80's Lamberto Bava Part Three - (Brivido Giallo Edition)

GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE

(1987)

Overall: MEH

 

The first of four feature-length films done by Lamberto Bava for the Brivido giallo television series is the largely moronic yet visually competent Graveyard Disturbance, (Una notte al cimitero).  Bava's attempt here was to deliver something more farcical and tongue-in-cheek than his previous supernatural and giallo work, but the asinine plotting is more lazy than funny.  The five unlikable hoodlum characters that we are forced to deal with make such unbelievably idiotic decisions that is appears as if they are under a "dumb people in horror movies" spell the entire time.  Elsewhere, a barrage of elements are thrown in haphazardly which never amount to anything, in typical Italian-style fashion.  Bava and the script by frequent collaborator Dardano Sacchetti toys with nightmare logic and the idea that the protagonists are dead and ergo entering a hell dimension, but the final reveal clashes with all of this in the most laughably disappointingly way.  In doing so, the story opens a barrage of unanswered questions, which, (coupled with the unsuccessful tonal shifts),  makes for a messy, boring, and borderline incompetent mess.  On the plus side, the film looks great with oodles of fog, cobwebs, grotesque makeup, a ghoul in a Kiss t-shirt, and candlelit catacombs creating the perfect haunted fun-house aesthetic.

 

UNTIL DEATH

(1988)

Overall: MEH

 

Tonally speaking, Until Death, (Per sempre), is a noticeable change of pace for filmmaker Lamberto Bava and is his first movie that does not adhere to any camp or unintentional idiocy.  It is still imperfect, but the sincere presentation is refreshing as well as impressive.  This was the second full-length episode of the Brivido Giallo television series made by the Reiteitalia production company and it is wildly different from the nonsensical buffoonery of the opening installment Graveyard Disturbance.  The story was allegedly worked on by Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti as a quasi-adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice; a project that did not get underway until it was used here, at which point Fulci's name was unceremoniously absent from the credits.  Whether or not Italy's "Poet of the Macabre" would have unleashed a far gorier finished product is up to endless debate, (though likely), but Bava's crack at the material is far more subtle than Euro-horror in general usually allows, let alone when compared his own frequently bombastic work.  Plot wise, it cannot overcome the monotony of its single setting and three person lead cast who end up running in circles too much to keep things moving, but it is atmospherically solid, void of humor, and has a chilling ending to boot.

 

THE OGRE

(1989)

Overall: WOOF

 

For The Ogre, (Demons III: The Ogre), screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti retreads similar terrain that he did with Lucio Fulci in The House by the Cemetery, concerning a family that moves into a new abode with a monster thing in the basement.  This time though, the results are far more abysmal.  By director Lamberto Bava's own assessment, part of the problem for the third entry in the Brivado Giallo series was the television format which he claimed did not allow for as many ghastly details as would have been appropriate.  The resulting snore-fest is a noticeably neutered affair in this regard, as the plot is insultingly repetitive with a toxically bi-polar couple bouncing between cheerily taking baths and laughing together to having the same argument over and over again which results in the husband pulling his hair out, (and smacking his horror fiction author wife around), over what is "all in her mind".  This long-tired cliche where an alpha douchebag treats any female who insists that supernatural activity is afoot with nothing but dismissive, aggressive scorn is beaten to an obnoxious pulp here, with very, very few frightening or even campy set pieces thrown in to break up the monotony.  It is a pointless, mind-numbingly boring watch with awful characters, an awful ending, the same piece of music played over a billion times, and a title creature that garnishes about thirty-five seconds of screen time.

 

DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE

(1989)

Overall: MEH

 

The forth and last film out of an initially planned five-movie run for the Brivido Giallo television show is another parody of sorts, as was Graveyard Disturbance which kicked off the series.  Dinner with a Vampire, (A cena col vampiro), has a less-than-clever premise of a stereotypically suave vampire staging a cockamamie movie audition scheme in order to ask a bunch of obnoxious characters to murder him while he simultaneously tries to kill them in his own labyrinth-like mansion.  He also lacks the foresight NOT to supply his own kitchen with garlic, something one would logically assume that a centuries-old member of the undead would have the good sense to avoid stocking.  As one could surmise then, logic does not play into director Lamberto Bava and co-screenwriter/collaborator Dardano Sacchetti's script and unfortunately, neither does humor.  On paper, it does all of the things that a lighthearted genre spoof is supposed to do while poking fun at various vampire tropes and making the main baddie increasingly less threatening and more farcically goofy as things go on.  The characters and scenarios are more lazily hammy than funny though, yet the set design and some of the more gnarly makeup effects make up for the overall weak story.  At least George Hilton seems to be enjoying himself by doing his best Béla Lugosi/Max Schreck impression.