80's Italian Horror Part Eight

OMBRE

(1980)

Dir - Giorgio Cavedon

Overall: MEH

 

One of only two full-length movies from Giorgio Cavedon and the only one that he directed solo, (though there are some sources that list Mario Caiano as an unofficial co-director as well), Ombre, (Shadows), is a maddening, pretentious art film that collapses under its ponderous pace.  The story bounces between two mopey protagonists, (Monica Guerritore and Lou Castel respectfully), one who is haunted by memories of her father and images of her grandfather and the other that miserably walks around spouting nihilistic nonsense to himself.  We focus more on the later person for the second half and unfortunately he remains just as loathsome, dealing with an obsession which is never explained that leads him to neglect his wife/girlfriend/some lady and their oncoming child.  Dream sequences that are bathed in more soft focus haze than should be legally allowed keep interrupting things and it is all edited to the point of incomprehensibility, spinning in monotonous circles without ever going anywhere.  Painfully slow, there is too little to latch onto in trying to decipher whatever secrets may be buried in the mix.

 

BLOOD DELIRIUM

(1988)

Dir - Sergio Bergonzelli

Overall: WOOF

The penultimate film to be directed by Sergio Bergonzelli, Blood Delirium, (Delirio di sangue, Delirium of Blood), contains a hilariously over-the-top performance from John Phillip Law yet has little else going for it.  Recognizable character actor Gordon Mitchell joins him in a typical thuggish role as a butter who, (because Italian movies), of course tries to rape a woman in one completely random scene.  Elsewhere, Bergonzelli's nonsensical story recycles the lazy trope of the same actor playing two different characters who look exactly alike, but he did not even have the common sense to make them identical sisters or ancestors.  Not that it matters though since things play out in a ludicrous fashion with no rhyme or reason attached to any of it and it may as well just be a collection of scenery-chewing set pieces for Law to rant and rave like an utter buffoon about missing his lost love and not being able to be inspired to paint anymore or whatever.  The same piece of music is used ad nauseum and often times not even for proper mood setting; instead just at a lower volume underneath expository dialog.  There is also a toy skeleton, a few other characters that you will not even bother to notice the names of, a little bit of nudity, and an ending that is amazingly both bombastic and lackluster.

 

AFTER DEATH

(1989)

Dir - Claudio Fragasso

Overall: MEH

Shot concurrently in the Philippines along with Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei's Zombi 3, Claudio Fragasso made After Death, (Oltre la Morte, Zombie 4, Zombie Flesh Eaters 3), on the ultra-cheap, filming during the aforementioned other movie's off-hours for a fraction of the budget.  Despite lots of fog and spectral, wailing noises on the soundtrack, plus a fetching, ridiculous, and culturally insensitive voodoo opening that sets the violent, icky tone, the film is redundant and lifeless, (no pun intended).  Unlikable, barely-written characters arrive on a remote jungle island and continually encounter flesh-eating zombies, and there is virtually nothing else left to the story.  As bare-bones as can be then, this leaves Fragasso nowhere to go but to quickly settle into a monotonous flow that the pacing suffers for.  Clearly done as a quick, exploitative cash-grab that arrived after boatloads of other identical Italian gore movies with the exact same premise, Fragasso and his screenwriter wife Rossella Drudi at least deserve some credit for squeezing yet another ninety-minute romp out of such over-used material.  The makeup is crude, the atmosphere is fittingly hellish, the gore is aplenty, the zombies are slow, and it delivers on its unoriginal promise for those who cannot get enough of such silly business.