Three years before he made Cannibal Holocaust, filmmaker Ruggero Deodato gave viewers Ultimo mondo cannibale, released in the States as Jungle Holocaust. Many of the lessons Deodato learned making this film, he would later apply to his more notorious followup, including real animal slaughter. According to Joe Bob Briggs, so it must be true, the reason Deodato, and others, featured animal killings in their films was that it somehow increased box office in South and Southeast Asia. Who knows if that is true, as I imagine box office figures from 1977 Bangladesh or Kuala Lumpur are hard to come by. What I do know is that, if it is true, it undermines any artistic argument for including animal killings in a movie. Anyway… Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Jungle Holocaust, aka Ultimo mondo cannibale, aka Last Cannibal World”
Tag: Italian Flick
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Apocalypse, aka Cannibals in the Streets, aka Apocalypse domani
The 1970’s and ’80s saw a lot of self-reflection here in the States about the Vietnam War. Not only did we lose, the war was a crime against humanity, resulting in the deaths of millions. We never should have gone into Vietnam, but there has never been much of a mea culpa in popular culture outside of cinema. Even there, every Platoon was rebutted by a Missing in Action.
The Vietnam War is a subject rich for allegory. Cannibal Apocalypse, had it been made by an American filmmaker, might have been one of those films. It comes close. Alas, it’s an Italian horror flick, and writer/director Antonio Margheriti (with the prolific Dardano Sacchetti sharing writing credits) was not interested in an introspective feature on American guilt. It is interesting how close it comes, though, intentionally or not. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Apocalypse, aka Cannibals in the Streets, aka Apocalypse domani”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Torso, aka I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale
Viewers of gialli would be hard-pressed to find a film that ticks more of the genre’s boxes than 1973’s Torso, from writers Ernesto Gastaldi and Sergio Martino, with direction by Martino. It has copious amounts of gratuitous nudity, a killer who stalks women, a final reveal of the killer’s motivations that makes little sense, and enough blood and guts that the film bleeds over into the slasher horror genre.
In Perugia, Italy, a killer sets his sights on lovely female students of a local university. The women are stereotypical free spirits of the age; into drugs, sex, and nude sunbathing. They stand out amongst the stodgier parts of contemporary Italian society, not least because their miniskirts reach nowhere close to the knees. Martino seems to take glee in showing the clash between the prudes and the debauched. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Torso, aka I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Madhouse, aka There Was a Little Girl
New Orleans has been a popular filming location for horror flicks. Parts of that town have the patina of age and dire history that make it perfect for the genre. Don’t sleep on Savannah, Georgia, though. Its historic district is packed full of edifices built by the southern gentry of ages past, and all the baggage that implies. Just like every other American city in the 1970s and ’80s, decay and deterioration only added to the area’s horror bona fides.
Take Kehoe House, a Queen Anne mansion commissioned in the 1890s by immigrant industrialist William Kehoe. Not quite one of the Gilded Age piles that lined 5th Avenue in New York, it’s still an imposing structure that fronts an entire short block of Columbia Square. It’s a well-rated historic inn these days, but back in the early ’80s, it was rundown — close to being a wreck, and the ideal location for Madhouse, from writer, director, and producer Ovidio G. Assonitis. Writing credits were shared with Stephen Blakely, Roberto Gandus, and Peter Shepherd. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Madhouse, aka There Was a Little Girl”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Ferox, aka Make Them Die Slowly
…And then there’s Cannibal Ferox. Released a year after Cannibal Holocaust, in 1981, Cannibal Ferox tries to succeed as a film by taking the most exploitative moments of Holocaust, and wrapping footage around them. Writer/director Umberto Lenzi did not seem to realize that what made Cannibal Holocaust a successful movie was not the animal slaughter or the graphic violence. Those are, arguably, essential parts of the package, but Holocaust is indeed a package deal. It succeeds because most aspects of the film are well done, including story, acting, cinematography, music, etc. Without all those things working together, viewers get, well, Cannibal Ferox.
Cannibal Ferox stars Lorraine De Selle as Gloria Davis, a doctoral student in anthropology from New York, whose thesis is that cannibalism in tribal cultures does not really exist. Rather, it was a lie fomented by Conquistadors and other Europeans to justify genocide in the New World. In order to prove her thesis, she travels to the Colombian Amazon with her brother, Rudy (Danilo Mattei), and friend, Pat (Zora Kerova). They’re hoping to locate an isolated tribe and do some anthropological stuff.
Not long after going off the beaten path into thick jungle, they begin to see disturbing signs that something is amiss, culminating in the discovery of bloody corpses. Then, a pair of unexpected New Yorkers like themselves pop out of the jungle, one suffering a grievous wound. They are Mike Logan and Joe Costolani (the recently-deceased Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Walter Lucchini). Those two fled New York after ripping off a heroin supplier, in a side plot that takes up far too much of this film’s time. They somehow ended up in the Amazon jungle chasing down emeralds. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Ferox, aka Make Them Die Slowly”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Holocaust
This one’s a tough watch, folks. Cannibal Holocaust, from director Ruggero Deodato, was not the first Italian cannibal horror flick, but it is the most notorious. It’s the most disgusting. It’s the most disturbing. It’s the most alarming. It’s the most guilt-ridden for the viewer. Its portrayal of death was realistic enough that Deodato was briefly charged with murder upon the film’s release in Italy. It has earned every bit of its reputation. It’s also one hell of a movie.
Cannibal Holocaust tells the story of four NYU film students who head to the Amazon jungle in Colombia to shoot a documentary about local tribes that practice ritual cannibalism. When they go missing, a professor of anthropology, Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), heads to the jungle to see if he can find out what happened. He’s joined by guides Chaco (Salvatore Basile), and Miguel (possibly Ricardo Fuentes — the credits don’t say and the internet is divided). Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Cannibal Holocaust”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, aka Nudo e selvaggio
There are good Italian cannibal horror flicks, and there are bad Italian cannibal horror flicks. Besides the plot elements they all share and steal from one another, the other thing they have in common is that they are prime exploitation cinema. Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is one of the more exploitative of the bunch, and it has nothing to do with animal slaughter and mutilation, or graphic depictions of bodily injury. This flick is about the nudity. It’s right there in the Italian title of the movie.
“Nudo e selvaggio” translates into English as, “Naked and wild.” The English-language distributors must not have thought much about that title, which would probably have frightened off more than a few theater owners back when it was released, so they titled the film Massacre in Dinosaur Valley. It’s just as descriptive and accurate as the Italian title. There is a massacre, and it happens in some place called Dinosaur Valley, but I have to admit that, going into this film blind, I was disappointed that there weren’t any dinosaurs. Meanwhile, had the film just been called Naked and Wild, my expectations would have been satiated. Anyway…
From 1985, Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is a joint Italian/Brazilian production, written and directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini, with some uncredited script work by prolific screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti. The film stars Michael Sopkiw as Kevin Hall, a mercenary paleontologist who roams all over South America in search of fossils. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Massacre in Dinosaur Valley, aka Nudo e selvaggio”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Panic, aka Bakterion, aka Monster of Blood
Horror flicks from Italy are some of the most beloved films the genre has to offer. They have a style that is instantly recognizable. Names of auteurs — Argento, Bava, et al — are known and discussed with reverence by fans. But, like film industries all over the planet, there is a fair amount of chaff among the wheat. Case in point: Panic, a bottom-feeding horror flick released under a number of titles, including as an entry in the confusing Zombi series of films.
From screenwriters Victor Andrés Catena and Jaime Comas Gil, and directed by Tonino Ricci, Panic is quite a departure from other films featured in this year’s Horrorshow. It’s not gothic, nor is it a descendant of giallo. There are no supernatural elements and no lip service to the Catholic Church. If anything, this film, in tone and style, is reminiscent of 1950s and early 1960s British science fiction, along the lines of the Quatermass films. In other words, it’s talky. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Panic, aka Bakterion, aka Monster of Blood”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Absurd, aka Rosso sangue
As often happens in film, a project begins with one intention in mind, and ends up being something else. Such is the case with Absurd, one of eight films released by prolific filmmaker Joe D’Amato in 1981. Like with Anthropophagus in 1980, this is the only one of the year that wasn’t smut.
D’Amato had envisioned a film that would be a sequel to Anthropophagus, but frequent collaborator George Eastman, whom D’Amato tapped to star, decided to rewrite the whole thing into a Halloween ripoff, only with less plot. Why D’Amato, who also produced, decided to let Eastman change everything around, is anyone’s guess. D’Amato was the kind of filmmaker who wanted to get his movies into the can as quickly as possible, so just letting Eastman redo the screenplay might have been the path of least resistance. The problem is, while Eastman had an extensive list of credits as a screenwriter at that point, none of it is any good. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Absurd, aka Rosso sangue”
Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The Church, aka La Chiesa
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”