Tag: Italian Flick

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”

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”

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”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso

One guarantee for viewers of a Dario Argento film is a gorgeous experience. Argento is a master of the visual, with an artist’s sense of palette and a designer’s sense of space. His films take the ordinary streets of urban Italy, or wherever he has chosen to shoot, and turn them almost surreal, or liminal. The characters that occupy these worlds never seem to notice how uncanny their surroundings are. In Deep Red, Argento, along with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, takes the bustling city of Turin and turns it into a lonely, cavernous place seemingly built by giants, and now occupied sparsely by their diminutive descendants. Interior spaces are crowded not with people, but art, and none of it is remarkable to anyone who floats through these spaces. To them, the world might as well consist of blank walls. Everything shown on screen is not for them. It’s for us. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Demons 2, aka Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna

Could lightning strike in the same place twice? Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento must have thought so. It only took them a few months after the release of Demons to start work on a sequel, hoping to mirror the success of the first film. How did they plan on doing so? By remaking the first film.

Released just a year after Demons, in 1986, Demons 2 sees the return of Lamberto Bava in the director’s chair, working from a screenplay credited to Argento, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti, and Bava, himself. The previous film had set up a sequel at the end, where the demon-possessed zombies of the first film escaped the doomed theater and spread across the city of Berlin, and it is implied that civilization itself is collapsing. Bava and company decided not to build on this. Instead, Demons 2 takes place in an apartment building in Hamburg. The events of the first film are alluded to, but that’s about it. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Demons 2, aka Dèmoni 2... l’incubo ritorna”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Demons, aka Dèmoni

I praised Lucio Fulci for his storytelling in Manhattan Baby. But, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind it at all if every film I watched for The Italian Horrorshow were as wild and unhinged as Lamberto Bava’s Demons, from 1985. Bava proved with his film that it isn’t necessary to have a complex, or even coherent, plot for a horror flick to be a success. In fact, this jumble of sensory overload is one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen from one of horror’s golden ages. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Demons, aka Dèmoni”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Manhattan Baby, aka Eye of the Evil Dead

According to the internet, so it must be true, director Lucio Fulci did not  like the title of Manhattan Baby, his second feature released in 1982. He preferred the title ‘Evil Eye.’ He had a point. ‘Manhattan Baby’ makes it sound like this movie is just a ripoff of Rosemary’s Baby, and it is not. If there is any horror movie this flick cribs from, it’s The Exorcist. 

Manhattan Baby stars Christopher Connelly as George Hacker, a professor of Egyptology. In an introduction featuring some beautiful location work in Egypt, Hacker is shown heading an archeological dig. A tomb is uncovered, and while Hacker is exploring it, he falls through a trapdoor into another chamber. There, a strange symbol carved into the wall, with a glowing jewel in its center, shoots blue lasers into his eyes, blinding him. Meanwhile, Hacker’s daughter, Susie (Brigitta Boccoli), and wife, Emily (Laura Lenzi), are nearby, having accompanied George for a vacation. At the same time George is being blinded, an old woman with clouded eyes is giving Susie a medallion just like the mysterious symbol George found in the tomb in miniature. Soon after George crawls forth from the tomb and collapses into the desert sand. That’s some setup. Continue reading “Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Manhattan Baby, aka Eye of the Evil Dead”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Endgame (1983)

According to the internet, so it must be true, Endgame, from writer (alongside Aldo Florio), director, and producer Joe D’Amato, was the favorite of all the films he made. Endgame was just one of seven productions in 1983 in which he received a director credit, and his IMDb page lists 199, most of those smut. The man was prolific. And when he looked back upon his extensive oeuvre, Endgame, a mashup of post-apocalyptic sci-fi tropes, was the movie that made him smile the widest. Well, okay then.

It’s the future! 2025! Sometime in the ’80s or ’90s, nuclear war devastated the planet. Now, civilization is being rebuilt. A new fascist regime has arisen, ruling the rubble with an iron fist, and exterminating mutants that have been born due to all the radioactive fallout from the nukes. These aren’t ghastly creatures with extra limbs or Marvel-type superpowers. These are just regular folks, whose mutation makes them psychic. They are the next step of human evolution. There is also an unfortunate class of mutants who are devolving into lower forms of life, but the hell with them. The good guys dislike them as much as the fascists do. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Endgame (1983)”