1990s Italian Horror Part Five

THE CRAWLERS

(1991)

Dir - Fabrizio Laurenti/Joe D'Amato

Overall: WOOF

Filmed in the same Utah town as Claudio Fragasso's infamous Troll 2 and serving as yet another unofficial Italian/American installment to a series of films that have nothing to do with each other, The Crawlers, (Troll 3, Creepers, Contamination .7), is a killer tree movie that meanders around too much to keep its schlock straight.  A town is besieged by radioactive foliage, but of course the schlubby police force is too lazy to get out of their chairs to deal with it, let alone believe it is even happening.  At least that is our first assumption since Vince O'Neil's fluffy sheriff also tells a bunch of young adults that they must be on drugs when they rush in to report a dead body.  As it turns out, he is probably in on the toxic waste dumping conspiracy, either that or the script is too hackneyed to understand what a cop's bare minimum duties are.  Chalk it up to an Italians-doing-American thing then.  The ADR dubbing is distractingly bad at best, (Though when is it not?), and close to nothing exciting happens until about an hour in when some tree roots stab through the stupid sheriff's fat stupid face.  Everywhere else, it is just meandering drama, dim-witted characters, and a plot that tries and fails to make the unexciting exciting.

L'ALTRA DIMENSIONE

(1992)

Dir - Fabio Salerno

Overall: MEH

The final full-length of sorts from underground filmmaker Fabio Salerno was L'Altra dimensione, (The Other Dimension); an anthology of three shorts whose only narrative through-line is that they each focus on a loser with an unhealthy attachment to a woman, to say the least.  "Delirium" features a guy who decides that the only way to cure his depression after his girlfriend dumps him is to drug her and rape her, the second "Mortal Instinct" has someone who gets his female obsession to live with him by way of occult magic, and the third and longest "Eros and Thanatos" features another hopeless romantic who feels that the best course of action after his girlfriend's suicide is to eat her corpse over several days.  All shot on grainy Super 8 film with non actors in presumably the apartments of Salerno and his friends, this is textbook, no budget DIY movie-making.  The visuals are mostly as ugly as the subject matter, but Salerno pulls off some garish make-up effects and even some bold color gels to enhance the dreary nightmare vibe that he is going for.  It is still bottom-barrel stuff that is horrendously slow and difficult to stay invested in, but the low-key tone is appreciated, plus it makes for some fringe exploitation that is not good, but is at least singular.

 

MOZART È UN ASSASSINO

(1999)

Dir - Sergio Martino

Overall: MEH

The to-date final giallo from Sergio Martino, Mozart è un assassino, (Mozart Is a Murderer), goes through all of the motifs of a clandestine masked killer making threatening phone calls and leaving deliberate clues, pointing at red herrings left and right along the way.  On the one hand, the made-for-TV presentation neuters the sleaze since there is no nudity and the bloodshed is less egregious than what was allowed in the genre's heyday, but we still have exploitative elements like sex scenes, drug dealing, and pedophilia, so it is hardly a PG-rated affair.  Despite the late 90s low-budget aesthetic which is not conducive to the more flashy cinematic style that Martino had used when he made his most famous giallos, he and Francesco Contaldo's script still manages to keep the momentum going for the first two acts.  After a couple of bodies pile up and detective Enzo Decaro gets taken off the case and his therapist girlfriend Daniela Scarlatti finds out that she is pregnant, the pacing lulls and leads way to a far-fetched finish where the killer manages to easily do away with a slew of armed guards yet has a clumsy time finishing off one last would-be female victim.

1980s Joe D'Amato Part Two

CONVENT OF SINNERS

(1986)

Overall: MEH

 

Joe D'Amato returns to nunsploitation for the first time since 1979's Images in a Convent with the similarly sleaze-themed Convent of Sinners, (La monaca nel peccato, The Sinful Nun).  Based off of Denis Diderot's 18th century novel La Religeuse, this adaptation naturally adds the type of rampant sexual repression and lesbianism found in such movies, but it does so in a bog-standard manner.  Of course being a D'Amato film, the nudity and nastiness is on full display as Eva Grimaldi's unwilling nun is tormented by the jealous wrath of her sisterhood since virtually every male or female character that she encounters is ravished with lust towards her.  Everything goes the typical route where higher-up priests are brought in due to easily-believed accusations of demonic possession and the abrupt ending slams home the cynical tone that paints Catholicism is a melodramatically dubious light.  D'Amato shot the film himself as he was wont to do, bathing everything in sweaty, soft-focus candlelight that is appropriate for the erotic, period-set material.  The plot points have all been utilized dozens of times and the movie treats its subject matter too sincerely to capitalize on the more outlandish aspects of nunsploitation, resulting in something that is both redundant and forgettable.

KILLING BIRDS

(1988)

Dir - Joe D'Amato/Claudio Lattanzi

Overall: MEH

 

Leave it to the Italians to somehow make a knock-off of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds that is in actuality a zombie movie.  Killing Birds, (Zombi 5, Killing Birds: Zombi 5, Zombie Flesheaters 4, L'attaque des morts-vivants, Killing Birds - Raptors), does shoehorn in a couple of ominous shots of winged avians plus an early scene where a younger version of Robert Vaughan's character gets his eyeball gouged out by one, but this is otherwise another set-up where a group of college kids go to a isolated place because of student reasons, only to be attacked by reanimated corpses.  This happens well into the running time as a small handful of arbitrarily mysterious things occur first to pad out an already sluggish viewing experience.  After murdering his wife and her lover in the opening scene, Vaughan's character just becomes a weird recluse with too limited an amount of screen time for the audience to understand or care why.  The same goes for everyone else on screen who are interchangeably uninteresting, so that there is little to no suspense or emotional investment when they get picked-off in standard, boring slasher fashion.  Joe D'Amato co-directed with Claudio Lattanzi here, but their powers combined wield bland results.

DEEP BLOOD

(1989)

Dir - Joe D'Amato/Raffaele Donato

Overall: WOOF

 

Sharing directorial duties again, (this time due to Raffaele Donato's alleged disinterest once production began), Deep Blood, (Sangue negli abissi, Blood in the Abyss, Sharks, Shakka - Bestie der Tiefe, Bestie z hlubin), is Joe D'Amato's inevitable Jaws knock-off and it is a sentimentally sappy one at that.  Primarily shot in Florida with an American cast, it utilizes both stock footage and the final shark explosion from Enzo G. Castellari's 1981 movie Great White; itself an earlier Euro-cash-grab of Steven Spielberg's endlessly copied blockbuster.  While George Nelson Ott's script does allow for ample amounts of screen time to focus on a bunch of childhood friends that grow-up to have manageable, low-stakes squabblings with their parents, love interests, police officials, and local bullies, such pedestrian melodrama is endlessly lackluster.  A syrupy musical score handled by Carlo Maria Cordio creates the antithesis of a menacing tone, plus the shark attacks are repetitive, largely spread out, and lazily shot.  They generally just involve someone swimming by themselves, (which obviously broadcasts their demise), as a loved one stares without emotion from the beach, doing nothing to save them. 

1980s Joe D'Amato Part One

EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD

(1980)

Overall: MEH

 

His first of two erotic gore movies shot concurrently in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead, (Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi), is a typically sleazy affair from writer/director/producer Joe D'Amato.  As is the case with any genre film that throws in hardcore sex, the story line is inconsequential as things regular detour into tortuously boring pornographic encounters, bloating up the running time to unacceptable levels.  Sans an early sequence in a morgue, the zombies do not become active until over an hour in and they are of the Knights Templar variety, meaning even slower than the sex scenes.  Even one of the characters proclaims at one point that their only advantage is that the ghouls "move at a snails pace", hence them surviving by jogging away from them and shoving a voodoo amulet in their faces.  Though the makeup effects are primitive at best and the gore plays second fiddle to the "erotic" elements of the title, the lumbering undead islanders emerge in a creepy enough day for night sequence set to low-key, ominous music from Marcello Giombini.  The scenery in general is both barren and lovely which juxtapose the garish violence, bright red blood, and maggot infested closeups.

 

ANTROPOPHAGUS
(1980)
Overall: MEH

Another gross-out foray from Italian exploitation filmmaker Joe D'Amato, Antropophagus, (Antropophagus: The Bepoast and The Grim Reaper), is equal parts dull and gleefully gory.  In an attempt to create an air of mystery and perhaps humanize the otherwise cardboard characters, D'Amato ultimately wastes nearly the entire length of the film which comes off as sluggish instead of effectively grabbing or atmospheric.  A psychic lady rambles boringly, a pregnant lady says "Oww" a lot, and some of them look and behave similarly enough to forget their names the whole way through.  Then for about an hour, they hang around an abandoned Greek island village and maybe two things happen.  When the bloody moments do randomly erupt, they raise the excitement level a notch or two above comatose, but then it is right back to us not caring at all about anything going on.  When both the plot itself and the structure of it raise little to no interest in the viewer, the film i dead in its tracks no matter how many gooey, cannibalistic lunch buffets we are presented with.  So on that note, watching a mere highlight reel of all the nasty bits will suffice just fine.

 

PORNO HOLOCAUST

(1981)

Overall: WOOF

Another entry in Joe D'Amato's Caribbean series, Porno Holocaust, (Delizie erotiche in Porno holocaust, Blue holocaust, Holocausto porno), is notable for being one of the worst paced pornographic films in the history of cinema.  Shot in the Dominican Republic's Santo Domingo, (just as more than a half a dozen other no-budget, genre mash-up, D'Amato productions utilizing hardcore sex scenes were), it recycles the same actors, locations, and loose, kind-of plot elements by throwing a group of boring, unemotive characters on an island for reasons, all so they can get slowly picked-off by the walking dead.  "Slowly" is the key word here as everything is so lackadaisical that it is as if D'Amato was purposely attempting to lure his audience to sleep instead of grossing them out and/or giving them boners.  The frequent sex scenes happen for the flimsiest of reasons, (usually people walking around to silence for several minutes before stopping and saying "let's fuck"), and despite one scene where a nuclear zombie face-rapes a poor woman with a fake dong, absolutely nothing else remotely memorable happens.  The fact that the film has a credited screenwriter is a bigger joke than any unintentional chuckles that can be found if someone is desperate enough to make excuses for any, so yes, this should be neglected at all costs.

 

ABSURD

(1981)

Dir - Joe D'Amato

Overall: MEH

 

Producer/director/cinimatographer Joe D'Amato and actor/screenwriter George Eastman's unofficial sequel to their exploitation gore-fest Antropophagus was the comparatively less outrageous yet still nasty Absurd, (Rosso Sangue, Red Blood, Anthropophagus 2, Zombie 6: Monster Hunter, Horrible, The Grim Reaper 2).  Also designed as an answer to Halloween as every turn-of-the-80s slasher movie was, it has a similar premise of a speechless "boogeyman" killer with relentless healing abilities and a type of non-bias, murderous rage that will target anyone who crosses his path.  Eastman plays such an unstoppable force with a wide-eyed fury that is in keeping with his portrayal in the aforementioned Anthropophagus and the kill scenes involve buzzsawing a guy's skull open, shoving a drill-bit into a woman's temple, and cooking another woman's face in an oven.  Such brutality is adequately sprinkled through the proceedings, which is a good thing since the structure is as one-note as any in the sub-genre.  The film hardly boasts a compelling story and D'Amato still lacks both a budget and a sophisticated cinematic sense as far as keeping it as visually showy as some of his Italian contemporaries were able to.  That said, it has a blunt, unapologetically ghastly charm to it that will easily appease Euro-trash fans.

1970s Italian Horror Part Three

THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES
(1972)
Dir - Emilio P. Miraglia
Overall: MEH

The final film by Emilio P. Miraglia, (who also made The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave the previous year), was yet another elaborately silly giallo made during the sub-genre's prime era.  Combining a ghostly legend straight out of any Gothic horror film and fusing it with a typically complex, "whodunit" premise posing practically every character we meet as a possible suspect, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, (La dama rossa uccide sette volte), is especially difficult to follow even compared to most.  For one, it does not help that nearly every female in it looks exactly the same and one male character seems to be romantically involved with most of them which kind of makes you scratch your head regularly as to who the hell you are watching do what.  Naturally though, the killer reveal is even more head-scratching and involves switched identities, perplexing us even more as to who is who and supposed to be who else.  Miraglia and cinematographer Alberto Spagnoli thankfully save the film from being completely bland.  The first official kill scene is fantastically done, but also raises expectations that perhaps the supernatural details would be further emphasized before the movie switches into predictable mode and goes through the commonplace motions of people killing people over money and making them think ghosts are real and blah, blah, blah.

FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN
(1974)
Dir - Paul Morrissey
Overall: MEH

What can fairly be described as one of the dumbest movies ever made, Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein was the first of two Italian scam productions along with Carlo Ponti that he made, (Blood for Dracula being the other also ridiculous one).  Antonio Margheriti was credited as a director in Italy due to some legal loopholes that needed to be bypassed and by all available accounts, Margheriti directed virtually nothing and same as "producer" Andy Warhol, was only on set one or two times tops.  Morrissey wrote dialog for his actors on the spot and the words spoken in this trash-fest are as ludicrous as they come, ("To know death Otto, you have to fuck life...in the gallbladder!" deserves its own standing ovation).  Udo Kier for whatever reason dove in, full-tilt and his is an exaggerated performance few can hold a candle to, one which single handedly saves the film from being a waste of time.  It is still ultimately a terrible movie due to the fact that Morrissey has not the skill to successfully parody either the European, Gothic horror movies nor the counterculture trash films that he himself was responsible for making.  It is unmistakably funny at times and as distasteful as anything from the time period ever got, yet it drags for large chunks, becoming more incompetently laughable than creatively in on its own joke.  I will say that the movie looks pretty excellent with the Baron's laboratory being effectively spacious and decorated.  Also, the gore is plenty eye-popping and gross.

BEYOND THE DARKNESS
(1979)
Dir - Joe D'Amato
Overall: MEH

Joe D'Amato was a shameless proprietor of sleaze throughout his career and Beyond the Darkness, (Buio Omega, In quella casa Buio omega), is his repugnant, gory, and utterly tasteless remake of Mino Guerrini's The Third Eye.  None of these adjectives that I am using to describe the man's work are meant to be defamatory by the way, but one would be misinformed to make the assumption that really any of his movies, (particularly this one), were made to be anything besides exploitative trash.  Allegedly, D'Amato told his actors on set "We're making a movie to make people throw up. We must make 'em vomit!", so the guy knew his trade and knew it well.  In the "eeewww" regard, this has a generous amount to offer.  A woman gorges on a human heart in a stew, (with extreme, food and slobber pouring out the mouth close-up and sound effects to boot!), a guy gets jerked off by his motherly housemaid who also feeds him her boobs to suckle on, she announces that they are going to get married, she then stabs him in the dick and rips his eye out before he bites her face off, and plenty of other women get tortured and mutilated in graphic fashion.  The ending which brings in a twin sister, (of all things), for no reason is fittingly ridiculous as well.  Goblin actually did the music for this one which is always appreciated, but it is still pretty much your typical keyboard-laced, occasionally funky, late 70s thriller/action movie score and nothing as bloodcurdlingly awesome as Suspiria.  Then again, what is?