60's Italian Horror Part Twelve - (Riccardo Freda Edition)

THE WITCH'S CURSE
(1962)
Overall: MEH

Riccardo Freda's The Witch's Curse, (Maciste all'inferno, Maciste in Hell) begins as countless other horror films do with a bunch of ignorant villagers burning a woman alive as she curses them for centuries to come.  It is in fact part of the peplum brand of film in Italy though, the cinematic Maciste character going all the way back to the 1910's.  It is neither the first clever pairing of the two genres or the first to utilize such a setting, serving as a quasi-remake of the 1925 film Maciste all'inferno.  A good chunk of screen time is dedicated to lead body building actor Kirk Morris flexing and lifting heavy things as he is dressed like a He-Man action figure and facing-off against the forces of evil in all of his sweaty glory.  The surrounding locale in which he does so in the actual Castellana Caves in the Apulia region of Italy is impressive, as are the numerous sequences using a heard of cattle, oodles of extras flaying about in torment, giants, and battles with various ferocious animals.  Silly nonsense through and through, yet amusing for what it is.

 

THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK

(1962)

Overall: WOOF

 

For the first seventy minutes of Riccardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, (L'Orribile Segreto del Dr. Hichcock), things move along in a standard if not altogether unexciting manner.  Despite some pacing issues that are common with such films, the big mystery concerning Barbara Steele's possible madness, her title character husband's genuine madness, and just what all the ghostly goings on and undoubted depravity was building up to is compellingly conveyed enough.  Freda uses numerous clever, slight-of-hand directorial touches and stages some tense moments that establish an appropriately eerie mood that is less camp-fueled than the material deserves.  Sadly, this becomes a disastrous example of an ending completely undoing everything that came before it.  While the almost laughably grotesque subject matter concerning necrophilia and the like is fun in a shocking-for-the-times way, the end reveal is so insulting that such would-be enjoyment is evaporated.  Considering that Steele allegedly took ten days off of Federico Fellini's seminal 8 1/2 to film this, she probably would have been better off simply hitting the beach instead. 

 

THE GHOST
(1963)
Overall: MEH

If you have ever wondered what an Italian, Gothic horror, badly dubbed version of Les Diaboliques with Barbara Steele in it would be like, your questions are answered in The Ghost, (Lo Spettro, The Spectre, Lo Spettro del Dr. Hichcock).  Director Riccardo Freda teams up with Steele again after working together on the previous year's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, even using the name "Dr. Hitchcock" once more for a different character, meaning "the ghost" himself, played here by Elio Jotta.  Beginning with a seance and a priest saying some nonsense about the Devil being real, neither of these elements have anything to do with the following story and merely provide a macabre jumping off point.  The atmosphere is sufficiently creepy with scattered about skulls, a couple of moments in a crypt, and some well-mannered ghostly set pieces.  The ending explains everything in plainly-dubbed English to the point that a two-year old could understand it, but it at least does not derail the entire film.  Pacing wise though, it is as slow as any other low-budget big of Euro-horror from the era and a plentiful number of edits would have kept things moving at a more agreeable clip.

 

DOUBLE FACE

(1969)

Overall: MEH

Director Riccardo Freda's closed out the 1960s with the Italian/West German co-production Double Face, (A doppia faccia, Das Gesicht im Dunkeln); one of numerous krimi films churned out at the time period which ran concurrently with the emerging giallo sub-genre.  As was sometimes done as a marketing ploy, the story here bears no resemblance to any of Edgar Wallace's works despite how it was advertised as a tie-in to Berlin's Rialto Film's batch of the author's adaptations.  Instead and in typical fashion for low-budget Euro productions, several people were credited with the story and/or screenplay, one of them being none other than Lucio Fulci.  Scoring the naturally unsettling Klaus Kinski in the lead, (who had been making a steady career with such appearances), serves as a red herring since he is portrayed more as the victim than the diabolical culprit.  Yet because of course, Kinski clashed with Freda on set and allegedly caused the latter to proclaim the notoriously difficult thespian as "The Crown Prince of Assholes", which would have been a fitting title for the actor's tombstone.  As far as the movie itself, it is poorly paced, almost non-existent on action, and forgettable save for a snappy theme song from Nora Orlandi.