After the success of Demons 2, director Lamberto Bava and producer Dario Argento had begun to collaborate on another project. But, while Bava wanted to do another entry in the Demons series, Argento did not, leading to Bava saying his farewells and Argento bringing in Michele Soavi, who had directed the second unit on a number of Argento’s films. A screenplay for the film passed through no less than eight hands, including Soavi’s. The location changed from a plane to a volcanic island and, finally, to a Gothic cathedral in the heart of a modern European city. Thus, we have The Church, from 1989. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The Church, aka La Chiesa”
Month: October 2023
October Horrorshow: The Mutilator, aka Fall Break
At its most basic, American regional cinema is defined as films made elsewhere than Hollywood or New York City — the two great hubs of American entertainment. It turns out the United States is a big place, and there are filmmakers scattered all over it, like fleas on a mutt. Sometimes little-known filmmakers produce masterpieces, such as Night of the Living Dead or Carnival of Souls. What mostly marks regional cinema is local flavor that Hollywood productions can’t quite match, even when they invade the further reaches of the country to shoot on location. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Mutilator, aka Fall Break”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Tentacles
One could be forgiven if, at first glance, Tentacles appears to be a spurious addition to the lineup of Italian horror flicks in this year’s October Horrorshow. The first five names in the credits are not Italian names. In fact, they are prominent names in Hollywood. The first is Samuel Z. Arkoff, who was very much an American producer. Even the director, Oliver Hellman, doesn’t seem to be of Italian extraction. But, this is all misdirection.
Arkoff and his company, American International Pictures, were not the producers of this film — they were the distributors in the States. Oliver Hellman is a pseudonym for Olivio G. Assonitis. And as for all those prominent names at the start of the film? Well, everyone in Hollywood, no matter how big, eventually slums it for an easy paycheck. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Tentacles”
October Horrorshow: Razorteeth
Regular readers of the Horrorshow and Shitty Movie Sundays will know that I have an appreciation for John and Mark Polonia, the twin brothers behind shot-on-video gems Splatter Farm and Hallucinations. Those flicks were a combination of amateurish and sublime that is hard to fathom without actually seeing it. Their relentless love of filmmaking, horror movies, and their ability to work on the cheap kept them employed in the movie business. But, actual growth as filmmakers, and in particular, storytellers, is something that is sorely missing from their oeuvre. As time marched on, the efficiency of their movies seems to have superseded all else. Almost twenty years on from Splatter Farm, 2005’s Razorteeth lacks all of the charm and intensity of the early movies, and continues a pattern of absolute bottom-feeding filmmaking. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Razorteeth”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The New York Ripper, aka Lo squartatore di New York
Is it giallo? Is it horror? Is it both? In Italian cinema, the line between giallo and horror is often blurred, to the point it becomes insignificant. Thus it is with The New York Ripper, one of Lucio Fulci’s 1982 films. It has the most important tropes of giallo — women in danger, a serial killer on the loose, lots of nudity, and more blood than American audiences are used to in thrillers. It also has the feel of a slasher flick. Shoving the film into one category or another doesn’t do the viewer any good. And, if it ain’t horror, it can’t be part of the October Horrorshow. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The New York Ripper, aka Lo squartatore di New York”
October Horrorshow: Video Demons Do Psychotown, aka Bloodbath in Psycho Town
What a pair of titles. Video Demons Do Psychotown and Bloodbath in Psycho Town. Both are great titles for a sleazy drive-in horror flick featuring the three ‘B’s’ — Blood, Breasts, and Beasts. Well, there are two of those, which doesn’t make this flick a total bust, but viewers have been subjected to that all-too common feature of shitty filmmaking: the misleading title. Titles like that above promise something extreme, something visceral, something that satisfies the basest desires of the depraved horror movie fan. But, in truth, this flick is just cheap.
Distributed by Troma, mass purveyors of trash cinema, Video Demons comes to us via writer/director Alessandro De Gaetano.
Released in 1989, Video Demons follows student filmmakers Eric and Karen (Ron Arragon and Donna Baltron) as they set off into rural Indiana to make a documentary movie about a town full of psychics, hence the ‘Psychotown’[sic] of the title. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Video Demons Do Psychotown, aka Bloodbath in Psycho Town”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Baron Blood, aka After Elizabeth Died, aka Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga
Baron Blood, Mario Bava’s 1972 film, a joint Italian-German production, was a success, making money in both the domestic and international markets. It seemed to tick off all the audiences’ boxes for what gothic horror should be. A castle, a baron, a mysterious legend, some bodies, and a bombshell female lead. Nothing about it feels original, though. Mario Bava is one of the giants hovering over horror films, but the internet seems to agree with my reaction to Baron Blood, ranking it as one of Bava’s more pedestrian efforts. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad film. It isn’t. It just fails to leave a lasting impression.
The film follows Antonio Cantafora as Peter Kleist, the son of Austrian immigrants who has returned to the old country to explore his family’s past before returning to his studies. He is staying with his uncle, Dr. Karl Hummel (Massimo Girotti), who teaches at a local university. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Baron Blood, aka After Elizabeth Died, aka Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga”
October Horrorshow: The She Beast
Young director Michael Reeves only had three directing credits to his name before he overdosed on booze and pills. His final feature, Witchfinder General, aka The Conqueror Worm, is a true classic, gracing many ‘best of’ lists on the internet. A couple of years before, Reeves cut his teeth on Italian/British production The She Beast, which he also co-wrote with F. Amos Powell, longtime Hollywood TV actor Mel Welles, and b-movie legend Charles B. Griffith, all uncredited. Welles also has a substantial role as a sleazy innkeeper.
The She Beast tells the story of a small town in Transylvania that had been plagued by a demon known as Vardella, or Bardella, depending on the source (Joe ‘Flash’ Riley in a lot of makeup). She would kidnap locals and feed on them. One day the townsfolk had enough, tracked Vardella to her layer, strapped her to a ducking stool and drowned her in a local lake. The locals had been warned that this was only a temporary solution without a true exorcism, but their blood was up and they weren’t listening. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The She Beast”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Anthropophagus, aka The Savage Island, aka The Grim Reaper, aka The Zombie’s Rage
Anthropophagus, one of nine films released in 1980 from director Joe D’Amato, but the only one that wasn’t porn, first came to the shores of the United States in butchered form, carrying a number of different titles. But, this is the Information Age. Censorship of film is, at best, vulgar, at worst, malicious. The film that was denied viewers for decades is now available in its full glory. Or, at least, its fullness.
The title, Anthropophagus, comes from anthropophagy, which is a fancy term for cannibalism engaged in by humans. The ‘gus’ attached to the end of the film’s title transforms the verb into a noun, implying that there is a person in this flick with an unhealthy appetite. And there is! The title creature in the movie is played by frequent D’Amato collaborator George Eastman as Klaus, a man deformed and driven insane by a horrendous choice he had to make while shipwrecked. Now, some time later, he can’t stop his voracious hunger for human flesh. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Anthropophagus, aka The Savage Island, aka The Grim Reaper, aka The Zombie’s Rage”
October Horrorshow: Hellspawn
The Polonia Brothers are at it again. After sitting on a shelf for the better part of a decade, 2003 saw the DVD release of Hellspawn, one of the brothers’ more stylistically classic movies.
Hellspawn has the feel of an homage to horror films from the 1950s and ’60s. It has lingering, atmospheric shots that evoke English gothic horror and Hitchcock’s Psycho, and a soundtrack reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead. Hellspawn is clearly a movie the Polonias put a little more time and care into than something like Feeders. And yet most of it still feels mailed in.
What hurts this movie the most, and might be the reason behind its delayed release, is the sound quality. The brothers shot this movie on video, as was their wont, and it sounds like they used the built-in mic on whatever camcorder they were shooting with. The result is entire scenes with muddled or unintelligible dialogue. Without fail these issues with the sound happen during scenes with much-needed exposition. That places an undue burden on the rest of the movie. Where the brothers succeed in homage-ing, they don’t keep pace in scares or effects. For a movie with an 86-minute running time, long for the Polonias, that makes watching a slog, despite flashes of vintage Polonia. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Hellspawn”