1980s Italian Horror Part Three

THE HOUSE OF BLUE SHADOWS

(1986)

Dir - Beppe Cino

Overall: MEH

 

An obscure, incoherent, small-scale, and meandering effort from writer/director Beppe Cino, The House of Blue Shadows, (La Casa del Buon Ritorno, The House of Good Returns, Haus der Blauen Schatten, The House with Blue Shutters), is high on atmosphere with nowhere to go story wise.  The cast is small and the entire thing was shot in only twelve days, almost entirely at a single location where it is persistently unclear what is even going on.  Two timelines are bounced back and forth between, (or so it would seem), which adds even more confusion to a dormant plot involving a couple staying in an old house because reasons, who are occasionally visited by a smirking woman from one of their pasts.  Also, there is a masked maybe ghost/maybe killer with an Onibaba mask on and something about a kid that was murdered fifteen years earlier.  It is all conveyed in a murky fashion, deliberately so by Cino who tries to create a spooky, surreal atmosphere that becomes laborious to sit through.  As the man in the relationship, Stefano Gabriniis' performance is hilariously awful as he yells almost all of his lines when not staring into mirrors with no expression on his face whatsoever.  We certainly feel his frustration in watching the finished product.

VAMPIRE IN VENICE
(1988)
Dir - Augusto Caminito/Klaus Kinski
Overall: GOOD

Tales of Klaus Kinski's barbaric difficulty on and off set are legendary and have served as the basis for more than one documentary even.  His resulting shenanigans during the filming of Vampire in Venice, (Nosferatu a Venezia, Prince of the Night), are no exception and included sexually assaulting his female actors, locking himself in his trailer, ignoring rehearsals and staging which forced the cinematographer to rearrange everything last minute, and demanding re-writes and cast changes.  So in other words, just another Klaus Kinski production.  To further complicate matters, the budget doubled, producer Augusto Caminito ended up directing along with an uncredited Kinksi after two other directors were either fired or dropped out for various reasons, and only two thirds of the movie were ultimately shot before everything inevitably collapsed.  It is therefor amazing that such an insufferably troubled production ended up not being a total disaster in its completed form.  While the plotting has absolutely no choice but to become incomprehensible, the thick, densely macabre atmosphere goes a very long way.  Respectable performances from Christopher Plummer, Barbara De Rossi, and a bit over the top Donald Pleasence also help.  Ultimately it is Kinski who remains as mesmerizingly disturbing as ever though.  Of course one cannot condone his atrocious methods, (even after he was forced to apologize on set allegedly), but it undoubtedly comes through as he pulls off one of cinema's most sadistic undead.

THE RED MONKS
(1989)
Dir - Gianni Martucci
Overall: MEH

Oddly out of time for the end of 1989, Gianni Martucci's final directorial effort The Red Monks, (I frati rossi), specifically evokes 60s and 70s Gothic Euro-horror.  It went so far as to attach Lucio Fulci's name to the project as special effects supervisor even though in reality the Italian filmmaker had nothing to do with any part of the movie.  The pacing is a little tighter at times and from a production standpoint it is much more professionally put together than the films it styles itself so closely after.  Though it fixes these all too common hick-ups with its more contemporary presentation, it is still a bit flat in other areas.  What turns out to be a flash-forward opening, (which was tagged on after the final cut by Martucci proved too short), serves no other purpose and the mystery is simple enough, but the payoff nothing to really write home about.  It is also low on gore though liberal with nudity and women getting raped of course.  The evil, Satan praising monks of the title can be directly linked to Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead series, but while their vividly crimson get ups are indeed striking, naturally they pale in comparison to the highly effective and decrepit walking corpse skeletons of the Knights Templar.  It could be worth seeking out for fans of such material or those looking to scrape the barrel a bit with more obscure and singular stuff from its era, but it is still ultimately mediocre.

1980s Italian Horror Part Two

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE
(1980)
Dir - Antonio Margheriti
Overall: MEH

Coming from an wide-ranging background of Gothic horror, giallos, sword and sandal, westerns, sci-fi, and various other things in between, prolific filmmaker Antonio Margheriti dropped this weird, cannibal/Vietnam hybrid Cannibal Apocalypse, (Apocalypse Domani, Invasion of the Flesh Hunters, Cannibals in the Streets), in between two other just as eclectically paired movies at the dawn of the 80s.  While the film assuredly is not good, by Eurotrash standards it has some goofy, gross-out appeal.  The English dubbing is as wincingly bad as any from the era and certainly helps the already melodramatic performances kicking into an even higher gear with a cartoon cutout police Sargent, a dopey, Southern-accent doctor, and all of the women coming off the most ridiculous.  John Saxon in one of his many appearances in an Italian production is literally the only actor on screen who plays it respectable and he sticks out for better or worse because of it.  Speaking of clashing, the ideas presented in the script deserve some props for uniting the treatment of war veterans with almost a zombie outbreak type of scenario, but again, the movie is too consistently schlocky to make any type of enduring points.  It is plenty gory though and well-paced for a change.

BURIAL GROUND
(1981)
Dir - Andrea Bianchi
Overall: WOOF

Occasionally, something gets unleashed that on paper is so uniquely horrible as to cause nothing but sheer befuddlement.  Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground, (Le Notti del terrore, Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead, Zombie 3), is just such a movie.  A collection of nonsensical set pieces with bizarre production choices such as a twenty-five year old, midget-height actor playing a woman's young, incestuous child is all fascinatingly absurd.  As far as a plot goes, there is none.  The first act features several couples getting interrupted while making out or having sex by either zombies or the weird man-kid, then everyone locks themselves indoors Night of the Living Dead style and the story ends there with about fifty minutes still left to go.  Laughably slow undead is nothing singular to this film when compared to others of the Italian or Spanish variety, but the zombies here not only move like their eternal organs are exclusively made of molasses, but they also variate randomly between the standard biting people to also choking them, throwing things at them, equipping themselves with scythes to break down doors, or pretending to be monks.  The relentless pacing mixed with the total lack of narrative and thoroughly odd details scattered about make it something to see, (and scratch your head at), alright.

THE CHURCH
(1989)
Dir - Michele Soavi
Overall: GOOD

Yet another collaboration between Dario Argento and director Michele Soavi, The Church, (La Chiesa), is a bit problematically slow, but still a somewhat effective "gates of hell" Euro-horror entry.  While it was initially scripted by Franco Ferrini and Dardano Sacchetti as the third entry in Lamberto Bava's Dèmoni franchise, (which was likewise produced by Argento), apparently little to no interest was shared with another such sequel and it ultimately shifted into the hands of Soavi who reworked the screenplay as a stand-alone entry.  It still bares some standard calling cards from Argento's projects, namely loose plotting, a score which combines pieces from past collaborators Keith Emerson and Goblin's bassist Fabio Pignatelli, and rather creepy, inappropriate scenes involving Argento's daughter Asia.  Though eerily atmospheric in spots, it takes rather long for things to start moving and even with all of the extra build up, the story is still so thin that it is really not warranted.  When it does stop pussyfooting around though, it is a solid combination of silly and fun set pieces involving lots of gore, characters acting strange, and the occasional live action demon puppet.  Similar to other films of its irk, the flaws can be seen as tolerable so long as the rest of it delivers the evil in a sufficient enough manner, which is mostly the case here.

1980s Italian Horror Part One

ZEDER
(1983)
Dir - Pupi Avati
Overall: MEH

The second strange and uneven giallo-esque offering from Pupi Avati after 1976's The House with Laughing Windows, Zeder, (Revenge of the Dead), gets points for little else besides its ambitions and a handful of brief, quite spooky moments.  It is a frustrating example of having a fairly unique enough premise that at very infrequent intervals has glimpses of atmospheric and macabre visuals.   Such things are ultimately wasted when the film is looked at as a whole though.  Once again, Avati's pacing is just dreadful, blowing at least its entire middle hour by advancing the plot with the most mundane, minute conversations between characters.  The problem is that while such things are happening, nothing else is.  This includes anything remotely creepy or befitting to such a genre film.  On that note, the bombastic horror music soundtrack seems to turn on at completely arbitrary intervals, often during scenes where nothing at all foreboding is even happening.  It becomes difficult to tell just what exactly is going on after awhile anyway, but not in a challenging manner.  Instead, the film seems to just meander aimlessly with too many people talking about too many things that are void of interest, let alone scares.

STAGE FRIGHT
(1987)
Dir - Michele Soavi
Overall: MEH

Serving as the behind the lens debut from Dario Argento protégé and actor turned director Michele Soavi, Stage Fright, (Deliria), has a singular premise of a theater trope locked up with a maniac in a rehearsal studio.  On top of that though, Soavi like Argento, (and Alfred Hitchcock before both), focuses on specific little details to rev-up tension.  The finale gets a lot of mileage out of a single key per example.  While the camera work is typically flashy for this kind of giallo-influenced fare and the film is well dressed in general, Soavi does not quite have the chops yet to keep the pacing from slagging, particularly in its first two lumbering acts.  While the final few set pieces do a tremendous job of making up for that, the very ending of the movie seems bafflingly tagged on and becomes both laughable and annoying as the final girl returns to the scene of the crime only to find the dead murderer who the police already took away still there inexplicably.  This is after he got stabbed in the eye, fell from the theater ceiling, and was set on fire.  Which then leads to the janitor rambling about how you have to take the safety off of a handgun before he shoots him "right between the eyes" and proceeds to say just those words about nine-hundred and eighty-four times in the last thirty seconds of the movie.  Remove that moronic nonsense and tighten up the first hour, and the movie passes the test of being a unique enough slasher to recommend.

THE SPIDER LABYRINTH
(1988)
Dir - Gianfranco Giagni
Overall: MEH

The relatively obscure and rather strange The Spider Labyrinth, (Il nido del ragno), remains the only non television or documentary work from director Gianfranco Giagni.  Also serving as his debut, Giagni brought in singer-songwriter Gianfranco Manfredi to co-tweak the initial script that had been floating around for sometime, a script with an odd premise of some kind of spider god worshiping cult operating in Budapest.  It is plenty atmospheric in spots and well shot by cinematographer Nino Celeste, but the first half is a sluggish crawl.  After the kind of pedestrian, standard opening dream sequence, the initial, board room set up that follows is a poor place to kick things into motion and sadly the script never picks up any proper momentum until well past the point of either noticing or caring what is even going on.  There is a mystery at hand, but when that mystery is not properly engaging as is the case here, the entire presentation assuredly suffers.  A freaky spider lady with mad scientist hair, wide eyes, and fangs does provide some much needed jolts, but the real horror movie meat and potatoes set piece doe not come until the very end, though it does make up for some of the humdrum approach of everything proceeding it.  It is probably more worthy of checking out a few select scenes the partaking of the actual complete filmgoing experience if one was so inclined though.

1980s Lucio Fulci Part Three

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD
(1980)
Overall: MEH

It may be the first, but Lucio Fulci's City of the Dead, (aka The Gates of Hell), is easily the weakest in his "Gates of Hell Trilogy".  Pick any of his other exertions into this genre and you are going to find plot holes and nonsensical moments galore, but this one seems to do nothing else than pounce from one wacky scene to the next.  A woman puking up her own entrails when a demon/zombie looks at her and makes her eyes bleed is indeed a memorable horror movie moment if ever there was one though.  A few others like the hurricane worthy gust of maggots and Catriona MacColl, (who appeared in all three "Gates" films), waking up after being buried alive are also on point.  Naturally, Euro-horror needs not a rhyme or reason all the time for its showstoppers, (Dario Argento has made a career out of mostly gruesome death scenes that can hardly be classified as "realistic"), but here, Fulci mixes the illogical moments with dull pacing and just too haphazard of a script.  Still, that guts puking scene is pretty damn awesome.

THE NEW YORK RIPPER
(1982)
Overall: MEH

A lot of mileage is gotten out of the premise of a slasher killer who talks like Donald Duck in Lucio Fulci's raunchy, abundantly misogynistic The New York Ripper, (Lo squartatore di New York).   It is probably the most blatantly sleazy film in the director's career.  On top of all of the extreme violence towards women serving as its main objective, it also indulges in prolonged, odd sex scenes like watching a couple bang on stage in some kind of typical, "New York City sure is wild and weird isn't it?" scenario.  Also, another woman gets her gentiles massaged by a guy's foot in a bar.  The dialog is lots silly and it fittingly paints females in an unflattering manner, ("You women should stay home where you belong.  You're a menace to the public.  And you got the brains of a chicken!" and "Your overpowering touch shorts out my brain circuits." spoken by a woman).  Fulci may have been attempting to make a statement about chauvinism, but his violent, cinematic quirks distract such a potential message.  On that note, the duck-quacking murderer has to be seen, (or heard), to be believed though and that very odd detail alone gives it a memorable edge amongst other more conventional giallos and slasher movies.

CONQUEST
(1983)
Overall: GOOD

Lucio Fulci may not have ever kicked up the camp value into higher gear than he did with the hilariously strange, B-movie ham-fest Conquest.  A caveman/sci-fi/adventure/fantasy/sword and sorcery hybrid that still found time to include hideous beast men and filthy zombies, (as well as lots of boobs, torso-ripping, head-smashing gore, and a retro soft focus the entire film), it is pretty endlessly wild and fun.  It is also clearly done on a shoe-string budget, and filmed in both Mexico and Italy with an international cast of dubbed actors from both countries as well as Spain.  This is part of its charm though since as a piece of derivative barbarian fiction, its primitive and silly production values enhance the camp level tenfold.  The story is so elementary that the entire plot can fit on a single piece of paper even if your writing is huge and in crayon.  Similar to the low-budget nature being a plus, it is likewise not a detriment how simple the narrative is since scenes of bloody carnage with monster henchmen and He-Man-clad alphas liquefying bodies with weapons interrupt every scene of dialog only about every eleven seconds or so anyway.  This leaves nothing really to follow, just lots of Italian-flavored, Neanderthal-warrior mumbo jumbo and carnage to sit back and devour the popcorn while laughing with/at.

1980s Lucio Fulci Part Two

THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
(1981)
Overall: GOOD

The finale in Lucio Fulci's "Gates of Hell Trilogy", The House By the Cemetery, (Quella villa accanto al cimitero), is the Italian gore-meister's take on the haunted house film more or less.  Gory ghost movies are not a massively saturated genre, though if they were, Fulci's maggot-infested, blood-oozing crack at it would be a landmark entry.  That said, its a somewhat more subdued affair for the filmmaker.  Long stretches go by without any nastiness and just some subtle, (if cliched), creepiness taking its place.  When the blood and guts do make an appearance, one can hardly be disappointed though.  Knives through the brain and out the mouth, throats being ripped out, heads being cut off, and maggots spewing from stab-wounds, (all in splendid detail no less), certainly deliver.  Homely and goofy looking child actor Giovanni Frezza is surprisingly not as distracting as many children in such genre outings, which is also a plus.  The flaws here are the same ones in all of Fulci's great, good, or poor offerings though which includes so-so pacing, monsters slower than senior citizens driving with Wisconsin license plates, and any kind of logical sense being thrown right out the window.  With a consistent tone and mood in place though, it is still rather satisfactory.

MANHATTAN BABY

(1982)

Overall: MEH

 

The second Lucio Fulci film in a row to be shot on location in New York, the appropriately dubbed Manhattan Baby, (The Possessed), is a far weaker and different entry by comparison than his The New York Ripper which was released several months prior.  Fulci himself was not a fan of the finished product, one whose once substantial budget was cut in half at the last minute and most likely suffers because of it.  It still features a solid share of arbitrary, supernatural happenings that follow no decipherable logic, (a Fulci staple to be sure), such as the floor to an elevator giving out, people not being visible in Polaroids, people disappearing through portals and then the script completely forgetting about them, and reptiles showing up dramatically and doing things.  While these are all fun on paper, the pacing is utterly horrendous.  Several of the characters are so unmemorable that you cannot even recall if they have showed up already in a previous scene.  As the bulk of the movie follows them around doing lots of talking, good luck being all that interested in anything except the random, weird moments.  Speaking of weird, that unfortunately creepy looking kid from The House by the Cemetery also returns and is dubbed more distractedly hilarious than even usual.

AENIGMA
(1988)
Overall: MEH

Not a particularly strong effort from Lucio Fulci, Aenigma serves as his Italian-flavored hybrid of Richard Franklin's Patrick and Brian De Palma's Carrie.  The premise is simple enough to provide ample footing for the filmmaker's trademark, bizarre supernatural set pieces and a moment where a girl gets eaten to death by snails in her bed, a man's reflection emerging from a mirror to murder him, and a statue at a museum coming to life to kill another girl certainly qualify.  There is also some primo-hilarious dialog like "I may have a fat ass but if you slap it again, I'll slap your face" and "A successful semester to me means making out with as many cute boys as possible."  Of course the horrendous dubbing makes said line readings even more silly than they already are on paper.  The movie's more slightly, (and unintentionally), schlocky qualities are really the only things that break up the kind of hum-drum story that unavoidably comes off as a lesser variant of the films that it is narratively tailored after.  This late into his career, Fulci was still able to put his mark on the project to warrant it fitting as a curiosity, but calling it a memorable movie in its own right is not entirely accurate.

1980s Lucio Fulci Part One

THE BLACK CAT
(1981)
Overall: MEH

Breaking up the more frenzied, nightmarish monotony of his "Gates of Hell Trilogy", Lucio Fulci made the very loose Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in name only The Black Cat, (Gatto nero), right in between his masterpiece The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery.  Comparatively more stripped down and simple in nature then, the story is not chock-full of just "Eh, fuck it let's just put a bunch of weird creepy crap in there", sans a few exceptions.  Instead, it genuinely follows a pretty comprehensible structure.  Unfortunately coming from a filmmaker like Fulci who usually excelled at arbitrary freakiness, (especially coming right after The Beyond), the movie's more pedestrian nature is not all that interesting.  It is not a total bore though either.  Patrick Magee in his penultimate film appearance does what he always does which is being a memorable, oddball, overacting creep.  While the main narrative of a killer cat is of course utterly ridiculous and not even remotely frightening, the subplot of Magee's bitter old supernatural medium playing recordings from beyond the grave is a bit chilling.  The feline-scratching gore is adequate for what it is, but again it pales in comparison to Fulci's usual crimson-splattered bread and butter.

MURDER ROCK
(1984)
Overall: MEH

Opening up with two hilariously dated, full dance sequences set to two different though equally horrible songs, Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock, (Murderock uccide a passo di danza, Murder-Rock: Dancing Death), is not off to that promising of a start.  Unless of course one enjoys the concept of Flashdance if it was a badly dubbed Italian slasher.  Technically a giallo then, this is a remarkably dull one despite or partly because of all the gyrating, leotard-clad dance numbers.  The mystery never picks up any serious momentum and when it side-steps to develop its characters more, things get pretty boring pretty quick.  Even the killer's inescapable quirk of poking women with needles is pretty lame, not that you get too many such scenes anyway.  Elsewhere, it is either stagnant or laughably melodramatic.  During one particularly absurd moment, a gruff detective interrogates a suspect with his lawyer standing right there, slaps the shit out of him, at which point the suspect says "She was a lousy Puerto Rican and I don't like spics!" followed by "You idiot!" and more roughing up, then chuckling from the detective.  It still ends up being little more than a collection of camera zooms, killers making threatening phone calls for no reason, red herrings, some naked boobs, and more of the usual stuff.  Just with more hot and bothered jitterbugging to shitty 80s music.

ZOMBI 3
(1988)
Dir - Lucio Fulci/Bruno Mattei
Overall: MEH

This mangled production that found Lucio Fulci quitting before filming was complete, (which in turn forced producer Claudio Fragasso to bring in second unit director Bruno Mattei to shoot additional scenes with different actors), serves as the "sure, I guess" official sequel to Fulci's own Zombi 2.  Further confusion exists from the fact that Zombi 2 was given the sequel moniker in the first place only to cash in on George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and was in fact a stand-alone entry, plus the Zombi 3 title also belonged to a number of other movies in different markets before this one.  In any event, the finished product here is an unavoidable mess considering its troubled background.  Its first half is snore-inducing, there is unconvincing make-up effects, much ridiculous acting, and a steady lack of proper atmosphere since it is flatly shot in the sunny Philippines.  The structure is your typical one of military personnel trying to contain a zombie outbreak while arguing with scientists in lab coats.  Also, some of the zombies sprint while others cannot pick up their feet and of course some people turn into them after merely brushing up against one in a manner of seconds, while others take hours.  As a low-rent, shameless rip-off of way better movies, its got a few outrageously goofy moments, but for the most part it belongs on the do not recommend list.

1980s Foreign Horror Part Nine

DEATH WATCH
(1980)
Dir - Bertrand Tavernier
Overall: GOOD

Shot primarily in Scotland with a recognizable, international cast, (Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, Max von Sydow, and French actress Romy Schneider in one of her last screen performances before committing suicide two years later), Death Watch, (Le mort en direct), is Bertrand Tavernier's bleak yet humanizing adaptation of David G. Compton's novel The Unsleeping Eye.  It bares little to no hallmarks of the conventional horror or even thriller genre, but its themes of voyeurism and the objectification of women are quite disturbing without becoming unpleasantly overbearing.  Even the characters that seem one-dimensionally callous are not all together unsympathetic and the same goes for Schneider as the more obvious victim.  All of this gives the entire film a rather gray, emotionally ambiguous pallet to work off of, one that spends no time spoon-feeding the audience.  As a challenging, somewhat dystopian bit of science fiction then, its lack of clear-cut fulfillment, (as well as its often imposing length), may sit uncomfortable with some.  It is still an impressively done work though, most likely worthy of repeat views to grasp more fully.

POSSESSION
(1981)
Dir - Andrzej Żuławski
Overall: GOOD

The only English-speaking film from Polish filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski, Possession can be seen as one of the most strangely intense horror movies ever made about a marriage coming to an end.  Written by Żuławski and American novelist Frederic Tuten, shot in West Germany, and precisely inspired by the director's recent divorce from actress Malgorzata Braunek, the film morphs into an increasingly disturbing and increasingly strange exaggeration of the guilt, confusion, and obsessive desperation felt and then materialized by a crippling marital partnership.  Almost laughable at times in its over the top abstractness, the fact that it is all played incredibly straight as an arthouse movie may be completely lacking in intended humor, but it also makes for a dizzying, strange tone.  It is not just the absurdly horrific events that transpire, but the performances are all levels of unorthodox.  Every character regularly seems in a wide-eyed daze as they compulsively cannot sit still, asking and answering horribly upsetting questions at a breakneck pace.  While Sam Neil is quite excellent, it is really Isabelle Adjani who deserves top honors for her recklessly unhinged performance of a violently befuddled adulteress, one of the best such portrayals in screen history really. 

AMERICAN GOTHIC
(1988)
Dir - John Hough
Overall: MEH

This Canadian/British co-production by John Hough's is a schlocky, somewhat lame-brained mess.  Rather pedestrian in concept, American Gothic is another in the "held against their will by an evil Bible-quoting family" line of horror films and it does nothing to elevate the already stale sub-genre.  Following a predictable structure up until it embraces its tongue-in-cheek silliness by going with a more implausible final act, one's only chance of enjoyment is to sit back and find unintentionally amusing attributes.  To be fair, the movie has a generous amount of them.  As the elderly couple who does not believe in non-married folk sleeping in the same bed and still think the Charleston dance is what the kids are into these days, Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo ham it up to the tilt and give funny enough "Eh, it's a paycheck" performances.  Their senior citizen aged children who behave like eight-year olds are less creepy and more just dumb and unsympathetic.  Same goes for the dipshit "normal" characters who find themselves at the mercy of the textbook disturbing family, though at least one of them has a horrific mullet that deserves a standing ovation of its own.  Nothing in the film is clever, including all of the kills which are just kind of brutal and random.  An easy pass all around.