Channing's hand move after he is dead and then he breaks his straps,
shatters the chamber's glass window and heads towards Logan with a
knife in his hand while Logan empties his gun into him. with no
effect. That last part is a recurring nightmare Logan has had since
he witnessed Channing die and he starts having more vivid
halucinations, like one of the rooms in his apartment covered in
blood and then it disappears when two cops come knocking on his door.
The two cops actually arrive at his door to tell him that Carmen has
been murdered and it is in the same place he and Franklin saved her
months before. Carmen's throat has been cut and an inverted pentagram
carved into her stomach. Tess arrives at the police station and will
only talk to Logan. She tells him that she is a professional psychic
who has helped many police departments find missing children, but a
disbelieving Logan tells her that this has nothing to do with missing
children and blows her off. Tess tries to tell Logan that Channing is
back and his evil soul is on the loose thanks to Satan. He can jump
from body to body (the weaker the person's will, the easier it is for
Channing to take over the body), but he can disguise his appearance
to look like himself. She tells Logan that Channing is not just after
him, he is after her, too. They find the person that killed Carmen
and it is a skinny drunk drug abuser, the perfect kind of person for
Channing to take over. When Logan decides that this guy is too out of
it to kill anybody, he walks away, but he hears the guy say "See
you later, buddy boy!" in Channing's voice. No one else in the
room heard it. Logan and Franklin illegally break into Tess' lavish
home (Franklin says, "Psychics must get paid well.", when
he sees the indoor pool) and Logan listens to the messages on her
answering machine. The third message is from Channing and he says
that he will be seeing them all soon. Tess catches them in her house
and when Logan goes to play the third message, there are only two on
the answering machine. Logan then accuses Tess of belonging to the
same occult cult as Channing, while Tess takes one look at Franklin
and tells him he is in mortal danger. The third message on the
answering machine told Logan where the next murder will be, so all
three of them head there, where Franklin is trampled to death by a
horse his dying words to Logan are, "I saw him Russ. It was
him!" Logan and Tess chase the horse-drawn carriage and Logan
watches in amazement as Channing jumps off a ten story building and
run away (One of the film's highlights, even though you can see the
rope harness). Logan's boss, Commander Perkins (Dennis Lipscomb; RETRIBUTION
- 1987) finds Logan's story hard to swallow while hard-drinking Lt.
Grimes (Carmen Argenziano; HELLRAISER:
INFERNO - 2000) makes fun of Logan's story and lets Tess go
home. When Mazza (Clayton Landey), another cop at Carmen's original
scene, is found murdered and hung like Jesus on the cross on the
underside of a high expansion bridge (One cop says, "How'd they
get him up there?"), Commander Perkins takes Logan off the case
and puts Lt. Grimes in charge. Logan goes to a church confessional to
ask about possession, only to discover that the priest he was talking
to was Channing in the other confessional room. Tess has a vision of
Logan in danger (he's supposed to get an axe in the head by Channing)
and she saves his life, but Channing chases them through the hallways
of a cheap motel with the spinning blades of a ceiling fan before
Channing jumps on the hood of a car that Logan and Tess have
commandeered and Logan must destroy the car to get Channing off it
(As a joke, Logan tells the car's owner to contact Lt. Grimes
directly for reimbursement). Logan now believes Tess, even if they
don't see eye-to-eye on all the details. That will change soon. They
go to talk to Sister Marguerite at the convent, but she refuses to
talk to them. They then go to Channing's grandmother (Julianna
McCarthy), where they inadvertantly learn that Channing was a
product of incest, his mother having sex and getting pregnant by his
grandfather (Satan must love incest!). Logan and Tess find Channing's
"special place" since he was a child: an abandoned and
unsafe section of the underground water system where a reservoir
worker (Grand L. Bush) tells them that the water will still flood the
tunnel if you spin the handle. Tess suddenly gets two bloody
pentagrams on her palms. Channing chases Logan and Tess to a highrise
construction site, where Tess knocks Channing off the building and he
is impaled on a metal pole below. When they get to the bottom, they
discover that the body is actually Lt. Grimes' (he was a hard
drinker, therefore easy to possess). Commander Perkins is slightly
more than agitated, but he gives Logan one more chance to solve the
murders (Really? You would let a prime suspect take over the case?
Are we sure this is the United States?). Sister Marguerite suddenly
gets a conscience and leaves the convent to help Tess and Logan (If
you haven't guessed by now, they have also become lovers.). Logan and
Tess are attacked once again by Channing, who this time takes over a
bag lady's body. It leads to Logan flipping his car on the highway
(Clearly, the film's best scene), with both Tess and Channing
disappearing from the wrecked car. A bloody Logan meets Sister
Marguerite, who gives Logan the only tool that can defeat Channing
and his body-hopping abilities: An ancient crucifix with a hidden
blade. She also explains the three evil powers that Channing
possesses: 3) The ability to take over other people's bodies
(well, duh!). 2) The gift of knowing the future and 1)
Resurrection and immortality (The First Power). The ancient bladed
crucifix should be able to stop all three. Logan and Sister
Marguerite go to Channing's "special place" in the water
tunnels where Logan knows Channing is with Tess, but after killing
the bag lady and saving Tess' life, Channing jumps into Sister
Marguerite's body (I wonder what her weakness was? Not listening to
men?). The ridiculous ending finds Tess turning the wheel and
flooding the tunnels as all three of them go on their own private
amusement park water flume ride, where they all end up on a metal
grate with a pool of acid
below (Say what now?). Tess manages to toss Channing into the acid,
but she learns that it takes more than acid to kill him. Logan finds
the ancient crucifix knife (After that long water ride, it ends up
right next to him! What are the chances of that actually happening?)
and goes to stab Channing in the heart with it, but he is shot twice
by two officers at the scene. Logan still manages to plunge the
ancient dagger into Channing, ending the evil satanic menace and we
see Tess sitting by Logan's hospital bed as he recovers from his
wounds. But was he weak enough to have Channing's evil soul travel
into his body when he killed Channing (remember, he was already shot
and weak when he stabbed Channing)? The film ends and I got into my
car wondering what in the hell I just watched. I still was wondering
that after watching the Blu-Ray. The film is weak except for a few
good stunt sequences and the story is cookie-cutter stuff. There's
nothing here that screams, "Look at me! I'm special!"
Everyone walks through their roles, especially Lou Diamond Phillips,
who doesn't go out of his way to act any way special except for the
basic stuff. He comes off as flat and disinterested in the story,
just like the audiences must have felt when the theaters took their
hard-earned money to watch this film. I'm not saying that it is
awful, because it isn't. It's just one of those films that could have
worked better as a DTV VHS during the time period, than as a
theatrical film. Some of the decisions made by the characters will
make you shake your head until you get whiplash, but it was the only
way to advance the plot. That is a sign of sloppy screenwriting and
Robert Resnikoff takes full blame for this since the story was solely
his baby (It could also be the reason he left filmmaking). It should
be noted that Stewart Copeland, the drummer for The Police, composed
the film's musical score and Ed French did the very few special
makeup effects, which are really the only positive things throughout
the film. This is the kind of film that when you see a person
standing in front of an empty window, you just know someone is going
to come crashing through it. I'm a big fan of Jeff Kober and even
though this is one of his biggest roles, he has done much better in
shorter ones. If you don't have the original MGM DVD (which is really
all you need for this film), you can always purchase this film on DVD
& Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber/Scorpion
Releasing if you want two new extras: New interviews with Lou
Diamond Phillips and Jeff Kober. It seems they couldn't locate Robert
Resnikoff to do a running commentary for this film (or he flat-out
refused to). I can't say I blame him. David Gale, who has one scene
in this film, died the following year of cancer. He managed to star
in SYNGENOR
(1990) and THE GUYVER (1991)
after this before passing away. Melanie Shatner (UNKNOWN
ORIGIN - 1995), the daughter of William Shatner, has a very
small role as a shopgirl. Also starring Nada Despotovich, J. Patrick
McNamara, Lisa Spect, Mark Bringelson, William Fair and Scott
Lawrence. A Kino Lorber/Scorpion Releasing Blu-Ray & DVD Release Rated
R.
FIVE
DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (1970) -
Director Mario Bava (PLANET
OF THE VAMPIRES - 1965; RABID
DOGS - 1974) made this psychedelic and trippy version of
Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" (originally called
"Ten Little Niggers" until saner heads prevailed) in 19
days because he was contractually obligated to do so (his next film
was the influential A
BAY OF BLOOD [1971], on which he had total control). Still,
this is a fun little giallo film with many of Bava's patented
stylistic flourishes.
Professor
Gerry Farrell (William Berger; MAYA
- 1988) has invented a revolutionary synthetic resin which many
companies and their representatives would kill for, and they do. We
must figure out who is responsible for the killings which take place
at an mod, ultra-hip house on an isolated island, occupied by various
scuzzy wealthy people who think infidelity is a virtue.
The film opens with the teenager Isabel (Justine Gall; NAKED
MASSACRE - 1976) peeping inside the house, watching the
debauchery inside. Marie Chaney (Edwige Fenech; THE
CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS - 1971) is dancing to some groovy
music at a small party of people, removing her clothes in an
impromptu striptease. George Stark (Teodoro Corrà; THE
RUTHLESS FOUR - 1968), who is the owner of the house and the
island, has the houseboy, Charles (Mauro Bosco), hand out daggers to
his guests and then says that they are going to sacrifice a virgin to
the god Kraa (WTF?!?). The lights go out and when they come back on,
Marie is lying on the floor, covered in blood with a dagger in her
stomach. Trudy Farrell (Ira von Fürstenberg; THE
FIFTH CORD - 1971), Gerry's wife, screams, but Gerry proves
to everyone that Marie is faking and the blood is not real. These
people like to play mean tricks on each other, but soon it will turn deadly.
Industrialists Nick Chaney (Maurice Poli; URBAN
WARRIORS - 1987), Marie's husband and Jack Davidson (Howard
Ross; WEREWOLF WOMAN - 1976),
along with George, beg Gerry to sell them an interest in his
revolutionary resin and offer him a million dollars each. Gerry tells
them no, for once he is not interested in making money, he is going
to give his invention away at a conference in Geneva next month. For
some reason, George has sent his yacht away, trapping everyone on the
island. Marie is cheating on her husband with housebay Charles, but
when she finds Charles dead, a dagger protruding out of his ribcage,
she goes running to Nick to tell him what has happened. Even though
they have an "open" marriage (Do they even work???), Nick
calls her a "dirty whore" and accuses her of murder (Marie
takes a shower she he can now call her a "clean whore"!).
Marie says she is innocent. Is she? Is Charles faking like Marie did
the night before? Apparently not, as they decide to hang Charles'
body in the house's walk-in freezer.
We then find out that Nick is cheating on his wife with Trudy and
George is cheating on his wife with Peggy (Helena Ronée; ON
HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE - 1969), Jack's wife (This is
getting very confusing!). It's a regular Peyton Place with this group
and it comes as no surprise that all this infidelity and individual
secrets everyone holds would lead to murder. But why does Isabel hide
Marie's flowing white cape under some rocks at the beach? And who is
George's wife, Jill (Edith Meloni), looking at through the scope of a
rifle? A shot rings out and Gerry is found dead on the beach by Jill.
Jill drags his body into the ocean and doesn't try to cover her
footprints in the sand, so when everyone else comes running to the
beach, her footprints are clearly visible. What is she up to? (Now
there are two bodies hanging in the freezer).
Earlier, Nick tried to sway Gerry and stab George and Jack in the
back (not literally) by handing him a million dollar cashiers check,
but when Gerry is discovered dead, he tries to get the check back, it
is missing. Who took it? (A cashiers check is as good as cash). The
next one to die is Jill. Nick finds her outside his bedroom, on the
porch, a bullet in her head (Yes, they were sleeping together!). Now
there are three bodies in the freezer. Marie is then found dead, her
body pinned to a tree by a large knife in her chest (four bodies in
the freezer). The next death is Peggy. She is found dead in an
oversize bathtub, "Forgive me. I can't go on" written in
lipstick on a mirror. Did she commit suicide or was it murder? (Five
bodies in the freezer).
Trudy records an account of what is going on in the house on a
reel-to-reel tape recorder, but forgets to turn it off. Then George
and everyone else are drugged (it was in the champagne) and they all
fall to sleep (or do they?). The Coast Guard then show up on the
island, but when they search the house, no one is there. Thinking
that they must have found another way of getting off the island, the
Coast Guard leave the island (without searching the freezer???). We
then watch as Trudy, George
and Jack waking up from their drugged slumber in the house's living
room. Trudy finds one of the reels of the tape recorder spinning and
plays it back, where they discover that the Coast Guard were there.
Why didn't they see them? Did someone move their bodies and hide
them, only to place them in the living room when the Coast Guard
left? Oh, and Nick's dead body is found hanging in the freezer. Who
is responsible for all this? If you are a fan of Christie's "Ten
Little Indians", it's not hard to figure out that one dead
person is not dead and was working in conjunction with one of the
living. Will the killer(s) get away with it or will proper justice be
meted out?
It's easy to see that Mario Bava was coasting here, but a coasting
Bava is still better than most directors who try their hardest. While
Bava was not a cinematographer on this film, it still contains his
sense of visual flair and atmosphere, especially the sequence
where George and Jack get into a fight and knock over a bowl of glass
marbles. We follow the marbles like a wave of water, as they travel
down the stairs and into the tub containing Trudy's body. Very
effective, as is the sight of all the dead bodies in the freezer,
swaying in unison like some bizarre dance. Very creepy. The film,
originally titled 5
BAMBOLE PER LA LUNA D'AGOSTO (a literal translation of the
review title), moves at a brisk pace (it is only 81 minutes long)
and, unlike A BAY OF BLOOD,
both the nudity and violence are fairly restrained. Sure, who
wouldn't want to see the beautiful Edwige Fenech naked? But it's not
that kind of film. Filled with late-'60s fashions, music (a catchy
score by Piero Umiliani; BLACK
COBRA WOMAN - 1976) and interior decor, this film is about
the idle rich wanting to become richer and doing everything in their
power to achieve that goal, even if it means sleeping with their
opponents' wife or husband. This film was reviled by critics
and Bava fans when it was originally released but, like most of
Bava's films, it has gained a cult following, and rightfully so. This
may not be essential Bava, but it's a nice diversion.
Never released theatrically or on VHS in the United States, it was
originally released on DVD from Image Entertainment early in the New
Millennium. It says it is uncut, but it is actually missing more than
three minutes of footage. The one you want is the DVD or Blu-Ray
released by Kino Lorber. It
is uncut and in its original OAR and it looks fantastic. Bava bathes
the film in primary colors and the image is crisp and clean. While it
is light on extras (just trailers for some of Bava's films on Kino's
roster), Video Watchdog's
Tim Lucas offers a running commentary of little known trivia about
the film and it is very informative, if a little too psychological.
The bouncy screenplay is by Mario di Nardo (RICCO:
THE MEAN MACHINE - 1973) A worthwhile film for your library. Not
Rated.
555
(1988) -
While I generally frown upon shot-on-video movies, I decided to rent
this one after reading so many scathing reviews of it just to see if
it was as really bad as they said. It isnt. As a matter of
fact, it is probably better than 90% of the shot-on-video shit that
lines the video stores shelves. Still, were talking video here,
so dont go in expecting much. A serial killer is cutting up
young lovemaking
couples in Chicago. Two distraught cops try to search for clues to
the killers identity while trying to avoid a nosey female
reporter who is not fond of the police. The cops are able to trace
the killers tracks back 20 years. It seems that every five
years he kills five couples in five days (hence the title) and then
disappears. Since four couples have been killed this time, time is
running out. The cops unmask the killer after the reporter supplies
them with some vital information on someone she used to date. This is
by no means a good film, but it does have some positive points. It is
decently acted, something you usually dont find in a film of
this type. The effects arent halfway bad either. Theres a
decapitation, a throat slashing, a knife shoved clear through a neck
and various sharp blade mayhem. Just remember that were talking
about a home movie budget here, so dont expect anything on par
with shot-on-film movies. Director Wally Koz tries really hard to get
the most out of his meager budget and he generally succeeds. It may
have helped that the entire Koz family worked both behind and in
front of the camera. With more money and a 16mm camera, he may be
able to make something that I could praise. Until then, hell
just get a nice try. 555
stars Greg Kerouac, Mara-Lynn Bastian, Charles Fuller, B.K. Smith and
Bob Grabill as The Killer (which is a cheat). A
Slaughterhouse Entertainment Home Video Release (which, for some
ungodly reason, commands big bucks on the collectors market; one copy
selling for over $760!). Boutique label Massacre
Video has purchased the rights for this film
and plans on releasing a limited edition 50-copy VHS
big box ($30.00), as well as a special
edition DVD ($65.00!), a DVD Hardbox
($50.00) and standard DVD ($20.00)
release slated for October 2011. (All are in very limited supply and
sold out by the time you read this, making me believe it is an eBay
scam to charge ridiculous prices for the product made. If people were
willing to spend over $700 for an old copy, what would they be
willing to pay for a "remastered" edition? I've seen them
on eBay and they have been going for over $200.00 a piece just for
the VHS alone! Mission accomplished!). Not
Rated.
FIVE
WOMEN FOR THE KILLER (1974) -
Here's a sleazy and bloody giallo film directed by Stelvio Massi, who
is better known for his fast-paced Eurocrime films, such as EMERGENCY
SQUAD (1974), the Mark The Narc trilogy (BLOOD,
SWEAT AND FEAR -1975; MARK
SHOOTS FIRST - 1975; and THE
.44 SPECIALIST - 1976) and the war actioner HELL'S
HEROES (1987). This film was co-written by the duo who gave
us the ultra-violent (and misogynistic) THE
NEW YORK RIPPER (1982), of which this film shares some
similarities in plot, as only the female sex are the ones being
murdered in a very uncomfortable way. This film is also a
well-plotted mystery with some great cinematography (by Sergio
Rubino; APACHE WOMAN
- 1976; DAWN OF THE MUMMY
- 1981). Stelvio
Massi started his career as a camera operator and then a
cinematographer, photographing such films as ATLAS
IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (1961) and the Spaghetti Western THE
PRICE OF POWER (1969), so he knows where the camera should
be placed for maximum effectiveness and this film does display that
talent. I must admit that I wasn't a big fan of Massi, especially
after viewing his BLACK COBRA
(1987) and BLACK ANGEL (1989;
another sleazy giallo flick, but without any of the good elements
found in this film), but I may have to change my opinion since I
found this film and MAGNUM COP
(1978) to be quite effective and enjoyable. But enough prattling on,
let's get to the film in question.
Giorgio Pisani (Francis Matthews; DRACULA:
PRINCE OF DARKNESS - 1966) is a journalist and author who
has just returned home after a lengthy assignment overseas. At the
airport, he phones his pregnant wife Erica and discovers that she is
in labor. He races home after grabbing a doctor when Erica tells him
that her regular physician, Dr. Lidia Franzi (Pascale Rivault; THE
BEAST - 1975), is not with her and cannot be reached. When
Giorgio and the doctor arrive home, Giorgio hears a baby crying and
sees Lidia descending the stairs, a look of sorrow on her face. Erica
has died during childbirth, the premature baby boy is then rushed to
the intensive care unit at the clinic Lidia works at and put in an
incubator. Giorgio is heartbroken at his wife's funeral, where we
learn that Erica's brother, Fabrizio (Alessandro Quasimodo), who is
married to Lidia, is a real bastard who only cares about himself.
Fabrizio is looking for an envelope Erica was supposed to give to
Lidia, but she died before she could hand it over. Whatever is in
that envelope, Fabrizio is willing to do anything to get his hands on
it. Does that include murder? Giorgio then gets some distressing news
while waiting for Lidia in her office. On her desk is a folder with
Giorgio's name written on it in big black letters. Inside the folder
is a medical document that states Giorgio is sterile. When Lidia
enters the office, Giorgio wants to know why he was never told he was
sterile. Lidia tells him she knows he is sexually virile and
handsome, but Erica didn't want him to be told he was unable to have
children. It then dawns on Giorgio that if he is sterile, then how
did his wife get pregnant? Lidia tells him not to think about it; he
knew his wife was desperate to have a baby, but Giorgio can't help
wondering who the baby's father is. When Giorgio leaves the office,
Lidia calls in her nurse and asks why she put Giorgio's medical
folder on her desk. The nurse tells her she didn't, she put the
folder in the filing cabinet, just like she does with all the medical
folders. It is apparent the folder was purposely put on Lidia's desk
so Giorgio would read it, but who is responsible?
While Giorgio is walking towards the clinic, he sees foreign tourist
Tiffany (future porn star Ilona Staller; THE
MANIAC RESPONSIBLE - 1975; a.k.a. "Cicciolina",
here using the name "Elena Mercuri") nearly get hit by a
car, so he goes to her to see if she is hurt. She's not, but she asks
him to drive her home. At her place, Tiffany strips naked and wants
to make love to Giorgio because she just learned that she is
pregnant. Giorgio seemingly refuses her advances (it's not made
clear), but, later, we see someone wearing gloves (which aren't black
for a change, but tan driving gloves) slicing a naked Tiffany from
vagina to stomach with what looks like a box cutter in some sort of
perverted and deadly abortion. The killer also slices and mutilates
Tiffany's left breast, carving a strange symbol on it (a symbol of
fertility) as their "calling card". An unnamed Police
Commissioner (Howard Ross; FIVE
DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON - 1970, who is credited on some
advertising materials under his real name, "Renato Rossini")
and his harried assistant, Palumbo (Ugo Bombognini; THE
.44 SPECIALIST - 1976), are assigned to the case, not
realizing that this is just the first of several graphic murders of
pregnant women that will happen in the days to come and their only
common link to all the crime scenes is Giorgio, whom we hope is not
killing all these women because of his dead wife. But that would be
too easy, wouldn't it? Let's hope so.
Giorgio's newspaper editor (cameo king Tom Felleghy; DAMNED
IN VENICE - 1978) wants to send him on an assignment to
Cambodia, but Giorgio says he cannot go, he has a baby to take care
of now and recommends he send female reporter Oriana (Catherine
Diamant). The editor pulls Oriana into his office and tells her about
the new assignment, but she declines to go, telling him that she
found out this morning that she is pregnant. Uh, oh! Fabrizio, who
was standing outside the editor's office for reasons not yet made
clear, also hears the news. That night, while Oriana is driving home,
she gets the feeling that she is being followed, so she rushes to her
apartment and bolts the door. It is then revealed that the gloved
killer was already in her apartment, so the killer strips Oriana
naked and slices her from labia to navel with a sharp blade. This is
the second brutal murder where the only common link is Giorgio and it
doesn't go unnoticed by the Commissioner, who questions Giorgio. he
seems to have valid answers to all the questions the Commissioner
asks him (yet he lies about knowing Tiffany and being in her
apartment), but he is still the number one suspect to the
Commissioner. Maybe he and Palumbo should dig a little deeper for
other common links. Giorgio can't get over that his wife had sex with
another man, yet he treats the baby as if it his own. Deep down
inside, Giorgio lizes that his wife was willing to have sex with
another man just to get pregnant, because she really wanted a baby so
they could start a family. Giorgio wants to know who that man is, if
only to see if he had anything to do with the murders.
We then see Sofia (Gabriella Lepori; ROME:
ARMED TO THE TEETH - 1976) making love to the married
Professor Aldo Betti (Giorgio Albertazzi; FATAL
FRAMES - 1996), a doctor at the clinic (Sofia is a nurse at
the clinic). She asks him when he is going to leave his wife and Aldo
tells Sofia that his wife knows all about his dalliances with other
women and she just doesn't care, but since she is a "good
Catholic", she will never give him a divorce. Aldo also tells
Sofia that all women are alike, all they want to do is get pregnant
so they can be called "mommy" (remember this was the
early-'70s; it's nothing like it is today!). Sofia says to him,
"I'm not sure how much this will interest you, perhaps you don't
care...but I'm already pregnant. Aldo gives her a surprised look, but
I think we know how this will all turn out: rather badly. Fabrizio,
who is also having an affair with Sofia, accuses her of caring more
about Aldo than him, but Sofia says she loves him and Aldo is nothing
but a meaningless fling. She then makes love to Fabrizio.
The Medical Examiner (Franco Moraldi; DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT - 1972) tells the Commissioner that the
same set of fingerprints were found at both crime scenes (Which is
weird because the killer wears gloves and doesn't take them off. It's
also a major clue.). The Commissioner is sure that Giorgio was lying
when he said he never met Tiffany, as the fingerprints are his. Just
to be safe, he is willing to give Giorgio the benefit of the doubt,
saying further evidence is needed before accusing Giorgio of two
murders. Giorgio tells Lidia everything, holding nothing back, and
she tells him not to worry because he is innocent. Lidia wants to
know why Fabrizio was at the newspaper and Giorgio tells her Fabrizio
was trying to sell one of his stupid ideas to his editor; another one
of those scandal columns that was prevalent in newspapers during
that time, but the editor refused and Fabrizio said he would take
his idea to another newspaper. It seems that Fabrizio did just that,
as another newspaper agreed to his scandal column and the person he
turned his attention (and ire) to was Aldo, who is extremely rich,
thanks to his wife. After complaining about the column to his wife,
Aldo gets a phone call from Sofia, who wants to see him right away.
His wife tells Aldo to do three things: 1) Find out if Sofia
is really pregnant (Aldo says he already has, as he talked to Lidia,
Sofia's gynecologist, who said yes, Sofia is pregnant). 2) Get
some new clothes because he looks ridiculous (Aldo tells her if they
were good enough for his grandfather, then they are good enough for
him!), and 3) Be careful. She says to Aldo, "I've given
up everything, even having children, but I'm not prepared to lose my
dignity." Aldo asks her to explain herself and she says, "If
she causes a scandal and it's in all the papers, I won't be on your
side!" (Aldo calls her a "bitch" under his breath).
She may be a good Catholic, but she has her limits.
The Commissioner and Palumbo arrive at Giorgio's house unannounced,
the Commissioner lying to housekeeper Aunt Marta (Maria Cumani
Quasimodo; ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK
- 1972), telling her that he and Giorgio are good friends. When she
discovers who he really is, she throws a fit, but Giorgio tells her
to calm down by saying they might not be friends, but they are also
not enemies (Giorgio is nothing if not diplomatic). The Commissioner
meets the beautiful Alba Galli (Katia Christine; THE
DESIGNATED VICTIM - 1971), whom Giorgio hired to act as a
nanny to his baby son, who is home from the clinic.The Commissioner
only has one question to ask Giorgio and that is where Aunt Marta
resides. When Giorgio tells him she lives in an apartment above the
garage, the Commissioner excuses himself and he and Palumbo exit the
house. Curious, no?
When Aldo fails to meet Sofia, she calls his home and talks to his
wife, who tells her, "He didn't come? I don't know, try the
clinic. Do what you like! Jump off a cliff!", then hangs up the
phone. Sofia then gets in her car and drives away, unaware that
Giorgio is watching her out a shop window across the street. When
Sofia arrives home, she phones Fabrizio, but he's not there. She runs
the water to take a bath and undresses, when her phone rings. Sofia
picks it up, thinking it is Aldo, but we can see it is the gloved
killer, calling her from a phone booth across the street from her
home. The killer says nothing and hangs up the phone. As Sofia is
about to take a relaxing soak in the bathtub, the killer strikes,
slashing Sofia across her chest and then slicing her open from
clitoris to bellybutton. When The Commissioner arrives at the crime
scene and says this is the third pregnant woman murdered, the Medical
Examiner informs him that Sofia wasn't pregnant. He says the killer's
technique was like the others, but he is sure it isn't the same
killer, telling the Commissioner, "It's a variation on a theme.
Good luck, Commissioner!" So was Sofia murdered for another
reason, making it look like the other killings? Damn right it was!
But who killed her? The Commissioner and Palumbo question Aldo and he
tells them that Sofia was a nurse at his clinic, but he fails to tell
them he was having an affair with her. When the Commissioner
asks him where he was at the time of Sofia's murdewr, he uses that
old chestnut, that his profession protects the confidentiality
between him and his patients and he refuses to break it. When the
Commissioner and Palumbo leave, Aldo phones Lidia and tells her to
come to his office immediately to have her back up his alibi should
the Commissioner question her. What Aldo doesn't know is the
Commissioner is talking to Pellegrini (Lorenzo Piani; RIOT
IN A WOMEN'S PRISON - 1974), Aldo's chauffeur and part-time
clinic worker, whom the Commissioner once arrested for being a pimp,
which he failed to tell Aldo. The Commissioner then questions Lidia,
telling her he knows Aldo was having an affair with Sofia, but that
is not important. Lidia tells him that Aldo asked her to visit Sofia
yesterday morning for an examination to see if she was pregnant. It
turns out Lidia didn't visit Sofia, saying Sofia wasn't stupid and
would know it was a setup orchestrated by Aldo. Lidia pretended she
did visit Sofia and then phoned Aldo to say that Sofia was pregnant,
which was a lie. This bit of information only makes Aldo look
guiltier, something Aldo is aware of, as we see him talking to Lidia,
telling her that only he and her knew Sofia was pregnant (He still
doesn't know that Lidia lied to him). But Lidia tells him one other
person also knew... his wife, whom the Commissioner and Palumbo are
now questioning, when Aldo walks in and says he needs to talk o the
Commissioner in private, telling his wife to leave the room. Aldo
tells the Commissioner that he and Sofia weren't madly in love,
"It was just a bit of fun, a distraction." The Commissioner
asks Aldo if he had a key to Sofia's apartment and Aldo says he never
had a key. When the Commissioner and Palumbo leave abruptly
(something they do quite often in this film), Aldo's wife says the
key is an important clue. Aldo then goes to the Commissioner's office
to tell him everything when the Commissioner tells him the killer
must have had a key to Sofia's apartment, since she was
completely naked and about to take a bath and wouldn't answer the
front door nude if anyone knocked on it. Aldo tells the Commissioner
about Sofia's phone call to meet her, but he was late showing up
because he had to see a friend's son who live outside the city,
saying he was there until 7:00pm, long after Sofia was murdered. He
then says that he drove back to meet Sophia at the agreed place, but
the car broke down, so he called Pellegrini to come pick him up (not
knowing that the Commissioner already talked to Pellegrini). When the
Commissioner tells Aldo that Pelligrini was once a pimp, all Aldo can
think about is how the Press will run with this story and ruin his reputation
Fabrizio tells Giorgio that Aldo's wife was once locked up in an
asylum for attempted murder. When she was 15-years-old, she tried to
kill her entire family by putting rat poison in their dinner, but she
didn't use enough and nobody died. She was locked up for a few years,
then released. Why is Fabrizio telling this to Giorgio, who couldn't
give a shit? Fabrizio looks at Alba pushing a baby carriage and says
that she's his kind of woman. He then callously says at least his
wife is still alive, even though she is cold as ice. He the looks at
the baby and says, "He looks like no one!"
Okay, as you can probably guess, there are two killers on the loose.
I've given you all the clues you need to figure out who the killers
are. Still need to know more? I will tell you this: The Commissioner
pulls Pellegrini into his office and discovers he was very, very
close to Sofia. He even came up with the idea of Sofia being
pregnant, so they could blackmail Aldo for a lot of money. Pellegrini
also tells the Commissioner that Sofia was incapable of having
children, because she told him when they first met that she had
something hereditary, something inside her, a condition he can't
remember the name of, but the clinic was aware of it. But who in the
clinic knew about it? It certainly wasn't Aldo. Lidia phones
Giorgio and tells him to come to the clinic, she has something
important to tell him, also saying that she is frightened and
believes she is being watched. Giorgio tells Alba and Aunt Marta that
he is going to the clinic and when he arrives, he hears Lidia
screaming. He rushes into the clinic and discovers that it is dark
and no lights are on. He hears Lidia quietly calling out his name,
telling him the light switch is next to the front door. When he turns
the lights on, he finds a naked Lidia cowering in a corner and she
tells him......That's enough. It's time for you to put your thinking
cap on and start doing some deducing.
This is a damn fine mystery which doesn't cheat the audience with a
final reveal that comes out of left field. It's quite the opposite,
actually, as screenwriters Gianfranco Clerici (THE
HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK - 1979), Vincenzo
Mannino (THE KILLER IS ON THE PHONE
- 1972) and Roberto Gianviti (DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972) have crafted a finely-tuned
mystery that's quite hard to solve, but all the clues are there if
you watch the film a second time, which is what I did (Clerici and
Mannino also wrote the screenplay to Lucio Fulci's mean-spirited THE
NEW YORK RIPPER [1982], borrowing a few pages from this
film). When Alba tells Giorgio that she is pregnant and the baby is
his, not knowing he is sterile, you will start thinking that his
sterility is a fabrication, because Alba doesn't seem like a woman
who would lie. I love films that play with your expectations and this
film plays with them expertly. You will not know what to believe. The
final fifteen minutes of this film rivals anything by Dario Argento
or Sergio Martino, as the killer (at least one of them) chases Alba
and the baby with an axe through the house until Giorgio arrives and
unmasks the killer. The Commissioner then arrives and reveals the
identity of the second killer, the final line of dialogue in the film
being, "You filthy whore!" The freeform
jazz music soundtrack, by The Giorgio Gaslini Quartet (NIGHT
OF THE DEVILS - 1972), also injects some class into the
proceedings. I kept finding myself digging the music and almost
ignoring the plot, it's that good. It's one of the best giallo
soundtracks I have heard in a long, long time, but the biggest
surprise is the solid direction by Stelvio Massi. I found most of the
films he directed to be exploitative, but bland and uneventful
(granted, I haven't seen many), but this film changed my opinion
about him greatly. This film is filled with little camera tricks,
such as when we see the Commissioner talking to the Medical Examiner
through a set of magnified fingerprints hanging on a lightbox. Little
things like that go unnoticed by most people, but not by me. It shows
me that some thought and care was put into making this film. So you
can now consider me a fan of Stelvio Massi and I look forward to
reviewing more of his films in the near future.
Shot as 5
DONNE PER L'ASSASSINO (a literal translation of the review
title) and also known as DAY-KILLER,
this film is so rare, that it never had a theatrical of home video
release in the United States in any format. I couldn't even find it
being offered by any gray market site, which is very unusual. The
only place you can watch it is on YouTube, where channel
"Film&Clips" offer it in a nice anamorphic widescreen
print, in Italian with English subtitles. Believe me, this film is
worth your time and effort. Also featuring Lia Bresciani, Ennia
Rossetto, Torquato Tessarini and cameo queen Carla Mancini (FLAVIA
THE HERETIC - 1974). Not Rated, due to the gory
killings of pregnant women (Thankfully, none of the women have baby
bumps, as all of them have just discovered they are pregnant) and the
frequent full-frontal female nudity.
THE
FLOWER WITH THE DEADLY STING
(1973) - Interesting giallo film about a doctor, who has many
lovers, accidentally killing one of them and then disposing her body
in a rather graphic way, but he doesn't realize that someone was
watching him.
Dr. Adrian Valenti (Gianni Garko; NIGHT
OF THE DEVILS - 1972) is a meticulous and well-respected
surgeon who likes things done his way (He fires a nurse assisting him
on an operation for not being quick enough to obey his commands).
Meanwhile, two women, Evelyne Graffi (Carroll Baker; BABA
YAGA - 1973) and her sister Daniela (Paola Senatore; WOMEN
IN CELL BLOCK 7 - 1973), are in a hotel room (Daniela is
nude) waiting for a phone call. It is obvious that they are up to
something, but we are not clued-in as to what it is. When Evelyne
takes a shower (a rare nude shot of Baker), the phone rings and
Daniela picks it up, arguing with the person on the other end. When
Evelyne steps out of
the shower, she asks her sister who called, Daniela telling her it
was a wrong number (Daniela doesn't know that Evelyne overheard the
entire conversation). They then leave the hotel room, both going
their separate ways. Dr. Valenti drives home, noticing a familiar car
parked in his lot. When he walks into his house, he sees that one of
his lovers is still there (Even though we never see the woman's face,
we can't help but believe that it is Daniela. Once you watch this
scene you will know what I mean.). He tells her it is over, he is
"sick" of her and wants her to leave his house immediately,
but she says nothing, which just pisses him off. He starts screaming
at her, but she still says nothing, so Adrian gives her a shove and
walks away. Realizing that he may have been too rough on her, he
apologizes, but she still says nothing. He then finds out why. When
he gave her a shove, she fell to the floor, knocking over a heavy
metal sculpture of a flower, one of its sharp metal petals impaling
her body, killing her. Adrian doesn't know what to do, so he turns
out the lights and looks out his window to make sure no one saw what
he did. He then comes up with a plan to dispose of his lover's body.
He drags her to the bathroom and places her naked body in the
bathtub, where he cuts her body into pieces, using scalpels and a
bone saw (we see him cutting up the body in quick flashes, some of
them purposely out of focus), placing the pieces (and his bloody
clothes) in plastic bags and a suitcase (When he realizes what he has
just done, seeing all the blood and viscera in the bathtub, he pukes
into his toilet!). He then puts the plastic bags and suitcase in the
trunk of his car, driving to a building with a rather large grinder.
He then turns on the grinder, tosses the plastic bags and suitcase
into it and watches as the grinder turns everything into dust,
obliterating all the evidence into nothingness.
The next morning, Adrian is awakened by his doorbell. It's Evelyne
and she demands to see Daniela, Adrian telling her that she is not
here. She looks around his home, stopping to take a long look at the
flower sculpture and then asks him where Daniela went. Adrian is
adamant, telling Evelyne that he hasn't seen her sister in quite a
while. "So why is her car here?" asks Evelyne and by the
look on Adrian's face, you can see the guilt, but he asks Evelyne if
she is sure it is her sister's car. "Look for a better excuse,
Adrian. You're going to need it.", replies Evelyne, as she walks
out the door, adding, "You better pray nothing has happened to
her!" Adrian then goes to the hospital and does his daily
rounds, acting as if nothing has happened. Nurse Lena (Pilar
Velázquez; NAKED GIRL KILLED
IN THE PARK - 1972), another one of Adrian's lovers, tells
him that she tried to call last night, but he tells her he
disconnected the phone because he didn't want to be disturbed. When
Adrian goes to his office, Police Inspector Garrano (Ivano Staccioli; THE
DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES - 1971) is there, wanting to have a
short talk with him. He tells the doctor that Evelyne contacted him
to report her sister missing, so it is his duty to investigate,
apologizing to the doctor for taking up his valuable time. It seems
Evelyne told the Inspector about Daniela's sexual relationship with
Adrian and the Inspector asks him if the relationship was serious,
Adrian saying no, it was just a fling (Telling the Inspector,
"Not important, I would say."). We then discover that
Daniela is Evelyne's stepsister, Adrian telling the Inspector that
Evelyne and Daniela haven't been getting along as of late, diverting
suspicion to Evelyne, but when the Inspector leaves his office, he
asks Adrian why Daniela's car is parked by his house. Adrian says he
doesn't know, the Inspector telling him not to worry, he'll get to
the bottom of it.
When Adrian gets home, he finds Evelyne in his house waiting for
him. He asks her how she got in and she shows him the key, saying her
sister gave it to her. She once again demands to know where Daniela
is and Adrian says that this has nothing to do with her sister, she
is jealous, as they were once lovers, too. Evelyne tries to slap
Adrian, but he grabs her arm, almost breaking it and throws he onto
his bed. He then sees some strange footprints on his rug that come
from his bathroom and lead outside his living room's double glass
doors to his backyard. He then kisses Evelyne and she kisses him
back. He tells her that if she wants a relationship with him, she
will have to drop the investigation. Evelyne walks out of the house
in a huff and Adrian follows the footprints outside. They seemingly
lead to a window across an alleyway that looks directly into his
house. Could whoever was at that window have seen Adrian kill Daniela?
When Adrian is about to go to work, the Inspector shows up and tells
him there is something important he needs to know, but he must come
to his office. When Adrian gets there, Evelyne is also in the office.
The Inspector asks him about the phone call he made to Daniela the
day she disappeared and what the phone call was about. Adrian tells
him it was nothing important, but Evelyne interrupts and says that
isn't so, she overheard the phone call and it was quite contentious.
Adrian was cursing at her and then he invited her to his house. When
the Inspector mentions the word "murder", Adrian goes on
the defensive, telling the Inspector that he feels he is being
illegally detained, saying his lawyer should be present, as he storms
out of the Inspector's office. He couldn't look more guilty if he tried.
We then see Evelyne enter the building across the alleyway from
Adrian's house, by ringing a buzzer. We then see Adrian sneaking into
the very same building. It doesn't take a genius to know why Adrian
is there, but why is Evelyne there? Adrian discovers nothing about
the window, except it is in a room full of creepy broken dolls (it is
quite the sight!). When Adrian gets home, Lena is waiting for him,
wondering why he hasn't reconnected his phone, because she has been
calling him for days. They then make love and when Adrian is done,
his doorbell rings. It's a neighbor, who has a package for him. When
Adrian asks her who it is from, she says she doesn't know, it was a
young man who handed her the package. Adrian then opens the package
and inside it is a wooden box. Inside the box is a single metal
petal, the same exact kind found on his sculpture. His phone then
rings. It is a man, who says, "Do you think you got rid of
me?" Adrian asks who this is, the man replying, "You know
me very well. I don't want to see you with anyone else" and then
hangs up. Adrian hears something on the phone (it's a broken doll
saying "Mama! Mama!") that makes him go back to the room
with the creepy dolls. When Adrian gets there, he finds Daniela's
corpse hanging on a wall, all her removed appendages crudely sewn
back on her body. How can this be when Adrian ground up her body into
bloody dust? The film then cleverly juxtaposes the image of a
rotating grinder turning into a child's merry-go-round in a park,
where we see Evelyne talking to the Inspector, telling him she is
sure Adrian killed her sister, saying ever since Daniela has been
seeing Adrian, "he changed her". The Inspector tells her he
has no evidence to arrest Adrian, so Evelyne hands him a document,
telling him that Adrian is being protected by "influential"
people. The Inspector reads the document and by the look on his face,
this is all the evidence that he needs. Just what is in that document
to make him change his mind so fast?
The Inspector then goes to an insane asylum, where he (and we) watch
all the patients act crazy, but he is only interested in one woman. A
psychiatrist (Umberto Raho; SO
DARLING, SO DEADLY - 1966) tells him that this woman was
committed here after losing her virginity to her newlywed husband.
That husband would be Adrian and the woman is the daughter of a rich
deceased industrialist. It seems Adrian married her so he could then
have her committed, thereby making him the sole beneficiary of her
father's vast fortune (Nice guy, huh?). The doctor tells the
Inspector that his job is getting in the way and influencing his
opinion of Adrian and the Inspector shoots back, asking the
psychiatrist if he really believes that every patient committed to
this asylum is actually crazy (He makes a good point). The
psychiatrist says it is all moot anyway, as Adrian's wife has been
recently released and she is free. So where is Adrian's wife?
Adrian is at the hospital when Lena tells him he has a phone call,
but when he picks up the receiver, no one is there. We then see it
was Evelyne, as she puts down the phone and continues having dinner
with the Inspector at a restaurant. Are they in a relationship?
Adrian can't figure out how Daniela's body ended up in that room, his
memory taking him back to the grinder and Evelyne showing him
Daniela's key back at his house. Is there a connection between those
two memories? We then see Adrian pick up a briefcase full of cash at
a lawyer's office and when he leaves, the lawyer calls the Inspector.
We also see Lena and Evelyne in the backseat of a taxi. Are they
working together? OK, I have given you all the clues you need to
figure it out, so light your pipe, grab your magnifying glass and
start doing some detecting!
I found it hard to believe that this rarely seen giallo film
actually had a U.S. theatrical release, as I have never heard of it
before, but I found
an ad mat
to prove it (thanks Temple
Of Schlock!). This has a fairly involving mystery and some
shocking scenes (the sight of Daniela's stitched-together corpse
being one of them and the unbelievable underwater reveal during the
finale being another one). The film opens with a scuba diver swimming
at the bottom of the ocean and I wondered what that had to do with
the rest of the film, but it is answered, rather titillatingly, close
to the end of the film, where one character from the film removes
their wetsuit, swimming completely naked (nothing is left to the
imagination) with one of their lovers. I will say no more, because it
will ruin the finale. All I will say is, just when it looks like they
are going to get away with it, the police (and the Inspector) show up
to ruin their plans. Director/co-screenwriter Gianfranco Piccioli (THE
HOKEY POKEY GANG! - 1976), along with co-scripter Gianni
Martucci (director/writer of BLAZING
FLOWERS - 1978 and THE
RED MONKS - 1988), have fashioned a very complex plot that
makes perfect sense, but you really have to WATCH the film to pick up
some of the finer nuances, otherwise you will be hopelessly lost. If
you like using your brain to enjoy a film, look no further than this
film. It's a feast for both the brain and the eyes.
Shot as IL FIORE
DAI PETALI D'ACCIAIO ("The Flower With The Petals Of
Steel") and as I have mentioned previously, this film obtained a
U.S. Theatrical release, but I have no idea who distributed it (IMDb
doesn't list it as having a U.S theatrical release). This film never
did have a legitimate U.S. home video release in any format, but
several gray market sites offer it on DVD-R (Rogue
Video being one of them). I saw it on YouTube in a fairly sharp
widescreen print in Italian with English subtitles (But I am sure it
does have an English track somewhere, since it had a U.S. theatrical
release). One thing I particularly enjoyed about this film is that we
get a quick glimpse of Carroll Baker in the nude. Baker, who was no
stranger to Italian cinema, especially her many giallo flicks (THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH - 1968; PARANOIA
- 1969; A QUIET PLACE TO KILL
- 1970; THE FOURTH VICTIM -
1971 and KNIFE OF ICE - 1972,
just being a few of them), usually leaves the nudity to the other
actresses (at least in the films I have seen her in), but when she
takes a shower early in this film, we do get a peek. Most of the
other actresses in this film go much further in the nudity
department, much, much further. If your taste for Italian genre films
runs towards gialli, this film comes highly recommended. Also
starring Eleonora Morana (AUTOPSY -
1973), Angelo Bassi, Giuseppe "Pino" Mattei (WEREWOLF
WOMAN - 1976); Alessandro Perrella (GIRL
IN ROOM 2A - 1973) and Alba Maiolini (SEVEN
BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS - 1972). While the theatrical version
was Rated R, I get the feeling that the version I watched was
uncut and is probably Unrated.
FORCED
ENTRY (1975) - Nasty and
unpleasant R-rated remake of the 1972
X-rated rape porn flick of the same name (this was made in 1975,
but not released until 1981). The plot is nearly identical, although
I believe that this remake is more misogynistic in tone than the
original, even if there are no hardcore porn scenes on view (although
there is still much nudity, but none of it is the least bit
titillating unless you are a sick, sadistic bastard). Woman-hating
garage mechanic Carl (Ron Max; HEATED
VENGEANCE - 1984) tinkers with the cars of young women who
stop at the gas station he works at and he then follows them until
their cars break down. He then rapes and kills them, as the viewers
listen to his innermost thoughts, which are basically
incomprehensible rants against women. When young wife and mother
Nancy Ulman (Tanya Roberts; SHEENA
- 1984) stops by the gas station to drop off her car for repairs,
owner Charlie (Billy Longo) has Carl dive Nancy home. Serious
mistake. Carl becomes infatuated and obsessed with Nancy and once he
discovers that
Nancy's husband will be away for the weekend on a business trip, he
plans for a long weekend of rape and degradation, all at Nancy's
expense. But first, Carl gets beaten to a pulp by a pimp who
discovers him peeping on his hooker girlfriend in the Ladies Room at
the gas station. Carl works out his frustrations by raping and
killing a young woman who stops at the station to put some air in her
bicycle tire (Vaginal rape by beer bottle is explicitly implied,
followed by shots of a bloody wrench swinging up and down). Carl then
picks up a hitchhiker (a cameo by Nancy Allen; DRESSED
TO KILL - 1980), ties her up, rapes her and then drops her
lifeless body in a field. He then goes to Nancy's house, where he
breaks in, ties Nancy up and slowly begins to systematically rape and
torture her. After slapping her around and forcing her to sleep with
him in the same bed she shares with her husband, Nancy tries to
escape while Carl is sleeping, but he recaptures her and then murders
a nosy delivery boy. Carl (who wears a "Camp Weedawong" tee
shirt during this sequence) is eventually killed by Nancy, who grabs
a butcher knife and repeatedly stabs him to death, just as her kids
are walking through the front door. Relentlessly repellant and
hard to watch, one begins to wonder why director Jim Sotos (SWEET
SIXTEEN - 1982; HOT MOVES
- 1985) chose to remake an equally repellant porno film (the first
film directed by Shaun Costello, using the pseudonym "Helmuth
Richler") as his first directorial effort. There's not much
point to this film except to show one man's total hatred and
disregard for the female of the species. Screenwriter Henry Scarpelli
(who co-produced this with Sotos) seems to imply that impotence leads
to murder, as Carl can't seem to close the deal (if you know what I
mean) with his rape victims, so he gets off degrading his victims,
usually by tying their hands behind their backs, screaming out
obscenities and penetrating their bodies with foreign objects before
killing them, all of which Sotos is glad to show us, usually in super
slow-motion. Carl also stutters when faced with talking to women
under normal circumstances and only loses the stutter when he has
complete control of his victims' lives. Since we are never given any
clear information on Carl's background (until the obviously tacked-on
ending), most of Carl's actions ring hollow and unnecessary,
especially all the hate-filled diatribes that we hear as Carl's
thoughts. There's nothing remotely enjoyable about this film because
it serves no other purpose than to show a sick man's hatred for
women. It doesn't have the same significance of other films like BLOODRAGE:
NEVER PICK UP A STRANGER (1980) or HENRY:
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986), even though it shares
their low-budget griminess, because the subject that is the focus
here is too one-dimensional. FORCED
ENTRY wallows in rape and torture imagery for the sake of
rape and torture and no other reason. Skip it for all the right
reasons. Also known as THE LAST VICTIM.
Also starring Vasco Valladeres, Robin Leslie, Michael Tucci, Beth
Carlton, Frank Verroca, Michele Miles, Glenn Scarpelli and Amy
Levitan. Originally released on VHS by Harmony Vision. Code
Red had announced a DVD release in 2008, but as of this writing
it has failed to materialize. Rated R. UPDATE:
Now available on Blu-Ray from Code Red sublabel Dark Force
Entertainment under THE
LAST VICTIM title.
THE
FOURTH VICTIM (1971) - I had
high hopes for this giallo flick since it came from the man who
directed HORROR EXPRESS
(1972), but, truth be told, I was bitterly disappointed, because it
plays more like an episode of COLUMBO
than it does a giallo film. This Italy/Spain co-production opens with
Arthur Anderson (Michael Craig; INN OF THE DAMNED
- 1974) finding his wife Gladys dead in their pool, floating face
down. He carries her body to their bedroom, where he dries her
off, changes her clothes and brushes her hair, making it look like
she died in her sleep. As Arthur and his houskeeper, Felicity
(Miranda Campa; THE GIANT OF MARATHON
- 1959), watch, a doctor signs his wife's death certificate. We then
discover why Arthur was trying to be deceptive. Gladys was his third
wife and all of them died under mysterious circumstances. This
"coincidence" doesn't escape the attention of Police
Superintendant Dunphy (José Luis López Vázquez),
who charges Arthur with Gladys' murder, since she had a rather large
life insurance policy that he was going to collect. Arthur is brought
to trial and as it looks like the evidence is about to convict him,
Felicity takes the stand and her impassioned testimony frees Arthur,
as a jury finds him not guilty. Was Felicity truthful on the stand or
was she lying?
Superintendant Dunphy is not happy with the verdict, so he dogs
Arthur's every move. Arthur catches him watching him and tells the
Superintendant that he can't be tried twice for the same crime,
because double jeopardy comes into play. The Superintendant tells him
he knows that, he is following Arthur to see if he does the same
thing to the fourth Mrs. Anderson, who Arthur hasn't met yet! So what
really happened to Gladys? Did she commit suicide, as Felicity
testified on the stand?
A few weeks later, Arthur catches new neighbor Julie Spencer
(Carroll Baker; THE DEVIL
WITH SEVEN FACES - 1971; BABA
YAGA - 1973) swimming in his pool. He is suspicious of her
and turned on at the same time. We then discover that Julie is
squatting illegally in the house next door (she has newspaper
articles on Arthur's trial hanging on one of the walls), as she
phones someone and says, "I just met him." Julie makes sure
that her path always crosses Arthur's and it is not long before they
become an item. Just who is Julie and what is her angle?
Julie gets the feeling that she is being followed and she's right. A
mysterious blonde woman (Marina Malfatti; THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE - 1971), who is dressed
as if she is going to a Halloween party, confronts Julie, asking her
how long has she lived in the house and if she lives alone. Julie is
taken aback and asks the woman if they have met before, the woman
saying nothing and walking away quickly. Arthur and Julie get married
and Julie takes a £50,000 life insurance policy on herself to
show Arthur she trusts him. Arthur catches Julie searching his attic,
which is full of his three dead wives' belongings. They get into a
fight, Arthur slapping her and Julie runs away and disappears. Arthur
goes searching for her, finding Julie's car next to some steep
cliffs. Arthur believes Julie jumped off a cliff, committing suicide
and reports it to the police. One officer is surprised to hear that
Arthur married Julie Spencer, because, three years ago, she was
accused of killing her husband and was committed to an insane asylum.
Arthur then talks to Julie's psychiatrist, Dr. Shepherd (Manuel
Gallardo), who tells Arthur that Julie was released from the asylum
and not to mention to her anything about her first husband's death,
because it will upset her and to play along with her, which Arthur
agrees to do. When Julie comes home, Arthur pretends he doesn't know
the truth, but, as we know, there are three sides to every story:
His, Hers and the Truth's, Just who ios playing who?
Arthur catches Julie calling that someone and telling them that she
can't go on with the deception, she's falling in love with Arthur and she
wants out. Out of what? Meanwhile, Superintendant Dunphy is still
keeping a close eye on Arthur, even breaking into his house when he
doesn't answer the doorbell fast enough! he refuses to believe that
Arthur is in love with Julie and heard that she has fainting spells.
Julie, who just had one of those spells, is passed out on their bed,
so Arthur takes the Superintendant and another officer (the one he
talked to previously) to the bedroom to prove to them that Julie is
fine. When the officer looks at her, he says, "That's not Julie
Spencer. I know Julie Spencer!" So who exactly is this fake
Julie Spencer and what are her plans? Will she become Arthur's fourth victim?
Unfortunately, this film fails as a giallo flick, as the mystery is
so easy to solve, a three year-old could figure it out. Director
Eugenio Martin (IT HAPPENED AT
NIGHTMARE INN - 1973 and the aforementioned HORROR
EXPRESS - 1972), working with a script written by himself,
Sabatino Ciuffini (SUPER FUZZ
- 1980), Santiago Moncada (SWAMP
OF THE RAVENS - 1974) & Vicente Coello, telegraphs the
surprises well before they are revealed. While this would make a
perfectly acceptable episode of any '70s TV detective series, it just
doesn't cut it as a giallo film. There are far too few red herrings,
leaving us not wondering who did it, but when they are going to do
it. Add to that no nudity and very little violence and, as a giallo
fan, I was bitterly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, both Michael
Craig and Carroll Baker are good here (Baker appearing in many good
giallo films, including THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH - 1968; PARANOIA
- 1969; SO SWEET...SO PERVERSE
- 1969; A QUIET PLACE TO KILL
- 1970; KNIFE OF ICE - 1972 and THE
FLOWER WITH THE DEADLY STING - 1973), but the material they
are given offers them no chance to shine. Only José Luis
López Vázquez as the bumbling Superintendant Dunphy
makes an impression here, reminding me of Gastone Mochin in WEEKEND
MURDERS (1970). Shot as LA
ULTIMA SENORA ANDERSON ("The Last Mrs. Anderson")
and also known as DEATH AT THE DEEP END OF THE SWIMMING POOL,
this film never has a U.S. theatrical release or any legitimate home
video release in any format, including VHS or disc. Gray market site Rogue
Video offers this film on DVD-R, but it's condition is unknown.
This review is based on a DVD-R boot of a fullscreen Greek VHS tape
on the Master Home Video label, which is highly watchable, but just
because it is hard to find doesn't mean it should be found. Also
starring Enzo Garinei (FRENZY -
1972), Lone Fleming (TOMBS
OF THE BLIND DEAD - 1972), Maria Gustafsson (THE
HOUSE THAT SCREAMED - 1969), Phillip Ross, Alberto
Fernández, Guy Standeven and Alberto Gonzales Espinosa. Not Rated.
THE
FRENCH SEX MURDERS (1972) -
This mystery thriller, narrated by French Police Inspector Pontaine
(Humphrey Bogart lookalike Robert Sacchi), opens with the Inspector
and his men chasing an unknown figure up the Eiffel Tower. When the
figure falls off the top of the tower, the Inspector flashes-back to
how it all began. Thief Antoine Gottvalles (Peter Martell) is in love
with prostitute Francine (Barbara
Bouchet) and will do anything to be with her, including robbing
mansions of expensive jewelry to finance his visits to see her at the
high-class brothel run by Madame Coletta (Anita Ekberg). When
Francine is brutally murdered at the brothel, the Inspector thinks
Antoine is the guilty party because he was Fancine's last customer
before she died (We see Antoine slap her around and call her a
"whore" when she goes to meet her next customer, but we
don't see him kill her). The Inspector catches Antoine rather easily,
he is brought to trial, found guilty and sentenced to death by
guillotine. Antoine swears his innocence and curses all those in
attendance at his trial, including the judge, Madame Colette, ex-wife
Marianne (Rosalba Neri), forensics expert Professor Waldemar (Howard
Vernon), writer Randall (Renato Romano) and other prostitutes that
testified against him. Antoine escapes from custody when being
transferred to prison and steals a motorcycle, but he is beheaded in
a freak accident while evading the police. Why then are the people he
lashed-out against in court being murdered? Inspector Pontaine now
believes that Antoine was set-up and intends to find out who did it.
The Professor pulls some strings and obtains Antoine's severed head
and orders his assistant, Roget (William Alexander), who is having a
secret affair with the Professor's mysterious daughter Elenora
(Evelyn Kraft of THE MIGHTY
PEKING MAN - 1977), to remove the right eye from Antoine's
head. As Roget is doing so, he swears that he saw the pupil of the
eye contract, which is a medical impossibility. Madame Colette is
brutally murdered with a lamp by an unknown gloved assailant. The
next to die is the judge. His throat is cut while his cheating wife
is screwing her lover in the next room. When some of the prostitutes
and Marianne are murdered next, the Inspector finds a clue in
Randall's writings that proves that one of the women still alive use
to be a prostitute in Madame Colette's brothel. As the Inspector and
his men race to warn Randall that he may be next, they are too late
(they find Marianne beheaded and another girl with her eyes cut out).
Randall has been run
-through
with a sword, but he has scrawled an "M" on the floor in
his own blood. After a short investigation, the Inspector realizes
that Randall actually wrote a "W" on the floor, which leads
to the real killer and the chase to the top of the Eiffel Tower in
the beginning of the film. This early 70's French/Itallian
giallo, directed by Ferdinando Merrighi (who was also First Assistant
Director on CRY OF A PROSTITUTE
- 1974), using the pseudonym "F.L. Morris", contains enough
red herrings to satisfy the appetite of an overweight seal. While
it's quite obvious who the killer is (at least to me), the film has
enough eye-popping nudity and gross-out moments, including an
uncomfortable dissection on what looks to be a real eye (hopefully,
it's a cow's or some other animal's eye and not an actual human
eyeball), to keep the viewer entertained. The casting of Bogart
doppelganger Robert Sacchi (THE
MAN WITH BOGART'S FACE - 1980) as the police inspector also
holds some novelty value (this was also released under the title THE
BOGEYMAN AND THE FRENCH MURDERS to cash-in on Sacchi's
uncanny likeness). The character name of the sleazy writer Randall
was a little in-joke in reference to the late Dick Randall (PIECES
- 1982), who was one of the producers (with Marius Mattei) here. As
with a lot of European genre films of the 70's, incest plays a key
role in the plot. This is an enjoyable and violent (including two
beheadings) murder mystery that should satisfy fans of giallo as well
as fans of nudity. Barbara Bouchet (MILANO
CALIBRO 9 - 1972), Rosalba Neri (THE
GIRL IN ROOM 2A - 1973) and Evelyn Kraft (THE
DEADLY ANGELS - 1977) all doff their clothing and give us an
eyefull. Edited by future Italian exploitation master Bruno Mattei (CAGED
WOMEN - 1982; CANNIBAL
HOLOCAUST: THE BEGINNING - 2003), who sadly passed away in
2007. Carlo Rambaldi (credited here as "Carlo Ranaldi")
handled the bloody special effects and Gordon Mitchell (SFX
RETALIATOR - 1987) puts in an uncredited appearance as a
drunk who gets beaten to a pulp in a nightclub. Also known as THE
PARIS SEX MURDERS and MURDER
IN PARIS. Also starring Rolf Eden, Eva Astor, Piera Viotta
and Alessandro Perrella. A Mondo
Macabro DVD Release, which restores some footage not found in
English language prints (this footage is shown in the original
Italian with English subtitles). UPDATE:
Now available on Blu-Ray as part of Vinegar
Syndrome's FORGOTTEN
GIALLI VOLUME 2 Box Set. Not Rated.
GENTLE
SAVAGE (1973) - With the
success of BILLY JACK
(1971), low-budget filmmakers started using loner Native American
Indians as anti-heroes in their exploitation films. Titles like JOHNNY
FIRECLOUD (1975), ANGRY
JOE BASS (1976) and this one (also known as CAMPER
JOHN) were foisted onto a willing audience to show that the
White Man's treatment of Indians hasn't changed much since the days
of Plymouth Rock and, if we wait long enough, we will see the Indian
exact his special brand of revenge. Camper John Allen (William Smith; INVASION
OF THE BEE GIRLS - 1973) is an Indian who works part time
cleaning auto parts at a garage and toilets at the local bar for
white bosses who won't even smile at him, but he has a loving young
son named Danny and a beautiful squaw girlfriend named Gayle (Barbara
Luna; THE CONCRETE JUNGLE
- 1982) that he comes home to every night ("Home" is a
series of ramshackle shacks that he shares with other members of his
tribe on the outskirts of town). Since Camper John is a redskin, he
likes to hoist a few at Beeker's Bar, run by the crusty Rupert Beeker
(R.G. Armstrong; RACE WITH
THE DEVIL - 1975), but John is usually short on cash, so he steals
a beer from white girl Betty Schaeffer (C.J. Hincks), telling her,
"Women don't drink when buck have thirst!" A drunk Betty
offers Camper John $4.00 ("A day's pay.") for a lift home
on the back of his motorcycle. He stupidly agrees, rides her home
and, once they get there, Camper John asks, "Where's my
money?", but Betty offers her body instead and begins to strip.
Before anything can happen, Betty's father, Ken (Kevin Hagen),
catches them together, swears he's gonna kill Camper John and beats
the crap out of Betty. The next morning, Sheriff McVaney (Gene Evans; JACK
THE RIPPER GOES WEST - 1974) and Deputy Moody (Joe Flynn; MCHALE'S
NAVY [1962-1966]) show up at Camper John's home to arrest
him, but John leads them on a chase with his motorcycle before he is
caught and brought to the police station, where Ken and a battered
Betty accuse him of rape. The town's entire white population wants to
hang Camper John, with Ken egging them on and they nearly kill John's
deaf brother Richard (Ned Romero) at Beeker's Bar (They step on his
head and grind his face on some broken glass). The townspeople also
beat-up a few teenage Indians just for walking on their streets.
While Camper John is being escorted to county jail, some Indian
friends, including Gayle, rescue him, drive to the desert and let
Sheriff McVaney and Deputy Moody go free, only they are handcuffed to
each other (in a very unusual manner) and stripped to their
underwear. Things really get bad when the easily-manipulated
townspeople destroy the Indian village (they drive their pickup
trucks through all the shacks) and Ken kills Richard by shotgunning
him in the back and then hanging him. Now it's Camper John's turn to
get revenge, but at what cost? As directed and co-written by
Sean MacGregor (NIGHTMARE
COUNTY - 1971; DEVIL
TIMES FIVE - 1974), GENTLE SAVAGE is much too slowly
paced to register with exploitation fans. The film has a hard time
deciding whether it is going to be a revenge thriller, a comedy
(you're guaranteed a comical moment whenever Joe Flynn, who died a
year later, is on-screen) or some Indian mysticism bullshit (the
screenplay was co-written by someone named "Jaguar Long
Dancer". Yeah, and my Indian name is "Running With
Shingles"!), The violence is rather tame considering the subject
matter and includes a few gunshots, explosions and vehicle
destruction. For all the talk of rape, there is not one instance of
female nudity, although it is implied that Ken has sexually assaulted
Betty in the past (it is not until late in the film that we discover
Betty is actually Ken's stepdaughter, so it tempers the incest angle
somewhat). The entire film lacks the proper edge that makes a movie a
good revenge thriller. All the characters are thinly-drawn (William
Smith's Camper John has no backstory at all) and the actions scenes
are rather anemic. There's not much here to recommend except a cast
of seasoned character actors given very little to do. That's the
shame of GENTLE SAVAGE.
He's way too gentile (oy, vey!) for the film's own good. Produced by
Peter Brown, who co-starred with William Smith in PIRANHA
PIRANHA a year earlier. Also starring Gayle Hemingway, Arch
Johnson, Henry Brandon, Darlene Conley, Owen Orr, Robert Tessier (STARCRASH
- 1978), Cody Bearpaw (PISTOL-PACKIN'
LEROY - 1974) and Betty Ann Carr, who sings the film's theme
song, "Once Upon A Tribe". Originally released on VHS by U.S.A.
Home Video and not available on DVD. Not Rated.
GIRL
IN ROOM 2A (1973) - This film
opens with a girl named Edie being kidnapped, injected with drugs and
waking up tied-up and naked in a room while a long spike (coming out
of a hole in the wall) punctures her chest and stomach several times.
Then someone wearing red gloves cuts her loose, impales her through
the back with a blade (until the blade protrudes between her breasts)
and throws her body over a cliff to make it look like a suicide (It's
all very fragmented and looks to be heavily edited). We are then
introduced to Margaret (Daniela Giordano). She has just been released
from a women's prison and rents a room (#2A) in a nearby
boardinghouse run by Mrs. Grant (Giovanna Galetti). As soon as she
settles in her room, she notices a huge bloodstain on the floor that
she can't seem to wash away. That night she has a dream that someone
dressed in a red stocking mask, cape and gloves (the same person who
killed Edie) invades her room and looms over her bed. Was
it a dream? Could it have something to do with Mr. Dreese (Raf
Vallone), the leader of some strange cult who resorts to murder to
keep his secret? Margaret strikes up a friendship with Mrs. Grant's
son, Frank (Angelo Infanti), but things sour quickly when Frank
doesn't believe her when she says that she was unjustly sent to
prison. Margaret wants to move out of the boardinghouse (that damn
bloodstain keeps reappearing every time she scrubs it away), but her
lack of a job and her parole officer (Rosalba Neri) make it
impossible for her to do so. Margaret meets Edie's brother, Jack
(John Scanlon), who doesn't believe his sister committed suicide.
Jack talks to Edie's former boyfriend Charlie (Brad Harris) and
learns that Edie also spent a short time in the same prison as
Margaret did. What is the connection between the prison, Mrs. Grant's
boardinghouse and the mysterious Mr. Dreese? And who is the
mysterious masked killer in red we see killing people with a cane
equipped with a spring-loaded blade? As both Margaret and Jack get
closer to the truth, we also learn that the death of Frank's father
years earlier plays into this mystery. A trip to an insane asylum,
where one of the previous female tenants of Room 2A was committed,
gives Margaret and Jack further evidence of the dastardly goings-on
at the boardinghouse, but before they can do anything about it,
Margaret is drugged and kidnapped from Room 2A that night. Is she to
suffer the same fate as Edie or can Jack save her in time? This
early 70's gaillo, directed/produced/scripted by William L. Rose (who
also scripted FRANKENSTEIN'S
CASTLE OF FREAKS - 1973) is not much of a mystery (maybe
I've just seen too many of these films), but it does have it's share
of tense moments and bloody set-pieces (although it looks like some
of the more violent and sexual bits were trimmed to achieve an
R-rating). You'll witness naked women being whipped, a woman getting
decapitated (mostly off-screen, but we do get to see the bloody
head), a man being forced to put his hand on a red-hot fireplace
grate and various stabbings. The final twenty minutes, where the
mystery is revealed and how the bloodstain on the floor of Room 2A
keeps reappearing (it's the film's most ingenious moment) is kind of
a letdown. The cult turns out to be nothing but a bunch of crazy
fanatics (including Mrs. Grant, who is getting retribution for her
husband's hit-and-run death years earlier) who get off on punishing
naughty girls released from prison and they use someone dressed like
the Crimson Executioner from THE
BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965) to carry out the deeds. You'll
groan when you discover who's really behind the mask. Raf Vallone (SUMMERTIME
KILLER
- 1972; THE "HUMAN" FACTOR
- 1975) is wasted in a do-nothing role, as are Brad Harris (THE
MAD BUTCHER - 1972; THE
FREAKMAKER - 1973) and European genre actresses Karin
Shubert (a brief topless scene) and Rosalba Neri (sadly, her clothes
stay on). Theatrical distribution was handled by Joseph
Brenner Associates, who gave North America it's fair share of Italian
genre product, including MAN
FROM DEEP RIVER (1972), AUTOPSY
(1973), CRY OF A PROSTITUTE
(1974), ALMOST HUMAN
(1974), EYEBALL (1975) and many
others, usually with lurid and deceptive ad campaigns. Also starring
Frank Latimore, Nuccia Cardinale, Salvatore Billa, Dada Gallotti and
Marian Fulop. A Prism Entertainment
Home Video Release. UPDATE: Now
available on Blu-Ray as part of Vinegar
Syndrome's FORGOTTEN
GIALLI VOLUME 2 Box Set. Rated R.
HOUSE
OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN (1973) -
Penniless drifter Gilles (Paul Naschy), who has nightmares about
strangling a woman, is picked up hitch-hiking by Claude (Diana
Lorys), a woman with a hideously burned arm and a prosthetic hand.
She hires him to be the handyman at the house she shares with her two
sisters. Arriving at the house, Gilles meets the other two sisters:
The sexy Nicole (Eva Leon) and the wheelchair-bound Ivette (Maria
Perschy). Nicole begins hitting on Gilles immediately, feeling his
muscles while chopping wood shirtless and later coming to his bedroom
to make love. Claude spies on them doing the nasty, becomes jealous
and voices
her displeasure to Gilles the next morning (while cutting a chicken
with a cleaver). A new nurse, Michelle (Ines Morales), arrives at the
house to take care of Ivette (we do not know why she is in the
wheelchair, only that the doctor thinks it's psychosomatic), but she
may be there for more nefarious reasons. Gilles is attacked outside
by the former handyman Jean and a knife fight ensues. Gilles gets
slashed on the side (Jean is stabbed in the stomach, but runs away)
and the police are called, where we learn that Ivette's old nurse was
found strangled on the side of the road. While Gilles is recuperating
in bed, Claude visits and they make love. Another woman in town is
found stabbed to death with her eyes missing. The police suspect
Gilles (he is the only new person in town and he is having those
nightmares), but it is apparent after a while that he is just but one
of a town full of red herrings, as more women turn up brutally
murdered with their eyes removed. How does this all tie in with
Claude's prothetic hand and Ivette in the wheelchair? Why are only
blond women with blue eyes being murdered? You'll just have to see
for yourself. Originally titled BLUE
EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL (which really gives away too much of
the film's punch line), Sam Sherman's Independent International
Pictures picked this up for distribution in 1975, edited some of the
murders and nudity so it could obtain an R rating and retitled it
with this more exploitative title. Director Carlos Aured (who also
made HORROR RISES
FROM THE TOMB [1972] with Naschy) co-wrote this with Naschy
(who uses his real name, Jacinto Molina, for screenwriting credit)
and gives HOUSE OF
PSYCHOTIC WOMEN a nice giallo feel. The unseen killer (the
hands are all that's seen) begins murdering the female cast with
various weapons, using meat cleavers, knives, a garden claw and other
utensils and then removing their eyes and carrying them carefully in
black-gloved hands before depositing them in glass jars.
Barrel-chested Paul Naschy dies a particularly nasty death in this
one as his foot is caught in a bear trap while police (who mistakenly
think he is the killer) pump a dozen bullets and shotgun shells into
him in slow motion. The mystery element in this is quite good
(although the killer is obvious, or is it?) and the music soundtrack,
which switches from breezy jazz to a sinister version of "Frere
Jacque", keeps the film suspenseful without being pretentious.
The revelation in the final minute is really a gruesome sight.
Worthwhile viewing for fans of Spanish horror. Also starring
Eduardo Calvo, Antonio Pica and Luis Ciges (WHO
CAN KILL A CHILD? - 1975). Originally released on VHS by Super
Video who then licensed it to VidAmerica
for their "World's Worst Video" line (they were wrong
putting this film into that category). Rated R.
HOUSE
ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (1979) -
This is nothing but an exercise in humiliation and human depravity
disguised as entertainment. David Hess (LAST
HOUSE ON THE LEFT - 1972; HITCH-HIKE
- 1978) stars as human scumbag Alex, whom we see driving the streets
of New York City (the Twin Towers are in the background). We then
watch him run young Susan (Karoline Mardeck) off the road
in Central Park. He then rapes and strangles her because, well, he
can. He has no conscience.
A year later, mechanic Alex and his slightly retarded friend Rickey
(Giovanni Lombardo Radice; CITY
OF THE LIVING DEAD - 1980) need something to do (Rickey
says, "I'm ready to boogie!"), so when a young couple, Lisa
(Annie Belle; MONSTER HUNTER
- 1981) & Tom (Christian Borromeo; MURDER
ROCK: DANCING DEATH - 1984), stop by Alex's garage with car
trouble, Alex and Ricky now have someplace to go. Lisa tells Alex
that they are on their way to a party and smooth-talking Alex
finagles an invite to said party, as we see Alex and Ricky in the
back seat.
They arrive at the party and meet Gloria (Lorraine De Selle; CANNIBAL
FEROX - 1981), Howard (Gabriele Di Giulio) and bald black
model Glenda (Marie Claude Joseph). It's plain to see that these
people are just as bad as Alex, if not worse. They see that Ricky is
a little light in the head and talk him into doing a striptease to
some disco music. Alex is none too pleased that they are making a
fool out of Ricky, but Ricky tells him he is enjoying himself. Lisa
then puts the moves on Alex but she is nothing but a giant cocktease.
She strips naked and takes a shower in front of Alex, asking him to
wash her back and join her. But when Alex strips naked and gets into
the shower, she jumps out and says, "Rinse your brains out, King
Kong!" Alex then catches Tom cheating a poker, making Ricky lose
all his money. A fight breaks out where Alex puts his strait razor to
Tom's throat and he makes them play poker his way, where Ricky just
says he has a royal straight without showing them his cards. Alex
then says, "We're going to have fun with these cunts!" and
has Ricky pick out a girl to fuck in front of them. Ricky picks
Gloria, but when he puts the moves on her, Tom And Howard rush Alex
and try to take the strait razor from him. They fail, as Alex cuts
Tom's face and throws Howard into the pool (Alex then pisses on
Howard and into the pool). Alex locks all the doors and then the
"fun" begins, if your idea of fun is total human
debasement. The problem is, we don't know who is being debased.
Alex rapes Lisa, but the more she fights him off, the more turned-on
she becomes. Alex bashes Tom's face into a table over-and-over, but
he never makes a sound (in fact, he smiles). Alex makes Lisa and
Glenda make love to each other, but they are into it. Everything
changes when next door neighbor Cindy (Brigitte Petronio; THE
CYNIC, THE RAT AND THE FIST - 1977) pays a visit. Gloria
escapes, with Ricky chasing her ("Don't act like this! I don't
want to harm you!"). While Alex is raping Cindy (this part is
very hard to watch because Cindy has the body of a young teenage
girl), Gloria and Ricky are making love in the garden (the most
unnerving part of this sequence is when Alex sings a topless Cindy a
made-up song while he runs his strait razor across her breasts and
down her pants). Do you think you know how this is going to end? Do
you think I care?
The fact is, HOUSE
ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, directed by Ruggero Deodato (RAIDERS
OF ATLANTIS - 1983; CUT
AND RUN - 1985) and written by Gianfranco Clerici (Deodato's PHANTOM
OF DEATH - 1987) & Vincenzo Mannino (THE
TEMPTER - 1974), is a completely boring affair. Since
everyone in this film are unredeemable jerks, it's hard to root for
anyone. When Alex slices open Ricky's stomach with his strait razor
for mentioning the girl he raped and killed in Central Park a year
earlier, we are supposed to feel pity. We don't. When Tom pulls out a
pistol and kills Alex (he lets out the longest scream in film
history!), Tom revealing to a dying Alex that the girl he raped
and killed was his sister and this whole thing was a setup, we are
supposed to feel surprised. We don't. When Howard turns the gun on
Ricky, but Gloria stops him, we are supposed to feel relief. We
don't. This film fails on nearly every level.
There are plenty of extras on the Blu-Ray to get your mind off this
film, the most importand being the 30-minute interview with David
Hess, who died just a few months after recording this. He talks
openly about this film (making it seem more important than it is),
but refuses to answer if the girl he raped in the park (Karoline
Mardeck) was his wife in real life (all he says is, "I'll let
her answer that!") and, sure enough, another extra on the disc
is an interview with Mardeck, where she gives an answer to that
question (buy the Blu-Ray if you want the answer!). Otherwise Hess is
open and honest about every question thrown at him (He says that he
and Annie Bell actually made love during her rape scene! He goes on
to say it is not as uncommon as we think!). Hess also said he only
took this role if he could get a percentage of the profits from the
film's American rights. Smart man who left us far too soon. Hess also
starred in Deodato's BODY
COUNT (1986). There are also interviews with Ruggero Deodato
and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (a.k.a. "John Morghen"), as
well as the international theatrical trailer (which lists the title
as "THE HOUSE OF THE PARK ON THE EDGE"!).
Originally released uncut theatrically in 1985 by Bedford
Entertainment, with a fullscreen VHS release shortly thereafter
from Vestron Video
(also uncut). A widescreen DVD followed in the early New Millennium
from Shriek Show (long OOP). It was also available in edited form on
several Public Domain DVD compilations like BCI's TALES
OF TERROR COLLECTION. The Blu-Ray, from Code
Red, is the preferred way to watch this, if you must. It looks
better than it has any right to. (NOTE: I could swear that
there is a scene missing from all the home video versions that I
thought I saw in the theatrical version. It is when Alex tries to
debase one of the women and he finds a tampon in her hoo-hah and
pulls it out. Since no one else seems to remember it, I'll just chalk
it up to a vivid, twisted imagination!). If I have one positive thing
to say about this film, it is that the theme song, titled
"Softly" (sung by Diana Corsini), is an earworm that won't
leave you brain for several weeks. It is simply haunting in its
simplicity. Otherwise, this film is a dog. Not Rated.
HUMAN
COBRAS (1971) - Criminal Tony
Garden (Giorgio "George" Ardisson; THE
LONG HAIR OF DEATH - 1964) is driving down a road when he
comes upon a human body blocking his way. He gets out of his car to
investigate, only for the man to attack him while brandishing a
knife. Tony manages to knock out the man and drive away, later
telling his nameless girlfriend that he thinks "they" have
finally located him after all these years. Tony then gets a telegram
from someone telling him to go to New York City. His girlfriend tells
him not to go because he will surely be killed if he does, but Tony
says the reason he has to go
is more important than his life and it's better to end it now than to
keep looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. As Tony is
on a plane to New York, flashbacks show us how he got into this mess
and what it is all about.
We see Tony falling in love with the beautiful Leslie (Erika Blanc; THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE - 1971), immediately
followed by him dodging machine gun fire. An unseen voice yells out,
"Stop right there, Tony. You crossed the line this time. You
shouldn't have crossed their path. I got a contract out on you! But I
can't do it. Get the hell out of here! Don't ever come back to the
States. Beat it!" We then see Leslie begging Tony not to leave
without her, but he walks away, not wanting her to live a life with a
man who has a target on his back.
Back on the plane, Tony lands at Kennedy Airport in New York City,
makes a phone call (no answer) and hails a cab. He notices that
someone is following him, so he jumps out of the cab and loses his
tail in the busy subway system. He makes another unanswered phone
call and then goes to an apartment and knocks on the door. The door
is already open, so he lets himself in, finding the inside of the
apartment ransacked. The phone then rings and no one is on the other
end. After almost killing the apartment building's janitor (who
enters the apartment after finding the door open), the phone rings
again and it is Leslie. This is Leslie's apartment and Tony asks her
if she knows her place was broken into. Leslie tells him he shouldn't
be there, it's too dangerous and begs Tony to come get her; she is at
a friend's place in Brooklyn. Tony takes a taxi to the address, not
noticing that there's a creepy looking man watching the building, as
he enters the apartment building. We then learn why Tony is back in
the States after being warned never to return. Tony asks Leslie how
his brother, Johnny, died. Leslie tells him that she and his brother
were at a football game last Sunday (Leslie calls it
"rugby", but no one has ever played that professionally in
NYC!), as a flashback shows us what happened to Johnny. As Leslie and
Johnny are sitting in the stadium, an unseen assassin's bullet rips
through Johnny's skull, killing him instantly. Johnny falls to the
ground while everyone is cheering a touchdown and Leslie cradles him,
getting his blood on her hands. Leslie tells Tony that the police
told her that Johnny was killed by a high-powered rifle, the assassin
firing the deadly bullet from a far distance. Tony thinks his
brother's murder was a vendetta against him, but Leslie tells him
that Johnny was doing business with crook George MacGreves (Alberto
de Mendoza; A LIZARD IN A
WOMAN'S SKIN - 1971) in Kenya and his murder may have
something to do with that. Johnny traveled back and forth from Kenya
to NYC, also doing business with a man called Terence Mortimer
(Luciano Pigozzi; TORNADO
- 1983) in this city, which is why he was in NYC last Sunday. Tony
knows who Mortimer is, as a look of anger appears on his face. Just
what was his brother doing that would get himself killed in cold
blood? Tony aims to find out and he isn't taking any prisoners.
Mortimer was a member of Tony's old gang and he tells Leslie that he
knows someone who can tell him where to find this "shady
guy." Leslie begs him not to go because he'll get himself
killed, but Tony tells her, "I gotta find out who did it!"
Tony goes looking for old gang member Maxie (Gilberto Galimberti, as
"Gill Rolland"; MANHUNT
- 1972) at his place of work, only to be told that Maxie hasn't
worked there for three years, but he lives nearby and everyone on
Foster Street knows him. Tony finds out where Maxie lives by talking
to people on the street and when he knocks on his door, Maxie is
quite surprised (and scared) to see Tony, telling him he hasn't been
in the "racket" since Tony left the States three years ago.
Tony is not convinced, grabbing Maxie by the collar and demanding to
know where Mortimer is, so Maxie tells him to talk to Manuel (Miguel
del Castillo; THE STRANGE VICE OF
MRS. WARDH - 1971) at the Pamplona Restaurant in Flatbush.
Tony then talks to Manuel at the restaurant, asking him where
Mortimer is, when two hoods walk into the restaurant and tell Manuel
to lock the front door. One hood tells Tony that he has a message to
deliver and since the mailmen are on strike, he and his hood friend
are here to deliver it personally. A fight breaks out and Tony beats
the snot out of the two hoods and then leaves the restaurant. Tony
knows who sent the two hoods to rough him up, the same man who spared
him three years ago, telling him to never return to the States.
His name is Mr. Humphrey (Luis Induni; THE
WEREWOLF AND THE YETI - 1975), a New York crime kingpin, and
when Tony meets him, Humphrey tells him he was not supposed to come
back here. Tony tells him he came back because of Johnny's murder and
asks where Mortimer is. Humphrey tells him he never knew Johnny and,
as for Mortimer, he has no idea where he is; Mortimer hasn't worked
for him for three years. Humphrey does give Tony Mortimer's current
address, but gives Tony this warning: "We don't cross your path
unless you don't cross ours. Got it?" (The person who supplied
the English subtitles has a tenuous grasp of English sentence
structure, but it's not hard to decipher the true meaning of the
warning and other badly worded dialogue). Tony then walks to
Mortimer's address (he should have rented a car!), breaking down the
door to his apartment, but a profusely sweating Mortimer holds Tony
at bay with a pistol. Tony knocks the gun out of his hands and asks
Mortimer if he killed Johnny, but Mortimer denies it, telling Tony
this story: "I wasn't scoring well...Johnny had been living in
Kenya for a year...One day he came to see me. He told me that down
there grass is cheap. Here the price is more than doubled! I needed
some serious dough and he helped me out. Things were going pretty
well, but they put a bullet in his brain. Why did they take off just
him and spare me? So I locked myself here. Our little business must
have upset someone. So they went for the guns. They were going to
kill you, too, isn't it?" (See what I mean about sentence
structure?) Tony is sure there is more to the story and tells
Mortimer if he can think of anything else, to contact him at his
hotel, then he leaves. When Tony and Leslie get to the hotel, there
is a message waiting for him from Mortimer, who remembered something
important Tony needs to know. Unfortunately, Tony will never get to
hear it, as the creepy man who was watching Leslie's apartment
building cuts Mortimer's throat with a straight razor. Are the
reasons for Johnny's murder personal or is there more to the story?
And just who ordered Johnny and Mortimer's murders? Tony aims to find
out and it will take him all the way to Nairobi, Kenya. There will be
more deaths (including one by elephant!), poisonous cobra milking, a
safari and lots of treachery ahead for Tony, as he tries to get
retribution for his brother's death. It will lead to him killing an
innocent man, not knowing that someone very close to him is actually
the guilty party. Still need a hint as to who the killer is? Pay
close attention to the names on a plane manifest that a Nairobi cop
(Percy Hogan; TOUGH TO KILL
- 1978) shows Tony; the last flight that Johnny took when he returned
to New York City.
It's hard to pigeonhole what genre this Italy/Spain/US/Sweden
co-production belongs in. Directed by Bitto Albertini (WAR
DEVILS - 1969; ZAMBO,
KING OF THE JUNGLE - 1972; THE
RETURN OF SHANGHAI JOE - 1975; ESCAPE
FROM GALAXY 3 - 1981), who uses
his "Albert J. Walker" pseudonym, and written by giallo
veterans Ernesto Gastaldi (DEATH
WALKS AT MIDNIGHT - 1972), Eduardo Manzanos Brochero (MATALO!
-1970) & Luciano Martino (THE
MURDER CLINIC - 1966), it's one part giallo (Who killed
Johnny and why is everyone Tony talks to ending up dead?) and one
part Eurocrime thriller, but it is just unusual enough to make it
worth at least one viewing. The on-location filming on the streets of
New York City in the early-'70s will bring a rush of nostalgia over
anyone who lived or visited there during that time period (as I did)
and the sequences filmed in Nairobi make it stand out from most
Italian genre films, even though Giorgio Ardisson makes for a pretty
bland hero and the mystery is not that hard to solve (There is a
nifty surprise during the last five minutes, though). But this is a
film chock-full of actors well versed in both genres, including Erika
Blanc, Alberto de Mendoza, Luciano Pigozzi (who doesn't use his
"Alan Collins" pseudonym here, a rarity) and the recently
deceased Janine Reynaud (CASE
OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL - 1971) as a femme fatale named
Clara. She shows up at a gambling parlor in Kenya and is key to
solving Johnny's murder, since she was his girlfriend when he was in
Kenya, before she ends up dead by the assassin's straight razor. The music
soundtrack, by Stelvio
Cipriani, is one of his weakest efforts and is not memorable at
all, unlike his many other music compositions. There's plenty of
nudity (but for some reason, Erika Blanc wears a bikini when she
takes a shower in the Kenya wild during a safari!), some of it very
voyeuristic (you'll know it when you see it) and plenty of graphic
violence (including one of the cast getting their head squashed by a
wounded elephant!) to take your mind off the generic plot, making
this film one of Albertini's best, at least for me. So leave your
brain at the door and your eyes on the screen and you should have
some fun with this hybrid film.
Shot as L'UOMO PIU
VELENOSO DEL COBRA ("The Man More Venomous Than The
Cobra") and also known as TARGET: MURDER, this film never
received a theatrical or VHS release in the United States, making its
first appearance here as a widescreen DVD
from Mya Communications in 2009 (long OOP). There have been no
updated discs since then, but an open-matte fullscreen print,
subtitled in English, can be found streaming on YouTube from user
"Film&Clips". Also featuring Aurora de Alba (THE
HANGING WOMAN - 1973), Fernando Hilbeck (DEMON
WITCH CHILD - 1974), Gianni Pulone (ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK - 1972) and Fabian Conde (RINGS
OF FEAR - 1978). Not Rated.
THE
"HUMAN" FACTOR (1975) -
Barrel-chested George Kennedy (JUST
BEFORE DAWN - 1980; DEMONWARP
- 1989) gets a rare leading role in this British revenge thriller
with an international cast. Kennedy portrays John Kinsdale, a
computer scientist and "electronics wiz" who works at a
well-guarded military base in Naples, Italy. On his way home to
celebrate his son's birthday, he discovers ambulances and police cars
surrounding his house and shockingly finds out that his wife and
three children have been viciously murdered. After contemplating
suicide (it doesn't last long) and being questioned by police
forensics expert Dr. Enrico Lupo (Raf Vallone; THE
SUMMERTIME KILLER - 1972), John sets out on his own to get
justice. He enlists the help of work partner (and fellow scientist)
Mike McAllister (John Mills; DR. STRANGE
- 1978) in creating a computer program to help him discover the
identities of those involved in his family's murders, while trying to
avoid the probing eyes of his boss, General Fuller (Arthur Franz; THE
ATOMIC SUBMARINE - 1959). Working with nothing but a single
strand of red hair found at
the crime scene, John and Mike are able to determine that the killer
spends most of their time in New York, so John taps into the
airlines' computer databases looking for the names of any red-haired
person who has recently arrived in Naples from New York. When another
American family is found slaughtered in the same manner as John's
family, John discovers from drunken American Embassy official George
Edmunds (Barry Sullivan; EARTHQUAKE
- 1974, also starring Kennedy) that a terrorist group containing
members Alexander Taylor (co-scripter Tom Hunter) and Paul Kamal
(producer Frank Avianca) sent a letter to the President of the United
States threatening to kill one American family in the Mediterranean
area every three days unless their demands for the release of certain
political prisoners and payment of ten million dollars are met. As
you can imagine, this information upsets John, as the U.S. Government
seems to be covering-up this tidbit of information, so John uses his
extensive computer knowledge to tap into top-secret government
databases to pull-up information on Taylor and Kamal. John plots his
revenge while trying to avoid Dr. Lupo and some CIA agents out to
stop him. After saving another American family from a terrorist
attack, John must then, in the film's bloody finale, free a bunch of
American shoppers being held hostage at a NATO supermarket by the
same people responsible for killing his family. This rather dry
thriller, directed by Edward Dmytryk (BLUEBEARD
- 1972) and written by Hunter and Peter Powell, spends way too much
time on the procedural aspects (it's like a 70's version of CSI,
only with rotary phone modems and dot matrix printers) and not
enough on the actual revenge. While there are some eerie parallels to
what we are going through in the New Millennium (Terrorists targeting
Americans; the computer program John and Mike are working on in the
military base is goose-bumpingly called the "9-11 Project"),
the film fails to generate much suspense thanks to the snail-like
pacing and the awkward performance by George Kennedy. Hey, I'm a huge
fan of Mr. Kennedy, but he's miscast in this vehicle and it's plain
to see that he's out of his comfort zone because some of his line
readings are dreadful. It's also hard to accept him as a computer
expert of any kind, nevermind a leading expert in his field. By the
time Kennedy gets to do an action scene (which is somewhere past the
one hour mark), most viewers will have fallen asleep or turned it
off. Those with more patience will finally see Mr. Kennedy get into a
gunfight; run over a terrorist with a Volkswagen Beetle; get smacked
with a shovel and then kill the same terrorist with a chain neck
tourniquet; and then finally facing-down the killers of his family in
the fairly bloody supermarket finale. In the end, THE
"HUMAN" FACTOR (the quotation marks are part of
the on-screen title) hardly seems worth all the trouble, but the
music score, by Italian maestro Ennio Morricone (SPASMO
- 1974; and my favorite music score of all time, A
FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE [a.k.a. DUCK,
YOU SUCKER - 1971]), is one of the film's saving graces
(along with some good location photography). Also starring Rita
Tushingham, Shane Rimmer, Haydee Politoff and Fiamma Verges. Released
theatrically by Bryanston Films (a known Mob-owned business) and
released originally on VHS by U.S.A.
Home Video as part of their "Sybil Danning's Adventure
Video" line of action and adventure films. Available on
widescreen DVD from Dark Sky Films,
the preferable way to watch this. Rated R.
HUNTING
HUMANS (2002) - Absorbing
low-budget film about how a serial killer operates. Aric Blue (Rick
Ganz, who looks like a thicker and more muscular Brad Pitt) is a
Nietzche-spouting serial killer that picks his victims at random so
he doesn't have a pattern for the police to pick up on. He picks his
victims because they do have patterns, which make it easier for him
to kill. He has murdered over 100 people
without getting caught. He begins to stalk a theater projectionist
to find out his patterns. When he goes to kill him, Aric find his
dead body with a note attached that says, "I know your
pattern". Arik is now being stalked by another serial killer.
Not knowing who this person is (his phone calls only identify him as
"Dark"), Aric hires a private detective to keep an eye on
his house. The private detective tells Aric that another private
detective was hired to follow him, thereby giving Dark information on
his moves. Aric goes to Dark's hired private detective's house and
steals information off his computer. This information leads Aric to
the identity of Dark and the cat-and-mouse game is on. After
double and triple crosses, we finally find out who the better serial
killer is. This taut thriller is told strictly from Aric's point of
view. We hear his innermost thoughts (through voiceover narration)
and his true disdain for the human race. You would think that it
would be hard to root for Aric and what he was going through since he
such a cold-hearted murderer. The surprise is that it's not, thanks
to director Kevin Kangas' literate screenplay which doesn't insult
the viewer with pat explanations on why a serial killer kills. The
finale is definitely a doozy with many twists. Ganz (who also
produced) is excellent, even if the other actors come up short.
If you like straightforward thrillers that don't go for the cheap
scare, I'm sure that this film will make you happy. Kangis and Ganz
would later go on to make the horror film FEAR
OF CLOWNS (2004). Also starring Bubby Lewis, Lisa Michele,
Trent, Jeff Kipers and Joe Ripple (who directed the abysmal HARVESTERS
in 2001) as a cop who Aric dislikes. He dislikes him so much that he
puts a dead body in his trunk! Filmed in 1999. An MTI
Video/Redrum Release. Rated R.
INN OF THE DAMNED (1974) - Unusual thriller, set in 1896 Australia, that combines western and slice and dice themes. A crazy old German innkeeper (Dame Judith Anderson) and her husband murder people who stay at their place in various ways because their children were savagely butchered by an escaped loonie years before. An American lawman (Alex Cord) shoots a prostitute murderer he has been tracking in self defense, but the Australian authorities don't believe him. The trooper that witnessed the shooting went to the inn to follow up on a missing persons report and has not returned. The American lawman decides to investigate his disappearance to clear his name. Overlong (nearly 2 hours) and slowly paced it could be trimmed by 30 minutes and be a more interesting film. As it stands this is a good film to look at (the scenery is magnificent.) but dreadfully boring in spots. Spurts of nudity and violence (including a killer canopy bed ala 13 GHOSTS - 1960) do not justify the long running time. Nice try but no cigar. Directed and written by Terry Bourke (LADY STAY DEAD - 1981). Also Starring Michael Craig (THE FOURTH VICTIM - 1971), Joseph Fürst, Tony Bonner and John Meillon. A Paragon Video Release (which lists the wrong running time as 92 minutes). Released on Australian DVD by Umbrella Entertainment and American DVD by Code Red with Bourke's nearly dialogue-free NIGHT OF FEAR (1972) Rated R.
INSANITY
(1973) - Loner Mark (Christopher Augustine) walks into a
café and hits on a hippy chick sitting by herself. Quicker
than you can say, "Oops, my panties fell off!", she takes
Mark home, where they light some candles, smoke a joint and she
strips completely naked. Oddly, though, Mark doesn't remove a stitch
of his clothing (Maybe the Janis Joplin poster on her wall stopped
him from getting an erection? Man, she was ugly!) and we soon find
out why: He strangles her with one hand, sobs a little and then has
flashbacks to his childhood (shown as a series of still photographs
during the opening credits), which shows Mark as one of two male
members of a large family of females (in nearly all the flashback
photos, young Mark is shown separated from the rest of the family,
depicting alienation and loneliness) and he may be responsible for
the death his younger brother by pushing his stroller in front of an
oncoming car. Mark now works as a cinematographer, shooting porn
loops for sleazy overweight producer/director Jobal (Dick Glass), who
barks out orders to Mark and the female performers while he sits on
his perch overlooking the porn action. While shooting an S&M loop
(involving a guy in a black hood whipping two girls in bondage), Mark
meets new performer Michele (Jeanette Dilger) and gives her a ride
home. They seemingly hit it off, talking about their hopes and
dreams, but Mark becomes intrigued with Michele when she refuses to
go any further than a kiss (He says, "You're different and
you're worth it."), even when he finds out that she's a kept
woman. Mark works out his sexual frustrations by going to a peep show
located in the back of an adult bookstore (that blares religious
programming on a radio!), only to discover it's one of his own loops.
Mark wants to become a legitimate cameraman, but he's stuck in a
catch-22 situation because potential employers want to see examples
of his previous work, something he is too embarrassed to do. Mark
picks up a young female hitchhiker and they rent a boat and take a
cruise out on the ocean, where he strangles her and tosses her
overboard after she begins talking about her brother. When Mark
receives a "Dear John" audiotape from Michele, he rushes
over to her house and they make passionate love. Mark wakes up the
next morning to discover that he has strangled Michele, so he decides
to end it all by filming his own suicide at the Hollywood Sign. Too
bad he can't show that footage to potential new employers! This
relic from the early 70's, which was shot as HOLLYWOOD
90028 and was then retitled THE
HOLLYWOOD HILLSIDE STRANGLER (it played as part of a double
bill under this title with the 1971 horror flick THE
TOUCH OF SATAN under the title NIGHT
OF THE DEMON, leading many people to mistakenly believe that
it was the infamous 1979
Bigfoot gore film of the same name), barely qualifies as a
horror film. It's actually a talky psychodrama (with a pro-feminist
slant) about a man who wants to make a better life for himself, but
occurrences from his past keep dredging themselves up whenever he
starts getting tingly in his pants or anyone mentions they have a
brother. Director/producer Christine Hornisher and screenwriter Craig
Hansen (the only feature film credit for both) have created a film
that really has nothing much to say (If this film has anything to
say, it's this: It's probably best not to work in porn if you have
severe emotional issues, but I really doubt we needed a film to tell
us that, right? Right?). Mark is portrayed as a sympathetic
character, but it's hard to muster sympathy for someone who strangles
innocent women just because they want to have sex or love their
family, two things that Mark clearly can't do without someone
suffering dire consequences. It also doesn't help that Mark's
motivations are exposed during the opening credits, which ruins any
chance for the viewer of uncovering for themselves as the film
progresses. While there is plenty of nudity, the violence level is
nearly non-existent (only two on-screen stranglings) and those
looking for blood and gore will be severely disappointed. The film's
most effective scene is the final shot, where Mark hangs himself on
the "Y" on the world-famous Hollywood Sign and the camera
pulls back in a single take until the sign is nothing but a small
speck on the screen. Too bad you have to suffer through 74
monotonous, talky, arty minutes to get there. Also known as TWISTED
THROATS. Also starring Gayle Davis, Ralph Campbell, Kia
Cameron and Dianna Huntress. I don't believe this got a legitimate
U.S. home video release under any title. The version I viewed was
sourced from the British VHS tape on the Go Video label. Rated R.
IN
THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE (1971) -
It is quite obvious to the viewer that there are severe marriage
difficulties between Ruth (Analía Gadé; HOUSE
OF INSANE WOMEN - 1971) and her husband Michel (Tony
Kendall; THE
LORELEY'S GRASP - 1973). After making love (consider it a
mercy fuck), Ruth tells Michel that she has filed for divorce, saying
that she met someone two months ago and they love each other. That
someone is Paul (Jean Sorel; SHORT
NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS - 1971), a handsome young man who picks
up Ruth at her home in front of Michel. Ruth tells Michel that she
and Paul will be spending the summer at her seaside country estate
(she's quite wealthy) and Michel tells her to be careful, two months
is not a lot of time to get to know someone (He also
tells Ruth: "Deep down, you need me.").
A month later, we see Paul and Ruth frolicking at her country
estate, Paul performing what is now known as a "SPIDER-MAN
kiss"; hanging upside down from a tree and kissing Ruth for an
uncomfortably long time. As Paul is kissing her, he pulls off Ruth's
top and won't give it back, making her run into her house topless.
She finds a swan in her bathtub (if this is some sort of symbolism,
it has gone over my head!) and is very happy that Paul did that for
her (Why???). The swan is then transplanted to the estate's rather
large water fountain. What this has to do with the remainder of the
film is beyond me.
Ruth and Paul then go shopping, where Ruth meets mysterious woman
Danielle (Rosanna Yanni; CROSS CURRENT
- 1971) in a clothing store, snatching away a big floppy hat Danielle
was about to try on, making her angry. Ruth also meets Paul's best
friend Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia; THE
FIFTH CORD - 1971), who opens his restaurant at night so
Paul and Ruth can have a romantic dinner alone. Paul seems too good
to be true and since this is a giallo film, that can only mean one
thing: trouble. Deadly trouble.
While Paul is waiting for an important phone call, he tells Ruth
that she will have to go shopping by herself. As she is driving down
the twisty mountain road, full of hairpin turns, Ruth discovers that
the brakes aren't working. She nearly drives off the road several
times, which would have meant certain death down steep cliffs to the
ocean below, until she manages to stop the car by driving it into a
pile of loose dirt. A mechanic examines the car and tells Ruth and
Paul that the brake line was cut and it's a miracle no one was
killed. Paul then says to Ruth, "Wherever we go from now on,
darling, we go together." Paul is also an experienced scuba
diver, as we watch him go hunting for octopus (octopi?) with a
speargun in the ocean. He comes to the surface holding a big piece of
white coral, gives it to Ruth and tells her he knows where an octopus
is for Ruth to catch. Ruth suits-up, jumps into the ocean from her
boat and goes looking for the octopus, following Paul's exact
directions, but before she can find it, her tank runs out of oxygen,
much quicker than it should have. Ruth barely makes it to the
surface, Paul jumping in to save her from drowning. Ruth now believes
Michel is trying to murder Paul so she will come back to him, but it
is obvious to the viewer that Ruth was the intended victim both
times. But why? It doesn't take a genius to come up with the right
answer, but there's still a lot of film to watch!
While Paul and Ruth are making love, Paul reaches into an end table
drawer looking for a cigarette (Kent are his and Ruth's brand of
smoke), but instead he finds a small silver pistol. Ruth tells him
the pistol is hers; Michel bought it for her for all the times she
spent alone in this house. The next morning, Michel pays Ruth a
visit, while Paul and Roland use Ruth's pistol for target practice,
shooting tennis balls off a fence! Michel professes his love
for Ruth, but she says she doesn't love him any more snd tells him to
leave the next morning. Michel, still angry about what Ruth just
said, asks Paul to shoot a picture of a model on the front page of a
magazine while he holds it, just to see if Paul is the crack shot he
says he is. A gunshot rings out, showing that Paul put a bullet hole
directly between the model's eyes. I guess that answers Michel's question!
Ruth and Paul have a minor arguement, so Paul leaves her bedroom,
telling Ruth that he will leave her alone for the night. Ruth has a
change of heart a short time later and goes to Paul's bedroom, but
he's not there. She hears footsteps coming into the bedroom and
thinking it is Paul, she hides to surprise him. Only it is not Paul,
it is Michel, and he blurts out, "She should be asleep by
now", before realizing Paul is not in the room, so he leaves.
Ruth follows Michel to the estate's bungalow, where she hears and
sees Michel, Paul and Danielle, who is Paul's girlfriend (!),
plotting Ruth's murder. Michel wants to inherit Ruth's vast fortune
before the divorce is final and plans on sharing that fortune with
Paul and Danielle (whom he has hired to kill Ruth, but he wants it to
look like an accident so the police don't get involved). It is at
this point that Ruth comes up with a devious plan to get revenge on
her husband, Paul and Danielle, but what Ruth doesn't know is that
Roland saw her spying on the trio. Will he tell Paul and ruin
Ruth's plan to get even or will he keep his mouth shut? I'm afraid
you are going to have to watch the film to get the answer, but here's
a few more things that go on in the film: 1.) Michel is found
dead in his car, which is found crashed off the mountain road. He
apparently died shortly after he left Ruth's country estate. 2.)
Paul finds his dog, Bernard, dead, shortly after licking ice cubes
that Ruth put in Michel's drink. 3.) Paul and Danielle,
thinking they got the goods on Ruth for Michel's murder, invade
Ruth's home and physically and mentally torture her (Danielle prances
around in the floppy hat Ruth "stole" from her, proving how
petty Danielle actually is), but Ruth's plan for revenge is so well
thought-out, neither Paul or Danielle are ready for what happens
next. 4.) But what about Roland? Will he come to Paul's rescue
or will he remain silent? I'll leave that for you to discover, as
well as Ruth's complex plan for revenge (It's quite unique).
This
Spain/Italy co-production is a pretty lackluster giallo film, thanks
to a plot that has been done countless time before, even if Ruth's
plan for revenge is very well done. It's really the only surprising
bit in the film, as everything else can be guessed correctly by
people with low IQs. Yes, it's the old "let's murder the wife so
the husband can inherit her fortune" scenario and director
José María Forqué (whose only other film of note
seems to be the David Hemmings-starrer BEYOND
EROTICA - 1974), who co-wrote the screenplay with Rafael
Azcona (the previously mentioned CROSS
CURRENT - 1971) and Mario di Nardo (DEATH
KNOCKS TWICE - 1969), just lets the film skate on this thin
ice of a plot until Ruth decides to get revenge. Roland does give
Ruth a knowing explanation (in a long bit of dialogue) of why his
chest is scarred (it was done by a lion), which influences Ruth in
her plan for revenge. If only the rest of the film was as well as
thought-out as Ruth's plan, this would be a top-notch giallo flick,
but as it stands, it's a cliched plot whose only positive is the
gorgeous cinematography (by Alejandro Ulloa; THE
FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION - 1970). Both
Analía Gadé and Rosanna Yanni are beautiful in and out
of their clothes, which others may also find a positive, but the
violence level is very low, as we don't see any blood or gore (Even
Michel's death is not shown; it's only talked about). The music
soundtrack, by Piero Piccioni (THE
10TH VICTIM - 1965; SEVEN
MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD - 1971), is also rather sedate and
not memorable at all; just some lounge music to rock you to sleep.
All in all, this thriller is only worth viewing if you have to watch
every giallo film ever made. That's my excuse, what is yours?
Shot in Spain as EL
OJO DEL HURACAN (a literal translation of the review title)
and known in Italy as LA
VOLPE DALLA CODA DI VELLUTO ("The Fox With A Velvet
Tail") and also known as SUSPICION
and LUSTY LOVERS, this film never received a theatrical or VHS
release in the United States, making it's first appearance in the
States in 2017 as a Blu-Ray from Mondo
Macabro under THE
FOX WITH A VELVET TAIL title. Those who just want to watch
the film without purchasing it can find it streaming on YouTube on
channel "Film&Clips", who offer a nice anamorphic
widescreen print dubbed in English. Also featuring José
Félix Montoya (THE
APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR - 1972), Julio Peña (THE
FEAST OF SATAN - 1971) and Mario Morales (PLANET
OF THE VAMPIRES - 1965) as the druggist, the only person who
can make Ruth's plan for revenge come to fruition, even though he has
no idea he is doing it! Not Rated.
IT
HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN (1973)
- First a word of warning: If you want to see this film in any
type of comprehensible form, do not watch the version in any
of Brentwood Communications' DVD movie compilations, such as their 10
movie comp. titled CURSE
OF THE DEAD. It's only 69 minutes long (don't be fooled by
the 102-minute label on the comp's packaging, because it's a lie) and
looks to be a TV edit to fit in a 90 minute slot. It's an abortion.
That said, let's get on to the movie. Laura (Judy Geeson) flies to
Spain to spend some quality time with her sister but, when she
arrives at the hotel run by sisters Marta and Veronica, she is told
that her sister has left and won't be coming back. It's apparent that
one, or maybe both, of the sisters is a cold-blooded killer and
Laura's sister is long dead. Marta (Aurora Bautista), the dominant
sister, is sexually repressed and her sexual frustrations (which
includes spying on young boys bathing nude in a nearby lake) forces
her to murder all the young women (and
some men) who stay at the hotel and "flaunt" their
sexuality. Veronica (Esperanza Roy), the timid sister, goes along
with whatever Marta does because, frankly, she's one scary bitch.
Laura (who is not a loose woman, so she's fairly safe here, at least
for a while) becomes more and more suspicious as the young ladies who
check in begin disappearing in the middle of the night, the sisters
telling her that they have checked out. Since there isn't much of a
police force in town, Laura brings her concerns to the mayor, who
tells her that Marta once had a lover who disappeared after he dumped
her and took up with a younger, more "modern" woman. When
Norma (Blanca Estrada), an unwed mother (or so we're told), checks
into the hotel, Laura begins to look after her, fearing for her and
the baby's life. Marta and Veronica plot to kill Norma and raise the
baby as their own. Norma catches on, but it's too late. Marta plants
a cleaver in her back and puts her in a barrel of wine in the cellar,
where she put all the previous victims. As more young tourists arrive
at the hotel, Laura must find a way to stop the sisters and save the
baby. Director Eugenio Martin (THE
FOURTH VICTIM - 1971; HORROR
EXPRESS - 1972), who also co-wrote the script with Antonio
Fos, gives us a thinly-disguised parable about politics in Spain. The
young tourists represent the post-Franco regime, when everything
loosened-up and much more sexual freedom and openess was permitted.
The two sisters represent the strict Franco rule, where freedoms of
all kinds were repressed and outlawed. Refusing to change with the
times, the sisters are forced to kill anyone that doesn't adhere to
their strict Catholic upbringing. Things begin to get messy when the
sisters serve tainted wine (spoiled by the rotting bodies stuffed in
the barrels) with dinner, some of the guests become sick and one
guest finds a women's eye in his glass, which he turns over to the
local authorities. This leads to a final showdown in which the
townpeople storm the hotel and save Laura in the nick of time from
the clutches of the sisters. Insert your own political allegory here.
Director Martin has the camera linger lovingly on close-ups of raw
meat, knives, cleavers and other kitchen utensils that will
eventually be used as weapons. There's also copious nudity from the
young cast, but you'll see none of the blood or skin in the 69 minute
version. You will need to find copies of this film titled A
CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL or NIGHTMARE HOTEL to see all
the carnage and nudity. Depending on your tolerance for politics
draped as horror, you'll either like it or be bored to death. Also
starring Victor Alcazar (a.k.a. "Vic Winner"), Carlos
Pineiro, Loretta Tovar and Montserrat Julió (THE
BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE - 1972). Originally available on DVD-R
from Midnight Video and
Luminous Video. Available as A
CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL from Scorpion
Releasing in its most complete version on DVD & Blu-Ray. Not
Rated.
JOHNNY
FIRECLOUD (1975) - Another
low-budget revenge thriller brought on by the success of BILLY
JACK (1971 - see reviews of GENTLE
SAVAGE [1973] and ANGRY
JOE BASS [1976] for more "injun done wrong"
goodness), but this one actually has a message buried within its'
revenge motifs. Johnny Firecloud (Victor Mohica; THE
GHOST DANCE - 1980) has recently returned home after serving
a stint in the Army and he is constantly hassled by the town's
sheriff, Jesse
(David Canary; THE DAIN CURSE
- 1978), and his deputy, J.B. (Jason Ledger; BLOODY
FRIDAY - 1973), who both are following orders from Colby
(Ralph Meeker; MY BOYS ARE
GOOD BOYS - 1977), the town's iron-fisted patriarch who can't
stand Indians. It seems the entire white population in town aren't
too fond of redskins, as we watch rednecks Wade (Casting Director George
"Buck" Flower; LADY COCOA
- 1975) and Newt (John Goff; PISTOL-PACKIN'
LEROY - 1973) force a drunk Chief White Eagle (Frank DeKova; CAT
IN THE CAGE - 1978) to do a war dance for a beer mug full of J&B
whiskey. When Ned (Richard Kennedy; FANGS
- 1974) asks Colby if White Eagle ia a good dancer, Colby retorts,
"He's an Indian, ain't he?" ("Yes, sir.")
"He's alive, ain't he?" ("Yes, sir.") "Then
he's no good!" When Wade applies "war paint" on White
Eagle with a tube of red lipstick, Johnny (who is White Eagle's
grandson) intervenes and a bar fight breaks out, with Jesse saving
Johnny's life when Ned tries to stab him with a broken bottle (Ned to
Jesse: "One of these days, you and me is goin' to tangle
assholes!"), You can plainly see that Jesse is tired of being
under Colby's thumb, but there's not much he can do about it (more on
that later) and Johnny isn't making his life any easier (Jesse half-heartedly
says to J.B., "One of these days I'm going to kill that
Indian."). Johnny is a man without a home, because he refuses to
live on the reservation (He can't understand why college educated
Nenya [Sacheen Littlefeather; THE
TRIAL OF BILLY JACK - 1974] would return to the reservation
as a teacher) and he's not welcome in town, so he spends most of his
free time walking in the desert. We learn why Colby hates Indians so
much: Johnny was dating his daughter, June (Christina Hart; WOMEN
AND BLOODY TERROR - 1970) before he joined the Army and
between now and then she became a hopeless alcoholic. When June
tempts Johnny an offer for a job at her Daddy's ranch (How stupid can
you be?) and then gets caught by Colby, Wade and Newt making love to
her in a barn (Really, how stupid can you be?), they string Johnny up
and whip him to an inch of his life before Jesse intervenes once
again and saves his life. Johnny is thrown in jail, where Jesse tells
him that June was pregnant with Johnny's child when he joined the
Army (Johnny didn't know, because Colby intercepted all incoming and
outgoing mail), but the baby was "born dead", which is why
June now drinks like a fish (Johnny: "Colby is not
God!" Jesse: "Around here he is!" Johnny:
"You have the balls of a mouse!"). Colby brings Johnny up
on rape charges, but when a drunk White Eagle dresses in full Chief
regalia (complete with feathered headdress), asks Colby "Chief-to-Chief"
for Johnny's release (Colby: "That's mighty white of
you!") and gets hung for his trouble (A concerned J.B. tries to
break it up, but he actually makes it worse), Johnny breaks out of
jail and goes on a bloody revenge spree. God help the rednecks that
gets in Johnny's way. Helped tremendously by a cast of seasoned
pros, some tight direction by William Allen Castleman (BUMMER!
- 197
3)
and a literate screenplay by Wilton Denmark (CAIN'S
CUTTHROATS - 1971), JOHNNY FIRECLOUD is
crowd-pleasing entertainment for fans of revenge thrillers. All the
ingredients are here: Degradation (Nenya's gang-rape and death at the
hands of Ned, Wade, Newt and other rednecks is graphic and
disturbing); Humiliation (White Eagle's war dance in the bar); Nudity
(both Christina Hart and Sacheen Littlefeather go topless and
beyond); and bloody revenge (makeup effects by Joe Blasco; ILSA
SHE WOLF OF THE SS - 1975). Ned is scalped; Wade is tied to
a fence post and has a sack put over his head with a live rattlesnake
inside; a redneck gets a tomahawk thrown into his forehead; another
redneck is blown-up with dynamite (attached to his belt) inside a
motor home; Newt has his eyes plucked-out and is buried up to his
neck in the desert for the vultures to pick at; and Colby is hung by
his neck, whipped with a rope and punched in the balls, before one of
his ranch hands saves him (Surprisingly, he doesn't die in this
film). Although this is basically a tale about an Indian's revenge
against the White Man who did him and his tribe wrong, it is actually
David Canary who gets most of the audience's sympathy. He's basically
between a rock and a hard place. When he tells Johnny that he was
drummed out of the Army for being a homosexual and Colby is holding
that bit of information over his head, you actually feel for him (In
one part of the film, Jesse tells Colby that he understands how Jane
feels and Colby callously retorts, "Women understand each other,
huh? They relate, huh?"). Jesse always tries to do the right
thing in a wrong situation, but neither side, Colby or Johnny, seem
to appreciate it (Well, Johnny finally does sees his pain in the
finale and gets Jesse to do the right thing). Jesse is the lynchpin
of the film. Without him, the film wouldn't work nearly as well as it
does. It's just too bad for us that David Canary didn't appear in
more films, as he has spent the majority of his career acting on TV
soap operas. In short, you can do a lot worse than JOHNNY
FIRECLOUD. It is bloody, nasty and entertaining as hell.
There's also a human element missing in most films of this type
(Chief White Eagle refusing to bow to the White Man, even with a rope
around his neck, is one of the film's most affecting scenes). The
legendary David F. Friedman (SHE FREAK
- 1967) was one of the Producers. Also starring Wayne Storm and
Elliott Lindsey. Originally available on VHS by Prism
Entertainment sub-label A.N.E. Home Video and released on DVD as
part of a double feature (with Castleman's BUMMER!) by Something
Weird Video/Image Entertainment.
Rated R.
KIDNAP
SYNDICATE (1975) - A brazen
kidnapping in front of a schoolyard nets the kidnappers the son of
crooked rich bigshot Mr. Filippini (James Mason) and the son of
regular joe motorcycle mechanic Mario Colella (Luc Merenda), a
widower with very little money. A visibly annoyed Commissioner
Magrini (Vittorio Caprioli), who was just about to take a holiday on
the Riviera, is assigned to the case and interviews the two fathers
together. Mr. Filippini assures Mario that since their sons are best
friends, he will do everything in his power to make sure that they
are released together. That couldn't be further from the truth. At a
press conference the next day, Mr. Filippini tells the reporters that
he is penniless, but he is secretly working with the kidnappers to
get the money to release his son only. Mario is left hanging in the
wind, waiting for Mr. Filippini to pay a ransom that will never be
paid and listening to Commissioner Magrini tell him that kidnapping
in Italy is a "profitable business". Meanwhile, Mario's
son, Fabrizio (Marco Leofredi), proves to be a cunning kidnapping
victim. He manages to avoid the drugged food that the kidnappers feed
him and Mr. Filippini's son, Antonio (Francesco Impeciati), and is a
thorn in the side to the kidnappers, even telling his father to
"waste them" in a tape recorded message sent with the
ransom demand. Twelve days pass and
Mario has had enough. He is tired of Mr. Filippini's deceitful lies
and double-dealings. The kidnappers are apparently tired of it, too.
After having enough of Mr. Filippini's delaying tactics, we see one
of the kidnappers shoot and kill one of the sons (we don't see who it
is since they are wrapped in a blanket). Commissioner Magrini calls
both fathers to the morgue to identify the body. When the corpse
turns out to be Fabrizio, Mario blames Filippini for stalling and
vows revenge against him and the kidnappers. Mario stakes out
Filippini's house and follows the ransom money, uncovering treachery
and danger along the way. When one of the kidnappers tries to run him
over, Mario uses his motorcycle skills to give chase, which leads him
to the location where his son was being held. After killing two of
the kidnappers, Mario gets his hands on the ransom money and uses it
to exact revenge on those who ordered the murder of his son. It takes
him to surprising destinations and concludes with a machinegun
slaughter in a corporate boardroom and then Mario shooting the
triggerman responsible for killing his son. As Mario shoots him in
the kneecaps and elbows, the triggerman screams out for a quicker
death. Will Mario give it to him? This intense Italian thriller
takes a while to get cooking, but once it does, it's a white-knuckle
ride. Director Fernando Di Leo is an old hand at making these violent
thrillers, having previously directing the excellent MANHUNT
(1972), MILANO CALIBRO 9 (1972)
and scripting Ruggero Deodato's LIVE
LIKE A COP DIE LIKE A MAN in 1976. Di Leo lets you get to
know the characters (he co-wrote the script with Ernesto Gastaldi and
Cesare Manzani), from James Mason's (MANDINGO
- 1975; SALEM'S LOT - 1979)
Mr. Filippini, who cares more about making deals and money than his
own child's life, to Luc Merenda's (THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973; TORSO
- 1973) Mario, a low-income everyman who, at first, just wants his
son back but, later, just wants revenge. There's a telling scene at
the press conference, when one of the reporters questions Mario's
parenting skills when Mario mentions that the only worker he has on
his payroll is his twelve year-old son. When the reporter
sarcastically reminds him that Fabrizio is too young to be working,
Mario replies, "I'm teaching him a trade so he doesn't grow up
to be a reporter." That's my favorite line in the film because
it's as relevant today as it was back then. Kidnapping in Italy was
reaching epidemic proportions when this film was lensed. Di Leo was
pretty much on the mark describing the kidnappers' motivations. This
was nothing personal, just a way for some scumbags and business types
to make a hefty payday. The Italian criminal system finally
instituted a law that blocked the bank accounts of targeted families,
which prevented them from paying. Kidnappings dropped drastically
after that. Those expecting an action-packed Italian crime film here
will be disappointed, but those that like well-plotted thrillers will
find much to enjoy. The characters are spot-on and you actually care
what happens to these people. The only way to truly appreciate the
performances are in the original Italian language, as the
English-dubbed track is horrible. Fortunately, Raro Video offers a
beautiful widescreen Italian language print (with English subtitles)
on DVD, so you can throw away all those terrible English-dubbed
fullscreen VHS tapes. Also starring Irina Maleeva, Marino Mase,
Daniele Dublino, Valentina Cortese, Max Dorian and Salvatore Billa. A Raro
Video Release. Also available as part of Raro Video's FERNANDO
DI LEO ITALIAN CRIME COLLECTION VOLUME 2 DVD Box Set. Not Rated.
THE
KILLER IS ON THE PHONE (1972) -
Stage actress Eleanor (Anne Heywood: RING
OF DARKNESS - 1977/1979) arrives in Belgium via ferry and
discovers that the last five years are missing from her memory. Her
house is no longer where it was supposed to be (it's an abandoned
lot), the love of her life, Peter Vervoort (Roger Van Hool; AS
ABOVE, SO BELOW - 2014), is dead and she is married to a man
named George (Giorgio Piazza; EXECUTION
SQUAD - 1972), whom she doesn't recognize.
To make matters worse, as soon as she steps off the ferry, she sees
a mysterious man named Ranko Drasovic (Telly Savalas; VIOLENT
CITY - 1970; LISA
AND THE DEVIL - 1973) and passes out. All we really know
about Eleanor is what Dr. Chandler (Antonio Guida; YOUNG,
VIOLENT, DANGEROUS - 1976) tells her. Three years ago, while
she was on stage performing in a play, she had some sort of
"accident" and she was lucky that he was in the audience to
treat her. Another thing we know about Eleanor is that Ranko is
following her. He is a hired assassin who has a pistol hidden in a
false bottom of his briefcase. Eleanor refuses to believe anything
anyone is telling her, believing that they are all actors playing a
nasty practical joke on her. But why? What kind of
"accident" was she in and why does Ranko want to kill her?
So begins this twisty Italian mystery. I can't call it a giallo film
because we know who the killer is, but we don't know why he wants her
dead and who hired him. And the more we learn about Eleanor, we
discover that she may not be crazy at all, she may remember things
perfectly (She is also very annoying, doing stupid things at the
worst possible times. I hoped Ranko would kill her early in the film,
so we wouldn't have to put up with her bullshit. But it wouldn't be
much of a film, would it?). Dr. Chandler tells Eleanor's
"friends", including Peter's sister Dorothy (Willeke van
Ammelrooy; THE LIFT - 1983),
husband George and fellow actor Thomas Braun (Osvaldo Ruggieri; WEREWOLF
WOMAN - 1976), that he wants to give Eleanor a shot of
sodium pentothal, truth serum, in hopes it will unlock her mind and
free her subconscious, asking them if anyone is afraid of learning
the truth. After giving each other dirty looks, George says of course
not, give her the injection. Thomas then tries to leave the room, but
Dr. Chandler stops him, saying it is best if they all stayed
together. Just what in the hell is going on?
Dr. Chandler gives Eleanor the shot and she has a flashback, showing
her and Peter making love on the grounds of his mansion, but then
Peter morphs into Ranko and she tries to run away, only to be grabbed
by the black glove wearing Ranko and he won't let go of her. She is
then tied spread-eagle in a doorway, while Ranko traces his
switchblade over her body (Eleanor says, "Peter...help me...he
has a knife! He wants to kill me! The knife!). Ranko then tears her
clothes off and rape is implied (although we do not see the deed). We
then find out from Dorothy that Peter died in a terrible car accident
and Eleanor suffered a major trauma. Dr. Chandler explains that when
Peter died five years ago, he was the love of Eleanor's life, so she
wiped his death from her memory and by doing this, she also wiped
everything else from her memory from the last five years of her life.
Now, I don't know about you, but at this time I am asking myself what
Eleanor was doing on a ferry all by herself and also where was she
before she got on the ferry? George tells Dr. Chandler that Eleanor
went to London last Thursday to appear on a TV show and she was
perfectly normal then. He also phoned her while she was in London and
she seemed perfectly fine. Dr. Chandler tells George that Eleanor is
in a state of chronic anxiety verging on paranoia, but her fear of
being murdered may also have a basis in reality. It is possible
someone wants to kill her, explains Dr. Chandler to George. So what
happened to Eleanor in the past five days? Enquiring minds need to know!
Now is the time to drop a major clue: Dr. Chandler tells George that
he didn't know Peter, but he treated his mother, Eleanor. He was
called to treat her, before she died. George says, "It's
weird...and strange to think...that if Eleanor married Peter, she
would have been the second Eleanor Vervoort." Let that sink in
for a couple of minutes. I'll wait...
Okay, ready? When Dr. Chandler goes to check up on Eleanor, he
discovers she is not in her room and has left the clinic. She shows
up at a rehearsal of "Lady Godiva", a play she is to star
in, surprising Dorothy and Thomas (who are lovers), but she acts as
if nothing is wrong. Even catching sight of Ranko at the theater
doesn't faze her at all. So, is losing her memory only a trick that
has some unknown purpose? Peter's older sister, Margaret (Rossella
Falk; BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA
- 1971), who is financing the play, thinks so, telling Thomas,
Dorothy and George over dinner that she thinks Eleanor is faking.
Apparently not, for when Eleanor walks out of the theater, she sees a
dwarf dressed as a jester and his face keeps changing from Peter to
Ranko to Midget, over and over again (a well done scene).
Yes, it turns out Eleanor is not faking it at all, remembering bits
and pieces from the last five years, such as she and Thomas were
having an affair behind George's back. In the film's best
"gotcha!" sequence, we see Eleanor getting stabbed in the
stomach by Thomas and just before she dies, she shoots Thomas in the
head, only then we see it's the final act of a play they both
appeared in previously. Another "gotcha" scene finds Ranko
sneaking into Eleanor's dressing room and stabbing her to death with
his switchblade, only to discover that he killed Eleanor's understudy
instead. Just when you think you know how it's going to end (the
person who hired Ranko is so obvious, even a blind man could see it),
the film throws in a final twist you'll never see coming. It's nasty,
but well worth staying until the end for (there is actually a double
twist ending!).
This film use to air on TV during the '70s & early-'80s under
the title SCENES
FROM A MURDER, but missing all the copious nudity and
graphic violence. Director Alberto De Martino (THE
BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER - 1963; STRANGE
SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM - 1976; FORMULA
FOR A MURDER - 1985), who co-wrote the screenplay with
first-and-only-timer Lorenzo Manning, Renato Izzo (NIGHT
TRAIN MURDERS - 1974), Adriano Bolzoni (De Martino's COUNSELOR
AT CRIME - 1973) and Vincenzo Mannino (De Martino's MIAMI
HORROR - 1985),
keeps the audience guessing, which films like this are supposed to
do (but the person who hired Ranko is very obvious). Like I said
previously, this is not technically a giallo film, even though it
contains some giallo elements, such as a black-gloved killer, lots of
the killer's POV shots, seeing only the killer's shoes as he stalks
his prey, lots of nudity and some graphic violence, so much so that
many reference books (such as BLOOD
& BLACK LACE) list this as a giallo flick, but let's not
nitpick, this is still a decent mystery. If I have complaints about
this film, it would be that Anne Heywood's Eleanor is an aggravating
person who would get on the nerves on even the most patient viewer,
as she does some very stupid things in this film. Another complaint
would be is that Telly Savalas doesn't dub his own voice, which is
distracting (especially in the Italian language version, which is how
I viewed it), but truth be told, he doesn't have very many lines of
dialogue to begin with. He is just there to look imposing (even in
his underwear!). His "final curtain" death (an alternate
title for this film is THE
FINAL CURTAIN, so take it both figuratively and literally)
is a highlight of the film, and closes the film, but hold on, that's
not all! There's a final denouement from the person who hired Ranko
that must be heard to be believed. Now I know why I was so confused
when I first saw this film on TV. The denouement was totally excised
from the film because it didn't adhere to the censor's standard and
practices during the time, but nowadays it is hardly an eye-opener.
Just think about that: Airing a film without its proper ending! And
what Eleanor and the person who did the hiring do next defies
description (but it is fitting). The late Stelvio
Cipriani offers a spooky music
score to go along with proceedings, so if you want to see a
mystery film with more positives than negatives, by all means watch
this film.
Shat as L'ASSASSINO...E
AL TELEFONO (a literal translation of the review title),
this film received a U.S. theatrical release (under the SCENES
title) from Cinema Shares International, missing over 8 minutes of
footage. The same R-Rated print showed up on VHS
from Lightning
Video (only fullscreen). No legitimate disc release in the
States (at the time of this review), but many gray market sellers
offer it on DVD-R (Make sure you are getting the full 98-minute
version and not the shortened TV edit). Amazon Prime offers the full
version streaming in a very nice anamorphic widescreen print (showing
off Aristide Massaccesi's [a.k.a. "Joe D'Amato"] beautiful
Belgium cinematography) in Italian with English subtitles. Also
featuring Alessandro Perrella (GIRL IN
ROOM 2A - 1973), Ada Pometti (ESCAPE
FROM WOMEN'S PRISON - 1978) and Leonardo Scavino (KEOMA
- 1976). Not Rated.
KILLER'S
DELIGHT (1977) - Someone in a
yellow Ford van is picking up female hitchhikers, raping them,
breaking their arms and legs (until the bones protrude out of the
skin) and dumping their nude corpses in and around San Francisco in
this loose (very loose) adaptation of the Ted Bundy story. Police
detective Vince De Carlo (James Luisi; LETHAL
WOMAN - 1988) and partner Mike (Martin Speer) are assigned
to the case and, as the naked bodies begin to pile-up, Vince's life
begins to fall apart. Vince is married with a beautiful teenage
daughter, but he also has a mistress on the side, college professor
Carol (Susan Sullivan). It becomes apparent that the killer, Danny
(John Karlen; HOUSE OF
DARK SHADOWS [1970]; DAUGHTERS
OF DARKNESS - 1971; TV's CAGNEY
& LACEY [1982 - 1988]), is toying with Vince, first by
killing Annie (Hilarie Thompson), a young woman Vince had just
questioned, and dumping her body for Vince to easily find. Vince
nearly captures Danny at the community swimming pool where Annie
worked, but Danny escapes by nearly running Vince over with his van.
Danny is also a master of disguise,
sometimes pretending to be a long-haired hippy in a floppy hat and
other times sporting an afro and fake moustache, which makes
discovering Danny's true identity very hard for Vince. Danny then
kidnaps, rapes and kills two young girls (he graphically snaps one of
the girl's finger and arm, which gives him a sexual thrill) and dumps
their clothes, along with a cryptic note, on Vince's front lawn,
which his daughter finds. The cat-and-mouse game then begins, as
Vince goes to a hypnotist to remember the license plate number of
Danny's van. With that knowledge, Vince discovers where Danny lives
and illegally breaks into his home to rummage around for evidence. He
finds a garage door opener, but finds that strange because Danny
doesn't have a garage at his home (he does have a padlocked shed,
though). Vince drives down every street in San Francisco clicking the
door opener until he finds the garage it belongs to (He's the
luckiest SOB in the entire world!). Inside the garage, Vince
discovers Danny's van (which has recently been painted green), along
with a box containing his disguises and some pictures of his mother.
Since Vince discovered all this evidence without a warrant, his boss
gives him one week to build a case that will stick in a court of law.
Unbelievably, Vince easily talks mistress Carol into helping him
capture Danny in the act by pretending to be a lounge singer (!) in
Danny's favorite bar, letting him pick her up. Danny is smarter than
he looks and quickly sees through the charade almost immediately,
which leads to a downbeat ending where both Mike and Carol end up
dead by Danny's hands and Vince ends up taking the law into his own
hands. So much for a fair trial! This relatively obscure
thriller, also known as THE DARK RIDE
and THE SPORT KILLER (I'm still trying to figure that title
out, since the closest thing to a sport here are people swimming in a
pool), plays and looks just like a 70's TV movie, except with some
bursts of graphic violence and nudity. The flat photography (except
for a well-done aerial shot of the camera following Danny's van as it
crosses the Golden Gate Bridge in the beginning of the film), acting
and especially the music scream out 70's Movie Of The Week. Director
Jeremy Hoenack (This is his only directorial effort, but he is a
well-respected Sound Editor with over 240 films to his credit) really
doesn't offer much to the audience, as Marilyn Thoma's screenplay is
a bland concoction of serial killer clichés (A serial killer
with mother issues? Who would of thunk it?), half-baked police
procedurals (yet it takes a hypnotist to break the case wide open)
and unresolved family drama. The characters are so broadly written,
it's hard to give a damn what happens to them and the closing
on-screen scrawl is so maddening and unnecessary (I won't give it
away here), that you'll want to slap your DVD player in disgust. This
is a very minor serial killer flick, so proceed at your own risk. The
late George "Buck" Flower
turns up in a cameo in the beginning of the film as a toothless
witness named Luke (The end credits mistakenly list his name as
"Pete"). Also starring Al Dunlap, Sharon DuBord, Carol
Bilger, Eddie Benton and Sandy Serrano. Originally released on VHS by Media
Home Entertainment (as THE DARK RIDE) and available on
DVD (as KILLER'S DELIGHT, but the title on the actual print is THE
SPORT KILLER) from Code Red/Shriek
Show. Rated R.
THE
KILLER WITH A THOUSAND EYES
(1973) - When British Interpol Agent Alistair McAndrew is killed
in his car (strangled by someone wearing an evil clown rubber mask,
who was hiding in the back seat) after chasing a drug dealer in
Lisbon, Portugal (and losing him as he escapes on a motorcycle), his
colleague and friend, Interpol Investigator Michael Lawrence (Anthony
Steffan; THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT
OF THE GRAVE - 1971), is sent to Lisbon to escort his
friend's body back to London. Arriving at the Lisbon airport, Michael
is greeted by Susan Merideth (Carmen Yazalde, as "Britt
Nichols"; TOMBS OF
THE BLIND DEAD - 1972), an employee
at the British Embassy, to escort Michael to the Central Hospital,
where other Interpol agents from around the world are waiting for
him. On the drive to the hospital, Michael wastes no time hitting on
Susan, asking her to be his tour guide when he has time to do a
little sight-seeing. Susan wastes no time by accepting his offer. At
the hospital, Michael meets all the agents, including Canadian Agent
DuValliere (Julián Ugarte; ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK - 1972), Venezuela Agent Olalia (Raf
Baldassarre; GET MEAN
- 1975) and an agent each from France, Germany and Afghanistan.
Lisbon Police Inspector Albert (Antonio Pica; DJANGO
KILL! [IF YOU LIVE SHOOT!] - 1967) then escorts everyone to
the morgue, where they look at Agent McAndrew's body, where Michael
identifies the corpse as his friend Alistair and signs some papers to
release the body for burial in London. Inspector Albert is anxious to
get rid of Michael, asking him when he is going to leave Lisbon.
Michael says he plans on leaving tomorrow if the documents are ready,
but something tells me he is not going to leave Lisbon as early as he expects.
Michael asks the other agents what Alistair was working on, saying
whatever it was, he must have gotten too close and it killed him. All
he is able to get from the other agents is Alistair was working on a
major drug case and Michael says, "I'm sorry I have to go back
to London like an undertaker. I'd much rather stay behind and find
the bastard who killed Alistair." Michael doesn't know it, but
he is about to get his wish. The agents tell Michael they were all
close to Alistair and none of them are going to drop the case until
the killer is caught. Michael then gets a call from his Chief in
London, wondering when he is coming back. Michael tells him in
about a week, saying a week is all he will need to solve Alistair's
murder. What Michael doesn't know is someone in the hotel's phone
operator room is listening to his conversation . Michael tells the
Chief he has all of Alistair's personal effects and one name stands
out in his little black address book. The last entry in the book is a
female named Diana Marquess (Romy; VENGEANCE
OF THE ZOMBIES - 1973), so that is where he will start his
investigation. The Chief tells Michael not to get involved, hanging
up the phone after telling Michael he expects to see him in London
tomorrow afternoon. Someone then slides a note under Michael's hotel
room door, so he quickly runs out the door to catch the person who
did it, only to meet an elderly woman who says someone robbed her of
all her castor oil and fed it to her dog and he is making a
"mess" everywhere he goes. Could this be a clue or it it
just the ramblings of a senile old woman? Michael then opens the
note, which reads, "I'm waiting at the hotel bar - A Friend"
That "friend" turns out to be French Interpol Agent
Jacques Danielle (Luis Gaspar; WEREWOLF
SHADOW - 1970), who says, "I felt it was my duty to
give you a warning. You're liable to be killed. I found out something
about McAndrew's death that might interest you. You must delay your
departure to London. If you do that, I will give you the name of the
man who killed him." When Michael insists he tell him the name
of the killer immediately, Jacques says he will tell him
tomorrow and that he will meet Michael outside the airport near the
fence at the south end of the runway. Jacques implores Michael
to take him at his word and to pretend to board the airplane, as it
is necessary that Inspector Albert thinks he is no longer in Lisbon
(I think we all know what that means: Jacques isn't going to live
long enough to give Michael the killer's name.). When Jacques leaves
the bar, Michael ask the bartender for the bill, only to be told a
gentleman already has paid it. When Michael ask the bartender if it
was the gentleman he was just with, the bartender says no, it was a
client of the hotel and he has never seen him before. The plot thickens...
The next day, we see Alistair's coffin being loaded on the plane and
Michael saying goodbye to Inspector Albert and a few of the Interpol
agents, pretending to board the plane to London. As the plane takes
off, Michael runs to the south end of the runway to meet Jacques and
sees a blue car approaching him. Michael asks Jacques for the
killer's name, but Jacques tells Michael to quickly get in the car
because it is far too dangerous here. We then see a sniper gun down
Jacques (Surprise!) and then try to kill Michael, but Michael jumps
into the car and begins driving away (using his hands instead of his
feet on the gas and brake pedals), while the sniper fires bullet
after bullet into the car, which crashes into a ditch and rolls over
into a river. The sniper fires one last bullet into the car, causing
it to explode. Is this the end of Inspector Michael Lawrence?
Don't count on it!
At the morgue, it is revealed that Jacques was killed by a single
bullet to his heart (his body was burned nearly beyond recognition by
the car explosion), but Agent Olalia tells the other agents he was
sure Jacques wasn't alone when he was shot. At that exact moment
Michael appears and says he was with Jacques, but he was able to jump
out of the car before it rolled into the river and exploded. He tells
the agents that someone wanted to get rid of Jacques and him because
Jacques had the name of Alistair's killer, but he was killed before
he could tell him the name. Michael also tells the agents he has an
advantage over the killer. As far as the killer is concerned, Michael
is dead, but what if the killer is one of the Interpol agents? Maybe
Michael should have kept his fake death a secret?
Michael takes a room in the cheap and sleazy Pensione Hotel on a
tip, where the obviously gay hotel manager takes a liking to Michael
("You seem like a nice sort and you're so...tall!").
Michael asks the manager if he knows Diana Marquess and he suddenly
gets very nervous and goes to leave, but Michael stops him, saying he
knows she has a room here. The manager says he threw her out of the
hotel for using her room for prostitution, telling Michael this
is not a place for such illegal things (Sure!). The manager says
Diana is a tramp ("I know one when I see one."). Michael
shows the manager a photo of Alistair and asks if he ever saw this
man with Diana. The manager says no, he would remember such a
"beautiful" man if he ever saw him, since he looks like
Paul Newman! The manager then asks to see the photo again, saying,
yes, he saw this man in the newspaper and he is dead, almost
fainting. The manager then tells Michael that Diana will be at the
Casone Del' Mosambique and Michael says that their conversation is
strictly between them and not to tell anyone else. When the manager
leaves Michael's room, he is grabbed from behind by a man dressed in
black and wearing (what else?) black gloves, threatening him with a
switchblade and saying he will use it if he
doesn't tell him every detail of the conversation he had with Michael.
Michael goes to the Casone Del' Mosambique, an even sleazier hotel
than he is staying in. he knocks on Diana's door and she says
it will cost thirty bucks for sex. Michael agrees and enters her
room, where the photo of a man is on her mirror (it's the drug dealer
Alistair was chasing) and a rubber clown mask is lying on her end
table (it's the same mask the killer of Alistair was wearing). Diana
makes Michael for a cop, but Michael says he will pay her double if
she will answer one simple question: Does she know Alistair McAndrew?
Diana begins to act nervous, telling Michael to leave her room or she
will scream. Michael grabs her violently and again asks if she knew
Alistair. Diana says she never met him, but her boyfriend did. Diana
also says that she heard her boyfriend and Alistair talking
about money, but what the conversation was about she doesn't know.
When Michael asks Diana where he can find her boyfriend, Diana
begins to cry, saying he has disappeared and she hasn't seen him for
a couple of days, telling Michael that even if she had the Plague, it
wouldn't stop her boyfriend from seeing her because they are madly in
love. She fears that he may be dead. She also tells Michael that her
boyfriend has changed recently, saying, "All he thinks about is
money, money, money!" Michael tries to pay her the money he
promised, but she doesn't want it, telling him to get out, so he
takes the boyfriend's photo, walks out the door and says, "Thanks
sweetheart." Diana goes to pack her bags and leave, but she is
grabbed by the same person who threatened the manager and he says,
"I like the way you handled that ad to show my gratitude, here,
take it, you earned it", handing her a packet of cocaine. Diana
looks at it like a junkie would look at their next overdue fix and
kisses the man's hand.
Michael returns to his hotel room, only to find it ransacked. Agent
DuValliere offers Michael the use of his bachelor pad, so Michael
takes him up on his offer. Michael makes himself a a fried egg
sandwich (it's the only thing he knows how to cook!) and goes on the
terrace to enjoy the night. Someone sneaks into the bachelor pad, but
Michael manages to knock their lights out with a single punch.
Michael discovers he has knocked out Mrs. Danielle (Susana Taber; GREEN
INFERNO - 1972), the wife of the late Jacques Danielle. When
she comes to, she tells Michael that someone is threatening her life,
so she came here to get Agent DuValliere's help. Michael tells her
they are both in the same boat and maybe they can help each other.
Mrs. Danielle tells Michael that her husband never talked about his
work and says lately their relationship wasn't what it should have
been. Michael gives Mrs. Danielle the bedroom while he sleeps on the
sofa. We then see the man in black walking up the fire exit with a
sniper rifle, across the street from DuValliere's bachelor pad. He
shoots at a shadow he sees through the curtains of the pad, killing
Mrs. Danielle with a single bullet to her back. Two thugs then break
down the door, but Michael gets the upper hand, knocking them both to
the floor and running outside, which turns into a small footchase.
Michael is saved by Agent Olalia, who pulls up in his fancy sports
car, telling Michael to get in. Michael tells him he can identify the
two men who kicked in the door, but Agent Olalia says they are
probably already out of town and other goons will replace them,
telling Michael he is in extreme danger. He also tells Michael that
word on the street is three million dollars of drugs has just arrived
in Lisbon and the murders of Alistair and Jacques may be tied to it.
He then tells Michael that the drugs haven't left for their intended
destination yet (probably the U.S.) and a rival crime organization
may have gotten their hands on it, Michael asks for a name, any name,
that will get him close to the shipment. Agent Olalia tells Michael
that Mr. Costa (Eduardo Fajardo; EVIL
EYE - 1975) might know, but he can't be trusted since he is
also a notorious criminal kingpin. He's a Brazilian who has his hands
in every criminal enterprise in Lisbon and if he doen't know the
location of the drugs, then no one does. Agent Olalia tells Michael
that Costa is throwing a party tonight and he has an invitation,
giving it to Michael and wishing him good luck.
Both Michael and Olalia visit Mr. Costa's party at his villa (The
first time we see Costa, he is wearing black gloves while he is
handling a huge hawk!) and Michael discovers he is a collector of
rare species of birds. Michael pretends he is "Professor
Lawrence", a professor of mathematics (!), which Mr. Costa knows
is a lie. The party turns out to be a cockfight (!) for the rich
clients, where Costa's girlfriend, Sarah (Maria Kosti; DEMON
WITCH CHILD), bets on the losing bird and loses big (she's
enjoying herself a little too much, as she loves the bloody carnage).
At the party, Agent DuValliere tells Michael he is onto something
very important and he needs to see him later in the garden by the zoo
(Another giallo trope. It amazes me that no one tells anyone the
important information without getting killed before spilling the
beans!). Michael and Mr. Costa play a game of Chess and he tells
Michael he knows he is not a professor of mathematics, he's actually
a British undercover agent (a blind man could have seen through that
disguise!). Michael fesses up and tells Costa he wants to talk about
the drug shipment, but before Costa can say anything, Sarah appears
and tells Costa to drive her home. Michael then tells Costa that they
will "play another game of Chess" tomorrow. Michael then
goes to meet Agent DuValliere in the garden, but we see someone
murdering DuValliere by snaring him in a rope trap and gutting him
while he hangs upside down. When Michael enters the garden, he is
attacked by the same two thugs earlier in the day, forcing Michael to
jump in the pond when Sarah joins the two thugs and begin shooting at him.
The next day, Michael goes to Agent Olalia's house and sees him with
Sarah. When Sarah leaves, Olalia tells Michael that Sarah owns a
beauty parlor, swearing to Michael that Sarah is clean of any
criminal activity. Michael doesn't believe it, so he kidnaps Sarah
from her beauty parlor and brings her to a seaside park, where a
little boy hands Michael a note and runs away. The note reads,
"Call me 76 0667. Will inform you about drug shipment and
assassination." The note is unsigned, but the bigger question
remains this: Who would know Michael was bringing Sarah to the park?
Michael tells Sarah to stay put while he looks for the little boy.
While Michael is looking for the kid, the man in black tosses Sarah
off the park's steep cliffs and she falls on the rock below, dead as
a doornail (What the fuck is a doornail and why did I mention it?).
Okay, I think you know what time it is. It's time to read this review
again to discover the identity of the killer. All the clues are here,
so it is time to discover how smart ypu are. Do you have what it
takes to unmask the killer? I know you do, so to help you, I'll tell
you this: After finding Sarah dead, the two thugs get into a car
chase with Michael, firing their guns at him while driving across a
bridge. Michael finds a machinegun on the backseat of the car he has
stolen and shoots a tire out on the thug's car, causing the car to
veer off the bridge and explode on the ground below. Inspector Albert
arrests Michael for the murder of Sarah and the two thugs, but lets
him escape when the car stops at a red light (Michael also steals his
gun). Michael is able to get a trace on the phone number on the note
and goes to the location, only to end up in a car, with a voice
telling him, via police radio, to drive into the back of a panel
truck if he wants to know the truth. Michael becomes trapped
inside the back
of the moving panel truck. When the truck arrives at its
destination (a warehouse), Michael comes face-to-face with the guilty
party(s), resulting in a shoot-out where Michael captures the
mastermind and makes him take him to the location of the drugs.
That's all I'm going to tell you, so all you giallo/mystery fans put
on your thinking caps and start deducing!
Warts and all, this is a damn fine giallo film, an Italy/Spain
co-production, from director Juan Bosch, who also gave us the minor
giallo flick THE
KILLER WORE GLOVES (1974) and the Paul Naschy-starrer EXORCISM
(1975), as well as a few Spaghetti Westerns from the early-'70s, such
as AND THE
CROWS WILL DIG YOUR GRAVE (1971) and MY
HORSE, MY GUN, YOUR WIDOW (1972). The screenplay, co-written
by Bosch (who also co-wrote the screenplay to the hard-to-find BLOODY
SECT - 1982), Alberto De Stefanis (Unit Manager on SABATA
- 1969), Ángel G. Gauna (Assistant Director on THE
KILLER OF DOLLS - 1975) and star Anthony Steffen (using his
real name "Antonio De Teffè") is really involving,
even if it is fairly easy to spot the killer's identity,
tossing in explosions, bloody bullet hits, car chases and other
carnage. There's also plenty of female eye candy to keep you
watching, even though Britt Nicols' role as Susan Merideth ends
rather quickly, as we were expecting her to be a love interest for
Michael, but it turns out to be nothing but a cameo. Still, this film
offers enough bloody excitement to keep the viewer involved and it
won't disappoint giallo fanatics, such as myself. It may not be
top-tier giallo, but it is still good nonetheless.
Shot as LOS
MIL OJOS DELL ASESINO (a literal translation of the review
title), this film never obtained a theatrical release in the United
States, but did get a VHS release by Mogul
Communications under the title ON
THE EDGE. There are no legitimate DVD or Blu-Ray releases of
this title in the U.S., but gray market company Rogue
Video offers this on DVD-R.
It is available streaming on Amazon
Prime in a widescreen print dubbed in English (which is how I
viewed it). It is also available streaming on YouTube on channel
"Eurocrime Realm", but be aware that it is a fullscreen VHS
rip from a Greek tape with Greek subtitles. Hey, if you aren't a
member of Prime and don't want to purchase the DVD-R (some people are
"purists' and believe that DVD-R is inferior to DVD, but that is
nothing but a bunch of bullshit!), beggars can't be choosers, can
they? Also featuring Víctor Vilanova (SEVEN
MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD - 1971), Ángel Lombarte (THE
BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE - 1972), John Bartha (EYEBALL
- 1975) and Alfonso de la Vega (THE
VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY - 1972). Not Rated.
KNIFE
OF ICE (1972) - "Fear
is a knife of ice wich (sic) penetrates
the senses down to the depths of conscience." -
Edgar Allan Poe This is my least favorite of director
Umberto Lenzi's giallo films, which includes PARANOIA
(1969), A QUIET PLACE TO KILL
(1970), OASIS OF FEAR
(1971), SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS
(1972), SPASMO (1974) and EYEBALL
(1975), just to name a few. It is my least favorite for many reasons,
the main one being that the killer is so obvious, you would have to
be deaf, dumb and blind not to know who it is (and even if you are
all three, you probably could still pick the killer out!). Lenzi also
tries to get the audience to believe that
the supernatural is somehow involved in the plot, but when the final
denouement is revealed, you'll groan louder than a man who was just
kicked directly in the balls. With that being said, this film is
still somewhat enjoyable despite itself, thanks to a cast of capable
actors well versed in giallo theatrics. So let's get to the film itself.
After watching a bloody bullfight (where the bull is repeatedly
stabbed in the back with spears by a bullfighter and it dies), Martha
Caldwell (Carroll Baker; BABA
YAGA - 1973) goes to a train station, which is odd, since
fifteen years earlier she saw her father and mother killed in a train
disaster, which not only made her deathly afraid of trains, it also
struck her dumb and she hasn't spoken a word since then. Martha then
calls her physician, Dr. Laurent (Alan Scott), and taps on the
receiver with a coin to communicate, letting him know she is at a
train station. Dr. Laurent is delighted, telling Martha she is indeed
getting better. Martha is at the train station with her driver Marcos
(Eduardo Fajardo; EVIL EYE
- 1975) to pick up her cousin Jenny Ascot (Evelyn Stewart; THE
BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY - 1971), a popular singer with the
voice of an angel, who has just come back from a concert in Brazil.
Marcos is a strange imposing man, who drives the pair in the thick
fog while wearing sunglasses. He stops the car next to a fog-shrouded
cemetery, telling the pair that the engine is overheating and if he
keeps driving, the engine will explode (!). He gets out of the car to
find some help and a few seconds later, someone peeps in the window,
scaring the crap out of Martha and Jenny. A few moments later, Marcos
gets back in the car, saying he couldn't find anyone to help him.
Jenny asks him to take off his sunglasses, which he does, revealing a
huge scar under his left eye. He puts his sunglasses back on and
drives the car away, saying to the pair, "The fog can play
tricks with the imagination."
When they get home (apparently the car didn't overheat again), the
housekeeper, Mrs. Annie Britton (Silvia Monelli; HOLY
WATER JOE - 1971), introduces herself to Jenny and Martha
and Jenny's Uncle Ralph (George Rigaud; ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK - 1972), who has a heart condition,
is delighted to see Jenny, saying, "Here we are all together.
Just the way it use to be!" Jenny has brought Uncle Ralph a
present from Brazil, an assortment of books on his favorite subjects,
zombies, voodoo, demons and Afro-Cuban witches (Jenny says,
"There's enough here to rob you of a month's sleep!). Jenny has
also brought Martha a gift: a reel-to-reel tape recording of Martha
reciting the Alice In Wonderland "Mouse's Tale" when she
was thirteen years old. Jenny listens to it for a few seconds and
then turns it off, a look of panic on her face.
At a welcome home party for Jenny, we learn that Martha was on the
train that killed her parents and her father threw Martha out of the
compartment window just before the disaster happened, saving her life
but striking her dumb. Dr. Laurent arrives at the party and
congratulates Martha on taking an important first step on her road to
recovery. Uncle Ralph introduces the doctor to Jenny (they apparently
have never met before) and suddenly the lights go out. Martha then
has a flashback to when she saw her parents perish, but it turns out
Mrs. Britton turned the lights out to celebrate the birthday of young
girl Christina (Rosa M. Rodriguez; THE
BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE - 1972). She is the niece of local
priest Father Martin (Jose Marco; DR.
JECKYL AND THE WOLFMAN - 1971), telling Jenny that the
girl's parents moved back to America and made him her guardian, but
he thanks the Lord for Martha, because she spends a lot of time with
Christina ("I really couldn't cope without her" says Father
Martin about Martha). Somehow, a Snoopy key chain plays an important
part in Christina and Martha's relationship, as Martha is supposed to
always keep it with her, no matter where she goes (We also see a
Donald Duck wind-up toy, the same kind we saw in Lucio Fulci's DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING [1972], but in that film it served a
purpose. Not so much here.).
When everyone goes home from the party, Jenny is in her bedroom when
she hears the sound of glass breaking. She leaves her room to
investigate and finds a broken vase on the main floor. She hears more
noises in the garage and when she gets there, someone wearing black
gloves (what else?) and holding a large knife kills Jenny. The next
morning, Mrs. Britton asks Martha if she has seen Jenny, as she
knocked on her bedroom door but there was no answer. Martha signs,
telling Mrs. Britton that Jenny is probably tired from her trip, but
we can see Jenny is dead under the car in the garage, which Marcos
has just unlocked. Christina's new kitten runs into the garage and
under the car, stepping in a pool of Jenny's blood. When Martha finds
blood on the kitten's paws, she knows something is wrong. She finds
Jenny's body in the garage and tries to scream, but the silence is
deafening. Martha uses the car's horn to alert everyone and we then
see police Inspector Duran (Franco Fantasia; Lenzi's GANG
WAR IN MILAN - 1973) at the house questioning everyone
inside, including the guests from the party the night before. Marcos
tells the Inspector that he doesn't know what time he parked the car
in the garage, but it was late and he immediately went to sleep in
the servant's quarters downstairs. He also tells the Inspector that
he locked the garage door so no one outside could get in, as only he
has the key (implying that someone inside the house killed Jenny).
Marcos also says that he saw Dr. Laurent's car parked outside next to
the garage in the middle of the night. Dr. Laurent explains that he
left his medical bag in the house after the party, but when he came
back to the house to retrieve it, all the lights in the house were
out, so he drove home. The Inspector says his medical bag should
still be in the house and sends his assistant with the doctor to find
it. When Dr. Laurent leaves the room, Marcos tells the Inspector that
all the lights in the house weren't out, the lights in Mrs. Britton's
room were still on and he saw Dr. Laurent looking directly at her
window, implying that the doctor and Mrs. Britton are having an
affair. It seems Mrs. Britton and the doctor are having regular
nocturnal visits, which Mrs. Britton flatly denies. It turns out Dr.
Laurent was telling the truth, the Inspector's assistant telling him
that the doctor's medical bag was where he said he left it. The
Inspector then tells the group that Jenny's death was apparently the
work of a "sex maniac", because last night another young
woman was murdered and her body was thrown in a ditch.
At Jenny's funeral, Martha sees someone peeping at her from behind a
bush, the same person she and Jenny saw peeping at them through their
car window by the cemetery. She alerts the Inspector and he goes to
investigate, but all he finds is a strange medallion with the image
of a satanic goat's head engraved on one side. The Inspector fears
for Martha's life since the other two women were young and
fair-haired, just like Martha. Uncle Ralph takes a look at the
medallion and says that whoever owned it is obviously a Devil
worshipper ("Sometimes evil explodes in unrestrained
manifestations." Huh???). As Uncle Ralph is saying this, Martha
looks out the window and sees that Christina's kitten is lying dead
on the front lawn, its throat cut.
Jenny's luggage from her trip back from Brazil arrives at the train
station and when Martha checks the contents, she finds a framed photo
of her and Jenny when she was a pre-teen. It triggers a memory
(flashback) when she and Jenny were at a bullfight (the one we saw at
the beginning of the film). Martha wanted to leave, but Jenny looks
like she is enjoying the bloody show, maybe a little too much. This
seems to bother Martha in the present, as she runs out of the train
station into the foggy streets (it seems to be foggy all the time!)
and ends up in a church, where Christina is sitting alone, telling
Martha that her kitten has run away. Dr. Laurent enters the church,
telling Martha something the Inspector said didn't seem right to him.
The doctor then implies that someone inside the house is the killer.
The Inspector finds an abandoned building where it looks like a
Black Mass was held, as the walls are painted with satanic symbols
(including a goat's head) and there looks to be an altar. He calls
Uncle Ralph to come to the building for his expertise on the subject.
Ralph finds a black wafer and says that a Black Mass was held there,
but only one person was there to perform it. The Inspector tells
Ralph to keep a close eye on Martha because he thinks she is in
danger. So who is the sex maniac? Could it be loner Woody Mason
(Mario Pardo), the man who has been peeping on Martha and admits he's
a Devil worshipper ("Worshipping the Devil is not a
crime!")? Could it be the Mayor (Consalvo Dell'Arti; KILLERS
ARE CHALLENGED - 1966)? Or Dr. Laurent? How about Uncle
Ralph (he is an expert on Black masses after all)? Or could it be
Father Martin (a life of celibacy does have its drawbacks)? Is it
Marcos? It's highly obvious that all these people are nothing but red
herrings (Lenzi has the habit of doing extreme close-ups and camera
zooms of their faces to make them look guilty). So who could it be?
Mrs. Britton is then murdered, the only clue at the crime scene is a
satanic goat's head painted on a tree with Mrs. Britton's blood. At
Mrs. Britton's funeral, Marcos begins to act weird, which doesn't go
unnoticed by the Inspector. Dr. Laurent thinks it is best if he and
Martha leave town as soon as possible, but he has to delay the trip
by a day because he has to treat a patient. That night, Dr. Laurent
is attacked by Woody Mason, but before he can do any harm to the
doctor, the police show up, scaring Woody away. Uncle Ralph starts
having chest pains, so Martha decides to stay to nurse him back to
health. And then Christina is murdered. Think you know who the sex
maniac is? I have given you all the clues you need to figure it out
on your own. Hint: It's not Uncle Ralph. His heart gives out
(Or did it? Hmmmm...). The denouement in the film is bound to
make you throw your remote at the TV screen, so be prepared for a
moment of extreme disappointment. It's not a surprise, but you'll be
madder than a sex maniac for staying with the film until the end, as
it wasted 88 minutes of your time.
As you can read, this is a less-than-satisfying giallo film from
director Umberto Lenzi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Luis G. de
Blain (screenwriter of the excellent giallo Spaghetti Western KILL
THE POKER PLAYER - 1972). He has definitely done better in
this genre (as I mentioned in the beginning of this review), as this
isn't much of a mystery at all, a child could figure it out (Maybe I
have just seen too many giallo films, but is that even possible? I
think not.). If it weren't for the good, silent performance by
Carroll Baker, an old hand at the giallo genre, appearing THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH (1968), SO
SWEET...SO
PERVERSE (1969), THE FOURTH VICTIM
(1971) and THE FLOWER WITH THE
DEADLY STING (1973) as well as some of Lenzi's films
previously mentioned in this review, this would have been an
insufferable 88 minutes. Light on both nudity and graphic violence,
two things we depend on in this genre, this film paints every male
member, with the exception of Inspector Duran, as the sex maniac, but
it is obvious to the viewer that they are all red herrings. Making
Woody a Devil worshipper goes nowhere and even when Christina is
killed (by an overdose of heroin!), we can see that Lenzi is throwing
everything he can at the screen to see what sticks and none of it
does. The plot is drier than a burnt piece of toast and the lack of
exploitable elements would try the patience of a saint. I have
certainly seen worse giallo films, but I expected more from Lenzi,
especially since most of his films from this period are so
entertaining. Not so with this film. Oh well, not everyone can be on
their game 100% of the time. Just go in knowing that you are going to
be disappointed with the ending and you may have a good time here. No
guarantees, though.
Shot as IL COLTELLO
DI GHIACCIO ("The Ice Knife") and also known as THE
DAGGER OF ICE, THE ICE PICK and SILENT HORROR,
this film had neither a theatrical or legitimate VHS release in the
United States, making its first appearance on these shores as a DVD
from Wham! USA (long OOP). There have been no updated discs since
then. I saw a rather nice widescreen print on YouTube, dubbed in
English. Also featuring Dada Gallotti (GIRL
IN ROOM 2A - 1973), Luca Sportelli (THE
MAD BUTCHER - 1972), Olga Gherardi and prolific cameo queen
Carla Mancini (DEATH
SMILES ON A MURDERER - 1973) as a bookshop clerk. Not Rated,
but there's nothing in this film that I would call explicit, which
is a major downer. UPDATE: Now
available on Blu-Ray as part of Severin
Films' 4-movie, 4-disc LENZI/BAKER
GIALLO COLLECTION BOX SET. Grab this as soon as you can
because it is sure to sell out fast!
LABORATORY
OF THE DEVIL (1992) -
This gory and repugnant sequel to the infamous MEN
BEHIND THE SUN
is now
available uncut and letterboxed on legitimate video. Thats the
good news. The bad news is that all this film contains is scene after
scene of extreme, brutal torture with barely a smidgen of plot.
During the waning days of World War II, the Japanese run an
experimental camp called Unit 731, where they use captured Chinese,
Korean and Mongolian prisoners of war for sadistic experiments to
further the cause of Japanese supremecy. Prisoners are hacked-up,
injected with deadly viruses, operated on while still alive and
subjected to every perversity imaginable. One female prisoner has her
hands frozen with liquid nitrogen and has the skin stripped away
exposing the skeleton (a very well-done, if repellent, effect).
Thats just the tip of the iceberg (excuse the pun) as much
worse is on display here. It all plays like an ILSA
film without the pubic hair and with much better effects. If watching
people getting their bodies tortured and maimed is your cup of tea (I
know youre out there, you sick sons of bitches),
youll probably squeal with glee at this one. It just turned my
stomach. Starring Wang Gang (snicker), Zhu Decheng, Andrew Yu and Hsu
Gou. Directed by Godfrey Ho (this is a huge departure from all his
cut-and-paste ninja films of the 80's, such as NINJA
TERMINATOR - 1986). Also known as MEN
BEHIND THE SUN 2 and followed by MEN
BEHIND THE SUN 3 (1994), also directed by Ho. From Dead
Alive Home Video. Dubbed into English and Not
Rated
for obvious reasons.
THE
LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH (1978) -
This Italian LAST HOUSE ON
THE LEFT (1972) clone heaps on the sleaze, but offers very
little else. Three bank robbers, Aldo (Ray Lovelock), Walter (Flavio
Andreini) and Nino (Stefano Cedrati), look for a place to hide out
when their car conks out after pulling their latest job. They come
upon the secluded titled house and burst in, taking Sister Cristina
(Florinda Bolkan) and her five young female charges prisoner (As the
trio break through the door and make their entrance, Sister Cristina
says, "What is this?" To which Nino replies, "This is
a gun and it shoots bullets."). Walter kills the maid with a
steam iron for no reason (he's a sadist) and Nino gets stabbed in the
leg with a comb when he tries to rape one of the girls in the
bathroom. Walter makes all the girls put on their bathing suits and
they go to the beach. When one of the girls tries to flag down a
passing boat, Walter threatens to push another girl's face into a
board full of protruding nails. A short time later, Walter rips off
all of Sister Cristina's clothes and makes her do a reverse
striptease, forcing her to put on her nun's clothing while dancing to
music. Walter and Aldo then rape her in the kitchen. After forcing
the girls to watch some strange porno film on TV (a naked white chick
dancing around a fully dressed black man), Walter (who, for some
reason, is wearing women's
makeup on his face) and Nino rape a girl in the living room while
Aldo makes Sister Cristina watch (He says to her, "Listen, she's
better off losing her cherry than being a dead virgin."). When a
mailman delivers a telegram to Sister Cristina, she slips him a
"Help Us" note in his tip. Sister Cristina agrees to tend
to Nino's infected leg after Aldo agrees to keep his friends off the
girls (a promise he doesn't intend to keep). Aldo tells one of the
girls that he is not violent and was only the getaway driver, but a
flashback proves the opposite. When one of the girls escapes to get
help (and discovers the mailman's dead body, his throat cut from
ear-to-ear), Aldo gives chase and catches her at the beach trying to
swim away. Aldo brings her back to the house and Nino does something
undescribable, killing her. Sister Cristina sees her bloody body and
says enough's enough. It's "an eye for an eye" time. She
gives Nino a hot shot, pumps three bullets into Walter's head (with
Nino's gun) and plays a short game of cat-and-mouse with Aldo. He
tries to sweet-talk his way out, but the girls gang-up on him,
beating him to death with garden tools (after he takes a shotgun
blast to the gut), while Sister Cristina watches in horror. Which
just proves: Turning the other cheek will just get you raped and
beaten. The only true redemption is to act just as bad as your
aggressors. Similar in tone to NIGHT
TRAIN MURDERS (1974) and THE
HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (1979), BEACH, directed
by Francesco "Franco" Prosperi (RIPPED
OFF - 1972; GUNAN,
KING OF THE BARBARIANS - 1982), is nothing but a series of
physical and mental debasements committed against the women until a
breaking point is reached and revenge is taken. I don't know about
you, but a little rape goes a long way and this film just seems to
wallow in it. There's plenty of nudity present, but none of it is the
least bit titillating, because most of the time one type of violence
or another is being performed against the women when they are naked.
This ultra-misongynistic film has the three men continuously
threatening women with guns, punching and kicking them, ripping off
their clothes and forcing sex upon them. The nadir comes when Walter
rips-off one girl's panties, shoves his fingers between her legs and
then declares that she is a virgin. Nino then takes his homemade cane
(it's nothing but a big tree branch) and thrusts it up her vagina.
This is not entertainment to me, it's filmed torture. It makes no
difference if the men get their comeuppance in the end, it's still 85
minutes of female depravity followed by a few final minutes of the
men getting what they deserve. I've never been a fan of films of this
type (I'm not crazy about LAST
HOUSE ON THE LEFT or I
SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), either). I derive no pleasure in
watching women repeatedly being abused, no matter what the outcome
is. Much like what's happening on-screen, this film was sheer torture
for me to sit through. Fans of the Rape/Revenge genre will probably
disagree. Ray Lovelock (who sings in this) has appeared in much
better films, including ALMOST HUMAN
and LET SLEEPING
CORPSES LIE (both 1974). He passed away in 2017. Florinda
Bolkan was, of course, FLAVIA
THE HERETIC (1974). Also starring Sherry Buchanan, Laura
Tanziani, Karine Verlier, Annalisa Pesce and Laura Trotter (CITY
OF THE WALKING DEAD - 1980). Also known as TERROR.
Released on Japanese DVD by Media Suits. Also available on a deluxe
two disc edition by Sazuma Productions (Region 2 PAL, there is a
hidden English language track that can only be accessed by the Audio
button on your DVD player's remote control). The second disc is a
soundtrack CD that contains Lovelock's song ("Place For The
Landing"). Not Rated.
THE
LOVE THRILL MURDERS (1971) - Troy
Donahue (in a role he would rather forget) portrays Moon, the leader
of a religious
sect who preaches a steady diet of sex and drugs, in this very loose
adaptation of the Manson massacre. After endless scenes of doing
drugs, wild orgies and warped interpretations of the Bible, Moon and
his followers graduate to the big time. They score some guns and
knives and go on a murder spree (triggered by Moon's nightmares of
being abused as a child by his father), killing a group of people
having a (what else?) drug and sex party. They stab a starlet after
Moon makes her suck on the barrel of a revolver. A lesbian is stuck
in the stomach with a meat fork. A flaming homosexual is carved up
with a dagger. A movie director has his throat cut. Finally, a
pregnant actress is stabbed repeatedly in a swimming pool. Unlike
Manson and his followers, Moon and his disciples get away with their
crimes. In true antiestablishment fashion, Moon gives the middle
finger to the American flag to close the show. Originally titled SWEET
SAVIOUR,
this film is so saturated in drug use I was getting high off the
fumes. Most of the actors (excluding Donahue) are nude through the
majority of the film, having pretty graphic simulated sex for a film
made in the early 70's. There's also some 70's fashion and dialog to
keep you amused up until the gory (but phony looking) finale.
Director Bob Roberts (PATTY
- 1975) must have had a good time making this film. With all the drug
use permeating this film, he probably doesn't remember making it
today. If viewed as a counterculture artifact, this film will keep
you amused. If you view this film in hope of finding some social
redeeming value, you'll be disappointed. Also known as FRENETIC
PARTY. Also starring Francine Middleton, Matt Greene, Talie
Cochrane and Lee Terri. A Troma
Team Video
Release, originally released on VHS by Vestron
Video. Rated
R.
MADNESS
(1994) - This late-in-the-game giallo flick, a mash-up of Dario
Argento's TENEBRE
(1982) and Umberto Lenzi's EYEBALL
(1975), was directed by Bruno Mattei (as "Herik
Montgomery"), a man who never saw a bandwagon he thought didn't
needed copying, giving us the PREDATOR (1987)/ROBOCOP
(1987) rip-off ROBOWAR
(1988), the TERMINATOR (1984)/ALIENS
(1986) clone SHOCKING DARK
(1989) and the JAWS (1975) copy CRUEL
JAWS (1994). Even though this film was made with very little
money and contains acting that can politely be described as
amateurish, it is still highly watchable for reasons I can't put my
finger on.
It's got gory effects, most of them dealing with eye removal, but we
all know that gory effects do not make a good film. It could be
because the film has a distinct '80s look and feel to it, its
downright nasty tone or the ridiculous costume the killer wears, but
I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.
The plot deals with a female fumetti (comic book) artist named
Giovanna Dei (Monica Carpanese, as "Carol Farres"), who
writes and illustrates the violent comic book "Doctor
Dark". Someone is copying Doctor Dark's killings directly from
the pages of the comic book, as if Doctor Dark (who I will refer to
as "DD" in the rest of the review) has come to life.
The film opens at a go-cart racetrack, where a group of people are
watching the races. A babysitter then notices that her charge, young
girl Irma, is missing, so she goes looking for her. She finds Irma's
toy raygun on the floor of a garage, but when she picks it up, she is
assaulted by someone dressed as DD. The killer pulls out a
two-pronged weapon and uses it to remove the babysitter's eyes (shown
in extreme close-up). DD then breaks a bottle and shoves two shards
of glass into the babysitter's empty eye sockets and poses her body
for all to see.
We then see Giovanna at a press conference, explaining to the
audience that the fictional DD is a character with a split
personality. By day he is a professor of Pagan religion and by night
he is a bloodthirsty serial killer. She then says that the theme of
split personalities dates back to the time of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and that her comic book follows that line. A female member of the
audience stands up and asks Giovanna how she replies to accusations
that her comic book has a negative effect on its readers (Does this
sound familiar?). Giovanna says that kids really like DD and it sells
very well (Not the best answer to give a room full of reporters!).
She also says that those who accuse it of unnecessary violence forget
that the real violence is dealt out to us every day on TV (Okay, now
she's being insulting to her audience, passing the blame to
television). A male reporter in the audience, Lorenzo Calligari
(Fausto Lombardi; TERROR EXPRESS
- 1979), stands up and says to Giovanna that there's a maniac out
there killing babysitters using the same methods described in her
comic book. He says DD is not only a negative influence, but her
comic book is dangerous. Giovanna slaps her hands on the table and
says it has not been proven that the murders emulate her comic book
and it's nothing but a case of "Press hype". Lorenzo says
her comic book emulates the fantasies of certain sick individuals and
the audience applauds loudly. Nico Vannelli (Gabriele Gori; THE
BRONX EXECUTIONER - 1989), a co-writer of the comic book who
is sitting next to Giovanna, stands up and defends Giovanna, telling
the audience that sick individuals existed long before he and
Giovanna created DD. Lorenzo says if it were up to him, he would burn
all this "violent sub-cultural trash" and the audience
roars in agreement (If a real-life reporter ever said this in a Press
conference, he would lose his job and not be able to find a new one.
At least that is how it use to be before 2016, but that will be my
only political statement!). Another man sitting on the opposite side
of Giovanna, Marzio Mannino (Achille Brugnini, as "Anthony
Berner"; THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD
- 1983), tells the audience to please quiet down. He is the publisher
of DD and he called this Press conference to discuss the crimes. He
tells the audience that he is deeply saddened and hopes the killer is
caught as soon as possible, but he has no plans of discontinuing DD
and it will continue to be published on its normal schedule. He warns
the audience not to be too hasty incriminating the mass media or we
all run the risk of "moral lynching." (Something that has
become so popular in our society today, it scares me). After the
Press conference is over, Marzio asks secretary Amy (Emy Valentino; PHANTOM
OF DEATH - 1987) to arrange a meeting with Lorenzo
Calligari, because he wants to get him on "our side". Amy
says it won't be easy because he is the type of person who can turn
the Press against them, but Marzio doesn't listen, kissing Amy on the
forehead, telling her that her perfume is driving him crazy and that
he needs to see her tonight, but Amy tells him she's busy tonight and
every other night. Even though everyone in the audience cheered
Lorenzo, there is a line of people waiting for Giovanna to sign their
copies of DD! One such person is Amedeo Callistrati (Antonio Zequila; VIOLENT
SHIT: THE MOVIE - 2015), who tells Giovanna that the signed
copy is not for him, it's for his fifteen-year-old nephew, who loves
the comic book. He tells Giovanna that he wants to have a word with
her, but she tells him the conference is over. He then shows her his
badge, revealing that he is a police detective and Giovanna says to
him sarcastically, "Did you come to arrest me or did you come
for the murderer's address?" He says he just wants to ask her a
couple of questions about "her" DD and she says, "If
they killed someone with an electric drill do you take it out on
Black & Decker?" (Totally ripping off Anthony Franciosa's
"Smith & Wesson" remark in TENEBRE!).
Detective Calligari looks at Giovanna, not amused, and tells her she
will be hearing from him shortly. We have met all the major players
in this film, except for one, and any one of them could be the
killer, but the question still remains: Why does DD only kill
babysitters? Was it a childhood trauma or another more recent reason?
Nico wants DD to die because he heard a rumor that Marzio is going
to discontinue the comic book, but Giovanna says no way, it is her
baby and she is not going to kill him off. When Giovanna gets back to
her office, there is a message on her answering machine from Marzio,
telling her the Press conference was great publicity, so hurry up and
finish her illustrations for the next issue, because he wants to
publish it while the iron is hot. The next message on her machine is
from the killer, who makes nonsensical remarks about eyes and then
hangs up. Giovanna thinks it is Nico playing a trick on her, that is
until she goes to get something to eat and finds two human eyeballs
pinned to one of her illustrations. They are the eyes belonging to
the babysitter at the racetrack, the cadaver of whom Detective
Callistrati is examining at the morgue with the coroner. The
Detective looks at the eyeless body and says, "Oh, my God!",
turning his head away. The coroner says he thought the detective
would be use to seeing such things, Callistrati telling him, "In
the movies, doctor, that happens only in the movies." The
coroner notices that the babysitter's body is missing a pinky finger
on her left hand, but it is not a recent wound, rather something that
happened a long time ago. The coroner also discovers that after the
killer removed the babysitter's eyes, the DD copycat then shoved a
stiletto up her nose and into her brain, just like the ancient
Egyptians once did before they mummified bodies. Detective
Callistrati pulls Giovanna and Nico into his office, telling them
that it is no longer a case of "Press hype" because DD did
the same exact thing to his victim in the latest issue. The comic
even goes as far to show the victim missing a pinky finger on her
left hand and it's too unusual and brutal to call it a coincidence.
He tells Giovanna that she has to cooperate now; the killer may have
sent her the eyes of the latest victim because he/she wants to make
contact directly with her. Maybe the killer is a fan, Detective
Callistrati asking Giovanna if she can remember anyone she came in
contact with at a book signing that struck her as odd; even the most
insignificant of things could break the case. Giovanna says no, she
can't think of anyone, but last night there was a car parked in front
of her building and she got the feeling that someone was spying on
her. She did not see what kind of car it was or write down the plates
because it was dark, telling the Detective it looked like a van. Nico
interrupts and says the best thing for Giovanna is to get away for a
while, saying that it is not safe for her to be around and he can
give the detective all the information he needs. Detective
Callistrati says that's a terrible idea, it was Giovanna who created
DD, therefore she and Nico are on call, telling them that's all for now.
Giovanna goes back to her office and the doorbell rings. Thinking
that it is Amy, she yells out that the door is open and to come in,
only it isn't Amy, it's Lorenzo. He is holding a bouquet of flowers,
which he gives to Giovanna, and he apologizes for his behavior at the
Press conference, saying, "That's just the way I am when I get
really enthusiastic about something." Even though he detests her
comic book. He's really fascinated with the symbolism of the comic,
describing DD as "the obscure side of the human being."
Giovanna asks him how he knew where she lived and he tells her Marzio
told him. He wants to interview her and she says no, she is going
away for a while. Amy appears and, against Detective Callistrati's
orders, takes Giovanna to a country villa in the middle of nowhere. A
perfect place for DD to stalk her, as we see someone in a van
watching Giovanna entering her new getaway.
DD is too busy at the moment, as we see the copycat kill a young
babysitter in the same town as Giovanna's country villa, as DD
injects her in the neck with something. We don't see DD kill the
young girl, but Giovanna gets another phone call from the killer
letting her know he/she knows where she lives. It turns out DD was in
her country villa, leaving the latest victim's eyes in a dish for
Giovanna to find. Right after she finds the eyes, Giovanna sees DD in
the house, so she runs into the bedroom and locks the door. Nico
shows up and gets into a fight with DD and when it looks like Nico
will be stabbed in the chest with a knife, a shot rings out and DD
falls to the ground. It was Detective Callistrati who fired the shot
and he pulls the mask off DD, revealing it to be Lorenzo Calligari,
who says, "I loved them all! They were all so beautiful. They're
all mine!" (in some of the worst acting you'll ever lay eyes or
ears on!). The Detective and his partner search Lorenzo's home (Why
do they kick down the door down with weapons drawn when Lorenzo is
already in custody?) and find a hidden room containing a doll that
looks like it was charred in a fire. When the Detective picks the
doll up, it begins to talk gibberish and he looks at his partner like
they just found an important clue (Maybe they heard something I
didn't?). Detective Calligari goes on TV and says this about Lorenzo
Calligari: "We could be dealing with a crank and not a
killer." (Maybe that doll did tell him something!).
After getting drunk on champagne while celebrating on Marzio's
yacht, Giovanna meets Nico's friend, Massimo (Carlo Granchi, as
"Carl Graham"), the yacht's skipper, and she and Nico go
back to the country villa to make love. Giovanna has a nightmare that
DD kills her in bed and she wakes up screaming (Whoops! I was wrong.
This is the worst acting you will ever see!). Nico tries to comfort
her and gets up to get her some warm milk, but he finds something
written on a Post-It note that gets his attention. Detective
Callistrati reads Lorenzo's statement and sees something that catches
his eye. Marzio calls Giovanna and all he gets is her answering
machine, but why does he have DD's two-pronged weapon on his desk?
Detective Callistrati goes to talk to Lorenzo, only to discover from
his doctor that Lorenzo is in a state of deep catatonia, something he
will never recover from, his condition being irreversible. He then
talks to Giovanna, telling her that he thinks Lorenzo wasn't DD, he's
only a
crank. Nico sets up Giovanna with a new temporary home, a place
Massimo owns and rents out. Marzio phones Amy and tells her to stay
in the office because they are going to pull an all-nighter and he'll
be right there. A short time later, Amy hears the front door open,
only it's not Marzio, it's DD. Amy pulls the mask off DD and gives a
surprised look (we don't see who it is). DD gives Amy a heroin
hotshot and makes it look like she is DD; typing a confession letter
and making it seem like she committed suicide (Amy is such a tiny
woman, you would have to be braindead to believe she is DD!).
By this time, it's not too hard to figure out who is really Doctor
Dark. At this point in the film, it's so obvious, it's ridiculous.
It's not so much of a whodunit, but a whyhe/shedidit. Monica
Carpanese is such a bad actress (especially during her frequent
crying and screaming jags), it's hard to care whether she lives or
dies. Even when she's nude and making love to Nico, she's a terrible
actress! It also doesn't help that the English dubbing is especially
rote, as the dubbers talk in halting, monotone sentences, even when
Giovanna has one of her crying jags. And let's talk about Doctor
Dark's look for a moment. He is dressed all in black, complete with a
black fedora, but it's the mask
that's highly unusual. Instead of zipping up in the back, it has
a long zipper in the front, going straight up the middle of the face
of the person wearing it! It not only looks uncomfortable, but it
must be extremely painful should anyone pull it off his or her face,
which happens twice in this film. But somehow, all these negative
aspects gel together and makes for an entertaining 83 minutes. The
generic slasher screenplay, by Lorenzo De Luca (JONATHAN
OF THE BEARS - 1994), steals directly from the films I
mentioned in the beginning of this review, as well as many others,
and we should be insulted, but for reason I still can't explain, it
didn't bother me in the least. Bruno Mattei was one of the very few
Italian genre film directors that worked constantly throughout the
'80s, '90s & the New Millennium, right up to his death in 2007,
giving us such "classic" films as HELL
OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980), VIOLENCE
IN A WOMEN'S PRISON (1982), RATS:
NIGHT OF TERROR (1983), SCALPS
(1987), STRIKE COMMANDO
(1987) and his classic sleaze epic THE
JAIL: THE WOMEN'S HELL (2006). There will never be anyone
like him again.
Shot as OCCHI SENZA VOLTO
("Eyes Without A Face"), this film didn't receive a
theatrical or Home video release in any format in the United States.
It can be found streaming on YouTube from user "Giallo
Realm", who offers a fullscreen print dubbed in English. Not Rated.
Oh yeah, in case you haven't guessed by now, Giovanna was Doctor
Dark. Her babysitter always locked her in a closet when she was a
young girl and told her if she cried, screamed or told anyone, the
"Man In The Dark" would get her. (Yeah, I know.)
THE
MANIAC RESPONSIBLE (1975) -
Underage schoolgirl Fiorella Ricardi (Adrianna Falco) has secret
plans one night, so she has one of her female friends cover for her
while she does whatever she does, but when she doesn't return home,
her over-protective father, Professor Ricardi (Gabriele Ferzetti),
uses his considerable influence to get the police immediately
involved in looking for her. Police detective Fernando Soni (Antonio
Sabato) and his female partner, Giovanna Nunzianti (Luciana Paluzzi),
are assigned to the case and after interviewing the Professor and his
wife, Emila (Bedy Moratti), and searching Fiorella's bedroom, they
are certain of two things: 1) The Professor has plenty of "dirty
money" he is hiding from his wife. 2) Fiorella is hiding a lot
of her activities from her parents. Since Fiorella left that night on
her motor scooter and scooters need gas, Detective Soni has his men
check all the gas stations. They find out that Fiorella stopped at a
couple of stations and was making a long trip out of town. But where
would a sixteen year-old girl be going with no money and a bathing
suit (two clues that Detective Nunzianti discovered when searching
Fiorella's bedroom)? Detective Soni has a severe distrust for people
like the Professor, who is a
surgeon (Soni hates doctors ever since he and his wife were in a bad
automobile accident and had to wait four hours for a doctor, which
resulted in his wife's death), but he still starts an earnest search
for Fiorella, using police dogs at a lake near the route that
Fiorella was traveling on her scooter. The dogs find evidence that
Fiorella was there, including blood, hashish and tire tracks from a
car. When they drag the lake, they find Fiorella's body tied to the
motor scooter, a bullet in the back of her neck. An autopsy reveals
that she was three months pregnant and Detective Soni immediately
becomes suspicious of the Professor's clinic, which seems to dole out
substandard care while the Professor and his partners get rich off
the profits. Detective Soni is hampered in his investigation by a
political system that would rather see this case swept under the rug,
but Soni continues on his quest to find the truth. It will lead him
to opposition at every clue he finds (even from his own Chief, who is
being pressured to whitewash the case). He discovers an underage
prostitution/blackmail ring, a bunch of unsavory characters and
corruption that leads up to the top rung of the Italian political
ladder. When Soni gets too close to discovering the truth of
Fiorella's murder, someone begins murdering all those that could help
him solve the case. That doesn't stop him, though, as Soni catches
the murderer. The reason why he he killed Fiorella? Simple. In the
murderer's own words: "It was her fault. She was a
slut!" This murder mystery/police procedural, directed by
Mario Caiano (EYE IN THE LABRYNTH
- 1972; NAZI LOVE CAMP 27
- 1977), paints a dim view of the Italian political system, doctors
and health care. What's most interesting about this film is that for
all the pressure put on detectives Sona and Nunziante to fail in
their investigation, they both soldier-on in their quest to find out
the truth, thanks to Soni's severe disgust of doctors (he views this
case as a way to avenge his wife's death) and Nunziante's unwavering
devotion to her partner. Antonio Sabato (GANG
WAR IN MILAN - 1973; WAR
OF THE ROBOTS - 1978) is terrific as Detective Soni, who
seethes every time he has to deal with the privileged in society,
knowing that their money and influence can buy them the kind of
justice and attention that his wife was denied. His intensity and
fury shines bright in every scene he's in, even in this dupey,
third-generation copy that I viewed. While the violence is minimal,
there are shocking scenes of full frontal nudity, especially
Fiorella's body laying naked on a morgue slab, an illegal abortion
being performed in the Professor's clinic and the murder of an
underage prostitute while she is taking a bath. Since this film was
made before the advent of DNA testing, the police procedural portions
use blood evidence and spended bullets to crack the case. It may seem
dated, but that's how it was done back then. The final third of the
film turns into a mini-giallo, as some unknown killer (POV shots)
begins dispatching people (scapel to the throat, strangulations,
etc.) to stop them from talking to Soni. It's a strange hybrid of a
film, but the performance of Antonio Sabato elevates this from the
unusual to the must-see. Politics, prostitution and murder were never
more entertaining. Shot as ...A
TUTTE LE AUTO DELLA POLIZIA... ("Calling All Police
Cars"). Also starring Marino Mase, Enrico Maria Salerno, Elio
Zamuto, Ettore Manni and Ilona Staller. Never legally available on
home video in the U.S. until Mya Communications released it on DVD
under the title WITHOUT
TRACE in 2009 (long OOP), the version I viewed came from a
blurry widescreen VHS tape in Italian with English subtitles from
Video Search of Miami. Not Rated.
THE
MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW (2014) -
First of all, I am appalled about how many torrent sites have this
movie to download for free (it is only available on streaming
services and not available on U.S. DVD yet and is available on
British DVD under the title THEATRE
OF FEAR). I got to see it streaming for free because I am a
member of Amazon Prime, but all the free downloads by these
underhanded, sleazy torrent sites guarantee it will not be available
on U.S. DVD. And there's the shame. There's an underground sensation
in South Wales called The Midnight Horror Show that precious few
people get invited to (and there's a reason for that). It's like a
circus with a little
something evil added. It is run and performed by the Moreau family.
The Master of Ceremonies is Dr. Deimos Moreau (Jared Morgan) and his
son Janus (Lee Bane) is a ventriloquist, son Apollo (Sam Harding) is
a magician, son Trinculo (Nathan Head) is a creepy clown and daughter
Venus (Shireen Ashton) is a stripper. They put performances on in
little out-of-the-way theaters and the show is killer. Literally.
Apollo picks audience member Angela (Sarah Louise Madison) to be part
of a magic trick where she is locked in a box and he thrusts several
bladed weapons through it. The audience gasps, but when Apollo opens
the box, Angela is not there. She is actually backstage tied to a
table next to a variety of sharp medical instruments. Deimos is
running a scalpel over her body, asking her, "Do you believe in
God?" Angela replies, "No!" and Deimos says a bunch of
biblical things, ending with "Vengeance is mine!", picks up
a bone saw and we hear Angela scream. Angela's boyfriend Kevin (Scott
Suter) searches the theater's backstage when she doesn't answer her
cellphone and he discovers Angela all cut to pieces and screams. The
Moreau family is already gone, taking their trailer caravan on the
road and finding a place to park for the night. Deimos is arguing
with his son Apollo for saying the word "fuck". Deimos is
very religious and won't accept bad language or blasphemy from anyone
living in his caravan. Janus is quite mad and imagines that his dummy
talks back to him, so he locks the dummy in a trunk every night.
Trinculo is covered in burns from head to toe when he was in a bar,
someone hit him over the head with a full bottle of whiskey and
someone else lit a match. He uses the clown makeup to cover his
scars. Venus is obviously Deimos' favorite sibling, as he tries to
educate her how long it takes a body to start to decompose (4 to 6
days, if you are interested). Deimos loves to pick on Apollo because
he seems to be the most independent member of the group. Deimos has
Apollo and Venus carry plastic bags of Angela's body parts (they seem
to be cannibals) to the local river and throw them in, but when
Apollo throws a briefcase in the river, Deimos makes him jump in and
get it because their mother gave it to him (Both Deimos and Venus
laugh as Apollo is in the water). Yes, the Moreau family is extremely
screwed-up. An entertainment agent called Milton Katzenberg (Victor
Ptak) taps Janus on the shoulder and tells him he saw him at the last
show (at midnight, naturally) and thinks he has enough talent to make
it big, but he's going to have to leave his family. He gives Janus
his business card and tells him to call soon; the offer has an
expiration date. At breakfast, Deimos tells his family how Hitler
loved to go to the circus and would always send flowers to the women
backstage. Janus' dummy tells him how his entire family is dragging
him down and it is time to cut the cord, so he calls Mr. Katzenberg
and signs a contract behind his family's back. Trinculo is walking in
a park (in white makeup) when he sees a couple arguing and watches in
horror as the man Vincent (Kristen Richards) hits the woman Jenny
(Tiffany Ceri). He walks up to Vincent and knocks his lights out when
he makes a balloon animal joke. Jenny leaves with Trinculo and he
tells her that she's too good for him. Trinculo and Jenny make a
coffee date for the next day. Katzenberg gets Janus an audition with
talent scouts faster than he thought he could and the dummy purposely
sabotages the audition by making pedophilia jokes and other things
that shouldn't be said out loud, so Katzenberg drops him as a client.
The next day at the coffee shop, Jenny asks Trinculo how he got his
burns and he tells her the whole sordid story. Jenny doesn't seem to
mind the way he looks, which is probably the first time since the
"accident" that a woman has pays any attention to him.
After the audition, the dummy wants Janus to kill Katzenberg and make
it bloody. If he doesn't do it, the dummy swears he will. Janus locks
the dummy in his box. A man named Mr. Goldberg (Nigel Streeter) hires
hitman Duke (Kevin Horsham) and tells him how his daughter ended up
missing after attending one of The Midnight Horror Shows. He not only
wants Duke to find out who is responsible, he wants them dead. We
then see Janus kill Katzenberg with a rope around his neck and gets
to kill his wife (Linda Bailey), too, when she comes to investigate
the noise. Duke gets the goods on the Moreau family (they all have
police records) and finds the location of the next show. Trinculo
goes to Jenny's apartment to ask her out on a date, but she sees him
kiss Vincent at the door, so he follows Vincent back to his apartment
and kills him. Janus is cutting up the Katzenbergs in the bathtub
with a saw (The dummy sings, "Janus, Janus. He loves to take it
up the anus!"). Janus then goes home and now has the voice of
the dummy permanently. Trinculo waits in Jenny's apartment and when
he turns the lights on, he is wearing the skinned face of Vincent.
Jenny goes to call the police, but Trinculo knocks it out of her
hands. He hands her a knife and tells her to kill him; that everyone
has a murderer deep inside them, but Jenny refuses and Trinculo kills
her. Janus shows his father his true colors and he likes it. Duke
hires Gunner (Kenton Hall) and The Reaper (Gypsy Lee Pistolero) to
help him kill the Moreaus. Duke will take care of Deimos and Venus,
while they can have the other three to do
with as they please, as long as they end up dead. Duke now has Venus
tied up in the trunk of his car and hammers nails into Diemos' hands
into a wooden chair. One of two of Duke's associates has some fun
with Janus and Trinculo with some good old-fashioned whipping as they
are tied to their stomachs on tables. The other associate has Apollo
padlocked to a table and begins drowning him in a Tupperware bowl
full of water, but pulls his head up before he passes out. The two
associates go outside for a smoke break. Big mistake. When they come
back, Apollo has picked the padlock (he is a magician, after all) and
kills Duke's associate. Apollo then stabs to death Duke's other
associate and saves his brothers. Apollo cuts Venus free and they go
to save their father. Duke has a gun to Deimos's head, but I guess he
forgot that Venus was an expert knife thrower. She throws a knife and
hits Duke in the upper chest. The kids remove the nails from their
father's hands, but Duke isn't quite dead yet and shoots Deimos in
the back, killing him. Apollo viciously stabs Duke over and over with
the knife. On Deimos' dying breath, he says there is nothing more
important than family. We are then at The Midnight Horror Show and
new Master of Ceremonies Apollo introduces the show to the small
audience. The show must go on! The first thing you will notice
after watching this movie is that director/producer/screenwriter
Andrew Jones (THE AMITYVILLE ASYLUM
- 2013; THE LAST
HOUSE ON CEMETERY LANE - 2015; ROBERT
[THE DOLL] - 2015) shows precious little of the actual
Midnight Horror Show, just part of Apollo's magic act. Those
expecting a gore-a-thon are bound to be disappointed (although there
are scenes that go way past what we consider good taste). Jones is
more interested in showing the Moreaus as a family unit, even though
they are all murderers. Even murderers have families and some of them
act better than normal families (if you ignore the murders, that is).
Everyone wants to be accepted and we actually feel sorry for Trinculo
when we see Jenny kiss Vincent or when the dummy makes fun of Janus
(although it is funny sometimes). Apollo seems to be the most
picked-on by his family, but it is him who comes through in the end.
Why? Because they are family. We are also shown that some
"normal" people can act worse than the murderers, such as
Duke and his two associates, who seem to get off on inflicting pain
and are monsters of their own choosing. Go into this film with an
open mind (it's more a psychological thriller than a horror film) and
this may hit your sweet spot. A lot of good DTV films are coming from
across the pond because they think differently (we also think
somewhat the same, but would never consider making a film like this
without there being a ton of gore and less family values). I
recommend this film whole-heartedly because this is not your typical
genre film. It actually has something to say. The creepy opening and
closing song was sung by Bobby Cole (who composes most of the music
for Andrew Jones' films). I'm going to watch Jones' other films to
see if they are as good as this one. Also starring Ritchie Bessart,
Shane Price, Kevin Foster and Robert Graham. No U.S. DVD or Blu-Ray
distributor at the time of this review. Not Rated.
MILANO
CALIBRO 9 (1972) - This
violent Italian crime thriller opens with sadistic criminal Rocco
Musco (Mario Adorf) blowing up three people he thinks were involved
in a theft of $300,000 belonging to mob kingpin "The Mikado"
(Lionel Stander). Rocco, after beating
them up (one is a woman and another guy has his face cut-up with a
razor), ties the trio together, puts sticks of dynamite between their
bodies, lights the fuse and blows their bodies to bits in a ravine
located somewhere in the mountains. Four years pass and Ugo Piazza
(Gastone Moschin) is released from prison. Ugo, who is a small-time
crook, is picked-up by Rocco and worked over pretty good by Rocco's
goons. Rocco believes Ugo is involved in the $300,000 theft and had
himself intentionally thrown in prison on a trumped-up charge to hide
out until the heat died down. The only problem is, the Mikado never
forgets and he has Rocco repeatedly harass and abuse Ugo, even though
he denies having anything to do with the theft. Complicating matters
for Ugo are the Police Commissioner (Frank Wolff) and his right-hand
man Fonzino (Luigi Pistilli), who want Ugo to help them put the
Mikado in prison. Ugo is a man of honor and refuses to help them,
even though Rocco makes his life miserable on a daily basis. Ugo goes
to Kino (Philippe Leroy), his old partner in crime, to help him get
the Mikado off his back and Kino tells him to go see the Mikado in
person and try to work things out (During Ugo's meeting with Kino,
Rocco breaks into the apartment and Kino and Ugo beat the crap out of
Rocco, shaming him in front of his men). Ugo goes to talk to the
Mikado and, even though doesn't believe Ugo wasn't involved in the
theft of his money, he gives him a job as one of Rocco's muscle (He
tells Ugo that Rocco can decide at any time whether he lives or
dies). Ugo visits old girlfriend Nellie (Barbara Bouchet) and they
pick up where they left off before he was sent to prison (She still
believes he stole the Mikado's money). When the Mikado and Rocco try
to blow-up Ugo in a phony package pick-up (the package is a bomb),
Ugo gets wise and joins forces with Kino when the Mikado has their
blind friend, Don Vincenzo (Ivo Garrani), killed. Ugo plays the
Mikado against Rocco when he gets the Mikado to believe a story that
Rocco may have stolen the $300,000 himself. As tensions between the
Mikado and Rocco develop, Kino does a one-man raid on the Mikado's
compound, which results in the death of the Mikado and many of his
men, but Kino loses his life in the process. The finale is a tense,
well-structured face-off between Ugo and Rocco at a
police station as we find out who actually stole the $300,000, but
the final shots (at Nellie's place) reveal a whole other unexpected
side of several characters, leading to death and a surprising bit of
final dialogue. Director Fernando Di Leo (SLAUGHTER
HOTEL - 1971; KIDNAP SYNDICATE
- 1975) keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats, thanks to
frequent nudity, bloody violence and because we really want to find
out who actually stole the $300,000. Everyone in this film believes
Ugo is responsible and the viewer doesn't know what to believe since
we have no prior background on Ugo, so we really have no idea what
type of man he really is and have to rely on tidbits of information
that the script (also by Di Leo) gives us as the film progresses.
While Gastone Moschin (MAGNUM COP
- 1978) is pretty one-note and expressionless as Ugo (he spends most
of the film brooding and chain-smoking cigarettes), Mario Adorf is
the stand-out here as the sadistic Rocco. Doing a complete reversal
of his role as the good-hearted pimp Luca Canali in Di Leo's MANHUNT
(made the same year as this), Adorf is simply wonderful as a man
without a conscience, equally happy slapping women around as he is
killing everyone he perceives as his enemies. His actions at the end
of the film, including a particular line of dialogue, will surprise
even the staunchest crime thriller fan. There is actually an honor to
his code of conduct. There's some funny dubbing (although Lionel
Stander dubs his own voice) and the goofiest bit of dialogue comes
when Fonzino yells at Ugo for taking up with Nellie again. He says,
"Playing gigilo to a belly dancer! Go on and get the hell out of
here and go play with her dangling dingleberries!" Priceless.
The beautiful Barbara Bouchet (CRY
OF A PROSTITUTE - 1974) is wasted here in a small role,
although her character plays an important part in the finale.
Speaking of the finale, it is one of the most fatalistic in recent
memory, but it seems to fit like a hand in a glove. This is not a
typical Italian crime thriller. There are no good guys or bad guys.
Just people doing what they think is right or what they are told to
do. Also known as CALIBER 9
and THE MIKADO KILLERS.
Also starring Mario Novelli, Giuseppe Castellano and Salvatore
Arico. A Raro Video DVD
Release. Also available as part of Raro Video's FERNANDO
DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION VOL. 1 Box Set. Not Rated.
MURDERLUST
(1986) - Steve
Belmont (Eli Rich) is a soft spoken sunday school teacher who likes
to pick up prostitutes. Steve is also a serial killer who strangles
his pick-ups and buries them in a mass grave in the desert. The press
label him the "Mojave Murderer" after nine bodies are found
by police in the desert.
Steve is unjustly accused of fondling a girl in his class. The girl
dislikes Steve immensely and tries to get him dismissed. No one at
the church believes the charges because he is such a "sensitive
and caring" person. The girl's father apologizes to Steve. He
gets fired from his weekday job as a gate security guard for
assaulting a female employee. He picks up a schoolgirl and kills her
while she gives him a handjob (perhaps in retribution for the
trumped-up charge at church). He is appointed head of the Adolescent
Crisis Center by his church. As you can see, Steve has a severe case
of Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. By day he is a mild mannered,
smooth-talking, church going man who helps kids and by night he is a
pathological, quick-thinking psycho killer who strangles women and
then pisses on their shared grave. His inadequacies as a man (he's
impotent) compel him to commit his acts and also gives him trouble in
consummating a love affair with his high school secret admirer
(Rochelle Taylor). While not as intense as HENRY,
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
(1986), it is similar in many ways. It is decently acted and has a
cheesy, low-rent look which actually adds to the realism. While it is
relatively bloodless, some of the action and situations are goosebump
inducing. Unlike HENRY,
Steve meets a fitting demise. The tech and acting credits consist of
unknowns but do a fine job of acquitting themselves in this minor
gem. Recommended for those who like psychological horror. Directed
competently by Donald M. Jones (DEADLY
SUNDAY
- 1982; PROJECT
NIGHTMARE
- 1985; HOUSEWIFE
FROM HELL
- 1993). A Prism Entertainment
Release. Unrated.
THE
MURDER MANSION (1972) - In
my never-ending quest to review films I saw in theaters or on TV
during my childhood, this film, known under a myriad of alternate
titles, is my next victim. This Italy/Spain co-production was one of
the initial films in the 1975 Avco Embassy's Nightmare Theater
package for TV, which was the way many people got their first taste
of European genre fare, but I saw this film before then, as part of the
theatrical "Orgy
Of The Living Dead" triple feature, under the title REVENGE
OF THE LIVING DEAD (CURSE
OF THE LIVING DEAD was Mario Bava's KILL,
BABY...KILL! [1966] and FANGS
OF THE LIVING DEAD was MALENKA,
THE VAMPIRE [1969]).
The film opens with Mr. Porter (Franco Fantasia; EATEN
ALIVE! - 1980) driving recklessly up a narrow road in his
muscle car, not letting a motorcyclist, Fred (Andrés Resino; SEVEN
MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD - 1975), pass him. After barely
making a hairpin turn, Mr. Porter cuts off a white VW Beetle driven
by Mr. Tremont (Eduardo Fajardo; CITY
OF THE WALKING DEAD - 1980), whose wife (Yelena Samarina) is
constantly complaining about his driving. Porter stops to pick up
female hitch-hiker Laura (Anna Lisa Nardi; ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK - 1972), but when he gets too handy
with her (putting his hand on her inner thigh), she tells him to
stop, which he does. Laura goes to a bar, where she meets Fred and
accepts a ride from him. Porter warns Fred and Laura that they are
making a big mistake. What does he mean?
The further everyone travels up the road, the foggier it gets,
making it almost impossible to see anything. Elsa (Analia Gade; IN
THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE - 1971) crashes her car into a
cemetery and is chased by two shadowy figures, one of them wearing
what looks like a chauffeur uniform. Mr. & Mrs. Tremont get into
an accident, but it doesn't look like it was an accident at all. Fred
and Laura ask a man carrying a scythe (Saturno Cerra), who is walking
on the side of the road (making him look like the Grim Reaper), for
directions, but his answer is more mysterious than he is. Fred
eventually crashes his motorcycle and he and Laura begin walking,
running into Elsa, who tells them about the two shadowy figures
chasing her. The threesome look for someone to help them and they
notice the village is completely empty. While walking near the
cemetery, they come upon a creepy hotel and knock on the door. Mr.
Porter answers it, gun in hand. Also in the hotel are Mr. & Mrs.
Tremont, Ernest (Alberto Dalbes; CUT-THROATS
NINE - 1971) and his creepy wife Martha Clinton ("Evelyn
Stewart", a.k.a. Ida Galli; THE
NIGHT CHILD - 1975). Martha owns the hotel, which has been
in her family for generations, and she tells this group of strangers
about the Clinton Family Curse, which is somehow connected to the
cemetery (It involves ghosts and vampires, but I was not able to make
any sense of it). Mr. Porter also tells the group that someone tried
to break into the hotel before Fred, Laura and Elsa arrived, which is
why he had the gun (sure!).
We soon learn that nearly everyone at the hotel has a secret they
would rather no one knew about and one-by-one they are getting
picked-off by
the shadowy figure dressed as a chauffeur. Is this figure a ghost, a
vampire or both? Or could it be more down-to-earth? Is one of these
secrets so deadly that a member of the group is willing to kill for it?
This film, shot under the title QUANDO
MARTA URLO DALLA TOMBA ("When Marta Screams From The
Tomb"), is very atmospheric, as fog fills every frame.
Unfortunately, the story (screenplay by Luis G. de Blain [Umberto
Lenzi's KNIFE OF ICE - 1972]
& Antonio Troiso [BEYOND
THE DOOR - 1974]) makes very little sense, throwing all
types of supernatural events into the film, as well as secret
passageways in the hotel, none of it amounting to anything. Director
Francisco Lara Polop (Producer of COUNT
DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE - 1972 and Director of THE
MONK - 1990) tries to keep our minds off the plot by
tossing-in many jump scares, some of them quite good (Such as Martha
not lifting a finger to help Mr. Porter when he is killed by the
Chauffeur. Quite the opposite, she laughs! Fred and Laura discover
his body pinned to a gravestone in the creepy cemetery), but when the
film was over, I wanted to write a review of the plot, but damned if
I could figure it out! There is a massacre at the hotel in the end,
where the real culprit guns-down the remainder of the cast, but I
sure as hell couldn't figure out why. It has something to do with a
will (this whole film plays out like a "reading of the will"
murder mystery, much like A
BAY OF BLOOD [1971], but without the bloody gore or nudity).
It could be because this film was butchered by Europix when they
released it as part of their "Orgy Of The Dead" triple
feature in order to get a PG Rating. According to the book "Blood
& Black Lace" (an essential part of my library), this
film was originally 105 minutes long and was shorn of over 20 minutes
to get the PG rating, cutting out not just the nudity and some of the
extreme violence, but also exposition needed to have this film make
any sense. It is this edit that fell into the Public Domain and is
easily available on many DVD compilations, like the DRIVE
IN MOVIE CLASSICS 50-film compilation from Mill Creek
Entertainment (which is how I viewed it). This version was also
released on VHS from both Unicorn
Video and Charter Entertainment.
When this film is released in its original form on DVD or Blu-Ray
(None at the time of this review), I will be the first to purchase
it, just to see what is missing. Also starring Jorge Rigaud (EYEBALL
- 1975), Ingrid Garbo, Felix Jose Montoya (THE
APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR - 1972), Magoya Montenegro and
Jose Louis Velasco as the Chauffeur. Also known as EXORCISM MANSION.
NOTE: The IMDb lists this film having an alternate title of MANIAC MANSION,
but that is simply not true. This is an alternate title for AMUCK
(1971) and Group 1 (the film's distributor) even uses the same
artwork! I contacted IMDb to change this listing, but they are taking
their sweet time. Rated PG. ADDENDUM:
Ignore the first paragraph and parts of this paragraph of this
review. This film was never part of the "Orgy
Of The Living Dead" triple feature. That film would be THE
MURDER CLINIC (1966), which was known under the title REVENGE
OF THE LIVING DEAD. This just proves that even the best
intentions can be wrong. I'm not changing the review just to remind
myself to do my homework better than I did here!
MURDER
OBSESSION (1981) - This
was the last directorial effort by Riccardo Freda (who sometimes used
the pseudonym "Robert Hampton"), who had many of his horror
films shown on TV in the 70's, including CALTIKI
THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (1959), MACISTE
IN HELL (1962) and THE
HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) and also made such sexual
horror films like TRAGIC
CEREMONY (1972), which could never be shown on TV, not even
today, without extensive cuts. The same could be said about this
Italian/French co-production, which is a sexy mix of horror and
giallo genres. If all the nudity and gory violence were to be edited
from this film so it could be shown on non-pay cable stations, it
would only be 30 minutes long. And a word of warning: Since this is
the complete Italian version of the film (all the U.S. VHS releases
were severely edited, but more on that later), the portions of the
film that never made it into the English-dubbed versions of this film
are shown in Italian with English subtitles. If you believe that
"Books are for readin' and films are for watchin'" (and you
probably poop in your Depends because you are too lazy to get off the
couch to go to the bathroom), you may want to skip this rather
involving and suspenseful film. The film opens with a quote from
Hieronimus A. Steinback: "For centuries
philosophers and poets have searched the universe for evidence of the
existence of the Devil. However, it would have sufficed to look for
it at the bottom of their souls." (Truer words have
never been spoken, especially for this film.). We then see a woman
being stripped topless in her apartment by an intruder dressed in
black leather. He then throws her down on her bed, strips her naked
and begins raping her, while choking her with his hands. It is then
revealed that this was all a scene for a film that is being made, and
the actor playing the intruder, Michael Stanford (Stefano Patrizi; ROME:
ARMED TO THE TEETH - 1976), was getting a little too
involved in his role and has to be pulled off actress Beryl (Laura
Gemser; BLACK COBRA
- 1976; and too many EMMANUELLE
films to mention) by the film crew. Michael takes a big swig
of J&B Scotch (a staple in Italian films) while the film's
director, Hans Schwartz (Henri Garcin; SOMEONE
BEHIND THE DOOR - 1971), congratulates him on a "very
effective scene" and goes on to say "It looked like you
really wanted to murder her!" (anything for a shot!). While at
his home, Michael relaxes by playing guitar and singing a sappy love
song (that doesn't match his lip movements), when a gust of wind
blows open a window. This somehow give him the idea of looking at
some old childhood photos, which triggers a flashback where a young
Michael runs into his loving mother's arms in a beautiful backyard.
For some reason, Michael hasn't talked to his mother in over 15
years, so he calls her and says that he and his girlfriend Deborah
Jordan (Silvia Dionisio; TERROR EXPRESS
- 1979) are coming to spend a few days with her at her country estate
and he has invited three more friends to join them later. Michael has
always had frequent flashbacks about him and his mother Glenda (Anita
Strindberg; WHO SAW HER DIE?
- 1972) and how, as a young boy, he stabbed his father (a famous
orchestra conductor) to death when he saw him beating up his mother
(he was found holding the bloody knife). Michael was committed to an
institution as a child and has partial amnesia about the event, only
remembering bits and pieces about it. When Michael and Deborah arrive
at his mother's country estate, Glenda's longtime personal assistant
(i.e. butler) Oliver (John Richardson; EYEBALL
- 1975) stares at Michael and says his resemblance to the
"Maestro" is uncanny. Michael swears he heard some music
coming from the house when he pulled up, but Oliver says that no
music has played in that house since the Maestro died. Oliver also
tells Michael that his mother is very sick and not to tell her he
told him (one of the first things Michael does when he meets his
her!) and that the electricity is out because the wiring in the house
is old and even a gust of wind knocks it out. Oliver gives Michael
his father's old bedroom to sleep in, while he escorts Deborah to her
bedroom, which is clear across the huge mansion. Deborah is
pissed-off at Michael for introducing her to his mother as his
secretary (there's a good reason for that) and it is apparent as soon
as his mother locks eyes on Michael after such a long period of time,
that she has incestual feelings for him (It could be because he looks
like his father or his mother is just into incest). It could also be
that Michael feels the same (It would be one reason whey he
introduced Deborah as his secretary). Glenda also shows Michael a
portrait of her father and how much he looks like him (In his head,
Michael hears his father say, "Michael, why did you do this to
me?"). Is it no wonder Michael hasn't visited his mother for so
many years? To prove his non-incestual masculinity, a totally nude
Michael and Deborah make love on the couch. The next day, Michael's
three other friends show up at the house: Director and avid
photographer Hans (When Hans tries to take a photo of Oliver, he
shields his face with his arms); Actress Beryl (who has still
remained friends with Michael even after almost killing her on the
movie set); and Assistant Director Shirley (Martine Brochard; THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973), who has brought her tiny pet
dog with her. When Hans asks Oliver why he didn't want his picture
taken, Beryl interjects and says, "They say when you photograph
someone, you take away a small part of his soul. It can make him very
ill...or even kill him." Beryl says her birthplace on the Island
of Martinique believes in such customs (Which begs the question: Why
did Beryl become a film actress?). A short time later, they all get
into a discussion about the occult, where Glenda says that even if it
is not real, if you believe in it strong enough, it can still kill
you (This is one of the many scenes that is not in the English
language version, yet it really is important to the story). When
everyone goes to sleep Glenda and Hans have a private conversation on
how Michael was sent to a mental institution after he killed his
father and was surprised how such a "gentle soul" could
commit such a heinous crime (Hans' mind goes back to when Michael was
choking Beryl on the movie set just a few days ago). She begs Hans
not to tell Michael what she just told him and he agrees (Believe me,
all this long-windedness really is an important part of the plot).
They also talk about reincarnation, which reveals a lot about Glenda
and Hans' personalities. In a strange scene, we see and invisible
person leaving wet footprints on the ground as it walks into
Shirley's bedroom and she screams. Beryl sees a shadow holding a
crossbow and Shirley denies to Beryl that she ever screamed. Beryl
decides to take a bath and then the lights go out, someone wearing
black gloves trying to drown her in the tub. Shirley's dog saves the
day, barking at the intruder and chasing him away, saving Beryl from
a certain death. Michael begins acting like his father and when
Deborah notices a strange ritualistic icon in a painting, she has a
strange dream (?) where a zombie-faced monk makes her go to the
basement of the mansion (her breasts are always popping-out of her
nightgown), but she finds a door that leads to outside which she
thinks will be safe, but she runs directly into a giant spider web,
complete with a big-assed black spider hanging from the web. She
escapes, only to find herself attacked by bats in a windy tunnel.
Next, she finds herself in the thick brush of the woods, where she
loses the top half of her nightgown and scratches her upper torso and
breasts while a bunch of human skulls above her bleed from their
mouths and eyes sockets all over her. Finally, she is tied to the
wall of the basement while a giant crucifix on the wall opposite her
is burning. Classical music plays (Franz Liszt's "From the
Cradle to the Grave") and a nun rips off all of Deborah's
clothes, while snakes slither at her feet and a deformed nun makes
her drink the blood of a chicken she just decapitated. Then the large
spider approaches her and grabs her legs, only to discover that the
huge spider has black hands for legs. And you thought Michael was
having problems? (Be aware that most of this sequence also doesn't
appear in the English language version of the film, but, it too,
plays an important part of the plot). Michael take all his friends to
his childhood "private kingdom": a beautiful river with a
really nice waterfall, where everyone discuss with each other all the
strange things they dreamed or happened the night before. It's not
long before most of these people will never make it out of the estate
alive. Michael tells everyone he was in a trance last night,
something his overpriced psychiatrist calls "disassociation"
and
"psychosomatic".
Hans mentions he saw Oliver walking around in a trance last night
and Michael says that ever since he was a child, he saw Oliver
sleepwalking all the time, and admits to everyone that he did kill
his father for beating up his mother. Michael cheats on Deborah and
makes love to Beryl on the banks of the river, but when he wakes up,
he discovers Beryl dead, her torso cut from her breasts down to her
vagina and Michael is holding the bloody knife (just like when he
killed his father). Hans, who we learn saw the whole thing happen,
writes a note saying that he is going to the police, but as he is
walking through his bedroom door, someone splits his skull in two
with an axe and splatters his brains all over the place. The bloody
black-gloved killer then destroys the note and drives Hans' car off
to make it look as if Hans is leaving by himself. As Shirley sees
Hans' car drive away, she notices that he has left his precious
camera behind, something that Hans would never do if he were leaving.
She begins to develop the negatives and notices something interesting
on one of them, but before she can tell anyone, she has her head
nearly cut off with a chainsaw (the same chainsaw we saw Oliver using
to make logs for the fireplace), while Deborah notices black leather
gloves in Glenda's bedroom. When Oliver serves dinner, only Glenda
and Deborah attend and Deborah notices that Glenda is wearing the
same ritualistic icon around her neck that triggered her nightmare
earlier. Or was it a nightmare at all? I'll never tell. I'll leave it
up to you to discover who the killer is (the clues are in this review
and, no. it's not Shirley's dog!). Like most giallo films, nearly
everyone is hiding a secret from their past that they are trying to
keep hidden. I will tell you this because you probably already
guessed it: Michael did not kill his father. He was an easy patsy to
blame since he was so young. It looks like years of psychotherapy
have done him more harm than good. A tape recording left behind
explains it all, but there's an unexpected supernatural angle at the
finale tied to Deborah's dreams which make the killings all the more
sinister. That's all I'll say, except if you are expecting a happy
ending, you will be bitterly disappointed. Director Riccardo
Freda (who passed away in 1999 at the age of 90) keeps you guessing
from beginning to end. When you think you have it all figured out,
the screenplay, by Freda, Antonio Cesare Corti (CITY
OF THE WAKLING DEAD - 1980) and Fabio Piccione (QUEEN
KONG - 1976), gives you another piece of information which
tosses your ideas into the garbage. While there are extreme bits of
gore (some of the effects are done by Italian effects master Sergio
Stivaletti, this being his first film), the film doesn't dwell on
them. It's basically hit and run, which is best displayed in Hans'
death by axe, It's just a quick hit, some brain matter flying in the
air and on to the next scene. If it plays for more than two seconds,
you are lucky. Too bad we can't say the same thing about the giant
spider. It is shown way too long and looks as realistic as a
Sharknado. The film (made under the title FOLLIA
OMICIDA) was originally released on VHS in the U.S. by Wizard
Video under the title FEAR,
missing over ten minutes of footage. The British VHS tapes, released
under the titles THE WAILING
and SATAN'S ALTAR,
are missing nearly twenty minutes of footage. Thankfully, Raro
Video has released the fully uncut 95 minute version on DVD, so
you won't be left scratching your heads wondering what the hell is
going on in the abridged versions. The pristine widescreen DVD also
contains some cut scenes and an interview with Sergio Stivaletti. If
you want to watch this film the way it was originally meant to be
seen, go for the DVD. Also starring Fabrizio Moroni. A Raro Video DVD
Release. Not Rated.
NAKED
GIRL KILLED IN THE PARK (1972) -
I'm well aware that the films of Alfonso Brescia (a.k.a "Al
Bradley") are pedestrian at best, deadly boring at worst. I
consider Brescia the Italian equivalent of our Al Adamson and with
titles as BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS
(1973), STAR ODYSSEY
(1978) and IRON WARRIOR
(1987), it is easy to bypass his other nearly 50 films but, just like
Adamson, I am willing to give Brescia another chance, which is why I
am reviewing this film, a giallo flick that is quite enjoyable and
twisty (if not
outstanding). Yes, I love to torture myself!
An old man is found dead as he exits the Tunnel of Horror ride in
Luna Park. His name was Johannes Wallenberger, a millionaire who made
his fortune in South America, and he purchased a million dollar life
insurance policy just a couple of hours before his death. He also
reportedly had a bag of cash on him which was not found on or near
his body. Since the policy on his life was so large, insurance
investigator Chris Buyer (Robert Hoffmann; SPASMO
- 1974) is assigned to investigate the circumstances of Mr.
Wallenberger's death. This includes getting close to his family. He
"meets" Johannes' daughter Catherine (Pilar
Velázquez; THE FLOWER WITH
THE DEADLY STING - 1973) at a party. He tells her that he is
a newspaper reporter and they quickly fall in love (Earlier in the
film, we witness Catherine getting a phone call from someone who
tells her he knows who killed her father, but she tells him to leave
her alone and she hangs up.). Will Chris be able to separate his job
from his emotions?
Catherine continues to get a series of phone calls, no one on the
other end except for heavy breathing. Then someone tries to break
into her apartment, but when she tries to call the police, the phone
is dead. A person wearing a black hood and black gloves (a giallo
staple) enters her bedroom window, holding a piece of rope as if he
is going to strangle her. Catherine screams and passes out, waking up
the next morning to a phone call from Chris. What happened last
night? Is someone trying to drive Catherine crazy?
Chris then takes Catherine to Luna Park for amusement park rides
(You gotta be kidding me!) and then to dinner and dancing. Catherine
notices a man staring at her intensely, so she grabs Chris and makes
a hasty exit. Who is this man? Chris then makes love to Catherine
(nudity alert!) and, later that day. he tells his boss (Tomás
Blanco) that Johannes' death was simply a case of robbery turned
murder, but fellow insurance investigator Martin (Philippe Leroy; MILANO
CALIBRO 9 - 1972) tells Chris that he is getting a little
too close to the major suspect. Is he, or is it all an act?
Catherine takes Chris to her palatial family mansion to meet her
mother, Magda (Irina Demick; TRAGIC
CEREMONY - 1972), and sister, Barbara (Patrizia Adiutori; TORSO
- 1973), who, almost immediately, puts the moves on Chris. He also
meets deaf mute groundskeeper Gunther (Howard Ross; WEREWOLF
WOMAN - 1976), butler Bruno (Franco Ressel; PANIC
- 1982) and maid Sybil (María Vico; VIOLENT
BLOOD BATH - 1973), all none-too-pleased that a stranger has
come for a visit. Catherine tells Chris that her mother hasn't been
the same since her father was killed and, at dinner, Barbara accuses
Catherine of murdering their father, causing Magda to slap Barbara
and Catherine passing out (again). Magda begins to act crazy, talking
to her dead husband, saying Catherine couldn't have possibly killed
him. Is Mom going bonkers or is this all an act?
That night, Chris does some investigating on his own, spying Gunther
making love to Sybil in the barn (more nudity!). The following
morning the Wallenberg household is paid a visit by police Inspector
Huber (Adolfo Celi; MANHUNT
- 1972), who theorizes that Johannes was being blackmailed, which was
why he was carrying a bag of money on him the night he was murdered.
The Inspector not-so-politely points the finger at Magda, who exits
the room in a huff. The house is then visited by Catherine's doctor,
who tells Chris he should "forget about" Catherine because
any "emotional upheaval" could be detrimental to her
"serious condition". When Chris asks what is wrong with
her, the doctor says it is something Catherine has had since she was
a child, but he will not elaborate (We do know it causes her to pass out).
Chris then pays less attention to Catherine, falling for the charms
of Barbara, making love to her, but when her dead, naked body is
found sprawled on the family property by Catherine, Inspector Huber
begins to look at Chris as a suspect. Luckily, Barbara is holding a
button in her clenched rigored fist, a button which Chris identifies
as coming from Gunther's jacket. At the same time, Catherine notices
the same strange man spying on her from a car, so she and Chris take
off in his car to try and follow him, but are unsuccessful. When they
get home, they find Magda dancing
wildly while she holds a conversation with the imaginary Johannes.
The electricity goes out in the house and someone murders Sybil,
cutting her throat. Gunther tries to kill Chris, but Chris knocks him
out. The Inspector charges Gunther with Sybil's murder but he
still thinks Magda, Catherine or even Barbara (or all three) were
responsible for Johannes' murder, killing him for his life insurance
policy and then turning on each other (Magda tells Chris that
Catherine is destined to die the same way her father did). Just who
is the killer of Johannes and Barbara? Is the Inspector correct or is
the man following Catherine responsible? All will be answered in the
film's finale. I have given you the clues, now deduce!
While not as smart or involving as most of the good giallo films,
director Alfonso Brescia does populate it with a bunch of seasoned
pros, all who have appeared in many other films in this genre. The
screenplay, by Peter Skerl (director/writer of the bad taste
beastiality film DOG LAY AFTERNOON
- 1976) & G. A. Martucci (director/writer of THE
RED MONKS - 1988), based on a story by Antonio Fos
(screenwriter of THE
VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY and CANNIBAL
MAN [both 1972]), is light on blood and violence, but the
unexpected death of a major character and the reveal of the killer in
the finale does come as a surprise. It also explains why Johannes
bought a life insurance policy, why he was killed (What significance
did South America have in films and books during the '70s?) and
exactly who the woman was in the restaurant and other places during
the run of the film (She meets a fitting demise in Luna Park courtesy
of a moving rollercoaster as she is trying to escape from the
police). This is much more enjoyable than Brescia's other films. I
know that's not saying much, but it is worth a viewing.
Filmed as RAGAZZA
TUTTA NUDA ASSASSINATA NEL PARCO (literal translation:
"Naked Girl All Murdered In The Park"), this film, an
Italy/Spain co-production, neither received a theatrical or home
video release in any form in the United States. You can buy a
fullscreen DVD-R from Amazon from questional distributor Desert
Island Classics, but I believe it is the same version that I bought
off a gray market seller: A port of a fullscreen British VHS tape
(The actual onscreen title is "Naked Girl Killed In
Park..."). As with most Italian genre films the dubbing is
atrocious and the fullscreen print is framed dead-center, cutting off
conversations (making it look like people are talking to themselves)
and visual information on the sides of the screen. Still, I can't be
too picky because it is a rare look at a giallo film from one of
Italy's less desirable directors (as least he is not as bad as Mario
Gariazzo [a.k.a. "Roy Garrett"; BROTHER
FROM SPACE - 1984]!) I love being pleasantly surprised, as I
was here. Also featuring Agustín Bescos and Teresa Gimpera (THE
PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK - 1975) as the mystery woman. UPDATE:
Available on widescreen DVD & Blu-Ray from Full
Moon Features (of all people!) under the title NAKED
GIRL MURDERED IN THE PARK. Not Rated.
NAKED
VENGEANCE (1985)
- Now
don't get me wrong here: I find most of director Cirio H. Santiago's
films to be average (and slightly above-average) at best, but he must
have been taking halucinogens here because he has turned out a
perfectly crazy rip-off of I
SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), maybe even outdoing it in sheer
sleaze factor alone. Carla, a commercial actress (Deborah Tranelli of DALLAS
[1978 - 1991] fame), watches as her husband is gunned down by a creep
he tried to stop from raping a girl. She leaves New York City for her
home town in the country and is savagely raped by five
townies in her parents house. When her parents come home and see what
is happening to their daughter, they are shotgunned by the gang and
then kill the local retard, making it look like the retard did the
killings. Thinking that Carla is dead, they leave the house and go to
a bar and get drunk. Of course Carla is not dead, just in a catatonic
state and she is brought to the hospital. The local sheriff (Bill
McLaughlin, who walks around with an expression on his face like he
was sucking on a lemon all day), doesn't quite believe the story and
wants to question Carla on what really happened. Her doctor refuses
as Carla fakes amnesia while picking off her attackers one-by-one.
She lops off the dick one one of them with a knife and, just to make
sure he suffers more, attaches a grappling hook to his chest an has
his boat drag him out to the middle of the lake to bleed to death.
Another one has a car dropped on his body as she steps on the gas and
has the tire rim cut off his legs. The leader of the raping pack,
Fletch (Kaz Garaz, who played a sheriff in the 1996 remake of HUMANOIDS
FROM THE DEEP), who is the town's butcher, knows who is
doing the killings and decides to form a posse (the whole town seems
to be full of torch-weilding hicks) and trap Carla in a house and
burn it down. Thinking Carla died in the fire (she didn't), Fletch
goes about his business in his butcher shop only to be surprised by
Carla, who cuts off his fingers with a meat slicer, plants a meat
cleaver in his back and then blows his head off with a shotgun. The
sheriff declares that Carla is dead and the killings are over. The
next time we see Carla is back in New York City, getting even with
the punk who killed her husband. This is grand sleaze which never
slacks off its premise, which is highly unusual for a Cirio H.
Santiago film (FUTURE HUNTERS
[1986] anyone?). The film moves at a brisk pace and is never boring.
It was released in both R-rated and Unrated editions, the Unrated
edition showing more of the gang rape and lingers more on the bloody
violence. Guess which version you should track down? (NOTE: It seems
that 35mm elements of the Unrated Version seem to be lost since the
only place on the entire planet where the Unrated Version was
available was the United States. Every other country got the R-Rated
version on VHS.). Mr. Santiago has directed over 100 features (many
for Roger Corman) and is highly-regarded in his homeland of the
Philippines. I consider NAKED VENGEANCE
to be his crowning achievement. A Lightning
Video Release which has been long OOP. This is another film
crying out for a DVD release (If Unrated elements are ever found).
Also starring Ed Crick, Nick Nicholson, Terrence O'Hara, Henry
Strzalkowski, Joseph Zucchero, Don Gordon Bell and a cameo
appeareance by Carmen Argenziano (HELLRAISER:
INFERNO - 2000 and TV's STARGATE
SG1 [1997 - 2007]). Also known as SATIN VENGEANCE,
but I've never seen it released under this title. Unrated.
THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE
(1971) - I remember when this film was released to U.S. theaters
(by Phase One Films) and being totally blown away by its poster and
newspaper ads, which were very graphic for the early-'70s (or any
time period, even today). This film fell into Public Domain and
reportedly has nine different edits for the English language version
alone, some edited so haphazardly, they make no sense, especially the
TV edit titled "Evelyn Raises The Dead". I held off on
reviewing this film until I could locate an
uncut widescreen version. Imagine my surprise when I found it for
free on Amazon Prime, in its original Italian language with English
subtitles. It looks beautiful and if you have only seen the PD
fullscreen DVD versions floating around (from Alpha
Video and many of those Mill Creek and Brentwood DVD
compilations), you are going to be in for a pleasant surprise.
Lord Alan Cunningham (Anthony Steffen; CRIMES
OF THE BLACK CAT - 1972) escapes from an insane asylum (by
tying his sheets together) run by Dr. Richard Timberlane (Giacomo
Rossi Stuart; WEEKEND MURDERS
- 1970), but when he tries to climb over the asylum's front gate, he
is captured by the interns. We then experience a long flashback which
explains why Alan was committed to the asylum. Alan is in a car with
hooker Polly (M. Teresa Toffano) and pays her £500 for sex and
they go to Alan's family castle. He tells Polly that he usually
doesn't come to the castle because it is full of bad memories. When
Polly asks Alan about the painting of his dead wife Evelyn, he takes
her to his medieval torture room (it is quite the sight), begins
whipping her and then ties her up. He thinks Polly is his dead
wife and he begs her to forgive him (he then has a
flashback-within-a-flashback where he and his red-haired dead wife
are prancing naked outside in the castle yard). He snaps back to
reality, killing Polly and burning her clothes, Evelyn's brother,
Albert (Roberto Maldera; NIGHT
OF THE DEVILS - 1972), who is on Alan's payroll (he is the
caretaker of Alan's wild foxes), watches all this happen. Alan is
then visited by Richard, who is worried Alan is having
"attacks" again because he is thinking too much about
Evelyn. Alan tells Richard that everything is fine; he is going to a
seance tomorrow to try and contact Evelyn. Richard leaves, telling
Alan that he thinks it is not a good idea.
We are then with Alan at the seance, joined by good friend Farley
(Umberto Raho; THE
EERIE MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW - 1974), Cousin George Harriman
("Rod Murdock" a.k.a. Enzo Tarascio; THE
DEAD ARE ALIVE - 1972), the wheelchair-bound Aunt Agatha
(Joan C. Davies) and medium Miranda (Paola Natale; SEX
OF THE DEVIL - 1971), as they try to contact the spirit of
Evelyn. Just as Evelyn is about to enter Miranda's body, Albert comes
into the room, shotgun in hand. He tells Alan that since Evelyn was
his sister, he has the right to be here and sits next to Alan. The
seance then continues and the ghost of Evelyn hoovers above the
seance table, calling Alan's name. Alan faints and then Richard
appears, worried about Alan's mental state. Miranda tells the doctor
if Alan didn't faint, he would have been able to talk to his dead
wife. Alan decides to leave the country family castle and live in the
city for good, but how long will that last? Not very long. Alan tells
George not to worry, he will not marry again and soon the Cunningham
estate will be all his. George says he is not worried about that,
he's more worried about Alan's mental state. Is he really?
We then see what we think is a funeral, as we see people carrying a
coffin and placing it on a table. It turns out to be stripper Susan's
(Erika Blanc; A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE
- 1973) nightclub routine, as we watch her rise out of the coffin and
remove her clothes. Alan is in the audience and is very interested in
Susan (Uh, oh!). Alan buys Susan a drink (He pulls on her natural red
hair thinking it is a wig. Alan has an aversion to women with red
hair, as we find out later in the film.) and asks her to spend a
weekend with him. Yes, they are back at the castle and the murderous
rage takes over Alan. Susan does a striptease in front of Alan, so he
takes her to his torture chamber, whips her and then chokes her until
she passes out. He prepares a hypodermic needle, but Susan wakes up
and tries to escape the castle...topless. She hides in the castle's
creepy garden crypt, where Alan's ancestors are buried, but Alan
injects her with something and then passes out. When he wakes up,
Susan's body is gone. Albert, who was once again watching Alan the
night before, makes a remark to Alan about how his wild foxes were
not hungry this morning. Did Albert feed Susan's body to the foxes or
did Alan? Alan pays Albert £100 and he walks away.
Alan tells Farley to restore the castle to its former glory, money
is of no consequence, but he is adamant that Farley doesn't touch the
garden crypt. He even suggests to Farley to wall-up the crypt so
strangers cannot break in. He gives Farley one month to restore the
castle. Alan then finds Susan's heart-shaped cigarette lighter on his
coffee table. How did it get there?
At the party of the unveiling of the restored castle, Alan spots a
blonde-haired young woman that catches his eye (Double Uh, Oh!). Her
name is Gladys (Marina Malfatti; A
BLACK RIBBON FOR DEBORAH - 1974) and that night he asks
Gladys to marry him (When she asks why, he says because he wants to
go to bed with her. She replies, "If I married every man who
wanted to go to bed with me, I'd never leave the church!"). He
drives her home and they make love. Once again, Alan asks her to
marry him and she says yes. Alan phones George and tells him that he
is getting married to a woman he met three hours earlier. George is
not surprised, since his cousin is quick to make snap decisions and
wishes Alan well. They get married and hold the reception at the
castle, where George is happy for them, but both Albert and Farley
seem upset. Albert tells Alan that he shouldn't have gotten married
and blames his sister's death on Alan, saying she died while trying
to give him an heir (Evelyn died during childbirth. So did the
baby.). Alan says he is happy and Albert shouldn't worry, he will
still get his monthly check (He says, "I can buy your conscience
at any time!"). Alan and Gladys seem truly happy, but Gladys
wonders why he keeps a portrait of Evelyn in their bedroom. Then some
weird shit happens in the castle, destroying the newlywed couple's
happiness. Gladys tells Alan that she saw a red-haired maid in the
kitchen, but Alan made sure he didn't hire a maid with red hair. As a
matter of fact, all the maids in the castle look exactly alike (they
all wear white wigs!),
so none of them will remind Alan of Evelyn. Alan then hears his dead
wife calling to him. Richard explains to Gladys how much Evelyn meant
to Alan and Albert warns her to get away before it is too late.
Someone wearing work gloves and carrying a deadly poisonous snake has
it bite Albert on the neck, paralyzing him, then dragging his body to
a freshly dug grave and burying him alive. Gladys has the cemetery
custodian open Evelyn's tomb, but it is empty, Evelyn's body missing.
Aunt Agatha discovers all the priceless silverware, which has been
part of the Cunningham family for over three centuries, has been
stolen. Someone then kills Aunt Agatha in her wheelchair as she is
following Gladys, who is searching the Cunningham family crypt. What
is she looking for? (and, no, it's not for Richie Cunningham's
brother! [an old joke]) When Alan discovers what she is doing, he
slaps the shit out of Gladys, but George stops him. At the same time,
someone dumps Aunt Agatha's dead body in the fox cage, the little
creatures turning her into a tasty meal.
The police are called in and Richard shows up at the castle to calm
Alan down. Is Alan involved in these murders or is something more
sinister at work? If you have read any of my other giallo film
reviews, you know I never give away the killer's identity, but I have
given you more than enough clues for you to figure out on your own.
This is actually a horror film with giallo genre overtones. If all
you have ever seen were the washed-out fullscreen P.D. prints
(including a VHS tape from VCI
Home Video), you are doing yourself a total disservice because
you should view the uncut, widescreen version, available on DVD from NoShame
Films (as part of "The Emilio Miraglia Killer Queen Box
Set", which is long OOP), Blu-Ray from Arrow
Video or streaming on Amazon Prime (which is how I viewed it).
It's like watching a different film, especially Alan's failed escape
from the asylum, which takes full advantage of the widescreen
process. Director/co-screenwriter Emilio P. Miraglia (THE
RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES - 1972) uses the castle's
exteriors and interiors to his advantage, filling the entire screen
with vital information, giving the castle a presence all its own.
While the reveal of the killer(s) is hardly a revelation, the film is
beautiful to look at and the surprise finale is just that, a
surprise. Filled with full-frontal male and female nudity (edited out
of the R-rated theatrical print, as were the coffin striptease and
much of the torture dungeon footage) and bursts of gory violence
(especially the shots of the foxes feasting on Aunt Agatha's body).
Shot Under the title LA
NOTTE CHE EVELYN USCI DALLA TOMBA (a literal translation of
the review title), this is a great way to spend 103 minutes. The wild
screenplay is by Miraglia, Massimo Felisatti (STRIP
NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER - 1975) & Fabio Pittorru (WHEN
WOMEN PLAYED DING DONG - 1971). Also starring Montinaro
Brizio and Ettore Bevilacqua as the Cemetery Custodian. Not Rated.
THE
NIGHT GOD SCREAMED (1971) - A
Manson-like cult of hippie religious fanatics, led by Billy Joe (Who
says to God: "I made them see that using dope was a way to
turn-on to you!"), kill an "unbeliever" by having
"The Atoner" (a faceless figure in a monk's robe who uses a
giant crucifix as a cane) drown her in the middle of a pond, where
Billy Joe is performing baptisms. A disillusioned Fanny Pierce
(Jeanne Crain), the wife of a preacher (Alex Nicol), helps her
husband run his "evangelizing" business, but can't help
thinking to herself that "everything is ugly...and old!"
While driving in their pickup to the next town for their revival
meeting, Fanny and her husband have a run-in with Billy Joe and one
of his disciples (Billy Joe lies down on the huge wooden cross the
reverend has in the back of his truck, imitating Christ, while his
disciple makes lewd sexual remarks to Fanny). Billy Joe turns up in
the audience at the revival meeting and, later that night, Billy Joe
and some of his disciples (including The Atoner) steal all the money
from the night's take and crucify the reverend on the wooden cross,
killing him. Fanny witnesses the atrocity and Billy Joe is arrested,
brought to trial, found guilty of murder and sentenced to death
(Billy Joe yells to the judge, "You dumb son of a bitch, you're
making me a martyr!"). Billy Joe looks at Fanny as he is led
away and says, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!" and
members of his flock surround her outside the courthouse, where Fanny
hears them say, "Die! Die! Die!", but their lips don't
move. It's not long thereafter that Fanny starts being terrorized by
thugs on motorcycles, she starts hearing voices and almost loses her
life on several occasions (or does she?). Fanny agrees to babysit
Judge Coogan's (Stewart Bradley) four overage (and unhappy to to have
a babysitter) kids for a weekend for $50 (She says, "That's a
lot of money!"). When she arrives at the house, she begins to
get a series of phone calls from a heavy breather who says,
"Vengeance is mine!" The phone line eventually goes dead
and the kids spot a strange figure in the backyard, so Fanny goes
outside to chase him away, only to discover a dummy with a note
attached to it that says simply, "Vengeance". Fanny has the
kids lock all the windows and doors and turns on all the lights. One
of the kids, Peter (Daniel Spelling), blames the intruders on Fanny
and the trial and wants her to leave before they all get killed.
Peter sends brother Jimmy (Gary Morgan) outside to get help, but
Fanny watches him get stabbed to death by The Atoner. The Atoner
breaks into the house and the kids disappear one-by-one (only
bloodstains are left) until Fanny is left alone to defend herself
from the hooded knife-weilding intruders. When Fanny fights one of
the intruders with a butcher knife, she falls down the stairs and
dies and the real intruders are revealed. Little do they know that
they have intruders of their own to deal with. This tight
little thriller is rather bloodless, but is suspenseful and
tension-filled. It's apparent that Fanny has some personal issues (we
are given clues throughout the film), but the full extent of her
problems are not revealed until the film's surprising double-whammy
conclusion. Director Lee Madden (THE
MANHANDLERS - 1973; NIGHT
CREATURE - 1978; GHOST
FEVER
- 1986), working with a script by co-producer Gil Lasky (producer and
scripter of 1970's BLOOD
AND LACE, one of the bloodiest PG-rated films ever made),
has fashioned a psychological picture puzzle where the viewer must
decide what is real and what is fantasy and you'll be surprised just
how many times you'll be wrong. Those looking for blood and gore will
be disappointed (there's very little of either) but, if you like your
films in the vein of LET'S
SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (made the same year), you'll probably
dig this "is she or isn't she" flick. Jeanne Crain (HOT
RODS TO HELL - 1966) is quite good as Fanny and co-star Alex
Nicol directed the sleazy thriller POINT
OF TERROR the same year (as well as the 1958 horror film THE
SCREAMING SKULL). THE
NIGHT GOD
SCREAMED
was one of those films I saw in nearly every video store I frequented
in the 80's but never rented, probably because of it's PG rating and
the fact that my tastes back then tended to lean toward blood-soaked
gorefests. Now that I'm older and wiser (shut up!) and my horizons
have been broadened, I can appreciate these little thriller films
that could have only been made during the 70's. Also starring James
B. Sikking, Barbara Hancock, Dawn Cleary, Miller Petitt, Jack Donner
and Michael Sugich as "Billy Joe". A Trans
World Entertainment Home Video Release. Rated PG.
NOON
SUNDAY (1971) - Special Agent Jason
Cootes (Mark Lenard) is sent to the small Asian island of Kapalu to
destroy the future site of a missile base, that will be used by the
power-mad junta to threaten the freedom of the world. Colonel Oong
(Keye Luke), on oders from his superiors, begins killing and
torturing all those he thinks are against the new military rule,
including a Catholic priest and three Caucasian freedom fighters (one
who recently lost his leg in battle), who are forced to dig their own
graves before being murdered by firing squad. Unbeknownst to Cootes,
the government has also sent aging spy Darmody (John Russell) to the
island to carry out a separate mission: Destroy the island's
electrical power plant. Both men must avoid Colonel Oong's soldiers
(they are both quite bad at it) while they try to achieve their
goals, which has to happen exactly at Noon this Sunday (no
explanation is ever given why it has to happen at that exact moment). That's
basically the whole film, folks, except it takes an
excruciatingly-long 94 minutes for the film to finally end (not 104
minutes as it's erroneously reported on the back of the VHS box,
thank God!). Needless to say, a busted eardrum is less painful than
sitting through this entire film, because you'll need to pierce your
eyelids with toothpicks to stay awake. After a promising start
(including watching a guy being riddled with machinegun fire and the
firing squad scene), this thriller, filmed on the American island of
Guam, quickly degenerates into a series of "hide and seek"
sequences where Mark Lenard (better known for portraying Mr. Spock's
father, Sarek, on STAR TREK)
and John Russell (BLOOD LEGACY
- 1971) must stay out of reach of Keye Luke (a terrific character
actor [TV's KUNG FU;
"Mr. Wing" in the two GREMLINS
films; and Charlie Chan's "Number One Son" in the series of
1930's films] who is wasted here) and his men, while they try to
reach their objectives. This looks and plays like an extended episode
of TV's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE,
with scenes of bloody violence and some nudity added. Most of the
time it's just talk, talk, talk, as we listen to the villagers
complain about Oong's treatment of their people, everyone says the
words "saboteur" and "sabotage" a lot and, for
some reason, the Catholic Church takes a verbal and physical beating.
There's not much to recommend here, as there are long stretches where
nothing at all happens, followed by short bursts of violence. The
only scene that registers any pulse was when village girl Kalin
(Linda Avery) shows her tits to Cootes and they make love. During the
middle of the nookie session, Kalin pulls out a big-ass knife and
stabs Cootes in the back. He reciprocates by strangling her with his
bare hands. When Cootes tells Kalin's brother, Kon (Bobby Canavarro),
what he has done, Kon shoves his sister's corpse into a barrell and
no one talks of it again. There's also a scene of a little girl being
shot and killed by Darmody (she was asking for it, standing in the
way between Darmody and the island's new General), but it's filmed in
such a lackadaisical manner, it fails to register. If there's anyone
to blame for this boring mess of a film, it has to lay squarely on
the shoulders of Terry Bourke (NIGHT
OF FEAR - 1972; INN OF THE DAMNED
- 1974; LADY STAY DEAD -
1981), since he not only directed, he also produced and wrote the
script. Don't waste your time. Besides a few bloody moments, NOON SUNDAY
is a total washout. It should have been called 4:30AM TUESDAY
because, after watching this, that's exactly what time you'll think
it is (if you're still awake). Joseph Zucchero, a prolific Filipino
actor, producer and writer (especially working in tandem with
director Cirio H. Santiago), was Production Manager on this film. Ken
Metcalfe, an American actor/writer who worked extensively in the
Philippines, was this film's Sound Recordist. Also starring Kim
Ramos, Gigo Tevzadze and Stacy Harris. This actually got a theatrical
release courtesy of Crown International Pictures and was released on
VHS in the mid-80's by Academy
Home Entertainment. Not available on DVD. Rated R.
OPEN
SEASON (1974) - Here's
another rarely-seen thriller whose politics and storyline could have
only come from the sleazy 70's. Three seemingly normal family men,
Ken (Peter Fonda), Greg (John Phillip Law) and Art (Richard Lynch),
divorce themselves from their families for one week a year and take a
vacation together, where they lead a life of complete debauchery.
They hunt, screw, kidnap, rape and kill (not necessarily in that
order), all without any human conscience. For that one week, they
live like laws don't exist for them and anything (and I mean
anything) goes. This year, their hunting trip will end differently
than their previous ones. After taking turns screwing a waitress in a
hotel room, the trio kidnap unfaithful married bank manager Martin
(Alberto de Mendoza) and his girlfriend Nancy (Cornelia Sharpe) by
pulling their car over
and pretending to be State Troopers. They bring the duo to the
woods, but Martin breaks loose and tries to flee in a canoe. He is
recaptured (Art shoots the canoe full of holes) and the trio bring
him and Nancy to a secluded cabin (which they built themselves) on an
island only accessible by boat. Nancy is chained to the cabin, where
she is forced to cook and clean and, later, do much worse while
Martin is forced to watch (and later participate) in the trio's
week-long game of defeating of the wills. There's one problem in all
this mess: Nancy begins to enjoy all the attention (or is it just
survival instinct?), while Martin has to watch helplessly from the
sidelines as he then becomes cook and maid to the foursome. As the
week comes to a close, the trio send Nancy and Martin packing,
although it's plain to see that it's about to become a human hunt,
ala THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME.
Given a 30 minute head start ("Run, rabbit, run!"), Martin
and Nancy split up and the hunt is on. Unfortunately, things don't
end up too well for them, even though a mystery shooter is in the
woods. Director Peter Collinson (FRIGHT
- 1971; INNOCENT BYSTANDERS
- 1972) paints the three protagonists as souless animals who find
pleasure in other people's misery. It's quite apparent that the trio
have been getting away with this type of degradation since they were
in college, as the film opens with a mother and her raped daughter
sitting down in a district attorney's office wanting to press charges
against the young trio, only to be told by the D.A. that no one would
believe three boys of such high standing would be capable of doing
such a thing. To show just how devoid of humanity they really are,
they make Nancy watch as they shoot every small animal in sight in
what turns into an orgy of quick-cutting scenes of rabbits, hawks,
ducks and geese being blown away by rifle, shotgun and pistol. Truly
disturbing. Sad to say that the film falls apart during the final 30
minutes, where it turns into your standard "hunters vs. prey vs.
hunter" scenario and all logic is thrown out the window. Up
until then, it's pretty good as Fonda, Law and Lynch chew up the
scenery as men with no moral compass and a friendship, though
demented, that is solid and unflappable. Only during the 70's would a
friendship like this be viewed as entertainment, especially the
nihilistic ending where a mystery shooter (William Holden in an
extended cameo) shows up, not to save Martin and Nancy (he couldn't
give a shit about them), but to get revenge on the trio for one of
their past aggressions. Our politically correct culture today would
not allow an ending like this to occur. And that's our loss. Also
starring Helga Line, William Layton, Bianca Estrada and Didi Sherman.
Simon Andreu is also listed in the credits as "Barman", but
I'll be damned if I could spot him. OPEN
SEASON is only available in the U.S. on VHS in a truly
wretched print by DuraVision (as RECON
GAME) and is also known as THE KILLING,
the print I viewed on DVD-R comes from a soft, but watchable, dub
from an unknown source. It also doesn't have the scene at the end
that shows Holden's character giving himself up to the police after
talking to his dead daughter's son (who was a result of the trio's
rape a few years earlier). Originally released to theaters in the
U.S. by Columbia Pictures. Rated R.
PARANOIA
(a.k.a. ORGASMO - 1969) -
Kathryn West (Carroll Baker; THE
SWEET BODY OF DEBORAH - 1968) arrives in Italy from New York
after the death of her extremely rich (and much older) husband. Her
lawyer and good friend, Brian Sanders (Tino Carraro; WEREWOLF
WOMAN - 1976), meets Kathryn at the airport and takes her to
her new home, an extravagant villa miles away from the hustle and
bustle of civilization. Housekeeper Teresa (Lilla Brignone; GANG
WAR IN NAPLES - 1972) does not seem too happy to see
Kathryn, even though they have never met. Kathryn is relying on Brian
to liquidate all of her dead husband's assets and turn them into cold
hard cash, but Brian tells her it will take some time because some of
his assets (such as a petroleum company) won't be easy to sell.
Kathryn settles in to her new home and is basically alone, except of
Teresa, whom Kathryn verbally abuses when it suits her. Enter Peter
Donovan (Lou Castel; THE
KILLER NUN - 1978), a handsome young man whose car has
broiken down at the villa's front gate. Peter asks Teresa for some
tools to fix his car, but she tells him to go away. Kathryn then
tells Teresa to get the young man what he needs. When Peter tells
Kathryn he needs a part to get his car running, Kathryn gives him a
glass of J&B
Scotch and tells him to spend the night at the villa when he
tells her he doesn't have enough money for the part and a hotel room.
As you can guess, a romance develops, and pretty soon they are taking
a shower together (What would a giallo film be without a naked shower
scene?). Kathryn tries to keep her romance with Peter a secret from
Teresa, sneaking outside in the middle of the night and secretly
ushering Peter into her bedroom to do the horizontal mambo. Kathryn
has to travel to London to settle some disagreements with her dead
husband's family over his will, but she passes out in front of Brian
when her husband's extremely elderly aunt accuses Kathryn of killing
her nephew. From that point on, Kathryn's life becomes a waking nightmare.
The first sign of trouble happens when Kathryn returns to Italy. In
the middle of the night, Kathryn is sure someone other than Teresa is
in the house. When Kathryn calls for Teresa and gets no answer, she
grabs a pistol and finds her shower running, the hot water steaming
up the bathroom. Someone locks her in a room, so she uses the pistol
to shoot the lock open. Teresa then appears and tells Kathryn that
she is imagining things. Then the phone keeps ringing, but every time
Kathryn answers it, no one is on the other end. It is quite obvious
someone is trying to drive Kathryn mad, but who? Kathryn goes to
Peter's slovemly home and demands to know why he hasn't called her.
They then make love and are interrupted mid-coitus by Peter's
landlord (Calisto Calisti; FOUR
FLIES ON GREY VELVET
- 1971), who wants the back rent and payment for the gambling debts
he has incurred (he's also a bookie). Kathryn pays-up in cash and
invites Peter to spend a week with her, telling him there will be no
more secrets from Teresa. As soon as Peter settles in, he is visited
by Eva (Colette Descombes), whom Peter introduces to Kathryn as his
sister. The threesome become great friends, Peter and Eva teaching
Kathryn how to be "young", but, as we all know, no party
lasts forever and it is obvious Peter and Eva are up to something
dastardly. Are they even brother and sister?
While all three are dancing at a disco to a live band, Eva tells
Kathryn that one of Peter's quirks is that he always says the exact
opposite of what he means (Love = Hate and vice versa). Eva gives
Kathryn pills to make her stay awake, telling her that "young
people" like to party into the early morning. She also tells
Kathryn that making love to Peter shouldn't be hidden, it should be
done out in the open for everyone to see. She keeps feeding Kathryn
pills until she doesn't know whether she is coming or going (it
looks like Kathryn has cut and dyed her hair to look exactly like
Eva, but it turns out to be a wig). Eva jokingly points a loaded
pistol at Kathryn and Peter gets furious, pushing Eva across the room
and telling Kathryn he loves playing jokes, but not when guns are
involved. Kathryn yells at Peter, telling him his brutality against
Eva is unacceptable, Peter shooting back with, "And you keep
your voice down! All of Brooklyn comes out of you!" (Ouch!).
Peter and Kathryn end up making love after Eva tells her Peter is
sorry for saying such a hurtful thing (Peter is unable to say it
himself). Kathryn tells Brian that having two young adults in her
home has given her a whole new perspective on life and youth. She
also tells Brian she has no intention of getting married again and
Brian says he is not asking her to marry him. Kathryn says, "No,
but you were about to until I stopped you." She tells Brian that
he is her closest friend and Brian says he feels the same way. She
then pops two pills in front of Brian and when he asks what they are
for, she lies and says she has been having liver problems and the
pills are medication for it. When Kathryn tells Brian she's begging
off early tonight, she drives home and finds a note on the table that
reads, "Welcome home, tramp!" She laughs and goes looking
for Peter and Eva and finds them naked in her bed making love.
Kathryn is shocked, but Peter and Eva smile at her as if they are
doing nothing wrong. Kathryn runs away crying and takes a tumble down
the stairs, knocking her unconscious.
Kathryn wakes up on the couch with Peter holding her hand, Eva
making her a drink and Teresa asking what happened. Kathryn tells
Teresa that she tripped down the stairs and that is as far as the
conversation goes. A short time later, Peter tells Kathryn that Eva
is his half-sister, same mother, different fathers. Kathryn says it's
disgusting, they both have deceived her. Eva asks Kathryn if she is
jealous, but it is her who should be jealous, but jealousy doesn't
exist for Eva (she has more quirks than Peter!). When Kathryn asks
Eva why she has come here, Eva says, "I wanted to see who was
stealing Peter fom me. And when I saw you, I realized he was right.
And you made me fall in love with you, too." Eva tells Kathryn
there are all kinds of love, kissing Kathryn passionately on the
cheek, Peter egging them on. They then have a menage-a-trois on the
bed (heavy on the lesbianism). The combination of alcohol and pills
leads to a trippy experience for Kathryn and she wakes up the
following morning with all three of them naked in the same bed.
Now is when things take a decidedly dark turn. Peter and Eva talk
Kathryn into firing Teresa, saying they don't need an old biddie
spying on them. With Teresa gone, Peter and Eva start taking over the
household, keeping Kathryn stoned or drunk and slapping her around
when she has bouts of normalcy. When Kathryn has had enough of their
abuse, she kicks them out of the house and tells them never to
return. A few days later, Eva comes to the house and hands Kathryn an
envelope. Inside it are naked photos of Kathryn and Eva together in
bed. Kathryn asks Eva how much money does she and Peter want and
Peter says to Eva, "How much does she think she's worth?"
Eva says to Kathryn, "We don't want your money. We want
you!" It turns out Peter and Eva want to run Kathryn's life down
to the smallest detail (By keeping her a prisoner in her own home,
slapping her in the face, whipping her with a belt and other forms of
physical and mental torture. They even feed her a live frog for
dinner!), but it is obvious a third person is actually running the
show and it is not too much of a surprise to realize who is
orchestrating all this, but rather than ruining the surprise and the
reason this person is doing it, I will leave that for you to
discover. I'll just say this: Don't look for a happy ending...for anyone.
This was prolific director/screenwriter (co-written with Ugo Moretti
and Marie Claire Solleville) Umberto Lenzi's first giallo film. He
would follow this up with many more, including SO
SWEET...SO PERVERSE (1969), A
QUIET PLACE TO KILL - 1970, OASIS
OF FEAR (a.k.a. AN
IDEAL PLACE TO KILL - 1971), SEVEN
BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS (1972), KNIFE
OF ICE (1972), SPASMO
(1974) and EYEBALL (1975). While
the mystery element in this film could be considered weak, there are
many other reasons why it is a good bet for giallo fans. The number
one reason is the nudity. This is the film that gave Carroll Baker's
career a second wind, thanks to her plentiful nude scenes. This film
became fairly popular all over the world because of her nude scenes,
even getting a pictorial in Playboy, which led to increased
admissions at the boxoffice. Ms. Baker was a frequent star in Italian
genre films, thanks to this movie, giallo films in particular (THE
FOURTH VICTIM - 1971; THE
DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES - 1971; THE
FLOWER WITH THE DEADLY STING - 1973; and many others,
including many of Lenzi's titles previously mentioned). The violence
level is also rather subdued for a giallo film, but this isn't a film
about violence, it's about control. Control of a person's money, life
and happiness until they are nothing more than a slave. A slave with
no reason to live. The final five minutes are very
fatalistic and very surprising (much more surprising than the reveal
of the third person), so much so, I let out an audible gasp during
one scene (pertaining to Kathryn's fate). Breaking someone down to
their basest element by the use of alcohol and drugs is nothing new
in films, but in 1969 this was considered quite shocking and Carroll
Baker does an excellent job portraying a person who wishes to be
young again, but relies on the wrong two people, who wish to do her
harm. Once you know that Peter says the exact opposite of what he
means, you can figure out what his and Eva's intentions are. The
film's mystery may be weak, but the film on the whole is very
entertaining, thanks to the frequent nudity and Ms. Baker's
on-the-nose acting talents. This is why Umberto Lenzi is one of my
favorite Italian genre directors. No matter how bad some of his films
are (such as BLACK DEMONS
- 1991), he always manages to make them entertaining. This film is a
great way to watch Lenzi get his giallo vibe going for the very first
time. In other words, it's right up my alley and should be right up
yours, too, if you are a giallo fanatic.
Shot as ORGASMO
("Orgasm"), this film obtained a theatrical
release in the United States from Commonwealth United, but, due
to the frequent nudity, it was slapped with an X-Rating by the MPAA,
even though no explicit sex or pubic hair is on view. It was released
on VHS in the U.S. by
little-known label Spotlight Video. I was going to complain that it
wasn't available on disc, but as I was writing this review, Severin
Films released it on Blu-Ray as part of a 4-movie, 4-disc LENZI/BAKER
GIALLO COLLECTION BOX SET. You should grab it as soon as
possible, because it's bound top sell out fast. It is also available
streaming on YouTube, in an uncut anamorphic widescreen print, with
no English dubbing or subtitles, by channel
"Film&Clips", or in a slightly edited fullscreen print
dubbed in English on channel "Eurotrash". I don't advise
anyone to watch films on YouTube any more, as their new commercial
policy inhibits your enjoyment of any movie (or shortform video),
thanks to them inserting as many commercials as possible willy-nilly
into the film, with no rhyme or reason as to where they insert them.
I've given up on YouTube for good and so should you. Also featuring
Franco Pesce (SHANGO - 1970),
Tina Lattanzi (THE MINOTAUR: THE WILD
BEAST OF CRETE - 1961), Jacques Stany (THE
CAT O' NINE TAILS - 1971) and Gaetano Imbro (A
LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN - 1971). Even though it was Rated
X when originally released in the U.S., it would probably garner
an R-Rating today thanks to the plentiful nudity. CONFUSION
DEPT.: When this film was released theatrically in the
United States, its name was retitled PARANOIA.
A year after directing this film, Umberto Lenzi made another giallo
film titled PARANOIA
(1970), so to avoid confusion in the U.S., its title was changed to A
QUIET PLACE TO KILL. It also starred Carroll Baker and many
times, right up till this day, the films get confused with each other
(but not by me!).
PIGGY
(2012) - Here's a film that tells the regular viewing public what
law enforcement knew all along: Vigilantes are not born, they are
created. This film may take the transformation of a "nobody"
into a "person who kills people who need killing" a little
too far, but there have been worse cases on real dockets in the court
system. Joe (Martin Compston) narrates the opening of the film about
how his friend "Piggy" (Paul Anderson), whom we first see
stomping a man in the face, became Joe's savior. Joe says that
"Piggy was an avenger", but in order to get to know him, we
first have to get to know Joe. Joe is your typical English bloke that
no one would take a second look at. He gets a job in the mail room of
a big business, where he is constantly teased and verbally assaulted
by his mailroom co-workers. Every day of his miserable life, it was
"Go to work. Get numb (smoke pot). Go to sleep.". And then
Joe's brother John (Neill Maskell) becomes involved in Joe's life and
everything turns around for him. He is actually having fun in his
life with John, playing video games, going to bars, meeting women and
generally enjoying himself. An innocuous fight between John and
another bloke in a bar at first seems like nothing, but then Joe's
life takes a 180° turn, as he is robbed by a man with a knife
(this is London, so guns are mostly out of the equation) and John is
beaten up by the guy and his friends at the bar so badly while he is
walking home, that Joe watches him die in the hospital. Everything
good about Joe's life was taken away from him in one night. And then
one night Piggy comes into Joe's life. He tells Joe that he was
John's friend years ago (even having a photo to prove it and Joe says
that he has faint memories of him). I know what you are thinking:
Piggy is an imaginary person made up on Joe's mind like in FIGHT
CLUB (1999), but you would be wrong. Piggy tells Joe that
something should be done about John's death and they become close
(You have to pay close
attention to their relationship to get some important clues). Piggy
becomes Joe's proxy vigilante, killing all those involved in John's
death one-by-one, but before he kills them, he gets the name of the
next victim. Piggy says he loved John and would kill for him (which
he has proved), but is Joe's love for John just as strong? Piggy
beats the crap out of one guy, but Joe runs away when Piggy grinds
the guy's hand into the pavement with his foot. Piggy catches up with
Joe and tells him what "acceptable injury" is and only the
truly guilty should die. They come up with a plan to kidnap one of
John's killers and wear pig noses as disguises, so they can get the
full list of names of the killers. The film makes Piggy seem like an
extension of Joe's psyche, especially when John's fiancee Claire
(Louise Dylan) comes to Joe's apartment and Piggy hides from her in
another room, but it has nothing to do with Joe's psyche. It has more
to do with Piggy keeping his identity a secret. It's also apparent
that Claire is starting to have romantic feelings for Joe, but it is
too soon...for now. Joe and Piggy put their kidnap plan into effect
(complete with pig noses, which will not elicit laughter in you,
believe me), kidnap one of the men and bring him to a filthy mens
room. Piggy tortures the guy and gets five names from him. Did Piggy
just beat the crap out of this guy (like he told Joe) or kill him, as
Joe is waiting outside because he's still is not ready to see such
ultra-violence? Joe likes hanging out with Claire, but while they are
walking down the street one night, Joe discovers the leader of John's
killers, Anthony (John Herdman), walking with his girlfriend (Kate
Korbel). Piggy and Joe kidnap Anthony that night, put a white hood
over his head and Piggy draws a smiley face on it before he beats
Anthony's head in until there is no white to be seen on the hood.
Anthony screams out that Jamie (Ed Skrein) is actually the killer,
but Piggy stomps on his head with his foot until he is dead. This
time Joe stays and watches the whole bloody ordeal, but still ends up
vomiting at the end. Joe is now a different person, who doesn't take
any more shit from his fellow mailroom workers (they actually end up
being scared of him). Joe and Piggy once again put their fake noses
on and Joe watches as Piggy slits the throat of another bar member.
Joe moves Claire into a new flat, while he and Piggy kidnap Jamie
(who ends up shitting himself), who now says Danny (Tommy McDonnell)
is the brains behind John's death. They hold him captive in the same
dirty bathroom, when a drunk friend of Claire's walks into the
bathroom and knocks Joe on his ass. It's clear by now that Claire
wants a romantic relationship with Joe, but it's hard being the
boyfriend of someone whose brother's killers he is disposing of.
Piggy frantically tells Joe that their latest escapade has been
caught on cameras, so they will have to kill Danny tonight or it will
never happen. They end up killing Danny and then go quiet for a
while. Joe is afraid that every knock on the door or phone call will
be from the police and then Piggy shows up and says they can help
other people ("We aren't done yet! We aren't fucking done
yet!"). Joe screams out "I don't even fucking know who you
are!" Turns out that Joe is correct, because when he checks out
Piggy's flat when he is not there, he discovers that the photo he
showed of him and John was a mock-up and the drawers are full of
newspaper articles on vigilante killings dating back a couple of
decades. Piggy shows up and calls Joe a "self-made victim"
(which he is) who needed a push in the right direction to balance out
the world. It seems like Piggy has been doing this kind of thing for
20 years: Picking people he sees who have suffered an unjust tragedy
in their lives and the bad guys end up getting away with it. Piggy
turns them into vigilantes because the law is useless in cases like
that. Is Piggy really a bad person? I guess it all depends on whether
you think guilty people that get away with it need killing, but the
justice system gets in the way, causing a need for them to get
justice they deserve. Claire kisses Joe, but he tells her.
"Please don't get involved with me." He tells Claire he is
leaving for good, visits John's grave and becomes the next
"avenger to the innocent". Yes, vigilantes are not born.
They are created. Director/screenwriter Kieron Hawkes (his
first feature film) makes no apologies for the extreme violence on
view because all violence is extreme. This really can't be classified
as a thriller or a horror film, because it could actually be viewed
as a documentary of how a mild-mannered picked-on person says enough
is enough and, with some major help, turns his life around. I'm not
saying I agree with the tactics shown in this film, but I have seen
too many people plead their cases down to probation or get off on
technicalities without regard for their victims or their family and
loved ones. This is a film that shows one way it could be achieved,
but to me, murder is still murder, even if the guy being killed is a
murderer. It's a slippery slope and vigilantes are as old as people
have been on this Earth, but it hardly makes a dent in crime
statistics. Judges are usually very hard on vigilantes because they
do the job judges wish they could do, but are hamstrung by the law,
so they make the vigilantes the bad guys and give them stiff
sentences. Real life doesn't end like DEATH
WISH (1974). Still, this film is pretty good and you'll need
a strong stomach for some of the violent scenes, but what is truly
scary is that there may be vigilantes out there teaching other people
how to be vigilantes. I believe that is what Kieron Hawkes was trying
to convey here. A mousy little man could become a cold-blooded killer
with just a little prying. That should scare everybody. Also starring
Roland Manookian, Jumayne Hunter, Ryan Winsley, Sonny Muslim and
Colin Burt Vidler. An Inception
Media Group DVD Release. Not Rated.
PREY
OF THE CHAMELEON (1991) - The
idea of a film dealing with a female serial killer really intrigued
me because of the rarity of its subject matter. Besides, I had been
seeing the trailer for this film on nearly every
Prism cassette I had rented for the past year and it looked
interesting. The anticipation outweighed the end result as,
unfortunately, this is a fairly routine suspenser with very little to
recommend in its' favor besides the acting talents of the cast. J.D.
(James Wilder) returns to his hometown after a four year absence to
reconcile with the girl (Alexandra Paul) he left standing at the
altar. She is now the town's deputy sheriff and even though she still
harbors deep feelings for J.D., she has a problem with his leaving
town again to take a job with an oil company. While driving to his
job, J.D. picks up a girl (Daphne Zuniga) whose car has broken down
and soon they are doing the hot and sweaty in a motel room. Little
does J.D. know that she is an escaped mental patient who kills people
and takes over their identity, burying her victims in the clothing of
her previous identity. Soon she is mimicking the movements and dress
style of J.D., even dying her hair to match his color. She knocks him
out (she doesn't kill him because he is "different from
everybody else") and locks him in the trunk of a car. She robs a
bank in the guise of J.D. and kills the guard. The deputy sheriff
teams up with an FBI agent (Don Harvey), who is in charge of
capturing the serial killer, when she learns of J.D.'s involvment in
the case. J.D. escapes from the trunk and returns to his hometown to
explain his innocence to his jilted lawperson. He is followed by the
psychotic killer (donning the disguise of the victim she pulled over
to facilitate her bank robbery escape) and she targets the deputy
sheriff as her next conquest. Beside the fleeting shots of nudity
this more or less has the look of a TV movie. The subject matter
should have been dealt with more graphically instead of the rather
bloodless affair offered here. Stick with HENRY:
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
(1986) or SILENCE
OF THE LAMBS
(1992) until a decent female serial killer film comes around.
Directed and written by Fleming B. Fuller. A Prism
Entertainment Release. Rated
R.
THE
PYJAMA GIRL CASE (1977) - When
the body of a young woman is found on the beach, shot in the throat,
her face burned to a crisp and dressed in yellow pyjamas, elderly
Inspector Thompson (Ray Milland, in a winning role) steps out of
retirement to investigate the murder (the first time we see Thompson,
he, too, is dressed in pyjamas as he is tending to his orchids). Good
thing, too, because the young inspector, Morris (Rod Mullinar),
handling the case doesn't know his asshole from his elbow. We are
then introduced to Professor Henry Douglas (Mel Ferrer) and Glenda
Blythe (Dalila Di Lazzaro), who discuss a missing friend named Evelyn
(Vanessa Vitale). After noticing that Professor Douglas keeps a
pistol in the glovebox of his car, Glenda relates a story to the
Professor about the last time she saw Evelyn (it involves yellow
pyjamas and a lesbian encounter). Is it possible that the murdered
girl on the beach is Evelyn? Not so fast. As Inspector Morris brings
in all the perverts in the area for questioning, Inspector Thompson
uses his years of experience and follows the clues, including
identifying the bullet used in the murder (it came from an American
military-issued weapon) and grains of rice found on the dead girl's
body. Inspector Morris still believes that the dead young woman was
murdered by sexual predators, since the autopsy shows she was raped
by multiple persons before she was killed, but he begins to notice
that Thompson's methods are getting results. Meanwhile, Glenda is
falling in love with Italian waiter Antonio (Michele Placido). The
only problem is, she forgot to tell her current boyfriend, Roy
(Howard Ross). The police have preserved the dead girl in a glass
enclosure and are displaying her body for the public to view (it's
quite a sight), in hopes someone can identify her. Thompson gets
closer to making her identification on his own, following clues to a
Chinese restaurant and a laundry on the docks. Glenda marries
Antonio, but still has sex with Roy on the side. Antonio grows
suspicious and Professor Douglas says nasty things to Glenda. How are
Glenda's story and Inspector Thompson's investigation tied together?
You'll have to watch the film for yourself. Needless to say, it's
surprising and unforgettable. Based on a true story, a
notorious 1934 murder in Australia that took police ten years to
solve (or was it?), this mystery film (it's not a giallo as many
people trumpet it, even though the victim was dressed in yellow) is a
fantastic piece of storytelling and must have been considered daring
for it's time. Not to give the surprise ending away, I will say this:
It's apparent that the creators of the TV series LOST
(2004 - 2010) owe a debt of gratitude to this film, as their story
structures are very similar. Director/scripter Flavio Mogherini (who
normally directed Italian comedies like LUNATICS
AND LOVERS [1976]) has fashioned a film that seems to be
telling two unrelated stories, but it all comes togethe
r
in a satisfying brew of sex, infidelity and murder. This is one of
Ray Milland's (THE THING
WITH TWO HEADS - 1972; SURVIVAL RUN
- 1978) best roles in the latter part of his career. Not only is he
believable in his role as a retired police inspector who hates
retirement, he throws himself into the character, coming across as
both gruff and gentle and upstaging everyone else who happens to be
in the frame with him. He runs-up against quite a few memorable
characters, too, including a dwarf dry cleaner, a bearded hippie who
like to masturbate, a disabled laundry worker with a busted steampipe
and an elderly gay gentleman who bathes in front of him. What's even
more shocking is that he's killed two-thirds of the way through the
film by the killer. He knows when he goes out that fateful night that
he may not come back alive, as he leaves a tape recorded message and
various clues throughout his apartment for Inspector Morris to find.
He's more than happy to go out that way because all Thompson wanted
was one last case to work on before he dies and Milland is wonderful
here displaying those emotions. The rest of THE
PYJAMA GIRL CASE is equally enjoyable (and sometimes
maddening in it's obliqueness), as Morgherini gives the film a
colorful gloss (lots of gel lighting) and slowly unravels the mystery
with some genuine surprises along the way. While light in the
violence department (although there are some grisly sights on view),
there is plenty of nudity and a satisfaction that you are watching
something truly unusual. Once you hear the theme song, "Your
Yellow Pyjama", sung by Amanda Lear (who sounds like Edith
Piaf), you will never forget it. The music score by Riz Otorlini,
which consists of harmonica, electronic and orchestral cues, also
enhances the proceedings. The droning synthesizers add an air of
urgency to some of the scenes, especially the finale, where Glenda
does something unthinkable (but well within her character) to get the
money she so desperately needs. The use of harmonica and
"wah-wah" guitar in the closing scene, combined with an
unusual visual palette (a massive seaside graveyard and a bus full of
female majorettes in costume), hits all the right emotional notes for
the viewer. It's an excellent mix of sight and sound. Also known as THE
CASE OF THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW PYJAMAS. Filmed in New South
Wales, Australia. Also starring Ramiro Oliveros, Giacomo Assandri,
Eugene Walter, Monica Rey and Antonio Ferrandiz. Available on DVD in
a very nice-looking widescreen print from Blue
Underground. Also available as part of Midnight Movies SUSPENSE
TRIPLE FEATURE 3-DVD set. Not Rated.
REAPER
(1998) - Best-selling author Luke Sinclair (Chris Sarandon),
whose novels deal with serial killers and graphic depictions of
violence and sex, is going through a severe case of writer's block
(he hasn't written a sentence in over eighteen months), so he decides
to get away from it all and drives to the small Maine coastal town of
Keeler's Point to clear his head and get away from the religious
fanatics who protest his books and spray him with red paint. Luke,
who is a recovering alcoholic and is supposed to be taking
anti-depression meds (but isn't), takes a room in Keeler's Point's
only motel and begins hitting the bottle for inspiration, only he
begins to have visions of electroshock treatments and some mysterious
person chasing a woman in the woods. When two hunters find the raped
and murdered nude body of a young woman in the woods, Sheriff Norris
(Vlasta Vrana; SCANNERS II:
THE NEW ORDER - 1990) is forced to call in the State Police
to investigate, since the small town never had a murder before. The
State Police sends Detective Sonya Lehrman (Catherine Mary Stewart; NIGHTFLYERS
- 1987) to investigate and Sheriff Norris is not happy at all, since
he's already convinced that Luke is the murderer. It seems the
killing is an exact re-enactment of one of the murders in Luke's most
recent novel, titled "Reaper", and a page from the book
describing the murder is found next to the body. Sonya is not too
sure about Luke's guilt and, since she is staying in the same motel
he is, she can keep close tabs on him. As more murders and bodies
begin piling up, all of them taken directly from Luke's novel, Luke's
visions begin getting more bizarre and he begins babbling about
doppelgangers to Sonya, which makes him look all the more guilty in
the Sheriff's eyes. Sonya, on the other hand, thinks "it's all
to simple" and believes there is another explanation. Sonya's
investigation dredges up some interesting bits of information, such
as Luke's stay in a mental institution seven years earlier due to
"alcohol abuse" and that the Sheriff was once a vice cop in
Chicago who was forced to resign for planting evidence. So who is the
killer? Sonya better figure it out soon before she becomes a victim
herself. The sudden appearance of the TV news and Luke's mistrusting
wife, Melanie (Gillian Ferrabee), who thinks he is having an affair
with Sonya (he's not), only complicates matters. Sonya is forced to
shoot a suspect (she's never killed anyone before), which drives her
into the arms of an understanding Luke. It's not the best
professional move, as you will find out in the film's conclusion,
where the killer is unmasked and motives are revealed. This
Canadian-made thriller, directed by John Bradshaw (SPECIMEN
- 1996; LETHAL TENDER -
1997) and written by Vincent Monton and Matt Dorff, is a decent
whodunit with equal measures of police procedural and mystery
elements that, unfortunately, collapses about sixty minutes in. At
first, Chris Sarandon (THE SENTINEL
- 1977; CHILD'S PLAY -
1988) comes across as a little too aloof and self-centered, but as
the film progresses, it becomes obvious that his character is highly
flawed, as more information is revealed about his background. The
citizens of Keeler's Point don't come across as the nicest people in
the world, either, especially Wilma (Joanna Noyes), the motel
proprietor who keeps her ear to the wall and reports all of Luke's
goings-on to the Sheriff. It's really disappointing when the film
falls apart two-thirds of the way through, with the appearance of a
previously unseen red herring made to look like the killer, but it's
obvious to those even with only a third grade education that he's
not. What happens after that throws the balance of the film way off
track, ruining the logic of what came before it. The violence and
nudity are fairly restrained for an R-rated production; just a couple
of quick shots of nude bodies with objects in frame hiding the
naughty bits and hardly any blood at all (just a couple of bloody
bullet squibs). The only reason I can explain the R-rating is the
foul language. Take away the swearing and this film could play on TV
uncut. That's the film's biggest flaw, because it could have used an
injection of full-fledged nudity and a bit of the ultra-violence to
make it stand out from basic cable TV dreck. There are the makings of
a good film here, but REAPER fails to succeed due to a lack of
exploitable elements fans of this genre demand. Oh, and a lazy final
third. Also starring Rob Pinnock, James Bradford, Isabelle Cyr, Doug
Sutherland, John Moore and Stephen Morgan. Available on budget DVD
from Platinum Disc Corporation. Rated R.
RED
(2008) - Film is a very subjective medium and can affect people
in totally different ways. RED will either hit you like a
painful punch to the gut or leave you bewildered, as we follow Avery
Ludlow (the excellent Brian Cox; TRICK
'R TREAT - 2007) on his odyssey of retribution. Is he a
madman or would you do the same thing? Either answer is acceptable,
yet if you are a true animal lover (as I am; animals are capable of
unconditional love, something which most humans are incapable of
understanding); the type of person who puts the same importance on
their pets as they put on any family member, then this film will
resonate and play with your emotions. Even though this film had a
troubled production history (Director Lucky McKee [MAY
- 2002; co-director of ALL
CHEERLEADERS DIE - 2013] was mysteriously fired after a few
weeks of shooting and was replaced by producer Trygve Allister
Diesen), it does not distract that this is a beautifully acted and
highly emotional piece of cinema. Avery Ludlow and his 14 year-old
dog Red do everything together. One day, while fishing in the creek,
Avery and Red are confronted by three teens; the cruel Danny (Noel
Fisher; FINAL DESTINATION 2
- 2003), Danny's yes-man Pete (Shiloh Fernandez; DEAD
GIRL - 2008) and the not-really bad Harold (Kyle Gallner; JENNIFER'S
BODY - 2009), who happens to be Danny's brother. Danny, who
is carrying a shotgun, robs Avery and when he discovers that Avery
has only twenty
dollars on his possession, shoots Red point-blank, killing him
(Danny callously says to Avery, "He's red now!"). Harold
can't believe what Danny has done, but Avery is in such a state of
shock, he doesn't even turn around to look at the teens' faces, so he
can't identify them. Instead, Avery puts Red's corpse into his pickup
truck and drives home, burying Red in the backyard. Avery sets out to
find where the teens live, so he goes to the local gun store (he can
identify the shotgun), to find out Danny's address. The sympathetic
gun store owner, also a dog owner, gives Avery Danny's address, so
Avery travels to Danny's house and confronts Danny and Harold's
extremely rich father, Mr. McCormack (Tom Sizemore; BOTTOM
FEEDER - 2006), where Danny and a nervous Harold flatly deny
having anything to do with Red's death. Sensing that he is not going
to get any cooperation from Mr. McCormack, Avery goes to lawyer
friend Sam (Richard Riehle; HATCHET
- 2007), who tells him that all that can be done legally to the teen
amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist, since Red was just
an animal. Avery, who is a widower and got Red as a present from his
dead wife for his 50th birthday, tries everything within his power
legally to get satisfaction, even talking to Pete's white trash
parents (played by Robert Englund [HEARTSTOPPER
- 2006] and Amanda Plummer [SATAN'S
LITTLE HELPER - 2004]) and appealing to their common sense
of decency (with no luck). Sam puts Avery in touch with local TV
reporter Carrie (Kim Dickens; HBO's DEADWOOD
and TREME), who does a
story on Red's death and Avery's life, which touches Avery deeply
when he watches it on TV, but someone throws a rock through Avery's
window with a threatening note attached while he and Carrie are
watching the report. Avery and Carrie become good (non-romantic)
friends, but Carrie is pulled-off the story by her editor. Avery (who
is a Vietnam War hero and has a mentally unstable son in prison who
killed Avery's wife and younger son by burning them to death with
kerosene) finally has had enough of trying to get satisfaction
legally and begins following the teens around, learning their habits
and making their lives miserable (Danny becomes so agitated, he comes
at Avery with a baseball bat, but gets it turned on him instead).
When Avery's general store burns down, he finally loses control and
turns Mr. McCormack's control over the town to his advantage. When
all is said and done, everyone suffers devastating losses, but it is
Avery who finds true redemption, not with violence (although there is
some), but with an act of kindness by Carrie. Masterfully acted
by Brian Cox (the scene where he describes to Kim Dickens what his
psychotic son did to his family is Oscar-worthy stuff, that is if the
Academy Awards cared about films like this), with a good
dialogue-heavy screenplay by Stephen Susco (THE
GRUDGE - 2004) that is based on a novel by Jack Ketchum (who
appears here as a bartender using his real name, "Dallas
Mayr"), RED is a slow-burn of
a tale that will either make you praise Avery's level-headedness
throughout most of the film or make you angry that he didn't lose
control earlier, while non-animal lovers will wonder what all the
fuss is about (and, unfortunately, I know a few people who fit that
description). When Avery exhumes Red's corpse, brings it to the
McCormack residence and lays it on their front doorstep, it sets off
a sequence of events which will soon not be forgotten, where a man's
love for his dog proves to be greater than a father's love for his
sons. To say any more would destroy first-time viewers' enjoyment, if
"enjoyment" is the right word. While this film doesn't
intentionally tug at the heartstrings the same way MARLEY
AND ME (2008; and worth viewing) does, RED perfectly
portrays the emotional devastation some people feel when they lose a
beloved pet (it's just as gut-wrenching as losing a family member).
Also starring Ashley Laurence (HELLRAISER
- 1987) as Tom Sizemore's abused wife and Marcia Barnett (Lucky
McKee's THE WOODS - 2006) as
Emma, the proprietor of Avery's general store. Not to be confused
with the 2010 Bruce Willis actioner with
the same name. A Magnolia Home Entertainment
DVD Release. Rated R.
RESURRECTION
(1999) - Due to the success of David Fincher's SE7EN
(1995), a spate of imitations followed. This is one of the best,
thanks to moody photography, a tight script (by Brad
Mirman)
and some really gory set-pieces. Transplanted New Orleans police
detective John Prudhomme (Christopher Lambert), who is battling
personal demons, is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a
Chicago man whose right arm was removed at the shoulder while he was
still alive. When Prudhomme and his new partner, the bad joke-telling
Detective Andrew Hollinsworth (the always enjoyable Leland Orser [THE
BONE COLLECTOR - 1999], who also had a small role in SE7EN),
investigate the scene, they find "He's Coming" written in
lamb's blood on the window of the victim's house. The killer has also
carved Roman numerals on the victim's back and leaves a clue that
leads Prudhomme and Hollinsworth to another victim, also missing an
arm (the left one this time), who also has a different set of Roman
numerals carved in his back. This leads to a domino effect, as the
killer leaves another clue, which leads the detectives to another
victim (missing his head), more Roman numerals, another clue and so
on. Prudhomme determines that the killer is rebuilding the body of
Christ, as the Roman numerals correspond to chapter and verses in the
Bible dealing with the Apostles. All the victims were 33 years-old
(the same age as Christ when he died) and Prudhomme theorizes that
the killer is using the missing body parts to build a body of Christ
in preparation for the Resurrection. Prudhomme himself is going
through a personal crisis of faith because, six months earlier, he
witnessed his young son getting
run-over and killed by a car we he darted out onto the street while
on his bike. Normally a very devout man, Prudhomme gave up on
religion and hasn't been to church since his son's death. Prudhomme
and Hollinsworth get some needed help when an FBI profiler named
Agent Wingate (Robert Joy) appears on the scene and offers his
expertise. The Press have dubbed the serial killer the "Numbers
Killer" and pressure is put on Prudhomme and his partner to
solve the case, so they accept his help. Prudhomme also gets help
from his old parish priest, Father Rousell (genre director and
part-time actor David Cronenberg), whom he hasn't seen or talked to
since his son's death. Prudhomme and Hollinsworth just miss catching
the killer murdering his latest victim (by removing his left leg, a
scene which will leave some viewers gagging). Since the killer is
pissed-off for nearly getting caught, he disables Hollinsworth with a
stun gun, dresses him in the killer's clothes, tapes a gun to his
hand, tapes-up his mouth and sends him out directly into the path of
waiting police, who shoot Hollinsworth in the leg with a shotgun
blast. Hollinsworth's left leg is amputated at the hospital, which is
then promptly stolen by the killer! Prudhomme vows revenge and soon
finds out that not everyone is who they say they are. He also makes a
shocking discovery at the killer's home, a sight so ghastly that not
everyone who views it will keep their lunch down. Prudhomme realizes
that the killer's last victim will be a pregnant woman named Mary,
who is about to give birth to a son (it's all in the Bible, folks!),
so Prudhomme has all the hospitals staked-out until the right woman
is found. The finale finds Prudhomme facing-off with the killer on
the hospital's roof, a baby boy's life hanging in the balance. Will
the memory of his son's death get in the way of Prudhomme stopping
this maniac once and for all? This is probably director Russell
Mulcahy's (RAZORBACK - 1984; RICOCHET
- 1991; THE SHADOW - 1994; RESIDENT
EVIL: EXTINCTION - 2007) best film since HIGHLANDER
(1986), which, oddly enough, also starred Christopher Lambert.
Mulcahy utilizes every camera trick in the book to tell the story,
using weird camera angles, distorted lenses and sped-up and
slowed-down camera cranking, most of it to good effect, although some
sequences would have been better served with a more straight-forward
approach. Mulcahy also desaturates most of the colors here, giving
the film a gritty, nearly black and white nourish feel. In nearly
every scene, the background is so smoky or dusty, you feel as if you
would choke to death if you took a deep breath. Another common theme
in Mulcahy's films is the use of water and, in this film, it's
raining in nearly every scene. The script, by Brad Mirman (who also
receives story credit along with star Lambert), does drag in spots
(the film is a little long at 108 minutes), but it generally manages
to shock the viewer on several occasions, such as the scene when
Prudhomme believes the killer has murdered his wife Sara (Barbara
Tyson), only to discover a short time later that the body is that of
his wife's visiting sister. There are numerous gory set pieces, many
more than usual in films of this type. Most of it deals with corpses
missing body parts, but there are also some gushing blood scenes,
especially the one where Prudhomme unsuccessfully tries to stem the
flow of blood from the poor sap's missing leg wound. RESURRECTION
is a good thriller that will have you engrossed from beginning to the
unforgettable end, where we view the serial killer's rancid creation.
It's hard to believe that this film was released directly to HBO and
bypassed a theatrical release. It's one of Christopher Lambert's best
performances of his career and a big improvement over most DTV crap.
Paul Pompain, the star and producer of 1974's STREET
GIRLS, was one of the Executive Producers and was also
Second Unit Director of the Chicago-lensed sequences. Useless piece
of trivia: Russell Mulcahy directed the music video for The Buggles'
song "Video Killed The Radio Star", the first music video
shown on MTV. Also starring Rick Fox, Jonathan Potts, Peter MacNeill
and Philip Williams. Released on VHS and DVD by Columbia Tristar Home
Video. Rated R.
ROAD
GAMES (1981) - A witty and
well-made thriller from late director Richard Franklin (he passed
away in 2007), who was also responsible for directing such films as PATRICK
(1978), PSYCHO II (1983; the
best of the sequels, thanks to not taking itself too seriously), LINK
(1986), FX2 (1991) and many others
and a twisty screenplay by Everett De Roche (who based his script on
Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW
- 1954, only he set it in the wide-open rather than in an apartment
complex), who did a few movies with Franklin, as well as writing the
screenplays to such gems as LONG WEEKEND
(1977), DARK FORCES (1983) and RAZORBACK
(1984). This film finds truck driver Pat Quid (Stacy Keach; DEATH
ROW - 2006) and his pet dingo Boswell (played by Killer)
driving down a lonely stretch of Australian Outback highway trying to
deliver a truckload of pork to a
strike-ridden town, when he picks up a female hitch-hiker (Jamie Lee
Curtis; TERROR TRAIN -
1980), who will only give her name as "Hitch" (It's Jamie
Lee's tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, not because she's hitch-hiking.).
Everyone in this film is playing one type of game or another, some
innocent and some deadly, but we eventually find out her name is
really "Pamela Rushworth", whose father is not only rich,
he is famous and she needs to get away from him. After some clever
back-and-forth between Pat and Hitch (one funny scene finds Pat
complaining that Boswell never barks and Hitch tells him that Boswell
is a dingo, not a dog and dingos don't bark), we find out that a Jack
The Ripper-type serial killer, called "Smith or Jones" (who
we eventually find out is played by Australian stuntman supreme Grant
Page (STUNT ROCK -
1978), who is driving a van, is also traveling this stretch of
highway and once he catches sight of Hitch, the game is one. You see,
the serial killer likes to cut-up pretty young things and only buries
parts of their bodies. What he does with the rest of the pieces is
better left for you to find out during the finale. When the serial
killer captures Hitch (there's a white-knuckle scene at a bathroom at
a rest stop on the highway, occupied by the strangest group of people
this side of a David Lynch film), the chase is on as Pat tries to
save Hitch, while the police believe Pat is the serial killer. But
just who is chasing whom? Tight dialogue (some of it very funny,
especially between Pat and Boswell) and some really tense situations
distinguish this film from most slasher films of the early 80's. For
one, there's very little blood or violence, as director Richard
Franklin makes you use your imagination during the kill scenes. And
it works. There's also a funny/tense scene where Pat is chasing the
killer down the streets of a town and the chase becomes slower and
slower as the road becomes narrower, until both vehicles become stuck
between two buildings. What happens next answers nearly all the
film's unanswered questions, like does Boswell really bark and why
does Pat's pork trailer weigh more than it did when he left the
depot? Even though this film is Rated PG, it is definitely not for
kids, as it is rather adult in nature and there are a lot of
double-endentres that will have the kids asking, "Daddy, what
does he mean by that?" I love Australian horror and thriller
films (maybe it's the deserted locations, wide panoramas where we see
nothing ahead except desert and dust and the sense of helplessness
that goes along with it) and ROAD GAMES
is no different. The Hitchcockian elements in this film must not have
been lost on Hollywood executives, who hired Franklin to direct PSYCHO
II (it was a good choice). Also starring Marion Edwards,
Thaddeus Smith, Stephen Millichamp, Alan Hopgood, John Murphy, Bill
Stacey and Robert Thompson. Originally released on VHS by Charter
Entertainment and then on widescreen DVD by Anchor
Bay Entertainment (the only way to watch this film). Rated PG.
ROAD-KILL
(1993) - A
college-bound student named Josh (Sean Bridgers) hitchhikes
cross-country to L.A. and gets picked up by Clint and Marla (Andrew
Porter and Deanna Perry), a pair of serial killers on a cross-country
killing spree. At first Josh doesn't realize
what this psychotic couple is up to (Clint super-glues a motel
clerk's mouth and nose shut and watches him suffocate!) and all three
become genuine friends. At one point Clint saves Josh from certain
doom, when Josh (who doesn't know he is wanted by the law as their
accomplice) is snatched by a truck driver who spots his photo in a
newspaper. Clint blows the trucker's guts out with a shotgun. Josh
begins to suspect something is horribly wrong when he witnesses Clint
and Marla murder Stupid the Clown (billed simply as
"Himself" in a scene-stealing performance), a foul-mouthed
performance artist they pick up on the road. When Josh refuses to
participate in the killing, Clint and Marla tie him up and promise
him a slow death. Marla dies (her head goes through a window) after
unsuccessfully trying to seduce a bound and gagged Josh. When Clint
spots Marla's body, he strings Josh up by the neck and shoots him in
the knee. Interrupted by an ill-timed police visit, Josh breaks free
and slits Clint's throat. The next time we see Josh, he is picking up
a female hitchhiker. I guess he really wasn't much different than
Clint and Marla after all. This gritty, low-budget drama packs an
emotional wallop that will stay with you for quite a while. Well
acted by a cast of relative unknowns, the dialogue is delivered in a
true-to-life fashion that doesn't seem phony. This is a welcome
addition to the recent spate of serial killer movies, including
Oliver Stone's over-hyped (but still interesting) NATURAL
BORN KILLERS
(1994) and the mostly crappy DTV films on real-life serial killers
that flooded shelves in the 00's (see my review of B.T.K.
[2007]). Believe it or not, this is another good film to be released
by Action International Home Video (see review of TRAPPED
ALIVE).
Director Tony Elwood (KILLER
- 1989) elicits good performances and, most of all, makes good use of
rural backgrounds, turning them into regions where anything and
everything could happen. This film should be high on your rental
list. Released as ROAD
KILL U.S.A.
on video. An A.I.P. Home Video
Release. Not
Rated.
THE
SALTON SEA (2002) - I've read a lot
of bad press about Val Kilmer: "He's difficult." "I'll
never work with him again." "This guy's got an ego the size
of Texas." Frankly, I don't give a shit. Watch him in this movie
and you'll see one of the best actors of our generation. Even though
this film had a limited theatrical release, nobody seemed interested
at the time except a few critics, some who saw it for what it really
was: A slam-bang thriller with a personal edge so sharp, that the
viewer could get cut just for getting caught up in it. Kilmer
portrays a man with a mission. At first he's Tom Van Allen, a
musician who sees his wife (Chandra West) murdered by a pair of
masked gunmen who rip-off a meth-amphetamine lab (run by
musician/actor Meat Loaf), that they stop by when they get lost on
the road. A single red hair
recovered on her body makes Kilmer take on another identity, Danny
Parker, a tweaker who hangs out with the dregs of society in hopes of
finding the person who put a bullet in his wife's head. He teams up
with a pair of corrupt cops (Anthony LaPaglia of WITHOUT
A TRACE [2002 - 2009] and Doug Hutchinson of THE
X-FILES [1993 - 2002]) and rats out some suppliers to them
after they force him to do their bidding or go to jail. Parker wants
to set up a big deal with Pooh-Bear (the always interesting Vincent
D'Onofrio of LAW
& ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT [2001 - 2011]), a man who lost
his nose from sniffing so much "gak" that he had a plastic
nose attached to his face. Parker knows who the killer is and goes
about setting up the ultimate trap to get his revenge. It involves a
Chinese cowboy (B.D. Wong of OZ [1997
- 2003]), $250,000 dollars in cash and a case of mistaken identity.
There are so many double and triple crosses in this film that in the
hand of a lesser director, this could be very confusing. Luckily,
director D.J. Caruso (BLACK CAT RUN
- 1998; he would later graduate to the big time with the films TAKING
LIVES [2004]; DISTURBIA
[2007] and EAGLE EYE [2008],
the last two starring Shia LaBeauf) has a firm grasp on Tony Gayton's
screenplay and never loses his grip, turning in one of the best
thrillers of 2002. There's some welcome humor also present, including
Adam Goldberg's plan of stealing Bob Hope's stool sample (!) and
selling it on eBay. It doesn't turn out well (All This happens while
an old guy [Tom Fitzpatrick] in a wheelchair sings "Take A Walk
On The Wild Side") . It also presents the tweaker's life as one
of the ugliest lifestyles, living in dirty flophouses filled with
puking dopeheads and people who never stop talking. Other acting
honors go out to Peter Sarsgaard as Parker's best "friend"
Jimmy the Finn, who still stays his friend even when he finds out who
Parker really is. It's a scene that would put a lump in anyone's
throat who has a pulse. D'Onofrio is a hoot, one part scary bastard
and one part sideshow freak (you'll do a double-take when you see him
without his fake nose). He's always interesting to watch, going all
the way back to his performance as Private Pyle in FULL
METAL JACKET (1987). But the film belongs to Val Kilmer, who
imbues his characters with a humanity rarely seen in films of this
type. You can see that it's a struggle for him to remember his Tom
Van Allen life, as he keeps everything that reminds him of that life
neatly packed in a suitcase under his bed, occasionally opening it
and putting on his suit and fedora and playing his horn to keep the
memory of his dead wife alive. While the ending may seem a little pat
(I was kind of glad it turned out the way it did, even if it should
have ended differently), you'll be totally engrossed in the
characters and what happens to them. I don't say this much, but as
soon as the movie ended, I wanted to watch it again (I did!). It was
even better the second time. Also starring Luis Guzman, Glenn
Plummer, Deborah Kara Unger, Danny Trejo, R. Lee Ermey and a
penis-hungry badger (Don't ask. Just watch the film.) Eriq La Salle (ER
[1994 - 2009]) and Frank Darabont (THE
GREEN MILE - 1999) are two of the producers. A Warner
Home Video DVD Release. Rated R.
SCALPEL
(1976) - One of the most overlooked thrillers of the 70's. I
remember that when I first got HBO in the late 70's, this was one of
the first films that I saw. It left an impression then and still
leaves an impression today. When plastic
surgeon Robert Lansing is caught killing his daughter's boyfriend by
her, she leaves home and never returns. When Lansing's father passes
away and leaves Lansing's daughter (Judith Chapman) five million
dollars and the estate, Lansing comes up with a plan to take a beaten-to-a-pulp
stripper and create her in his daughter's image. He succeeds and
teaches her everything there is to know about his daughter and his
family in exchange for half of the five million dollars. The only
problem is that his real daughter was an accomplished pianist and his
fake daughter can't play a lick. This one little tick turns Lansing's
life upside down when his real daughter returns and begins her life
back at home as if nothing has ever happened. Double and
triple-crosses ensue, with a truly satisfying ending that puts all
the missing pieces together. I really miss the late Robert Lansing.
He always had this cool exterior which covered an even blacker
interior. His first starring role was in the interesting horror film 4D
MAN in 1959 (re-released as MASTER
OF TERROR in 1965) and had a long and varied career in films
and TV before succumbing to cancer in 1994. When his real daughter
returns home, he looks really pleased even though we know that he has
a lot of explaining to do. He answers every one of his daughter's
questions with answers that sound so honest that we almost forgive
him for everything that he's done. He even sets up killings with such
pinache and bravado, that he almost seems non-human. Judith Chapman (DEAD
SPACE - 1991) has a field day in her dual role as we never
know which one is the more evil of the two. It turns out that they
are both equals, both with plans of their own. Throw in some gory
plastic surgery footage and enough sleazy action to keep your
interest (incest is implied and, in the case of his fake daughter,
carried out), toss in some very tricky plotting and what develops is
a very satisfying film. I thoroughly enjoyed it and so should you.
Also starring Arlen Dean Snyder as money-hungry Uncle Bradley (who
only gets ownership the family dog at the reading of his father's
will!), David Scarroll, Laura Whyte (BLOOD
SALVAGE - 1989) and Bruce Atkins.
Director/producer/screenwriter John Grissmer directed just one other
film, the gory slasher flick BLOOD
RAGE (1984 - a.k.a. NIGHTMARE
AT SHADOW WOODS in a severely edited form). He also produced
and co-wrote THE BRIDE (a.k.a. THE
HOUSE THAT CRIED MURDER - 1973). Also known as FALSE
FACE. A Charter
Entertainment Home Video Release. Rated R.
SCHOOLGIRLS
IN CHAINS (1973) -
Normal-looking Frank (Gary Kent; SATAN'S
SADISTS - 1969) and his retarded brother John (John Stoglin)
troll the highways in their old Packard looking for young women to
kidnap and bring home, where they are locked in the basement and used
as sexual playthings under the instructions of their strict mother
(who keeps her face hidden under a shawl). Their latest victim is Sue
(Merrie Lynn Ross; BOBBIE
JO AND THE OUTLAW - 1976), who meets two other girls in the
basement: Ginger (Suzanne Lund), who has been held captive for two
weeks, and the sickly Stevie (T.R. Blackburn), who has been there for
over two months. When Sue tries to escape by tricking simpleton John
into playing a game of Hide and Seek, brother Frank kills her with a
shotgun blast to her back. After playing a game of "doctor"
with Ginger (that turns into a torture session), John brings her to
the parlor (wearing a dog collar and a leash) to "play"
with Frank, who strips her naked and tries to rape her, but he's
sexually incapable of completing the act. Ginger asks, "Did you
ever have a girl, Frank?" to which Frank
responds, "Once, but Mother didn't approve." This triggers
a flashback where Frank introduces his fiancée to his mother
(Greta Gayland). Mother instantly disapproves (She fakes heart pains
so Frank will massage her breasts) and when Frank is out of earshot,
she tells his fiancée that she and Frank engage in incest on a
regular basis and the fiancée runs away, never to be seen
again. Mother tells Frank that "all women should be in
cages" and from that moment on, that is the way Frank treats
women. Back to the present, John wants a new girl to play with, so he
and Frank kidnap college girl Bonnie (Cheryl Waters; MACON
COUNTY LINE - 1974, here using the name "Leah
Tate"). She is locked in the basement with Ginger and Stevie
(who is now near death), but she holds out hope that her boyfriend,
college professor Robert (Stafford Morgan; THE
ALPHA INCIDENT - 1978, here using the pseudonym "Robert
Matthews", the name of his character in this film) will find
her. Robert finds a piece of evidence that will eventually lead him
to Frank and John's home, but the question soon becomes: Will he get
there in time before Frank and John ruin her as a woman? Bonnie
briefly escapes and discovers the decaying corpse of Frank and John's
mother in one of the bedrooms. So who is actually disguising
themselves as dear, old Mom? When Robert rescues Bonnie, they both
discover Frank has hanged himself and John is whimpering "Mama!
Mama!" over-and-over beside his swinging corpse. This is not the
ending most viewers of this type of entertainment have come to
expect. Whether it is good or bad depends on your tolerance level.
Me? I liked it. This is the first directorial effort from Don
Jones (he also produced and wrote the screenplay), who later gave us
such enjoyable genre efforts as THE
LOVE BUTCHER (1975), THE
FOREST (1981) and MOLLY
AND THE GHOST (1991). While SCHOOLGIRLS
IN CHAINS is slow-moving and relies a little too much on PSYCHO
(1960) for plot devices, it does have an air of sleaziness that
permeates every frame, starting with the creepy opening titles, which
show a series of bizarre and ugly dolls while an even creepier song,
titled "Triangles, Circles and Squares", plays in the
background. There's also plenty of nudity (including full frontal by
Ms. Lund), but very little blood or gore. It's the sleaze factor that
really carries the film, though, and it's enhanced by a rare starring
role from genre vet Gary Kent (also the Production Manager here), who
recently wrote an autobiography ("Shadows & Light:
Journeys With Outlaws in Revolutionary Hollywood" from
Dalton Publishing) that should be read by every fan of B films (he's
really led an interesting life). The rather abrupt ending is at least
different for a film of this type and adds a human element to the two
villains. Unusual enough for at least one viewing. Ron Garcia, who
directed the exploitation oddities THE
TOY BOX (1970) and SWINGERS
MASSACRE (1975), was Director of Photography here. Also
starring Russell Lane, Ervin Sanders and Herb Goldstein. Originally
released on VHS by World Premiere Home Video under the title LET'S
PLAY DEAD and available on DVD from Code
Red under the title GIRLS
IN CHAINS. Retail outlets (like Best Buy) made Code Red
remove the word "SCHOOL" from the DVD cover art (the actual
print retains the full title) because they considered it too
"risqué" to be on their shelves. Once again,
political correctness wins out over common sense. Also known as COME
PLAY WITH US and ABDUCTED.
Available on a double
feature DVD from Code Red
under its full title with the awful film TERROR
CIRCUS (a.k.a. BARN
OF THE NAKED DEAD - 1974). Rated R.
SEVEN
BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS (1972) -
Here's an entertaining giallo film by one of Italy's best genre
directors. Supposedly based on a story
by Edgar Wallace, as well as Cornell Woolrich's novel
"Rendezvous In Black", this film also has an unusually
large cast of genre pros, so we have a huge amount of red herrings to
choose from.
A serial murderer, dubbed "The Half-Moon Killer" by the
Press (based
on the half-moon lockets he leaves on his victims), has warned the
police that he will claim seven victims, but one woman has survived
his slaughter. She could hold the key to unmasking the killer, but at
what cost?
We first see the black-gloved killer sneaking into a house,
switchblade in hand. He enters a bedroom where a middle-aged woman is
sleeping. He viciously stabs the woman when she wakes up,
looking at a photo of her daughter on the nightstand. He then drives
to the daughter (Gabriella Giorgelli; WOMEN
IN CELL BLOCK 7 - 1973), who is a prostitute waiting for a
john at a local hooker walk. The killer picks her up in his classy
car and drives her to a field on the bank of the Tiber River, where
she strips topless. The killer then pummels her with a metal bar
until her bloody body lies dead on the ground, leaving a half-moon
locket in her hand. Police Inspector Vismara (Pier
Paolo Capponi; THE
CAT O'NINE TAILS - 1971) arrives at the scene the next
morning and asks Lt. Palumbo (Aldo Barberito; ROME:
ARMED TO THE TEETH - 1976) to find out the hooker's real
name and to find out why she was called "La Toscana" on the
street. Giulia Torresi (Uschi Glass; ANGELS
OF TERROR - 1971), who is about to marry clothing designer
Mario Gerosa (Antonio Sabato; THE
MAN WITH ICY EYES - 1971), gets a phone call from the killer
at the boutique she owns, but he hangs up. Mario spends his last day
as a bachelor at an art gallery with a bunch of "abstract
painters", where the killer calls the gallery and asks to speak
to "Kathy Adams", but when the gallery owner says he will
look for her, the killer hangs up the phone. We then see that the
killer was calling from inside the gallery and he watches as Kathy
Adams (Marina Malfatti; THE
RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES - 1972) picks up the phone and
discovers there is no one on the other end. What is the killer's game?
We soon find out. Kathy leaves the gallery and goes home (to feed
her cats). As she is getting ready for bed, she hears her cats
moaning and goes to investigate, finding her three cats lying on the
kitchen floor, poisoned by the milk she just fed them. The killer
then stabs Kathy in the neck, leaving a half-moon locket on her dead,
topless body. What is the connection between Kathy and "La
Toscana"? The Inspector wants to know, too, as he hasn't
identified "La Toscana" yet and orders Lt. Palumbo to dig
up some info on her so he can have some idea who he is dealing with.
The next time we see Giulia and Mario, they are married and
traveling by train to have a quick honeymoon. When Mario leaves their
compartment to go get a sandwich, the killer strikes, slicing away at
Giulia with a straight razor, but the conductor hears the commotion
and interrupts the killer before he can leave the half-moon locket.
At Giulia's funeral, the police take photos of every male person that
attended, thinking the the killer would be there. Mario is able to
identify everyone in the photos, except for one (It's a photo of Lt.
Renzi [Franco Fantasia; THE MURDER MANSION
- 1972]; a trick perpetrated by Lt. Palumbo without the Inspector's
knowledge). Mario tells the Inspector that he has known Giulia for
three years, ever since her father died, and he doesn't believe she
has any connection to the two other murdered women, but the Inspector
is not so sure. It is at this time that we discover that Giulia is
very much alive, her funeral a ploy to get the killer to expose
himself. Is it possible that the killer is in the photos that Mario identified?
Giulia is not able to identify Kathy because she didn't know her,
but she is able to identify "La Toscana". Her name was Ines
and she worked as a maid at a hotel her father once owned (She was
called "La Toscana" because the hotel was in Tuscany).
Giulia tells the Inspector that Ines was engaged to Giovanni Rau
(Nello Pazzafini; CONTRABAND
- 1980), an unpleasant man who took advantage of Ines' position and
stole from the hotel. Giulia and Ines "denounced" Giovanni
(whatever that means) and he swore to get even. The Inspector and Lt.
Palumbo grill Giovanni (complete with a bright light shining on his
face!), but they get nowhere, even though he confesses (but they
don't believe him).
Giulia and Mario then go on a trip, where he gives her a half-moon
keychain and tells her it was a present from the Inspector (WTF?!?).
Giulia looks at the keychain and tells Mario that she recognizes it.
It looks exactly the same as a keychain left on a table at her
father's hotel two years earlier. All she can remember about the man
who left it was that he was American, tall, young, but his face
escapes her. She knows he wasn't a client of the hotel, as he would
only eat there every once in a while. Giulia also remembers he lived
in a resident's hotel on the River Del Sole. Mario postpones their
trip and they head to the resident's hotel, where Mario pretends to
be a private investigator and grills the hotel manager. Mario gets
nowhere, but Giulia gets an idea to check the hotel's registry books
since, by law, they have to keep them for five years. She hopes
seeing the American's name will trigger an identity in her mind (It's
a good plan). Giulia remembers it was the end of the season, in
September or October of 1969, but when she and Mario look at the
books, the page for September 29, 1969 is missing. Is the killer that
intelligent to get rid of any evidence that can identify him? Giulia
and Mario are shocked to discover that Kathy Adams stayed at the
hotel on September 28 & 30, so she must have been there on the
29th. Did she remove the page and, if she did, why? Giulia and Mario
are able to deduce that seven women (including Giulia) were at the
hotel that weekend in 1969 and two of them are dead (three if you
count Giulia). Is it possible that the other four women, Anita Ferri,
Elena Marchi, Concetta De Rosa and Anna Sartori, are next on the
killer's list? A priest (Renato Romano; THE
SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY - 1970) turns up every once in a while
to supply Mario and Giulia with vital information, but why does it
always sound like a warning?
We discover that Elena Marchi (Rossella Falk; BLACK
BELLY OF THE TARANTULA - 1971) is in an insane asylum and
believes the Devil wants to kill her. Anita Ferri died a year ago of
natural causes. Concetta De Rosa (Petra Schürmann; SCHOOL
OF FEAR - 1969) lives in Palermo and Anna Sartori (Marisa
Mell; MARTA - 1971) married the
wealthy Palmieri (Ivano Davoli) and are currently touring Australia.
Mario deduces that Elena is the next person on the killer's list, so
he and Giulia head for the asylum, but they are too late, as the
killer has made his way into Elena's room and drowns her in the
bathtub (an incredibly tense scene). The killer attacks Mario,
stabbing him in the arm and Giulia sees the killer fleeing. The
Inspector, who has two policemen stand guard over Giulia and Mario,
goes to Palermo to talk to Concetta, who is a school teacher. Mario
ditches the police and talks to Raffaele Ferri (Claudio Gora; MAD
DOG - 1977), the widower of the deceased Anita, and comes up
with a drawing of the American based on Raffaele's memory (He looks
like Charlie Brown!). Mario begins showing the drawing on the
streets, where a beggar notices him as a friend of Barrett (Bruno
Corazzari; THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH
- 1971), a man who throws sleazy sex parties. Mario finds Barrett at
one of his sex parties and he tells Mario that the American's name is
Frank Saunders, but he hasn't seen him since July of 1969, when Frank
got "hung up on some chick" and then disappeared. Concetta
goes to church for Confessional and when the Inspector realizes it
was a trap set up by the killer, he races to the church (another
incredibly tense scene), only to find Concetta dead in the
confessional, strangled with a half-moon locket in her hand. Mario
gets close to finding Frank and when he gets too close, the killer
calls him on the phone and sets up a meeting. Mario discovers the
grave marker of Frank Saunders in a cemetery, who died on September
30, 1969. Beneath the headstone lie seven orchids stained with red
and Mario asks the cemetery custodian who left the orchids. He
doesn't know, but he tells Mario this is the first time anyone has
visited Frank's grave since he died. Mario discovers Frank died in a
car accident just outside of Rome and the unknown woman driving the
car that killed Frank left the scene, making his death a murder.
Meanwhile, the Inspector meets Anna Sartori and her husband at the
airport, as they have just returned from Australia.
Think you know who the killer is? You better, because I am not going
to give it away. Just as in all my giallo reviews, I have given you
enough information for you to figure out on your own.
Director/co-screenwriter Umberto Lenzi (OASIS
OF FEAR - 1971; KNIFE OF ICE
- 1972; SPASMO - 1974; EYEBALL
- 1975) has crafted a twisty story with many unexpected reveals.
While not overly violent, the mystery will have you riveted
to your seat and the frequent nudity by a cast of beautiful actresses
will have your eyes wide open. As a matter of fact, when Anna is
murdered by the killer with a Black & Decker electric drill, it
is the most brutal murder in the film and it took me by surprise
because it was unlike any other killing before it. Particularly
effective is the sequence where the killer stalks Giulia when he
finds out she is still alive. My fingernails were never shorter,
because I was biting them constantly (The death of the killer in
Mario's huge underground swimming pool is a real nail-biter!). Above
all, the mystery makes perfect sense, as the story (Screenplay by
Lenzi & Roberto Gianviti [DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972]) doesn't take one false turn like
many giallo flicks from this period. This is one of the better
early-'70s giallo films, worthy of being part of your film library.
Filmed as SETTE
ORCHIDEE MACCHIATE DI ROSSO ("Seven Orchids Stained In
Red"), this never received a theatrical or legitimate VHS
release in the United States, making its first appearance on these
shores courtesy of a widescreen DVD from Shriek Show/Media Blasters,
which is long OOP. My review is based on the excellent Blu-Ray
from Code Red, which is
available in its original Italian with English subtitles (my
preferred way of watching foreign films) or English dubbed. The print
is blemish-free and looks and sounds wonderful, especially Riz
Ortolani's (HORROR CASTLE
- 1963) effective and haunting music score, which adds greatly to the
film's tension. Extras on the disc include one of Lenzi's final
interviews (he passed away late in 2017), where he tells us he based
this film on Cornell Woolrich's novel and not on a Edgar Wallace
story as the German co-producers claimed. He and Roberto Gianviti
sued the producers when they saw German posters claiming that it was
a film based on an Edgar Wallace story and they won. Lenzi has
nothing but good memories about making the film and says that Antonio
Sabato tried to seduce every woman who appeared in the film. Who can
blame him when all the women are beautiful? I sure can't. The disc
also contains vintage interviews with Lenzi and actress Gabriella
Giorgelli (ported over from the Shriek Show DVD) and running
commentary from Troy Howarth. Look for an extremely young Camille
Keaton (I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
- 1978) as a hippie chick sitting on a couch during Barrett's sex
party. Also starring Linda Sini (WAR
OF THE PLANETS - 1966), Enzo Andronico (SPECIAL
COP IN ACTION - 1976), Fulvio Mingozzi (TRAGIC
CEREMONY - 1972), Tom Felleghy (FOUR
FLIES ON GREY VELVET - 1971), Fulvio Pellegrino (THE
DEVIL WITH SEVEN FACES - 1971), Ivana Novak (THE
RED HEADED CORPSE - 1972) and the prolific Carla Mancini (FLAVIA
THE HERETIC - 1974) as Anna's maid. Not Rated. UPDATE:
Also available on a double-feature
budget DVD from Alpha Video,
with the film NAKED MASSACRE
(1976), but both films are in fullscreen.
SEVEN
MURDERS FOR SCOTLAND YARD
(1971) - An unseen sexual psychopath walks the streets of
modern-day London (where we see movie marquees for X-rated films like WILD
WILLING AND SEXY [1969] and ALYSE
AND CHLOE [1970]) and picks up a prostitute ("You wanna
make it?"). The killer follows her home and then stabs her to
death with a knife hidden in a cane. We are then introduced to Pedro
(Paul Naschy), an ex-trapeze artist-turned-drunk when he blew out his
knee during an act he performed with his wife at a circus. When his
cheating wife is the next one killed by the gloved psycho, Pedro is
questioned by Scotland Yard Commissioner Campbell (Renzo Marignano).
The murdered women have had some vital organs surgically removed,
which makes this case similar to the Jack The Ripper murders in the
late 1800's. Just like in that unsolved series of murders, the killer
begins sending Commissioner Campbell a series of taunting letters. As
more women are killed and their organs removed, we are introduced to
more characters, one who could be the killer, including Commissioner
Campbell's best friend, Winston (Andres Resino), a school teacher,
where one of his female students is killed in the school's gymnasium.
Commissioner Campbell still believes Pedro is the culprit because his
alibis are too good to be true and Pedro also has two years of
medical training. The police get a phone call from "Jack The
Ripper", who gives them an address to where his latest victim is
located. When the police arrive, they find a drunk Pedro in bed with
a murdered prostitute, her liver missing. Pedro manages to get away
(using his trapeze training), but is shot and injured when he runs
away. Commissioner Campbell (who was mysteriously missing during
Pedro's near-arrest) professes his love to best friend Winston's
wife, Sandy (Orchidea DeSantis), and then receives a package at his
office that contains the head of the Ripper's latest victim, her eyes
missing. The gloved killer then kidnaps Sandy and Commissioner
Campbell questions Winston, who then confronts him about his
impotency ("Life has played a dirty trick on you!").
Winston accuses Campbell of having an affair with Sandy, but he
denies it. Pedro tries to find out who the real killer is, while
various lowlifes try to kill him for a reward (He ends up stabbing a
couple of them to death, which doesn't help his case). Campbell
receives another body part in the mail and the killer claims that it
belongs to Sandy. Is Sandy really dead and who is responsible for all
these killings? Eagle-eyed viewers should have this figured out long
before the film ends. This Spanish/Italian giallo, directed by Jose
Luis Madrid (THE
HORRIBLE SEXY VAMPIRE - 1970), here billed as "J.L.
Makrik", is a lesser Paul Naschy film when compared to his other
body of work at the time (WEREWOLF
SHADOW - 1971; HORROR
RISES FROM THE TOMB - 1973; HUNCHBACK
OF THE MORGUE - 1973). The murders aren't particularly gory
(just a couple of close-ups of knife blades penetrating the skin) and
the mystery is not very compelling or difficult to figure out.
Although Naschy is top-billed, he really doesn't have much to do here
besides drink heavily, get into a couple of fights and show off his
barrel chest on several occasions. Besides some excellent on-location
photography of swinging early-70's London and a few POV shots of the
killer stabbing his victims, this film is a rather dry affair that
cuts away just before any nudity is shown (which is strange,
considering that many of the murders are committed on prostitutes,
but this may be the Spanish cut and not the Continental version,
which allowed more nudity to be shown). Although not a bad film, it's
not as bloody or as sexy as we've come to expect from the films that
Paul Naschy was involved in (he wrote the screenplay using his real
name, Jacinto Molina, along with Madrid and Tito Carpi). Also known
as JACK THE RIPPER OF LONDON
and JACK THE MANGLER OF LONDON. Also starring Patricia Loran,
Franco Borelli, Teresita Castizio, Carmen Roger, Irene Mir, Victor
Vilanova and Maika. The widescreen print I viewed (on DVD from JEF
Films, a company of questional repute) was in less than stellar
condition, but watchable. Not Rated.
SHADOW
OF DEATH (1969) - This
Spain/Italy co-production is a pseudo-Giallo that's part
thriller/part "let's drive hubby insane" and hardly any of
it works, especially the finale, which is such a cheat on the
audience, you'll want to find the writers of the screenplay and punch
them in the face. But enough about that until the end of the review,
let's get to the film itself.
The film opens with Gert Muller (Giacomo Rossi Stuart, a.k.a.
"Jack Stuart"; KILL,
BABY...KILL! - 1966), an imposing man with a huge scar
running down his right cheek, driving to a large Spanish coastal
town, going into a pharmacy and asking
the pharmacist for an aspirin. After making some small talk with him,
Gert exits and then enters a side door that leads to the apartment
above the pharmacy, rings the doorbell, enters the apartment and
surprises Denise (Teresa Gimpera; CRYPT
OF THE LIVING DEAD - 1973), who stares at his facial scar
and gloved left hand, which is useless to him. Gert tells Denise that
he threatened to come here if they didn't reach an agreement and by
looking at all the expensive furniture and paintings in the
apartment, it's obvious she is well off. Gert tells her he is not
doing too well, saying, "I had an accident that changed me a
little, as you can see." He tells Denise that she is still
beautiful and has hardly changed in the four years since he last saw
her. Denise tells him to get to the point and tell her what he wants.
Gert says that during those four years his business has not worked
very well for him, so he thought she could help him. Denise says
under no circumstances will she help him, continuing with, "You
don't have the right to demand anything from me." We then see
that the pharmacist, John (Larry Ward; THE
DEATHHEAD VIRGIN - 1974), is actually Denise's husband, as
we watch him close up shop and head upstairs to the apartment. When
John walks in, Denise tells him she isn't going to introduce him to
Gert, as she spoke about him many times, telling John that she was
once Gert's mistress and he has come here to blackmail her. Gert
tells John that his wife is mistaken, he only came here to ask for
help, but John is not buying it, telling Gert to get out and never
come back. As Gert is walking out, he turns around and smiles at the
couple, tipping his hat to the both of them (For some reason never
explained, the camera is very interested in Gert's black fedora,
especially the colorful feather tucked in the headband, which is
actually the opening shot in the film). What is Gert up to and why
did Denise tell her husband about him? Is there more here than meets
the eye? Count on it!
John wants to know what in the hell is going on (apparently, Denise
was bluffing [i.e. lying] and never talked about Gert to her
husband), so she tells John that she met Gert in Algeria when she was
a dancer. Gert had several businesses, but his main business was
trafficking in weapons. She was all alone in Algeria and one thing
led to another, so they became lovers. John says to her that she
should have told him about this before now, but Denise calmly says
(almost too calmly), "Why should I have told you? It was an
unimportant episode in my life." John asks her if there is
anything important in her life, so Denise walks up to him, puts her
arms around his neck and whispers, "Us." I get the feeling
that Denise is not being truthful to her husband. If she were, the
film would be over, as everything I described to you happens in the
first nine minutes!
As Gert is leaving town, he stops at a gas station to get some
petrol and discovers John has an identical twin brother named Peter
(also portrayed by Larry Ward) and, as we can see by the look on
Gert's face, he has come up with a plan to take advantage of the
situation. He begins following Peter around and both Gert (and us
viewers) discover that Denise is having an affair with Peter. Denise
tells Peter that whenever she is close to John she feels disgusted,
Peter asking her why she married John and wondering since he and John
look exactly alike if she is disgusted with him, too? Denise tells
Peter he is different than John, he has something that is
"special to her and the only reason she married John was because
he gave her a bit of security, so she decided to "try"
marriage (In other words, Denise is a filthy golddigger). Denise
wants Peter to kill his brother and refuses to make love to him until
he does. When Peter asks if Denise's body is a sufficient price tro
commit murder, she says, "And I fear that you're not man enough
for me" (Yeah, it's a real loving relationship). Just then the
phone rings and a laughing Gert is on the other end, telling Peter he
knows he is having an affair with Denise, giving him five days to pay
him 200,000 pesetas, saying he will be at the ferry entrance for the
next five days at 11:00PM and if he doesn't pay him the money, he
will tell John about the affair. when Gert Hangs up the phone, Peter
turns to Deniose and says, "I feared so. Your lies have been
exposed." Denise says she is glad it happened, now Peter really
has to kill his brother to get the money needed to pay Gert. Denise
also tells Peter that he didn't study medicine and drug interactions
for nothing, so he has to go through with their plan and she will
deal with Gert. Something tells me that this isn't going to end well
for anyone involved.
Long story short, Peter and Denise inject John with insulin, putting
him in a coma (They don't kill him. though, keeping him in a coma
until their entire dastardly plan comes to fruition) and Peter takes
John's identity by wearing his clothes and jewelry (such as his
wedding ring). Their entire plan is straight out of the Corsican
Brothers (You know what they say about twins, that they can see
through each other's eyes and feel each other's pain plan, so
everything Peter does with John's identity, John believes he actually
did it. Pretty thin plan if you ask me.). The only difference between
the twin brothers is that John is an epileptic prone to seizures.
Peter, posing as John, has an affair with John's ex-girlfriend Annie
(Silvana Venturelli; VERUSCHKA
- PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN - 1971), making love to her and
letting it be known that it is John doing the deed, sullying his
name. Peter then goes to the ferry to hear Gert's terms and when Gert
threatens to tell John about the affair, Peter puts on John's wedding
ring and tells Gert he is actually John. Gert doesn't believe Peter,
pulling a gun on him, but Peter manages to grab the gun away
and later shoots Gert point-blank, killing him (while Denise calmly
watches). But is Gert actually dead? Things get really nasty when the
lovebirds wake up John (by using electro-shock treatment on him!) and
tell him that he killed a man and was seen making love to Annie. John
initially believes them (he sees all the acts through Peter's eyes)
and turns himself into the police, showing the Police Commissioner
(Fernando Sánchez Polack; VENGEANCE
OF THE ZOMBIES - 1973) where he hid Gert's body. When they
get there, Gert's corpse is not there, so the police think he is
going insane. Someone then murders Annie and John thinks he is
responsible, so he takes the Commissioner to Annie's apartment, but
her body is also not there. Now the police believe he is certifiably
bonkers and the only one to believe him is his old friend Dr.
Hernandez (Javier de Rivera; THE
DRACULA SAGA - 1973), who tries to prove John's innocence.
The finale comes when John meets Gert on a train car and a fight
ensues, John being tossed out of the train car and killed by an
oncoming train. Gert then pays Denise a visit, but it is not Gert at
all, but Peter wearing a rubber mask with a scar to look like Gert
(Dr. Hernandez finds Gert's corpse in a hidden freezer). Yes this was
the plan Peter and Denise cooked up, but, wait, it's not over yet.
After Denise tells Peter that their plan worked like a charm, Peter
has a seizure, proving he is not Peter at all, but John! John
discovered that Peter was wearing a mask to look like Gert, so he
pulled the mask off Peter, put it on himself and killed Peter by
pushing him into the path of an oncoming train. John grabs an
escaping Denise by the ankle and won't let her leave, as police
sirens get closer and closer. THE END.
This ridiculous bit of fluff was directed by Javier Setó (as
"Xavier Setó"), who had been making movies since the
early 1950's, this one being his penultimate film, as he died in 1969
at the age of 43 (causes unknown). This seems to be his only
semi-giallo film in his cannon, as most of his other productions seem
to be Spanish comedies or romance dramas. The screeenplay is
especially maddening, since it was co-written by such well-known
names in giallo cinema, Santiago Moncada (THE
FOURTH VICTIM
- 1971; A BELL FROM HELL -
1971) and Gianfranco Clerici (DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972; FIVE
WOMEN FOR THE KILLER - 1974), who were working in
conjunction with Setó on the script. To say the conclusion of
the film is a total cheat on the audience is a vast understatement,
as it negates everything that came before it. Nothing gels here, like
the scripters wrote themselves into a corner and pulled this solution
out of their ass. While there is a little bit of nudity here, mainly
quick glimpses of Silvana Venturelli's naked breasts as she is making
love to Peter, there is no bloody violence at all, a major sin for a
film of this type. If they were hoping the plot would make up for the
lack of violence, they were sadly mistaken, as everything that came
before the ridiculous finale was your standard plot that could be
seen on any detective TV series at the time. In other words, nothing
here is surprising or much of a mystery, as everything is exposed to
viewers long before the stupid ending. This film actually spits on
your expectations and I can't recommend it to any reader of this
site. It's instantly forgettable and that's about the nicest thing I
can say about it.
Shot in Spain as VIAJE
AL VACIO ("Journey Into The Void") and known in
Italy as L'ASSASSINO FANTASMA
("The Invisible Assassin"), this film (also known as THE
EMPTINESS ALL AROUND [Il
Vuoto Intorno]) never obtained a theatrical release in
the United States, but did have a U.S. VHS release from Mogul
Communications under the title MACABRE.
No disc releases in the United States, but it can be seen streaming
on Amazon Prime
(be aware that the English subtitles are off track, appearing nearly
a minute after the Spanish dialogue is spoken!) or on the YouTube
channel "Film&Clips", who offer a very nice Italian
language widescreen print subtitled in English under the review title
(They also offer the film under various other languages, including
Italian, French and Spanish subtitles), which is the preferred way to
watch it, if you must. I know someone out there must like this film,
but for me it was nothing special at all, a total waste of 92
minutes. To each their own. Also featuring Eugenio Navarro and Jose
Bastida. Not Rated, but nothing really disturbing or
objectionable, damn it!
SHORT
NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971) -
This is a very good giallo film from the director of the excellent WHO
SAW HER DIE? (1972), the extremely nasty NIGHT
TRAIN MURDERS (1974) and the downright goofy THE
HUMANOID (1979). This film also borrows a plot device found
in SUNSET BOULEVARD
(1950), where a dead man narrates how he came to being dead, only
this time he is not really dead.
A park sweeper in Prague (filmed on location) finds the dead body of
American Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel; LIZARD
IN A WOMAN'S SKIN - 1971) and reports it to the police, who
take his body to the morgue. Only, he's not really dead. His body may
be dead , but his brain is very much alive, as he tries to remember
how he ended up this way. The film then travels back in time, as his
fragmented memory tries to unravel the mystery of why his girlfriend,
Mira (Barbara Bach; BLACK BELLY OF
THE TARANTULA - 1971), disappeared without a trace. George is
a newspaper reporter from the United States, who is doing a story on
this country's corrupt government, which is being influenced by
Russia. Mira arrives by train and Gregory want to be with her always,
but Mira is in Prague on a temporary visa. They cavort in a cemetery,
have dinner at a fancy expensive restaurant and then make love back
at Gregory's apartment. Gregory wants to take her back to the United
States, but her country won't let him. It's easy to see that they are
very much in love. Mira even jokingly (?) says that she wishes
Gregory would "smuggle" her to America. One night, Gregory
gets the feeling that they are being watched (they are). We then
discover that Mira is an amateur entomologist, her specialty
butterflies, a collection of them hanging on a wall in Gregory's
apartment (Remember, even the smallest of details may point to
something big in giallo films).
Every so often, we are back at the morgue, where Gregory's body is
being stored in a freezer, the morgue attendants putting more bodies
in there, as Gregory tries to talk to them to see if they are able to
communicate with him, but they don't answer (it gets much more tense
as the film progresses). Back in the past, Gregory brings Mira to a
fancy black tie affair, where friends Jacques (Mario Adorf; MANHUNT
- 1972) and Ivan (Relja Basic) fawn over her, but prudish Jessica
(Ingrid Thulin; SALON KITTY
- 1976), who is in love with Gregory, wonders out loud why Gregory
would bring this "bitch" to such a fancy party (she turns
up her nose to "commoners"). After having drinks alone with
Jacques, Gregory goes home, but Mira is not there. The bed has been
slept in, yet all her clothes and her pocketbook, containing her
passport, are still in his apartment. Gregory is worried, because no
one walks around Prague without their passport, so Gregory goes to
Jacques, Ivan and Jessica for some help. Jacques reports that no one
resembling Mira is in the hospital or morgue, so Gregory reports her
disappearance to the police, where Commishioner Kierkoff (Piero Vida; STAGEFRIGHT
- 1987) takes over the investigation. He questions Gregory as if he
were a suspect (he doesn't like "foreign" reporters) and
Gregory tells him if he doesn't take this seriously, he'll write a
story accusing the government and the police of murder (now I see why
he doesn't like foreign reporters!). Jacques gets word of a young
woman found naked and murdered by the river and George is relieved to
see that it is not Mira when he goes to indentify the body.
Meanwhile, the morgue attendants discover that Gregory's body is
still warm, so a doctor (Daniele Dublino; KILLER
NUN - 1978) tries to revive him, but fails. We then have to
wonder if Gregory's investigation of the disappearance of Mira is
related to his current condition. Was he drugged or poisoned with
some unknown substance? Back in the past, Gregory's
investigation leads him to one of Mira's relatives, a skittish woman
with numerous clocks hanging on her walls of her apartment, but
before he can question her, a fat bald man appears and slams the door
in Gregory's face. As Gregory gets deeper into his investigation, he
discovers that many young women have disappeared and some of them
were later found naked and murdered, like the young woman he saw
previously. Pretty soon, his investigation becomes less about Mira
and more about the string of disappearances and murders. The closer
he gets to the reason why they disappeared, the more dangerous it
becomes to Gregory. Everyone he talks to ends up dead, like Valinski
(José Quaglio; THE
EYE BEHIND THE WALL - 1977), who is tossed off a bridge into
the path of an oncoming train.
Back at the morgue, the doctor tries to revive Gregory by giving him
a blood transfusion, but it, too, doesn't work. George still doesn't
know how he ended up "dead", but he begins to have flashes
of fragmented memory, some of them involving his neighbor Natassja
(Semka Sokolovic). Will Gregory discover the truth before he really
dies? What does the blind Professor Karting (Fabijan Sovagovic) have
to do with it? (We see the dead naked body of Mira in one of his
rooms, covered in flowers. Is it real or in the Professor's sightless
mind?) Do Gregory's friends know more than they are saying?
Like all good giallo films, the center of the mystery deals with
something sexual and sordid. Director/screenwriter Aldo Lado (the
person responsible for the films I mentioned in the beginning of this
review) ladles on the suspense here, as the mystery gets more complex
as the film progresses. Not only do we want to know the how and why
of Mira's disappearance, we also want to know if Gregory survives his
ordeal. At first, we feel sympathy for Gregory, as his investigation
gets him into plenty of dangerous situations, but when he sleeps with
Jessica, we don't quite feel the same for him as we do for Mira. Yes,
it was a temporary indiscretion, but it is an unforgivable one,
because Jessica only thinks about herself and even Gregory knows it.
So why did he sleep with her? Director Lado also tosses in some
unusual sights and sounds. There's the legless bum, who pushes
himself through the streets of Prague on a cart. When he notices the
body of Gregory in the park, he says to the park sweeper,
"You don't think that I did it, do you?". There's also a
lifelike doll that Jacques shows Gregory at the fancy party, who
seemingly comes to life and hits on Gregory when he and Jacques are
having drinks. But the most telling is a street singer (Jürgen
Drews), who sings a song titled "Short Night Of The
Butterflies" (an alternate title to this film) and if you listen
very carefully to the lyrics, it will give you a major clue as to
what is going on. All good giallo films are about the audience
gathering clues to solve the mystery and this film is full of brain
candy. Even Gregory's mysterious condition takes some brainpower to
solve, which is why I love giallo films so much. They are a feast for
the eyes and the mind if they are done right, such as this one. This
film ranks in the upper 10% of excellent giallo films, especially
when Gregory discovers why Mira disappeared. When you see why, you'll
be knocked for a loop (lots of naked flesh is involved, of all ages).
Like all good giallo films, the finale is not a happy one. The doctor
is using Gregory's bady as a teaching tool for medical students,
showing them the proper way to conduct an autopsy. When the scalpel
reaches Gregory's chest, Jessica, who is in the audience, sees his
hand move and she screams, the film ending with her scream. Did
Gregory survive? That all depends on you. That's all I am going to
say, because you should experience the mystery for yourself. I
guarantee you will be entertained, giallo fan or not.
Filmed as LA
CORTA NOTTE DELLE BAMBOLE DI VETRO (a literal translation of
the review title), this film had a U.S. theatrical release under the
title PARALYZED, shorn of
nearly five minutes of footage (cutting out an orgy sequence integral
to the plot) and it is this edited version which made in onto VHS,
from MPI Home Video.
The unedited, anamorphic widescreen version made its appearance on
these shores courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment, either as part of THE
GIALLO
COLLECTION 4-Film box set or as a stand-alone DVD, later
available from Blue Underground
as a stand-alone DVD or part of their MIDNIGHT
MOVIES VOLUME 4: THRILLER TRIPLE FEATURE (Three discs; one
per film; my review is based on this set.). Either Blue Underground
DVD contains an informative interview with director Aldo Lado
as an extra, as well as a Lado filmography and the theatrical
trailer. If you have an all region Blu-Ray player, British outfit 88
Films offers a nice Blu-Ray of this title. Or you can
watch it for free on Amazon Prime if you are a Prime member. Also
starring Michaela Martin, Franca Sciutto (DEAF
SMITH & JOHNNY EARS - 1972), Petar Dumicic, Sven Lasta
and Luciano Catenacci (ALMOST HUMAN
- 1974) & Sergio Serafini (THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973) as the inquisitive morgue
attendants. Not Rated.
THE
SISTER OF URSULA (1978) -
Here's a giallo film that flirts on the edge of pornography (Some
viewers may very well call it porn). Luckily, the women are
beautiful, the mystery complex and the killer has a unique weapon
(which I will not spoil in this review), but the intelligent reader
will read between the lines and correctly guess what it is.
Dagmar
Beyne (Stefania D'Amario; CITY
OF THE WALKING DEAD - 1980) and her sister, Ursula (Barbara
Magnolfi; SUSPIRIA
- 1977) check into a hotel and Dagmar requests a quiet room with twin
beds. Ursula becomes enamored with a statue of a black woman in the
hotel's lobby. It is quite obvious right from the start that Ursula
is a strange bird, who doesn't want to be touched and will not let
her sister open her suitcase. Once in their room, Dagmar strips
completely naked in front of Ursula, but Ursula is not glad to be
here. While Dagmar is having a drink in the hotel's picturesque patio
(the view is to kill for), hotel manager Roberto Delleri (Vanni
Materassi; THE
BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER - 1963) introduces himself to Dagmar and
asks her if she and her sister are enjoying their stay. Dagmar tells
him that her sister needs "rest" and when he asks why,
Dagmar changes the subject, asking Roberto where the music is coming
from. He replies that it is coming from the hotel's nightclub, where
Stella Shining (Yvonne Harlow) sings every night. Roberto keeps the
nightclub open in the off-season just for Stella. He takes Dagmar and
Ursula to the nightclub, where they watch Stella perform. Roberto
introduces the sisters to the handsome Filippo Andrei (Marc Porel; DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972), but Ursula refuses to shake his
hand. When Dagmar tells Filippo that she and her sister are Austrian,
Ursula quickly cuts her off, snottily telling her sister that she
didn't come here to talk to strangers about their family. Just why is
Ursula here? Roberto introduces the sisters to Stella and Ursula
not-so-politely leaves, telling everyone that she is tired and Dagmar
reluctantly goes with her. What is Ursula's problem? Filippo tells
Stella that he wants to sleep with her, but she begs off, telling him
that she is tired. He accuses her of sleeping with someone else. What
is Filippo's problem? Back at their hotel room, Ursula complains that
she doesn't want to be here and mentions their father. She also
accuses Dagmar of wanting to sleep with Filippo. Dagmar gives Ursula
a sedative to make her sleep. Dagmar is not just Ursula's sister, she
is also her nursemaid. But why?
We then see a prostitute (Danila Trebbi) giving a young man oral
pleasure in one of the hotel rooms. They then screw and we can see
that they are not alone. Someone is hiding behind the curtains
watching their every move. She pays the man for a job well done and
he leaves (This is the first time I ever saw a hooker pay a john!).
The peeper comes into the room (all we see are the peeper's eyes and
black gloves) and we learn that the hooker knew he was there watching
them. We then see a shadow on the wall where it looks like the peeper
has an enormous penis, but we will learn later that it is something
much more deadlier. The peeper kills the woman.
Ursula screams, waking up her sister, as she has had a bad
nightmare. The following morning, Roberto tells the sisters that
something terrible has happened, as a prostitute was killed in her
room last night. The story has already made the newspapers and when
Ursula looks at a photo on the front page, where the hooker is naked
and spread-eagle on the floor, she passes out (where can I subscribe
to this newspaper?!?). Ursula wakes up in the office of a
psychologist (Giancarlo Zanetti) and his assistant Vanessa (Anna
Zinnemann; THE
BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY - 1971). Ursula flinches when Vanessa
goes to touch her and she tells Dagmar that they are leaving the
hotel. Roberto assures her that there is no danger, as the police
arrested the hooker's boyfriend in what he calls a crime of jealously
("The green-eyed monster, as Shakespeare put it"). Ursula
doesn't want to hear it. She goes to her room and packs her bag, with
Dagmar calling her "rude, unpleasant and hateful. And you're
incredibly selfish" and wonders why she follows Ursula around.
Ursula apologizes and tells Dagmar that she doesn't know why she can
"see things in others that they'd rather not see" and
finds it impossible to like people. But why? Ursula once again
accuses her sister of wanting to stay because she has a romantic
interest in Filippo. Does she?
We watch as Filippo follows a man around, stealing his datebook when
he is not looking. Roberto tells Dagmar and Stella that Filippo left
early this morning to check out some land for his company, but Dagmar
tells Roberto that just can't be because she saw Filippo just a short
time ago. What is Filippo up to? Ursula decides not to leave and she
and Dagmar have a long talk, where we leard that their mother shipped
them off to boarding school when they were very young. Ursula hasn't
seen her mother since she was five years-old and their father was a
womanizer. When he died, he left two women, Corrine Chauvet and
Valeria Monetti, a paltry piece of his fortune ("Our father died
all alone. All alone" says Ursula). When Dagmar asks her sister
how she knew the names of the two women, Ursula says, "I just
know things...even before they happen." Ursula then says that
their mother is shacked-up with another man far away and their father
must never find out. Is Ursula crazy or is she actually psychic?
Ursula and Dagmar go to a rustic old church, where Ursula talks
crazy to a faceless metal statue of Christ (She keeps mentioning the
"eyes" and how everyone look through his eyes.). Stella
then walks in on Filippo as he is about to inject his arm with some
heroin and she walks away in disgust (Marc Porel was a real-life drug
addict who died in 1983 at the age of 34). But how can Filippo be in
two places at once since we just saw him entering a business with the
datebook? (Think about it). Two young lovers enter the hotel to get a
room, but when Roberto tells them that the hotel is booked-up, they
refuse to leave. We watch them make love in the hotel's basement,
when the black-gloved killer strikes again, slicing the young man's
throat and killing the young woman with an unknown weapon (Again, a
shadow on the wall makes it look like the killer has a big dick and
the woman looks at it and screams).
While Dagmar is walking with Filippo, Ursula, who is walking behind
them, passes out, later telling Dagmar that she saw her father with
two naked women. Why does seeing this make her pass out? And why does
Filippo interrogate Roberto on if Stella has a man? We then learn it
is Roberto who is screwing Stella and he is growing increasingly
jealous when he discovers that Stella has a lesbian lover named Jenny
(Antinisca Nemour; TEENAGE
PROSTITUTION RACKET - 1975). What does this have to do with
the rest of the film? Are the killer's murders random, as Roberto and
the police believe? Is something supernatural happening to Ursula?
All these questions and many others you may come up with are answered
in this review, so put on your thinking caps and concentrate very
hard. All the answers are within reach.
Director/screenwriter Enzo Milioni (ESCAPE
FROM DEATH - 1989) gives us plenty of graphic nudity and
sex, pushing this film not-so-gently into X-Rated territory, such as
the scene of Ursula masturbating with a large gold necklace. Be aware
that there is just as much male full-frontal nudity as there is
female (The young man killed in the basement is so skinny, his penis
looks like a Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage link!). If I had one
problem with this film, it is with Milioni's screenplay. It takes
forever to get to the killings and when it is revealed what the
killer's weapon of choice is, it's anti-climatic (Think of Anthony
Perkins in director Ken Russell's CRIMES
OF PASSION - 1984). The killer only strikes when the victims
just got laid, which is a cheat on the audience. We never see the
killer using the weapon of choice and when the killer is unmasked, I
groaned loudly, because it wasn't much of a surprise, but maybe I am
growing jaded from watching too many giallo films, even though it's a
favorite genre of mine. The music, by Mimì Uva, is
appropiately creepy and atmospheric (sax solos for the love scenes
and violin-heavy orchestral tracks when the killer strikes). When the
hotel psychologist (This hotel has a Psychologist? Wow!) explains the
supernatural to Dagmar (it is quite ridiculous), you will either
laugh or throw your hands up in frustration. Still, if it's nudity
you want, look no further than this film. It is so much better than
the similarly-themed PLAY MOTEL
(1979) when it comes to pushing the sex boundary and it is not badly
acted. I consider this film an interesting relic from the past.
Filmed as LA
SORELLA DI URSULA (a literal translation of the review
title), this film was never released theatrically or on VHS in the
United States. The DVD, from Severin
Films, is uncut, in widescreen and it looks great (it's in
Italian with English subtitles). I say it's uncut because that is
what it says on the DVD sleeve, but I got the impression that some of
the deaths were edited, as there is a noticeable jump in the music
track. If there is a more complete version out there, I would be
seriously interested in viewing it. As always, Severin supplies some
interesting extras on the disc, including the Italian trailer (it is
sex-heavy and contains some scenes that are not in the film) and a
thirty minute interview with Enzo Milioni, who has some interesting
stories to tell about the making of the film and the actors in it (do
not watch this interview before viewing the film, as he gives away
many of the film's spoilers). The producers (Armando & Francesco
Bertuccioli; MAD DOG -
1977) inserted some hardcore footage into the film without Milioni's
permission or knowledge. When he went to a theater to see this
version, he said that it ruined the supernatural mystery of the film,
as the hardcore footage was inserted at all the wrong moments and ran
contrary to Ursula's visions. He made the producers remove the
hardcore footage and those inserts are now considered lost. It was
actually filmed at a real hotel but, for some reason, it never opened
for business. Milioni tells us that it is a pizza joint now. He also
tells a touching story about the tragic life and death of Marc Porel
and how it affected Barbara Magnolfi, who was his girlfriend (they
have a daughter together). You can tell by the look in Milioni's eyes
how Porel's death affected him and ruined Magnolfi's career (she
disappeared for quite some time and didn't take any acting roles
until years later). Milioni still owns the killer's weapon and gladly
shows it to us! A nice interview from a man who offers no apologies
for the film (nor should he). Also starring Alice Gherardi &
Roberto De Ruggeriis as the young couple killed in the basement. Once
available as part of Severin Films' THE
EURO-SLEAZE COLLECTION,
a three-film, three-disc DVD Box Set (long OOP). Not Rated,
but it would probably still get an NC-17 Rating today.
SKINHEADS:
THE SECOND COMING OF HATE (1988) - This
Greydon Clark-directed exercise in poor taste tells the
delightful story of a group of shaven-headen neo-Nazis who wreak a
path of destruction and murder while spouting such witticisms as,
"Death to all niggers and spics" and "Keep the blood
pure!". After robbing a grocery store and beating the Jewish
owners (as well as a black child) they hightail it out of town and
head to the mountains until the heat dies down. They stop at Barbara
Bain's (SPACE:
1999
[1975 - 1977]) country inn and kill everyone except two who escape: A
Berkeley college student (Jason "son of Robert" Culp) and a
political aide (Elizabeth Sagal of TV's DOUBLE
TROUBLE
[1984 - 1985]). They are hunted in the woods by the bald bastards
until our two heroes come upon a cabin resided in by a crusty
old-timer (the late Chuck Connors of TOURIST
TRAP
- 1979). After Connors is shot down, our heroes decide to fight
instead of run away. They take out the gang one by one until only the
leader (Brian Brophy) is left. I think that one-man filmmaking threat
Greydon Clark intended this to be a straight drama but it plays much
better if you view it as a comedy.The group of skinheads play like a
latter day version of the Bowery Boys, with their constant infighting
and slapping each other around. The stupid one of the group, a hulk
of a guy appropriately called Brains (Dennis Ott), takes a shit in
the woods and then wipes his ass with poison ivy. He spends the rest
of the film scratching his butt. As exploitation films go, this one
is pretty dull. It has bad editing, dull acting and dreadful pacing.
It also has a bear attack, a rattlesnake bite, a rape, numerous
gunshot hits and stabbings, a crucifixion, a man's leg caught in a
bear trap and Chuck Connors doing his patented "cocking the
rifle twirl" that he used to do so well when he starred in TV's THE
RIFLEMAN
(1958 - 1963). SKINHEADS
is one of those films that is so bad it's good. What else would you
expect from the director of SATAN'S
CHEERLEADERS
(1977) and the film that ended the Lambada craze, THE
FORBIDDEN DANCE
(1990)? This is exactly what I expected. A New Star Home Video
Release. Rated
R.
SLAUGHTER
HOTEL (1971) - I'm a huge
fan of Italian
genre films of the 70's & 80's, whether it be horror,
giallo, crime, action, fantasy, science fiction and, yes, sex
comedies. When they are done right, they can be memorable experiences
that transcend normal film watching and even if they are bad, they
were still better than their American counterparts. I have always
believed those that attack Italian genre films of those two decades
as being "rip-offs' or "carbon copies" of American
films miss the point. They may have followed the blueprints, but
these films always brought something unique to the table that most
U.S. films didn't dare to show, whether it be wall-to-wall nudity,
simulated sex that almost crossed into X-Rated territory, graphic
gore that most American horror films would take nearly a decade to
catch up with and leading characters that weren't always likable.
That is why when these Italian films made it to U.S. theaters, they
were cut to
pieces (slaughtered to Hell, if it were), missing good healthy pieces
of sex, nudity and gore which made these films special in the first
place, just to obtain an R-Rating. SLAUGHTER
HOTEL was one of those films. When it found a U.S.
theatrical distributor in 1973, it was missing over 5 minutes of
footage, and when it was re-released to theaters a few years later,
it was missing 10 minutes (some VHS and budget DVD versions using the
title ASYLUM EROTICA
were the version missing 10 minutes of footage). When SLAUGHTER
HOTEL was released to U.S. theaters in 1973, it was
advertised as some sort of telling of the then-famous Richard Speck
murders of eight innocent nurses, but that couldn't be farther from
the truth. Which is why it is such a joy to finally see these
films in their original, uncut Italian versions, thanks to DVD &
Blu-Ray, so we get the full meaning of the films. The film opens with
a mysterious figure in black, complete with cape, hood and gloves (a
giallo staple), as we watch him break into a castle-like female
clinic (actually a mental institution), where he goes into a room
full of medieval weapons (don't ask me why a mental institution has a
medieval weapons room, but it does!) picks up a hand axe and heads up
the velvet-roped stairs. He spies a totally nude Anne (Rosalba Neri; LADY
FRANKENSTEIN - 1971) writhing in bed, as the camera lovingly
gives us close-ups of Anne's vagina (while the frenetic editing of
the killer's POV is shown in every direction possible, to convey his
mentally off-balanced nature). Just as he is about to kill Anne, the
morning alarm and lights go on, as nurses pushing trays of medication
fill the hallways, forcing the unseen killer to retreat. We then
witness Ruth (Gioia Desideri), who is unwillingly being driven to the
"clinic" by her husband, who tells her that her doctors in
Switzerland ordered her to stay a few weeks in this clinic for rest
and relaxation because it has a very good recovery rate. Ruth calls
it a "loony bin" and grabs the steering wheel, nearly
driving her and her husband into oncoming traffic. Her husband gets
control of the steering wheel in time and once they make it to the
clinic, he angrily dumps her off and drives away, saying "I'll
see you next week." When a male orderly tries to take her to her
room, Ruth grabs a log and tries to hit him over the head, but this
orderly has seen every trick imaginable and pulls the log out of her
hand. Yes, Ruth has some major anger issues. As a matter of fact,
every woman in this clinic, whether patient or nurse, have issues of
their own. Patient Anne is a stark raving nymphomaniac (she has a
long freak-out scene in the shower in the beginning of the film which
leaves nothing to the imagination). Cheryl (Margaret Lee; DORIAN
GRAY - 1970) tried to kill herself and her husband (Piero
Nistri) wants her to be released immediately because she has power of
attorney of a thriving business (My "fishiness alarm" just
went off!). Mara (Jane Garret) has Daddy issues and has spent much of
her young life at the clinic because her father travels all over the
world. These women, and many more, are under the care of Professor
Osterman (John Karlsen; THE CHURCH
- 1989) and his assistant, Dr. Francis Clay (a restrained Klaus
Kinski; SCHIZOID - 1980). It's
also apparent that some of the nurses are lesbians and quite like
their jobs, as they touch their female patients' naughty bits while
giving them massages (the cameraman must really love his job because
he spends an awful lot of time focusing on these naughty parts!).
Things begin going into a downward spiral rather quickly when one of
the nurses is beheaded by a scythe held by the black-clad killer,
while nympho Anne strips naked in the greenhouse to have sex with the
gardener (John Ely). He has to slap Anne several times to get her to
leave because he doesn't want to lose his job (When the male
orderlies find Anne, she tries to force herself on them!). We also
find out that the married Cheryl may be having an affair with Dr.
Clay. The killer sneaks into Ruth's bedroom, strangles, then stabs
her with a medieval dagger, and cuts off her panties. The next to die
is Professor Osterman's chauffeur Augusto (Fernando Cerillo; WATCH
ME WHEN I KILL - 1977), who is pushed into a spiked iron
maiden of Nuremberg in the Medieval Room, as his blood flows and
collects at the bottom (don't worry, we'll see his impaled body later
in the film). The killer then goes into Cheryl's room to murder her
with a sword, but she's not there (she's with Dr. Clay), so he goes
to Mara's room, but she is getting it on with dyke Nurse Helen
(Monica Striebel) in some naughty bubble bath action. The frustrated
killer then goes to Anne's room (where we just witnessed her doing an
explicit masturbation scene that would have automatically slapped
this film with an X-Rating if left intact), where he chops her
graphically with the small hand axe (but not before she tries to hit
on him!). After Nurse Helen and Mara dance to music from Mara's
African ancestry, they get down to some girl-on-girl action in bed
(another really explicit sexual scene which would have slapped the
film with an X-Rating). After they are done, Mara looks out her
window, only for a crossbow bolt to come flying through the window
and impale her in the neck (the bolt protrudes out of the other
side). Nurse Helen screams out in terror as Professor Osterman, Dr.
Clay, the gardener and the rest of the staff rush to see what is
going on. Professor Osterman recognizes the crossbow bolt as coming
from the Medieval Room, so he, Dr. Clay and Cheryl head there, where
they discover Augusto riddled with holes (including a large one in
the back of his head).
Osterman
also notices blood on some of the other weapons and that one of the
swords is missing. So just exactly who is the killer? Is it Professor
Osterman? Or Dr. Clay (don't count him out because he disappeared for
a short amount of time when he was alone with Cheryl)? The gardener?
How about Cheryl? The police arrive and the Inspector (Ettore Geri)
wants to use Cheryl as bait for the killer's next strike. Will the
killer succeed or fail? What are his motivations? I'm not going to
say, but this one is pretty easy to figure out if you read the entire
review. Let me just go on to say that the killer briefly escapes
police custody, kills two cops and viciously murders eight to nine
female patients and nurses with a medieval mace as they are cowering
in a room (very brutal and unexpected), before being gunned down with
at least twenty shots by the police (shown in slow motion just before
the film ends). While not a great giallo film by anyone's
standard, it is still a quite weird one. Director/screenwriter Fernando
Di Leo (NAKED VIOLENCE
- 1969; MANHUNT - 1972; MILANO
CALIBRO 9 - 1972; THE BOSS
- 1973; SHOOT
FIRST, DIE LATER - 1974; KIDNAP SYNDICATE
- 1975; THE VIOLENT BREED
- 1984; KILLER
VS. KILLERS - 1985), who passed away in 2003, makes some
mighty strange choices in this film, which is why it is so memorable.
For one, the nudity and sex goes way beyond what we here in the
States would find tolerable in 1973 in a non-porn film and that is
why almost all of it is missing in the R-Rated theatrical cut (The
VHS, from Gorgon Video,
was as close as you would get to seeing more nudity than you did in
theaters, but it was still heavily edited), as cinematographer Franco
Villa (MALABIMBA:
THE MALICIOUS WHORE - 1979) does many close-ups of female
masturbation where they actually open up their labias and expose the
pink inside. That was a no-no, even in R-Rated films of the 70's. Di
Leo also had esoteric choices in music (by Silvano Spadaccino), as
part of the film sounds like muzak from an elevator and other times
it is a cacophony of percussions and other loud sounds, followed by
seconds of extreme silence and then loud sounds again (I first
thought that there was something wrong with the pressing of my
Blu-Ray, but learned quickly that it was intentional). Editor Amedeo
Giomini (CROSS CURRENT - 1971)
also spastically cuts the film in weird angles, as each woman seems
to be having strange nightmares about things that happened at the
clinic. If you pay close enough attention, you will spot the killer
way before the police do (Di Leo uses Kinski as a red herring to good
effect). If you like your films full of explicit sex, nudity and
graphic violence, you can do no better than this film, which bears
the original Italian title "La
Bestia Uccide A Sangue Freddo" (translated as
"The Beast Kills In Cold Blood"). The film is in English,
but if you decide to watch it with optional English subtitles, you
will notice some of the character's names change in the subtitles
than what they actually say on-screen. Also known as COLD
BLOODED BEAST. Totally worth buying for your library. Also
starring Sandro Rossi, Giulio Baraghini, Lina Franchi and Carla
Mancini. Available on uncut Blu-Ray from Raro
Video in a beautiful 2.35:1 widescreen print, the only true way
to watch it. This version is Not Rated for so many reasons.
SMALL
KILL (1991) -
Unusual low-budget crime thriller with definite horror overtones.
Gary Burghoff (!) discards
his Radar OReilly personna from his M*A*S*H
(1972 - 1983) days to portray a psychopathic bisexual pedophile named
Fleck who kidnaps young children for ransom. He even disguises
himself as an old female fortune teller! When five children are found
brutally murdered, two New York cops (Fred Carpenter, Donnie Kehr)
are assigned to the case and discover that the killings may be tied
to a drug case they are also investigating. When another child is
kidnapped, one of the cops go undercover as the childs father
to deliver the ransom. Things go wrong (the stupid kid tells Fleck
that the cop is not his father) and Fleck escapes, killing another
cop in the process. Things come to a bloody end as we find out that
Fleck is using the ransom money to finance his fledgling drug empire.
Fleck disposes of anyone who gets in his way, slashing one of the
hero cops and blowing away his drug associates. Fleck meets a fitting
end, getting a knife thrown through his neck, pinning him to a wall.
Although the acting is uneven, this Long Island-lensed feature has
enough bloodshed (make-up effects by Bryant Holt) and tense
situations to hold your attention. Heads and hands are blown off in
graphic detail, theres a scene where a man has his head crushed
under the wheels of a moving vehicle and Burghoffs performance
(he directed all his own scenes) is excellent. He is chilling. He is
the total antithesis of Radar. The New York Post stated that
Burghoffs role makes Hannibal Lecter look like a Boy
Scout. Theyre not far off. Jason Miller (THE
EXORCIST
- 1973), who looks bloated and haggard (like a bum on a two week
bender), puts in a cameo appearance as an alcoholic stoolie. Directed
and co-written by Robert M. Fresco (EVIL
HAS A FACE -
1996). Also starring Rebecca Ferratti. I would give SMALL
KILL
an excellent rating if it werent for the indifferent acting
talents of some of the cast. All-in-all, this is a good way to waste
86 minutes. A VCI
Home Video Release. Rated
R.
SMILE
BEFORE DEATH (1972) -
This film gets a lot of positive reviews, but I don't get it. They
also say it's a giallo film, but I don't see it. Since it has a
limited cast, the giallo element just isn't there. It is more like a
murder mystery where we know who dunnit. The mystery element is so
obvious, I guessed the finale fifteen minutes into the film, but it
does have a certain something that keeps your eyes on the screen.
We see the elderly Dorothy Emerson (Zora Gheorgieva) stumbling
around in her bedroom, her throat cut. The police declare it a
suicide (Who cuts their own neck???) since her bedroom door was
locked from the inside and there is no window in the room. They
couldn't be more wrong. Dorothy's young daughter from a previous
marriage, Nancy Thompson (Luciana Della Robbia; a.k.a. "Jenny
Tamburi"; WOMEN
IN CELL BLOCK 7 - 1973), arrives unnannounced to her
mother's house, throwing the lives of her stepfather Marco (Silvano
Tranquilli; THE SLASHER...IS
THE SEX MANIAC! - 1972) and his mistress, professional
photographer Gianna (Rosalba Neri; SLAUGHTER
HOTEL - 1971), into a state of turmoil. Gianna tells Nancy
that she was her mother's best friend (Dorothy was married several
times) and they become fast friends, but are they really? Gianna
calls Marco and tells him that Nancy may be of age to inherit her
mother's fortune. Marco is the executor of Dorothy's will and is also
the executor in charge of Nancy's inheritance until she reaches the
age of eighteen. Marco believes Nancy to be 13 or 14 years old, but
Gianna believes she is older (Why don't they ask her?). Nancy soon
becomes Gianna's photography model, because she has a face and body
that are very photogenic. She dresses Nancy in adult clothing and
wigs, applies makeup to her face and makes her look older. Is Gianna
really her friend or is she up to something more sinister?
Marco arrives home and sees a beautiful woman walking up a staircase
and into his bedroom. When he opens the door, he discovers a stark
naked Nancy. Marco smiles and closes the door. We soon find out that
Marco and Dorothy's marriage was on the rocks, but her death
"remedied" the situation. What situation? Marco treats
Nancy as a daughter, including her in a bunch of fun activities, but
when she goes sailing, she nearly drowns, Marco not lifting a finger
to help her. Is he trying to kill her? And what about those phone
calls to the house where no one is on the other end?
Housekeeper Magda (Dana Ghia; THE
NIGHT CHILD - 1975) tells Nancy what she knows about her
mother's death and she doesn't believe it was a suicide. We witness a
flashback to the night Dorothy died. There was a huge party at the
house and when Marco enters a bedroom, he finds Dorothy in bed with
much younger man Paolo (Hiram Keller; SEVEN
DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYES - 1973). This doesn't phase Marco
in the least because they have an "open" marriage, but when
he asks her for some financial help on a real estate deal, she
refuses, telling him that she is sick and tired of supporting a
"Roman" loser and she wants a divorce. Magda overheard the
entire conversation.
Back in the present, Marco becomes touchy-feely with Nancy, tickling
her while she is sunning topless. This upsets Gianna, but Nancy likes
it and may be falling in love with her stepfather (Gianna even takes
photos of Nancy posing topless with Marco. But why, if she is so
upset?). When Nancy tells Gianna that she loves her like the mother
she never had (Dorothy shipped her off to boarding school and she
never really knew her mother), Gianna begins to take nude photos of
her (Just like a real mother!). One night when Marco come home, he
finds Nancy all woozy and ready to pass out. She tells him that she
always feels this way at night because Gianna makes her take drops of
an unknown liquid before she goes to bed. Nancy asks Marco if he had
a happy marriage with her mother and his answer is honest, saying,
no, he never loved her. Nancy says she never loved her either because
"she was a stranger to me." Marco and Nancy then make love
and the next morning he tells her that he doesn't regret it (She asks
Marco if Gianna is more of a woman than her and he tells her not to
be silly. Nancy shoots back, "Excuse me, I'm young. I still
haven't learned to be a hypocrite!").
We then witness another flashback to that fateful night, where
Dorothy asks Gianna if she is Marco's lover. She tells Dorothy that
she has been his mistress for a long time, even before she married
Marco. Dorothy throws a bottle of booze to the floor, breaking it.
She orders Gianna to clean it up, while telling her how wonderful it
is being Paolo's lover. Gianna then picks up a shard of glass and
thrusts it into Dorothy's neck, killing her. She uses a piece of
string to turn the key on the bedroom door, locking it from the
inside and making it look like a suicide. Marco is well aware on what
Gianna did and may have had a hand in making her do it.
Someone tries to kill Gianna by messing with a circuit breaker in
her darkroom, almost electrocuting her. Was it Marco? He takes Nancy
to the racetrack and sees her talking to a man, but can't make out
his face. When he asks her who she was talking to, Nancy replies,
"Typical Latin lover. Passionate and jealous!" Was she
talking about Marco or the mystery man? It becomes very obvious that
there is more to Nancy than meets the eye. She has been playing Marco
and Gianna against each other, but why? Marco does a back-trace on
the phone number of the hang-up caller and seems surprised on what
her finds (he keeps it secret from Gianna). Nancy tells Gianna that
her mother mailed a letter to her the day before she died which
revealed who wanted killed her. When Nancy is out of the house, Marco
and Gianna rifle through Nancy's room and find the letter. What is in
the letter leads up to both of them killing Magda. Marco stabs Magda
in the back and Gianna pummels her head in with a blunt object and
then they turn on each other. We then find out that Nancy is not
actually Nancy at all. She is actually Paolo's girlfriend. This was
all a blackmail scam to extort money from Marco. "Nancy"
played both sides off each other in order for Paolo to get a tape
recording of them
admitting to Dorothy's murder (Paolo says to Marco about Dorothy's
murder, "I don't like my dish taken away while I'm
eating!"). Paolo tells Marco that he will take the tape to the
police unless he antes up with a hefty amount of money. Marco writes
them a large check, but when Paolo and "Nancy" (we never
find out her real name) take off on his motorcycle, laughing about
how they got away with it and are now rich, they don't see a car
heading towards them. The film ends with Paolo and fake Nancy dead on
the pavement, while the car's driver (an innocent) hears the tape of
Marco and Gianna admitting to murder. Everyone loses!
This film, directed and co-written by Silvio Amadio (THE
MINOTAUR - 1960; WHITE
SLAVE SHIP - 1961; AMUCK
- 1971; SO
YOUNG, SO LOVELY, SO VICIOUS... - 1975) gets a lot of
accolades in giallo film circles, but I fail to see why. There are
far too few people to make this a serious giallo film and the mystery
element is not that complex. I guessed the reveal about fifteen
minutes into the film and most giallo diehards should also. For 90%
of the film, it is basically a three-character play, so the
appearance of Paolo at the end is kind of a cheat on the audience
since we are never clued in on Paolo's rage, besides the
flashback where Dorothy exclaims on how good a lover he is.
Otherwise, he is just someone in the background. If it weren't for
the frequent nudity on view (I consider Rosalba Neri to be one of the
most beautiful and talented women to appear in Italian genre films),
this film would have been a complete washout, at least for me. The
screenplay, by Amadio, Francesco Orazio Di Dio & Francesco Villa,
taken from a story idea by Francesco Merli (Producer of the Italian
horror films TERROR-CREATURES
FROM THE GRAVE and BLOODY
PIT OF HORROR [both 1965]), takes forever to get on point,
the blood and violence is rather tame for a giallo film and it doesnt
come until the final 20 minutes. The surprise reveal is actually no
surprise at all, as attentive viewers should have guessed the outcome
long before it happens (never plan a killing with a killer). Another
major problem is that whomever dubbed Marco's voice did a terrible
job, as he speaks in monotone, making Silvano Tranquilli's
performance one-note. Oh well, not every Italian genre film can be a
winner. Worthwhile for the nudity and Bob Deramont's organ-heavy
earworm score. You'll be humming it long after the film is over.
Filmed under the title IL
SORRISO DELLA IENA ("The Smile Of The Hyena"),
this film was never released legally on home video in the United
States in any form, the print I viewed came from a DVD-R from a gray
market seller, which was a port of a fullscreen Dutch VHS release.
Thankfully, the Dutch subtitles are small, but the fullscreen version
cuts off the credits and some scenes are missing important
information off to the the sides. Hopefully, a company like Raro
Video will release a widescreen version on DVD or Blu-Ray. Believe me
when I say this: There are many films that I disliked when viewing
them fullscreen that I loved when watching them in their proper OAR.
I'm not saying that it will change my mind about this film, but I'm
willing to give it a chance. Featuring Fabio Garriba and Luigi
Antonio Guerra as the servant who finds Gianna's almost electrified
body in her darkroom. Not Rated.
THE
STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH
(1971) - Here's an Italy/Spain giallo flick with copious amounts
of nudity, graphic violence, plenty of red herrings and a very twisty
plot. In other words, everything a demanding genre fan wants in a
giallo film. It also doesn't hurt that this film is populated by a
cast of genre pros and a director who knows what makes a giallo film
work. This is the film many people believe jump-started the genre and
it's easy to see why. All the
elements here gel perfectly together to make a nice, tasty stew of
mystery and murder.
The
film opens with this quote from Sigmund Freud: "The very
emphasis of the commandment: 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' makes it
certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of
generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as
it is perhaps also in ours." I would also like to add this
Freud quote because it pertains to this film: "If you wish
life, prepare for death."
Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech; FIVE DOLLS
FOR AN AUGUST MOON - 1970) and her diplomat husband Neil
(Alberto de Mendoza; LIZARD
IN A WOMAN'S SKIN
- 1971) return from an overseas trip and at the airport Neil is
called away on business. Julie takes a taxi home and they are stopped
at a roadblock by the police, who demand to see their papers. It
seems there was a murder nearby, committed by a straight
razor-wielding "sex maniac", who is terrorizing Barcelona's
female population, raping them and then slicing their bodies with the
razor. When Julie hears this, she has a flashback showing her making
violent love to her former beau, Jean (Ivan Rassimov; SPASMO
- 1974), who is a real scumbag. Once home, Julie takes a shower
(yowza!) and hears a knock on her door. A deliveryman hands her a
bouquet of flowers, but there is no card to tell her who they are
from. Julie then goes to a party (and we see the female party goers
get into a playful topless wrestling match!), where she meets
Australian diplomat George Corro (George Hilton; THE
KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN - 1973) and she sees Jean in the
crowd, so she leaves. Outside, Jean grabs Julie and offers her a ride
home, but she wants nothing to do with him, telling him that their
love affair is over. Neil pulls up in his car and sees Jean put
hands on his wife, so he punches him in the face. All Jean does is
laugh like some madman. Julie tells Neil to leave Jean alone because
he is a "pervert maniac", but why does she still have
violent sexual dreams about him?
We then see a young woman come home from a date, strip naked and
take a shower (double yowza!). The sex maniac enters her apartment
and slashes her to death in the shower, her naked body collapsing
into the bathtub. Julie and best friend Carol (Cristina Airoldi; THE
"HUMAN" FACTOR - 1975) are driving down the
street, where Julie tells her she married Neil only to get rid of
Jean, who refuses to take no for an answer, telling Carol, "A
wall is no use against Jean." They meet George at his apartment,
where it is highly apparent that he wants to get into Julie's
panties, but she is not interested because he is so abrupt and
forward. All three of them go out for dinner, where George carves his
initials in an apple and hands it to Julie, which she eats in front
of him (George says, "Do you want to eat me Julie?"). Carol
gets a call and has to leave, so after dinner is over, George gives
Julie a ride home...on his motorcycle, but instead of driving her
home, they take a long romantic ride in the country. Julie tells
George she has changed her mind about him, he's actually a nice guy.
But is he really? Julie and George become lovers and as they are
walking hand-in-hand down a suburban street at night, Jean drives by
and nearly hits Julie, scaring her half to death. But was it really Jean?
While George and Julie are making love on a couch in his home, the
killer watches them through a window, getting turned-on by all the
naked thrusting. The next morning, Julie gets a bouquet of flowers
delivered to her at George's house and once again the sender is
anonymous. She then gets a phone call from the killer, who tells her
a place and time to meet him, but Julie thinks it is Jean disguising
his voice and tells him to get lost. The caller tells her she better
show up. Julie tells Carol about George and the phone call and Carol
and she tells Julie to go for it with George and she will take
Julie's place with the caller, meeting at the time and place he
mentioned. Thinking just like Julie that the caller is Jean, Carol
wants to get the satisfaction of telling him to fuck off. Big
mistake. Julie goes to the appointed place, a park maze made out of
tall hedges (it's quite the sight), and walks around, the further she
gets into the maze, the darker it gets. She spots the park caretaker,
who tells her that the park is about to be closed and locked up for
the night and, a short time later, Carol is viciously slashed to
death, the caretaker finding her bloody body and calling the police.
Julie tells the Police Commissioner (Carlo Alighiero; THE
CAT O'NINE TAILS
- 1971) that she believes Jean is the sex maniac, so he pulls Jean
into his office, where he and Julie face-off. The Commissioner
tells Julie that Jean couldn't have possibly killed Carol because he
has an airtight alibi and Jean goes as far to accuse Julie of being
the killer, telling the Commissioner that she has a "blood fetish".
George promises Julie that he will protect her, but he doesn't do
such a good job, because when he drops Julie off at her apartment
complex, she is nearly slashed to death by the killer in an
underground parking lot. She escapes in an elevator by the skin of
her teeth, falling into Neil's arms at their apartment front door.
Neil, thinking that Jean is the killer, drives to his house with
Julie to confront him, but they find the front door open, the
electricity out and no one seemingly home. Using a cigarette lighter
to illuminate their way, they search Jean's home, finding one of the
rooms to be a zoo of live winged creatures (among them are a hawk and
a bat). They then find Jean slashed to death in his own bathtub.
Julie still has violent sexual dreams of Jean, only this time he is
bloody and naked, slapping the shit out of her. If Jean is not the
killer, who is?
Neil gets a photo of the killer, taken by a security camera in the
underground parking lot, but it is dark and blurry, yet Julie points
to him as the man who tried to kill her. We finally get a good look
at the killer's face (portrayed by Bruno Corazzari; THE
KILLER WORE GLOVES - 1974) when he attacks a young woman in
her apartment, but she stabs him in the heart with a butcher knife,
killing him. Does that mean that Julie is finally safe? Don't count
on it!
If you likes lots of female nudity, you've come to the right place,
as director Sergio Martino, who directed my favorite giallo film of
all time, TORSO (1973),
has the beautiful Edwige Fenech and other pretty women out of their
clothes as much as possible. Martino, who also directed the giallo
films YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND
ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972) and ALL
THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972), as well as the fantasy horror
film SCREAMERS (1980)
and the post apocalyptic AFTER
THE FALL OF NEW YORK (1983), among many others, knows what
makes this genre tick, mainly sex & violence and plenty of it.
The screenplay, by Eduardo Manzanos (NIGHT
OF THE DEVILS - 1972) and Ernesto Gastaldi (THE
CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS - 1972), is full of twists and turns
but, like most good giallo films, it doesn't surprise you with a
"left field" denouement, where someone we never saw before
is the real killer. This story makes perfect sense. When it is
revealed that Julie actually has a blood fetish (blood turns her on,
especially blood and violence mixed together), you'll be wondering if
Julie is the killer. Is she? I'll never tell, but I have given you
all the information you need to solve it on your own. One final hint:
Death isn't always the end of the story.
Filmed as LO STRANO
VIZIO DELLA SIGNORA WARDH ("Mrs. Wardh's Strange
Habit") and also known as BLADE
OF THE RIPPER, THE NEXT VICTIM
and NEXT!, the last two titles
being the U.S. theatrical titles (from Gemini Releasing
Corporation/Maron Films Limited). It had many VHS releases under the
titles I mentioned, from labels such as Saturn Productions Inc., Video
Gems and Regal
Video, all severely edited, missing 17 or more minutes of
footage. Sinister Cinema put out a nice widescreen (but not
anamorphic), uncut DVD-R of this
film using the Italian print, but the disc you should go for (if you
can find it) is the OOP DVD from NoShame
Films. It's uncut, in anamorphic widescreen and looks terrific.
If you have an all region DVD or Blu-Ray player, Britain's Shameless
Films offers this film in both formats, but be aware that it is
slightly cut. This is one of those films that I can watch over and
over and never grow tired of, especially the surprise ending, which
will put a smile on your face. Not because it is funny, but because
it is fitting. Make this a part of your film library ASAP! You won't
regret it. Also starring Manuel Gil (URSUS
- 1961), Miguel del Castillo (HUMAN COBRAS
- 1971), Brizio Montinaro (THE NIGHT
EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE - 1971), Luis de Tejada, Marella
Corbi and Pouchi as the unfortunate girl in the shower. The edited
U.S. Theatrical release was Rated R, but this uncut version is Not
Rated, and rightfully so.
STREETS
OF DEATH (1987) - When it
came to directing some of the worst films of the 80's, very few
people could even come close to the awfulness that was Jeff Hathcock.
With films such as VICTIMS!
(1985), NIGHT RIPPER
(1986) and FERTILIZE
THE BLASPHEMING BOMBSHELL (1989) on Mr. Hathcock's resume,
it's hard to believe that he could sink to any lower depths. Welcome
to STREETS OF DEATH, a film so cheap and lowbrow, Satan
himself would feel burned after viewing it. This cruddy SOV effort
opens with a van (with only one working headlight) pulling in front
of the camera, it's single headlight blinding the viewer for a good
sixty seconds before we cut to a shot of a dead girl with her bloody
arm dangling out of a trash bin and the title of the movie spelled
out in red letters on the inside of the bin. We then watch a hooker
getting dressed in sparkly spandex and walking the streets looking
for a customer. She finds the unseen killer in the van (after walking
under a ladder!),
who tempts her with lots of money and the next time we see her, the
killer is dumping her lifeless bloody body in a dumpster. After
getting slapped around by her pimp for not making enough money,
another hooker gets picked up by the van killer and her hanged and
naked body is discovered by a wino in an abandoned building the next
morning. Police Lieutenant Bernie Navarre (Simon DeSoto) and
Detective Grant Jordan (Lawrence Scott) have found five bodies in the
past three weeks and they are stumped, so when they see someone
beating up a hooker on a street corner, they give chase, only to have
the shit kicked out of them by the hooker's lesbian girlfriend, who
is an expert martial artist (but not the killer). Another hooker
exits a car (She says to her john, "It was a pleasure sitting on
your face!") and gets picked up by the van killer. Before you
know it, she is hog-tied and naked with the killer slowly advancing
at her body with an electric drill. By the time Bernie and Grant view
her corpse, she has had so many holes drilled in her, there's not an
ounce of blood left in her body. Undercover officer Kelly Anderson
(Susanne Smith) is assigned to work as a hooker to catch the killer,
with Grant as her backup, but, at first, all she is able to attract
is a car full of horny Chicanos and a dirty old man (who she picks up
in front of a store called House of Bibles!) who is naked under his
raincoat. Bernie is forced by the higher-ups to allow two filmmakers,
Artie Benson (Larry Thomas, who later gained fame as the "Soup
Nazi" on SEINFELD
[1990 - 1998]) and Lenny Miller (Guy Ecker), to make a documentary on
prostitutes in the city, not knowing that Artie and Lenny are
actually the (homosexual) van killers and they now have a license to
film their murders. They almost get caught while dumping a body, but
Artie and Lenny kill the two eyewitnesses. Kelly and Grant eventually
fall in love, but will she live long enough for them to find true
love? Ex-cop Frank Phillips (a bloated and top-billed Tommy Kirk),
who was kicked-off the force for being drunk when he killed a kid
brandishing a toy knife, suddenly enters Bernie's office and begs him
to let him work on the hooker murder case as a civilian (What?).
Meanwhile, we learn that Artie and Lenny are making snuff films for
profit and they need to film more hooker deaths to satisfy the demand
for their product. Only Frank seems to know what they are up to, but
can he convince his ex-boss before more hookers lose their lives?
Does anyone really care? Hey, is that lump on my head a brain
tumor? Films (and I use that term loosely) don't come much
worse than this; from Tommy Kirk's sweaty, whiney performance (I'd
like to say this film killed his gin-soaked career, but he did that
long before appearing in this, starring in such Larry Buchanan's
turdfests like MARS NEEDS WOMEN
[1967] and IT'S ALIVE [1969])
to Jeff Hathcock's turgid video direction and deadly dull screenplay.
There's way too much talk and very little bloody action considering
the subject matter (the camera always turns away just as things are
about to get interesting) and the romance between Kelly and Grant
takes up more screen time than it deserves. While there is a little
blood and nudity shown, the flat video photography does it no favors
(It's muddy as dishwater, like watching a film through a lace doily
smeared in Vaseline) and the droning synthesizer score will give you
a migraine long before the movie ends. This is the least-seen of
Hathcock's 80's flicks, but there's a reason for that. It's about as
exciting as watching your Aunt Doris trimming her toenails. Also
starring Dave Kalmeyer, Kahlena Marie, Gil Revilla, Lonny Withers,
Ray Williams and Amy Lyndon. An Argosy Video International VHS
Release. Not available on DVD. Not Rated.
STRIP
NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER (1975) -
Sleazy Italian giallo film that opens with a doctor performing an
abortion on a young woman. When she wakes up in the middle of the
procedure and dies of a massive coronary, the doctor and assistant
Carlo Bianchi (Nino Castelnuovo) take the woman's body to her house,
place her in a bathtub full of water and make it look like she
drowned in her bathtub of natural causes. The doctor then drives home
like nothing wrong has happened, but is attacked and graphically
stabbed to death by someone wearing a black leather outfit, complete
with motorcycle helmet. The attacker then cuts off the doctor's
testicles and leaves them next to his body. The next time we see
Carlo, he is taking photos of the beautiful bikini-clad Lucia (Femi
Benussi; THE KILLER
MUST KILL AGAIN - 1973) and soon he has talked her into
stripping nude in a sauna and they are making love. Carlo brings
Lucia back to the modeling agency he works for, where we meet an odd
assortment of characters: Magda (Edwige Fenech; YOUR
VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM - 1972), a fellow photographer and
wannabe model who has the hots for Carlo; Gisella Montani (played by
the single-monikered Amanda), the iron-fisted owner of the modeling
agency; Maurizio (Franco Diogene), Gisella's overweight husband who
has a habit of hitting on the models; Patricia (Solvi Stubing), the
agency's number one model who is now being hounded by Maurizio for
some time in the sack and doesn't appreciate having Lucia as a new
rival; and various other employees. When an obviously gay employee
named Mario develops a photo that contains images of everyone in the
agency (including the dead abortion girl, who we find out was named
Evelyn), the black-clad killer follows him home, stabs him to death
and steals the photo, but not before cutting off Mario's gonads and
leaving them next to his body (It is also obvious Mario knew the
killer, calling his attacker "darling", but since Mario was
gay, the killer could be a man or a woman). A police inspector (Lucio
Como) interrogates all of the agency's employees and tries to tie-in
the doctor's murder with Mario's, since they are so similar. Gisella
and Lucia begin a lesbian relationship and Gisella warns Lucia to
stay away from Carlo if she knows what's good for her. Lucia is then
graphically stabbed to death by the leather-clad killer immediately
after Gisella leaves the apartment. An earring found next to Lucia's
body offers an important clue to the killer's identity and when
Maurizio is the next to suffer the fate of the killer's knife, all
clues point to Gisella being the killer. But when Gisella is
blackmailed for ten million lire by someone over the phone and Carlo
takes photos of the killer murdering Gisella as she is delivering the
blackmail money (she is stabbed and has both her ears cut off), it is
apparent that Carlos is the blackmailer and the killer is someone
close to him. The killer tries to run over Carlos with a car, sending
him to the hospital. Magda must find Carlos' undelveloped roll of
film to unmask the killer. When Magda is set-up to look like the
killer, Carlo must unmask the real killer in the film's bloody
climax. If you have been following this review closely, you should be
able to figure out who the killer is. This is a nasty,
nudity-filled thriller that is sure to raise some eyebrows, due to
both male and female full-frontal nudity and the manner of the
killings. Director Andrea Bianchi, who also gave us the excellent
crime thriller CRY OF A PROSTITUTE
(1974), the zombie horror flick BURIAL
GROUND (1980) and the slasher film MASSACRE
(1989), and screenwriter Massimo Felisatti, give us enough red
herrings to keep us guessing (although it is readily apparent that
the overweight Maurizio could never fit into the killer's tight
leather outfit), but even those not familiar with giallo conventions
could unmask the killer more quickly than this film's police
inspector. The stabbings are quite nasty (plenty of spurting blood)
and the sight of the male victims' removed testicles (yes, you do see
them on a couple of occasions!) is quite unnerving. This may not be a
top-tier giallo film, but it has enough quirkiness (such as the
reveal that Maurizio is a virgin and can only make love to a blow-up
doll without prematurely ejaculating!), luscious nudity and graphic
violence (including shots of dead male and female bodies with cut-off
penises and breasts) to make it a worthwhile addition to any giallo
fan's library. Original title: NUDE
PER L'ASSASSINO. Also starring Erna Schurer, Gianni Airo,
Silvana Depretto, Achille Grioni, Guiseppa Moschella, Filippo La
Neve, Claudio Pelligrini, Wainer Verri and Rudolfo Zola. Blue
Underground offers an excellent widescreen, English-dubbed DVD
of this film and now they offer an even better Blu-Ray.
Not Rated.
SURVIVAL
RUN
(1978) - A group of teens (including Vincent Van Patten, Marianne
Sauvage, Cosi Costa, Susan Pratt O'Hanlon, Robbie Weaver and Randi
Meryl) become stuck in the Arizona desert after their van breaks
down. They run into a gang of narcotic and gun-running thugs, led by
Peter Graves (THE CLONUS HORROR
- 1979) and Ray Milland (FROGS
- 1972), who proceed to rape and kill the teens. The teens fight back
and the chase is on. There are motorcycle chases, gunfights,
explosions, knifings and other standard "trapped in the
desert" goings-on in this run-of-the-mill thriller. Both Graves
and Milland look embarassed to be in junk like this, a Mexico/United
States co-production directed by Larry Spiegel (EVIL
TOWN - 1985). There's not much in the way of gore or nudity,
so the question must be asked: "What's the bloody point?"
The only plus this film has to offer are the slimy performances of
Milland's henchmen, portrayed by Danny Ades and Gonzalo Vega. They
ooze sleaze as they dance with the girls and gang rape O'Hanlon
(offscreen) after killing her boyfriend. The minuses far outpace the
plusses though, so stay away from SURVIVAL
RUN unless you have nothing better to do (like trimming your
nose hair with a dull pair of hedge clippers). Producer Lance Hool (STEEL
DAWN - 1987) puts in an appearance as a narcotics officer
early in the film. Also starring Pedro Armendariz Jr. (TREASURE
OF THE AMAZON - 1985; ONCE
UPON A TIME IN MEXICO - 2003) as the only good guy in
Grave's gang. A Media
Home Entertainment Release. Rated R.
THE
SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR
(1975) - I am a huge fan of Italian Poliziotteschi films and this
is a good one. It also throws-in some giallo elements, making it a
good choice for genre addicts who want to be entertained.
A young woman named Marisa (Patrizia Castaldi) is sitting at a table
at a street fair waiting for someone to arrive. She is then handed a
note written by that someone, telling her, "I can't come. Be
careful." Paolo
(Claudio Cassinelli; FLAVIA
THE HERETIC - 1974), a total stranger, hits on Marisa, but
she can't be bothered, that is until she sees someone (a man wearing
mirrored sunglasses) in the crowd that frightens her. She asks Paolo
to dance with her, then kiss her, as the other man searches for her
through the crowd. She tells Paolo to get his hands off her ass and
dance her to the exit, which he does. She ten runs away, breaking a
lens on Paolo's eyeglasses in the process, while the other man chases
after her. Marisa loses him on the street, enters a phone booth and
calls a rich elderly gentleman called "Il Menga" (Franco
Alpestre), but he tells his butler to tell her that he has flown to
New York. Marisa then runs to a bus stop, where the man chasing her
grabs her and tries to choke the life out of her, but she breaks free
and escapes on a bus. She ends up in a walkup apartment building and
knocks on a door, calling out the name "Raimondo", but no
one answers. The door is unlocked, so Marisa lets herself in, but
when she flicks the light switch on
Police Inspector Teti (Gianfranco Barra; DON'T
TORTURE A DUCKLING - 1972) would like to know, too, as he
arrives at the crime scene the next morning. A doctor tells him that
whoever killed the young woman (they don't know her name yet) sliced
her face so badly, that identifying her will be next to impossible.
The apartment building's landlady (Fiammetta Barella; WHEN
WOMEN LOST THEIR TAILS - 1972) tells the Inspector that the
man who killed the young woman had the proper papers and told her
that he was her father, but she can't remember his name. The
Inspector ask the doctor if any "love Juice" (semen) is on
or in the young woman's body and he says no, it doesn't look like a
sex crime, but the work of a maniac, since there are multiple bruises
on her breasts and abdomen. The Inspector tells District Attorney
Listri (Aldo Massasso; CONTRABAND
- 1980) that they will have to depend on the forensic evidence to
identify the young woman and her killer, taking the D.A. to a coffee
shop while they wait for the Forensics Department to call them
(Marisa's identity card is a phony and her fingerprints are not on
record, which tells the Inspector that she was not a criminal). Also
at the coffee shop is Paolo, who overhears them talking about the
case. Is Paolo involved in all this somehow or is it just dumb luck?
As the Inspector is leaving the coffee shop, a young thief on a
scooter steals his expensive gold lighter as he is lighting a
cigarette (showing us that the streets of Milan are not even safe for
the police).
We then see Paolo, who is carrying a gun, sneak into the apartment
of the landlady. He wraps a phone cord around the landlady's neck and
demands to know what she told the Inspector. She tells him that she
said nothing and then mentions a man named "Menga" and how
he wasn't satisfied with the usual whores. He wanted more, so he
started trafficking minors, but she didn't want any part of that
"rotten business." She asks Paolo who he is and he tells
her that he's her executioner if she doesn't tell him where Menga
lives. Suddenly, her doorbell rings and it's the police, Paolo
telling her to get rid of them and no tricks. The Inspector wants to
see the murder scene again, so the landlady takes him there and Paolo
then leaves her apartment, catching a thief (the same thief that
stole the Inspector's gold lighter) trying to lift a portable radio
from the front seat of his car. Instead of getting mad, Paolo makes
the thief a deal. He offers to cut him in for 50% of a much bigger
haul if he'll work for the "MYOFB". The young thief asks
who they are and Paolo responds, "Mind Your Own Fucking
Business." The thief agrees and they introduce themselves to
each other. The thief's name is Giannino (Adolfo Caruso) and Paolo
give him his real name, also telling him, "They call me
Milingi." Paolo hops on Giannino's scooter and they go on a
miniature crimewave, stealing the purses and jewelry of prostitutes
as they pass them on the scooter. When they try to steal an obese
prostitute's purse, her pimps appear and Paolo shows Giannino what a
good fighter he is, beating up the pimps. What is Paolo's game?
Giannino introduces Paolo to his mother and young brother, telling
Paolo that he supports his family by stealing. Paolo and Giannino go
through all the purses they stole, Paolo telling him that he can keep
all the cash, all he wants are the prostitute's notebooks. Paolo and
Giannino become fast friends and partners in crime (although it is
strictly minor), but the question still remains: Why does Paolo want
to find Menga? The notebooks lead them to a business called "The
Syndicate Of Milanese Women Domestics", a front for an underage
prostitution racket. Paolo tells Giannino to get lost when he asks
him why he is so interested in Menga (He tells Giannino, "Didn't
you agree to MYOFB?"), so Giannino leaves while Paolo enters the
business and questions the man at the front desk, asking to speak
with the director. The female director of the business introduces
herself to Paolo and they dance around about hiring a
"domestic" because she doesn't know if Paolo is a real
customer or the police. When he gains her trust, she tells him that
the only domestics they have are "students" and that they
are very expensive. Two men then appear at the front desk and tell
Paolo that this is a professional business and if he doesn't leave
they will call the police. Paolo leaves and then one man turns to the
other and says, "Call Raimondo." Where did we hear that
name before?
Paolo then picks up prostitute Carmela (Lia Tanzi; THE
VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS - 1973) at her normal place on the
street and she takes him back to her apartment, where he tries to
impress her by paying her with fifty American dollars (She throws the
money back at him, saying, "Dollars are not what they once use
to be!"). Paolo pretends to be the limousine driver for a
wealthy Arab sheik to further impress her in hopes that she will tell
him where Menga lives. He tells her that his boss likes his women
young and that she is too old for him. Carmela doesn't care and asks
Paolo to introduce her to the rich Arab (she says, "For 500,000
lire, I'll find him a toddler!"). Paolo tells her that her will
give her a telephone number and if the Arab doesn't answer, to ask
for Paolo or Giannino. He then asks Carmela to give him his
fifty-dollar's worth and when he rolls over on her bed, he breaks his
eyeglasses even more (a running joke throughout the film). We then
have to ask ourselves: Who is Paolo really? Why is he so desperate to
find Menga?
Milan is also going through a kidnap spree of young children, the
latest victim is the son of a rich chocolate candy magnate. The
kidnappers are demanding two million lire for the safe return of his
son. Is it possible that Menga is involved in these
kidnappings? Carmela sends an underage hooker to the ritzy Parca
Hotel, thinking she is sending her to rich Arab Prince Yousef, but
the young hooker meets Paolo instead. He asks her who her pimp is but
she is too scared to answer and leaves the room. At this point in
time, we learn that Paolo is actually Police Detective Paolo Germi
and he has Giannino (who still doesn't know that Paolo is a cop)
follow the underage hooker, who has hopped in a taxi, hoping she will
lead them to Menga. Giannino then follows he into a subway and leads
Giannino and Paolo to her pimp. The pimp shoots and kills the young
girl, thinking she has set him up. Giannino gets knocked-out in the
ensuing skuffle and Paolo shoots and kills the pimp. Paolo tells
Giannino to get lost and he searches the pimp's apartment, finding
out that the pimp's first name is Milingi (Where did we hear that
name before?). How is the rest of the film played out? There will be
more dead bodies, as Paolo and Inspector Teti do their own separate
investigations (The Inspector doesn't know Paolo is a cop) and both
come to the same conclusion about Menga. Is he the real head of the
underage hooker ring?
While there are the prerequisite bloody violence and nudity we
demand from a Poliziotteschi flick, director/co-screenwriter Sergio
Martini (THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH
- 1971; ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK
- 1972; SILENT ACTION -
1975; THE GREAT ALLIGATOR
- 1979) also tosses something uncommon into this genre: a healthy
dose of humor. Throughout the film, Paolo's eyeglasses take a beating
and he drives what has to be the worst car in action film history.
When he first meets Carmela on the street, she has to enter the car
by climbing onto the roof and enter through the sunroof, as none of
the doors or windows are able to open. Just like his eyeglasses, his
car takes a beating as the film progresses, losing the two passenger
side doors and, eventually, the hood in a car chase that could be
best described as comically
insane. It is Claudio Cassinelli who makes this film so special, as
he takes all the lumps he gets in stride, never losing his sense of
humor in even the most dire of circumstances. But he is not the only
one who is humorous. Gianfranco Barra as Inspector Teti is also a
delight, always trying to find a system to win the soccer lottery and
always failing, yet he never gives up. Mel Ferrer (THE
PYJAMA GIRL CASE - 1977) puts in an extended cameo as the
Police Superintendent, both Paolo and Teti's boss, but he may be more
involved in the case then the two of them are aware of. But
this is far and away Claudio Cassinelli's film, as he is superb in
both his comedic and dramatic roles, sometimes at the same time.
While I generally frown upon comedy mixed with action, Martino,
working with a script written by himself and his longtime
collaborator Ernesto Gastaldi (he has written or co-written the
screenplays to Martino's YOUR VICE
IS A LOCKED ROOM...
- 1972; TORSO - 1973; and KIDNAP
SYNDICATE - 1975, just to name a few), makes it work here
because the comedy is not kitchen-sink style, it seems natural to the
characters. The relationship between Giannino and Paolo could have
been played broadly, but both Cassinelli and Adolfo Caruso play it
realistically, giving their characters a true emotional core. The
fact is, we care about them. As I mentioned earlier in this review,
Martino adds some giallo elements into the film, as we always see the
killer's POV, as murders people in his way. The killer also wears
black leather gloves and the violence is bloody, which elevates this
film a notch or two above most Poliziotteschi films. Very seldom has
Sergio Martino failed me as a director and this film is no different.
It has an involving story, marvelous performances and will elicit
smiles. What more could you ask for?
Shot as MORTE
SOSPETTA DI UNA MINORENNE (A literal translation of the
review title), this film never received a theatrical or legitimate
VHS release in the United States. The Blu-Ray from Arrow
Video looks fantastic and is a must-buy for fans of this genre.
Also available streaming on Amazon Prime (free to Prime members) I
gave the streaming version a quick look (it's in Italian with English
subtitles and in its OAR) and it, too, looks gorgeous. So what are
you waiting for? Does Paolo get his man? Yes, he does, but there's a
price to be paid for it, though. And did I mention that there is a
shootout on a moving rollercoaster? Also starring Jenny Tamburi (THE
WOMEN IN CELL BLOCK 7 - 1973), Barbara Magnolfi (THE
SISTER OF URSULA - 1978), Carlo Alighiero (THE
CAT O'NINE TAILS - 1971), Franco Diogene (STRIP
NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER - 1975) and Roberto Posse (THE
EYE BEHIND THE WALL - 1977) as the mirrored sunglass-wearing
killer. Not Rated.
TED
BUNDY (2002) - Everyone knows the
story of Ted Bundy. During the '70's he supposedly murdered over one
hundred women, making him the worst serial killer in U.S. history and
he alone changed the way the FBI would profile future serial killers.
In this film, director Matthew Bright (FREEWAY
- 1996) portrays Bundy (Michael Reilly Burke - CREATURE
- 1998; OCTOPUS 2: RIVER
OF FEAR - 2002) as the perennial loser: an illegitimate,
shoplifting peeping tom who,
even though he has an above-average IQ, has trouble relating to women
on a personal level. He has a girlfriend (Boti Ann Bliss) who does
anything to please his sexual desires, but he still feels the need to
mutilate and sexually assault (including necrophelia) young women to
satisfy his homicidal deviant ways. He leaves a trail of bodies from
Seattle to Salt Lake City to Colorado Springs and, finally, to
Florida. Picked up for questioning in a botched kidnapping in Salt
Lake City, Bundy is interrogated by a detective (played by Tom
Savini, who also supplies the gruesome special make-up effects) and
is subsequently charged in the murder of a woman in Colorado. Bundy
escapes from jail, not once, but twice, and hightails it to Florida
where he takes a new identity but doesn't change his murderous ways.
He kills and mutilates several more women before being caught after
killing a 12 year old girl and sentenced to die in the electric chair
(which he did in 1989). This is a sensationalistic retelling of
Bundy's story; much different than the 1986 TV movie THE
DELIBERATE STRANGER, where police procedural played an
important role and Mark Harmon played Bundy. Here, the entire story
is played through Bundy's eyes, from his first murder to his well-deserved
demise. I hate to say it, since I like Matthew Bright's previous
directorial efforts, but this is not a very good film. The main
distraction is Burke's performance as Bundy.
It's way too broad and seems to be played mainly for comical effect.
Portraying America's worst sociopath with a wink towards the humorous
is just plain wrong. Burke is basically a poodle in bulldog's
clothing as we do not feel the gut-punch that we should when watching
this character killing innocent women. Stephen Johnson, who co-wrote
this film with Bright, did a much better job with the screenplay to ED
GEIN (2000) mainly because he had a superior actor in Steve
Railsback as Gein. Both films were produced by Tartan Films, who plan
to make more films based on the lives of famous serial killers. TED
BUNDY also stars Alexa Jago and longtime favorite coot actor
Tracey Walter (REPO MAN -
1984) in a small role as a man who rents Bundy a room. If you're
looking for blood, gore and nudity, you'll find it here. If you're
looking for an intellectual film about what goes on in the mind of a
serial killer, watch HENRY,
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986) instead. A First Look
Home Entertainment DVD Release, who also released the serial killer
film DAHMER (2002), though
it wasn't produced by Tartan Films. Other real-life serial killer
films followed, including SPECK, NIGHTSTALKER
(both 2002) and GACY
(2003). Rated R.
TERROR
EXPRESS (1979) - Tell me if
you have heard this one before: A trio of sadistic brutes board a
train and brutalize the passengers; torturing them psychologically,
physically and sexually. No, this isn't THE
NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS (1974), but it does bear striking
similarities in that they are both Italian productions, contain story
elements lifted from LAST
HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) and revel in sexual degradation. The
story is very simple: We are introduced to a variety of very
unlikable characters as they board a train in Rome bound for Germany,
while three gentlemen with no morals whatsoever, led by David (Werner
Pochath; COP GAME - 1988;
here billed as "Paul Werner"), begin to terrorize them,
using the victims' fears and deep-rooted secrets to their advantage.
David and his two friends, Elio (Carlo De Mejo; CONTAMINATION
- 1980) and Nico (Giancarlo Maestri), start their mischief in the
train's dining car, being loud and obnoxious, playing their portable
radio too loud and being asked to turn it down by a rich, elderly
businessman and his assistant (who we see buying his boss a stack of
porno magazines before they board the train). The only member in the
dining car who seems to like them is rebellious teenager Elena
(Fiammetta Flamini), who is one the train with her strict, but
abhorrent, parents. When Italian cop Mike (Venantino Venantini) brings
his handcuffed prisoner, Pierre (Gianluigi Chirizzi; BURIAL
GROUND - 1980), to the dining car for something to eat (He's
escorting Pierre to Germany to stand trial for some, as yet, unknown
crime), it causes more of a moral stink with the passengers than
David and his friends do (They have already humiliated the busboy),
so Mike and Pierre are forced to go back to their compartment and eat
dinner alone. Also on the train is high-priced callgirl Julia (Silvia
Dionisio; ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA
- 1973), who has a session with the elderly rich businessman in her
compartment, but there are quite a few other men on the train that
would like to spend some time with her, including Elena's father, who
wants Julia to wear Elena's nightgown while he makes love to her
(it's a sick, pseudo-incestual sequence). The married, but unhappy,
Anna (Zora Kerova; CANNIBAL FEROX
- 1980) willingly has sex with Elio in one of the train's bathrooms,
but soon Nico enters the bathroom to make Anna the meat in their rape
sandwich. Before long, David knocks out Mike, steals his gun and he
and his two friends take over the train car. Elio frees Pierre from
his handcuffs, while David locks both exit doors to the railway car
and disables the handbrake so they can torture and torment the
passengers at their whim. David wants Julia to give up her goodies to
him willingly, but she refuses, so he threatens to rape Elena
instead. Elena's mother pleads with Julia to fuck David and his
friends, so she relents and screws David and Elio. Elio also makes
love to a willing Elena (another sexually graphic scene), Pierre and
Julia form a friendship and everyone else bickers amongst themselves
while the train approaches its first stop. David and his pals lock
all the passengers in one compartment as the train makes its first
regularly scheduled stop, but Pierre escapes out a window. Will he
escape or will he return to save Julia and the other passengers
before David and his friends go full-tilt Bozo? A lot of review
sites give TERROR EXPRESS
high marks, but, to me, it's nothing but a film about a group of very
unlikable people (I'm not just talking about David and his two pals,
but also about nearly all of the passengers) being asinine pricks and
getting the punishment they deserve. It's no coincidence that
director Ferdinando Baldi (THE
SICILIAN CONNECTION - 1972; COMIN'
AT YA! - 1981; WAR BUS
- 1985; JUST A DAMNED SOLDIER
- 1988) and screenwriter Gastone Carsetti (based on a story by Luigi
Montefiori, better known on these shores as "George Eastman"
of THE GRIM REAPER [1980]
fame) make prostitute Julia and prisoner Pierre the most sympathetic
characters in the film, because all the other "normal"
people (including the train's conductor [played by Gino Milli], who
is nothing but a pimp in a uniform) are some of the most useless
trash this side of a John Waters film (except for elderly couple Mary
[who is dying] and husband Isaac, who never leave their compartment).
Baldi wallows in the sleazier aspects of the film, including plenty
of nudity, sex (especially an over-reliance on oral sex), rape and
humiliation, which I guess is enough for some people, but not me.
Werner Pochath is no David Hess and his antics as the leader of the
trio (I guess naming him "David" was some sort of homage)
pales in comparison to LAST HOUSE's Krug and company. The
actual physical violence is rather restrained and bloodless (there
are plenty of sexual assaults, though) until the finale, but by that
time I had lost all interest. Not worth your time unless you like
watching deserving people being degraded. Also starring Fausto
Lombardi, Roberto Caporali and Antonino Maimone. Although there is no
legitimate U.S. release of this film, German company Camera Obscura
offers a nice widescreen print (under the title LA
RAGAZZA
DEL VAGONE LETTO/HORROR-SEX IM NACHTEXPRESS) in Italian or
German languages with optional English subtitles. Not Rated.
TERROR
FROM UNDER THE HOUSE (1971) -
I have fond memories of watching this film on TV (under the title INN
OF THE FRIGHTENED PEOPLE) during the 70's with my late mother.
It was a favorite of hers, thanks to the psychological, rather than
physical, violence as well the surprise ending and would soon become
a favorite of mine, too (for the same reasons). The TV showings
dried-up during the mid-80's and, besides a short-lived AIR
Video VHS release (using the title BEHIND
THE CELLAR DOOR), it disappeared from view. Imagine my
surprise finding this tight little thriller on DVD. The story is
simple: Jim and Carol Radford (James Booth, Joan Collins) lose one of
their daughters (it's actually Carol's step-daughter) when she is
raped and killed by a pedophile when leaving school. The police
arrest a suspect named Seely (Kenneth Griffith), but have to release
him when all the evidence in the case against him turns out to be
circumstantial. A distraught Jim enlists the help of his teenage son
Lee (Tom Marshall) and family friend Harry (Ray Barrett) to kidnap
Seely and bring him to the Radford's cellar, which sits below a
crowded pub that the Radford's own and run. After slugging Seely a
few times (even Carol gets in a few licks), they tie him up and must
decide what to do with him. As they try to keep their prisoner a
secret from their other daughter Jill
(Zuleika Robson), Lee's fiancee Rose (Sinead Cusack), who works as a
waitress at the pub, and the pub's patrons, the Radfords and Harry
begin fighting among each other (especially about who is actually
going to kill him) and have many close calls with their new prisoner,
including a couple of nosy beer deliverymen and an escape by Seely.
When information comes to light that Seely may actually be innocent,
it puts the Radfords into an even deeper quandary: Should they let
him go and hope for the best or should they kill him to cover up
their mistake? After all, haven't they all suffered enough? When
Seely returns to the Radford's home on his own after the escape, that
seems to resolve their problem, but the surprise ending (which I
won't reveal here) is a doozy and fits in perfectly with the rest of
this tension-filled film. It's a shocker. This is an excellent
little British thriller (originally filmed under the simple
descriptive title REVENGE) that
should be seen by those that like their films suspenseful and
well-plotted. Unrelenting in tone, this film ponders the age-old
questions: How far would you be willing to go to achieve justice,
when all legal avenues have failed you? How far do you have to cross
that invisible line in the sand before it's too late to turn back?
Could you murder someone to satisfy that sense of justice? This film
will make anyone think twice about committing vigilante justice,
especially when they witness how it tears at the fabric of a
tight-knit family. The acting here is top-notch, especially by both
James Booth (AVENGING FORCE
- 1986) and Joan Collins (those who know Collins only by her DYNASTY
role, 80's TV movies and soap opera appearances are in for a
surprise). They play decent, upstanding citizens who let their grief
of losing their daughter get the best of them and their actions and
guilt over what they do next will, unfortunately, do more damage to
their lives and the lives of their remaining family members than the
rape and murder of their daughter ever will. The look on Carol's face
as she listens through the wall as her stepson Lee and Rose fight
(Lee is unable to sexually perform due to his guilt of kidnapping
Seely) says a lot, but when Lee rips off Carol's blouse and rapes her
in front of Seely (after she tries to console him over what she has
just heard), you know things are going to go downhill very quickly.
Director Sidney Hayers, who also gave us the rape-themed IN
THE DEVIL'S GARDEN (1971; a.k.a. ASSAULT
and THE CREEPERS) and the
underrated thriller DEADLY STRANGERS
(1974), keeps things moving briskly and the script (by John Kruse) is
expertly paced and not condescending. There is a smattering of blood,
but the film is not about violence, it's about the breakdown of a
family due to violence. Carol's rape is only seen through Seely's
shattered eyeglasses, wonderfully projecting the disintegration of
the Radford family. Required viewing for thriller fans. Also known as AFTER
JENNY DIED. Also starring Donald Morley, Barry Andrews,
Artro Morris and Patrick McAlinney. A JEF Films DVD Release, which
utilizes a fullscreen print that's full of emulsion scratches and
blemishes. Also available on DVD in its original OAR from Scorpion
Releasing under the title REVENGE!
It's the only way to watch the film. Rated PG.
TRHAUMA
(1979) - Two boys are running through the woods when one boy
orders the other (he has a lazy left eye) to climb a tree to get him
a birds nest. The other boy says no, it is too high and he's scared,
but the first boy tells him if they want to remain friends, he will
climb the tree. The other boy starts climbing and the first boy keeps
telling him to climb higher. He slips and lands hard on the ground,
knocked unconscious. The other boy walks up to him, points his finger
and says,
"You're so stupid!" and walks away. A disco tune plays on
the soundtrack and the opening credits begin. We then see that boy
with the lazy eye as an adult (Per Holgher; billed simply as
"L'essere" which translates to "The Being") in a
dark room, building a large cathedral (the last thing he saw before
falling out of the tree) with Legos (!), as a small puppy whines by
his feet. The being picks up a tire iron, knocks the puppy's head off
(!), smiles and then continues building his cathedral (I wasn't sure
what kind of animal it was until I viewed the sequence frame by frame
and there it was, a puppy!). What does one sequence have to do with
the other, you may ask? Don't worry, it will be explained as the film
(and this review) progresses (although from this moment, I thought I
knew where it was headed).
We are then introduced to Lilly (Domitilla Cavazza, billed as
"Dafne Price"), who is mad at her husband, Andrew (Gaetano
Russo, billed as Ronny Russo"; THE
KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS - 1974), for purchasing and
trying to renovate the run-down villa that they are now living in.,
pissing away Lilly's inheritance in the process. Lilly has invited
some friends over for the weekend, including model Olga (Anna Maria
Chiante) and photographer Paul (Timothy Wood). Paul is a control
freak, as we watch him taking nude photos of Olga, complaining that
she is not following his instructions, as he snaps away with his
camera in a field close to the villa. Olga grows tired of Paul's
constant complaining, tells him to "fuck off" and walks
back to the villa, buck-naked. She becomes aware of a presence
following her and she begins walking faster, but she never makes it
to the villa. We then see the Being rolling around in sheep shit,
making love to Olga's bloody corpse! He is then attacked by one of
the sheepdogs, but he snaps its neck and pulls its jaws apart,
killing it (dogs don't like him). He then carries Olga's corpse to
God knows where (maybe in the dark room with the Lego cathedral?).
Also at the villa are Lilly's friend Silvia (Silvia Mauri; BLAZING
FLOWERS - 1978), her fiancé Carlo (Roberto Posse; MACABRE
- 1980), obese business associate Bitto (Franco Diogene; STRIP
NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER - 1975) and his pretty
"secretary" Helen (Gina Mancinelli). This is going to be a
very interesting and deadly weekend, folks! At the afternoon barbecue
(Where the fat Bitto is the cook, because all he does is talk about
food), Lilly notices that Olga and Paul are nowhere to be found. We
then discover that the Being (who walks with a limp, probably caused
from falling out of the tree when he was a child) has a faceless
friend, who hands him a couple of boxes of Legos in his dark room.
That night, Paul pulls up to the villa in his Jeep, telling the group
he has no idea where Olga is, as she left his photo shoot in the
afternoon and he drove to town to take pictures of the buildings, so
they form a search party, breaking up into teams of two and go
looking for Olga in the middle of the night. Lilly are Andrew
are one team and they once again get into a fight over money, Paul
leaving her alone in the middle of the forest (Divorce sure sounds
like a good idea!). Lilly gets scared and starts running, calling
Paul's name, but he doesn't answer. She runs into the arms of Carlo
and they go back to the villa, the Being watching them as they walk
away. Andrew makes it back to the villa on his own, but only Paul is
there. He hits up Paul for $500, telling him he needs the money to
bet on an important poker game tomorrow and it is a sure thing. Paul
tells Andrew he is crazy if he thinks he is going to lend him any
more money, as Andrew still owes him $2,500 for his last "sure
thing". Andrew tells him he has three "suckers" lined
up for this game and there is no way he is going to lose, also
telling Paul that he feels lucky and will pay him back after the
game. Paul then agrees to loan him the money, but he only has 48
hours to pay him back everything that he owes him. If he doesn't,
Paul's "bosses" will come and break Andrew's legs (Divorce
is really sounding good at this moment, as he doesn't even worry
about Lilly).
When everyone gets together back at the villa, finding that no one
has found Olga, they come to the conclusion that Olga hitchhiked back
to the city (I hope my friends would know better!), so they call it a
night. Silvia, who is not satisfied with that explanation (Finally, a
level-headed person!), leaves Carlo alone in their bedroom and goes
looking for Olga on her own (I take back that "level-headed"
remark!). Lilly has something to tell Carlo, but he tells her he's
too busy (he's about to go looking for Silvia), so she turns around
and walks away, saying she will tell him later (I hope she tells him
she's getting a divorce!). Silvia is scared when she notices some
shrubbery moving in an unnatural way, like someone invisible is
walking through it, so she backs away slowly, only to discover that
the Being is behind her. A short time later, Carlo and Paul find
Silvia unconscious in the woods and carry her back to the villa. When
she wakes up, she tells everyone that a madman attacked her. Helen
wants to leave immediately, but Lilly tells her to calm down, it was
probably thieves and "they're probably more scared than us."
Bitto agrees, but He