70's Italian Horror Part Twenty-Five

TRAGIC CEREMONY
(1972)

Dir - Riccardo Freda
Overall: MEH

Tragic Ceremony, (Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una capitale europea, Extracted from the Secret Police Archives of a European Capita, Trágica ceremonia en villa Alexander), was the penultimate film of Riccardo Freda's directing career and it blows a conventional premise with a bombardment of confused obstacles.  It has the bog-standard set-up of several young, attractive people who are on some kind of vacation/joyride/retreat, only to get stranded somewhere unwholesome for the night, but Freda and screenwriter Mario Bianchi cannot keep their story remotely straight, let alone compelling.  The perpetually naked Camille Keaton stares off into space for most of her scenes and several moments happen where gruesomely murdered bodies are discovered by the people who then take a nap or just lackadaisically relax in the sunny grass soon afterwards.  The macabre, bloody showpiece of the film, (taking place during a Satanic ritual being interrupted), is bizarrely staged and and more laughably perplexing than interesting.  Visual window dressing such as a Gothic castle, gore, and ghastly make-up are nice, yet on top of the aforementioned issues, the plot is meandering, the pacing is typically cumbersome, and the acting is flat.

 

NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS

(1975)

Dir - Aldo Lado

Overall: MEH

 

While Aldo Lado's take on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring fares infinitely better than Wes Craven's insultingly abysmal piece of shit The Last House on the Left, Night Train Murders, (L'ultimo treno della notte, Last Stop on the Night Train, Late Night Trains, The New House on the Left, Second House on the Left, Don't Ride on Late Night Trains), still proves to be unnecessary if adequately done exploitation.  On the plus side, Lado shies away from graphically showing the story's most grisly aspects, giving the audience just enough on-screen information to loathe the movie's villains and to fully comprehend the disturbing nature of the material.  In place of overt ickiness and violence though, the pacing suffers as nothing of any considerable concern happens until past the halfway point.  This allows for us to get to know the two innocent victims who are just returning home to visit their parents on Christmas, but is also bores us with "Lemme tell ya what the problem is with the youth of today" squabblings from minor characters, a nearly five minute opening title sequence set to awful music, and a first act of nothing more than people being late for a train, trying to find a place to sit on a train, and then being asked if they have tickets to ride the train.

PENSIONE PAURA

(1978)

Dir - Francesco Barilli

Overall: MEH

Francesco Barilli's return to giallo after a four year directorial break was the moody yet narratively void Pensione paura, (Hotel Fear).  Barilli admittingly took on the project for financial reasons, clashing with one of the film's four credited producers Tommaso Dazzi during shooting.  The results are messy in this respect as the plot detours at regular intervals even if it stays atmospherically on track.  Taking place in a dilapidated hotel where dubious guest wait out the war by sexually harassing the establishment's lone employee whose mother has recently died, it has a dour tone that is enhanced by excellently haunting music from Adolfo Waitzman and occasionally stylish cinematography from Gualtiero Manozzi.  Unfortunately, Barilli's pacing is problematically listless and the story meanders endlessly with Leonora Fani's sheepish protagonist going about her daily business and getting regularly interrupted by pushy perverts who gradually get picked off by a mystery person in a trench coat.  The ending is both unsatisfying and random, but it does allow for Fani's traumatized character to settle into a life of delusional melancholy that is in keeping with the movie's melancholic agenda.