(1961)
Dir - Paolo Heusch
Overall: MEH
While it tries desperately to get by on its hooky title, Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, (Lycanthropus), is a typically dull, B-Euro-horror movie with all of the standard hang-ups. Bad dubbing, bad pacing, bad dialog, boring characters, a boring mystery, boring direction; it is what can be expected for better or worse. To be fair, it is not exceptionally defective, just humdrum. On paper, being conservative with a monster's screen time can be used to convey ever-mounting intensity, but Heusch's bland presentation here just consistently underwhelms. Again, the werewolf make-up is not bad, but the whopping three scenes that he is properly shown in not only come too late, but are also unimaginative in their staging. As it were, the movie is far too busy following around the head of a reform school, a handsome new teacher, a student who is clearly not a teenager, and the Italian Peter Lorre stand-in and genre regular Luciano Pigozzi as a caretaker, all fusing over missing letters and people's right arms. It does makes sense when you see it.
(1965)
Dir - Dino Tavella
Overall: MEH
Only two directorial efforts exist from Dino Tavella, both released in 1965 and one of them, The Embalmer, (Il mostro di Venezia, The Monster of Venice), is as mind-numbingly lame as any Italian horror film ever was. Though it is not a direct adaptation of any Edgar Wallace works, it is certainly done in the style of the Krimis crime films made in Germany around the same time, most of which were based off Wallace's stories. Well, at least it is done in that style when it is not wasting time showing a handsome detective talking to a non-stop barrage of unfunny people while hanging out with traveling college girls. For whatever ridiculous reason, this is exactly what the movie spends almost its entire running time doing. Tavella makes a few interesting visual choices such as freeze-framing the Grim Reaper-clad killer's intended victims, but this ultimately does nothing to lift the movie from its endlessly dull presentation. The basic concept of a murder in scuba-diving gear is not frightening let alone even interesting and each time he kills, we are treated to virtually the exact same "I will preserve your beauty forever" speech from him, each one growing more laughably grating than the last.
(1966)
Dir - Camillo Mastrocinque
Overall: MEH
The final Italian Gothic horror outing of several that Barbara Steele appeared in was Camillo Mastrocinque's An Angel for Satan, (Un angelo per Satana). Once again in a dual role, Steele comes close to being a saving grace for the whole proceedings. As a heiress to a noble Count occasionally getting possessed/tormented by a wicked ancestor who she of course looks exactly like, (or so it would seem), Steele gracefully balances being either innocent or a cold, evil seductress, sometimes within the same scene. Though the film shies away from any actual nudity, Steele's diabolical persona spares no one, (wealthy, poor, male, female), in dropping her clothes in front of them and even in one instance, beating a mute village idiot who she dares to stare at her birthday suite. Outside of Steele's bewitching and dynamic performance, the plot is meandering and the final twist rather dumb. Mastrocinque keeps the first act moving along gracefully enough and the middle one is where Steele truly shines, but the third is an overall let down and gives off the feel of overstaying its initial welcome. There is a fair share of memorable scenes and it is photographed as atmospherically as any other film of its kind, but it is still not one of the better examples of Gothic Euro-horror out there.
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