Giallo Meltdown: Slashing Back To You

Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know two things. One: this will have some minor spoilers, but I tried to make it so that I wouldn’t ruin the whole plot or the identity of the killer if it’s part of the mystery. Two: this is going to be the ninth chapter of the upcoming book, Giallo Meltdown 2. What’s a Giallo Meltdown? You can find out by picking up the first book right here. Thanks for hanging out!

In the 1980s, the giallo went through a rough patch but it definitely didn’t die. My beloved genre became a gorier and more insane -or just trashier- version of itself. Italian and Spanish genre filmmakers segued into the slasher business by doing what they do best: make a giallo but gorier. And the Americans, having spent the 1970s being bombarded with rereleases and retitlings of gialli, did what they do best: make a giallo but gorier. Of course, not all slashers from Italy and Spain were just gialli in new packaging. Some of them are actually freakin’ awesome card-carrying members of the slasher club. The goal of this moviethon is to delve deep into that blood spattered gray area that’s somewhere between giallo and slasher. And I don’t care if get lost in it forever.

FRIDAY

It’s a breezy (though typically warm and Tampa-esque) November night which can mean only one thing: death is coming! I’m sitting here feeling very stuffed and sluggish. I will ultimately be easy prey for the killer. Oh well, that Mexican pizza I ordered from Senor Tequila was worth my impending slaughtering. But let’s not focus on such morbid things for it is time to watch other people die (and not just me slowly)! Personally, I’ve been simply dying (EDIT: please stop talking about dying!) to get this moviethon going for a long while now and hoo boy, the time is here. I’ve got an overly ambitious stack of movies, a good attitude, and a pleasing countenance. Ready, steady, go!

“What did shithead say?”

5:55PM

BODY COUNT (1986)

Ruggero Deodato is personally assisting me in the beginning of this bloodbath. That opening theme by Claudio Simonetti is kicking my ass, dood! I have a feeling that I’m going to regret having put this one off for so long. Boy am I glad that this opens with some basketball. I was beginning to worry if I wouldn’t get my daily recommended sports footage intake. John Steiner is in this, so I guess he’s the killer. Just sayin’. There is a character named Bob and another one named Ann? I feel like I’m in heaven. Speaking of heaven, David Hess and Mimsy Farmer play the owners of a campground that was built on an “Indian burial ground”. This film has an amazingly disorienting mix of live sound and post dubbing. And I just saw a bottle of J&B.

A group of teenagers in an RV are headed to that accursed campsite with their hitchhiker pal Ben. He grew up there, but he also witnessed a couple getting murdered in the woods. I’m sure that won’t come up later. Ivan Rassimov plays a grumpy sheriff’s deputy, and my heart is melting. I love him so much. America’s treasure, David Hess, is extra insane as Ben’s dad. He’s obsessed with catching an old shaman who stalks the woods. The killer I saw for a split second earlier looked more like a deflated Nick Nolte to me than a shaman. These teenagers are extra horny. One girl just fellated a sausage, but only just the tip. We’re all just sucking on the tip tonight. Charles Napier and Mimsy Farmer are super-secret lovers, but I don’t think my feeble mind can process such a thing.

One of the girls is doing the worst aerobics I’ve ever seen. She looks like she’s auditioning for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Close your eyes and imagine what that looks like. All of these characters are terrible and lovable at the same time. Thanks to a prank played on the fat comic relief character, we’re able to start the wiener count. If it turns out that it’s the only peepee we see during this entire moviethon then so be it. This is a damn good slasher and has set the mood for this weekend perfectly. I really hope that Body Count gets a proper release someday because this is one pretty film. This full frame shit is for the birds. The shitty ass birds!

“You have quite a repertoire of chilling tales.”

7:21PM

BLOODY MOON (1981)

Give me that holiday feelin’. Horrific snake murder aside, this is one of Jess Franco’s best films. Don’t listen to those folks who say otherwise. Bloody Moon is a G dang masterpiece. Just like Miguel, I feel like a disco king in my Mickey Mouse mask. After he murders a young lady, Miguel is shipped off to an insane asylum. Luckily, his doctor is Jess Franco, so he doesn’t have to stay there very long. His sister Manuela takes him back to the language school/mansion that their curmudgeonly old aunt owns. It’s full of sexy young ladies that are just begging to get murdered. Someone just set the old lady on fire. I miss her already.

Studly Antonio has his pick of the ladies, especially when he’s in his tennis gear. Speaking of ladies, the girls in this are some of the daffiest slasher movie vixens ever. And the dubbing of every character is broken and extra weird. Heck, this whole thing is just unhinged. The producers wanted Pink Floyd to do the film’s soundtrack. Pink Floyd was… unavailable. Manuela and Miguel have a very special relationship. Incestuous thoughts are okay if your sister looks like Manuela. Those are the rules. Cut to the night club where the DJ is spinning a nightmarish song that commands me to shake my baby. Antonio makes a crack about chocolate syrup and Inga, this movie’s VIP, freaks and storms out of the club. If you’re confused, then just imagine how I feel!

Inga may be my favorite character, but my second favorite is the giant Styrofoam rock that falls down the side of the mountain. Such charisma! The scene where the snake gets killed just gets harder to watch every time. Ugh. Damn it, Franco. Why must you hurt me so? Jeez Louise, even the outfits in Bloody Moon are loud and stupid. There’s an adorable cat scare AND a dummy fakeout. More of that stuff, please. It’s all so wonderful and daft that I’m ridin’ high. Don’t get me wrong though, the allergy medicine I took is making my eyes feel like they have lead weights tied to them. This is requiring all of my concentration. The killer’s motivation is so giallo that it hurts. The only way this could be any better is if this was a modelling school and not a language school.

“Here comes the bullshit!”

8:49PM

NIGHT SCHOOL (1981)

It has been a very, very long time since I’ve seen this one. All that I remember is that the killer looks like the one from What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) and it contains a certain food-based lovemaking/shower scene. There are probably other things that happen in this film. Manly Leonard Mann plays Judd, a police detective investigating the brutal murders of lovely coeds at a Massachusetts college. He questions Vincent, a professor of archeology at the school, to find out more about one of his female students that got beheaded. The professor isn’t suspicious at all. Nope. He’s just creepily showing too much affection to one his students in front of the detective.

Exchange student Eleanor (Rachel Ward) hates how all the girls fawn all over Vincent because she’s his very special teaching assistant. She really knows how to grade his papers! She really knows how to load his slide projector! She really knows how to notate his lectures! Maybe I should just go to bed. A gratuitous shower scene happens and LeEtta is very offended by it. It’s not the nudity on display, it’s the fact that Rachel Ward didn’t take off her earrings beforehand! Vincent joins her in the shower and starts rubbing raspberry jam all over her while the synthesizer plays a creepy dirge. Why does every slasher movie have raspberry jam lovemaking shower scenes?! I’ve never understood that trope.

Watching this film is like jumping on a grenade but instead of shrapnel, your body is pierced by deadly shards of melodrama. The best character is Carol, the kindly but sassy waitress at the Lamplight Restaurant who gives out worldly advice while refilling your coffee. I sure hope that nothing happens to her. The killer likes to decapitate his victims and put the heads in water. They call him “The Wet Bandit”! We’ve seen two neon signs for Schlitz in two movies tonight. Classy. There’s so much soft focus and diffused lighting in this movie that it’s making me feel like I’m floating. Floating like a head in a toilet. Damn it, I need to watch this one more often.

SATURDAY

After a night of confusing and boring dreams, I wake up feeling expertly rested. We had a nice jam experiment for breakfast. LeEtta made calamondin jam and pineapple jam. On our English muffins, I put butter and then calamondin on the bottom slice and then butter and pineapple on the top slice. The calamondin was a total failure. But the pineapple was a huge success. So, it all worked out. Was I ready for more movies? Hell no, brother! I came here to do chores! My plan to do my cleaning duties on Thursday night was a complete failure. Woopsie doodle. So, after cleaning the toilets and vacuuming the house, I ran out to get our lottery tickets. After that, I didn’t want to see the sun anymore!

“The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot
and fucking on a waterbed at the same time!”

10:03AM

PIECES (1982)

I am one bold son of a biscuit by starting the day with a stone cold favorite, but this is what it takes to be a hero. I love Pieces so much that my band has a song about it! The VHS tape for this one leered at me on the shelves of the video store when I was a kid. But the cover freaked me out too much, so I never rented it. In the early 2000s, I picked up the Diamond DVD for seven dollars and I’ve loved it ever since. It’s always a big hit at parties. The black-gloved killer likes to fondle his trophies. To be completely honest, it took me multiple viewings before I understood that the girl on the skateboard crashing into the giant mirror on the street is what triggered the killer’s bloodlust. And hell, it might have even been somebody else’s review that explained it to me. I’m not THAT bright or whatever.

At a very un-prestigious college campus in Boston, our murderer is chopping up the female students and stealing one PIECE of their bodies at a time. Everyone’s favorite pasty Englishman Edmund Purdom plays the dean of the university and Jess Franco regular Jack Taylor plays a very suspicious professor encased in a turtleneck. Somebody is gonna have to crack this case and who better than green cigar-chomping detective Christopher George and undercover policewoman/tennis pro Lynda Day George? Oh, hello there, swimming pool at night! You’re one of my favorite characters. The girl by the pool looks alarmed by the dark figure approaching her with a chainsaw, but not alarmed enough to jump back in the pool to evade the maniac. Maybe she thought it was her time.

Nearly every line of dialogue and just about every character in Pieces is a heckin’ riot. I don’t want to get into everything because this entry would be a whole chapter’s worth of writing. The creepy horror synths, progressive rock breakdowns, and the kooky pieces of library music by CAM, a collection of musicians including Fabio Frizzi, Stelvio Cipriani, and Carlo Maria Cordo, are excellent. The way the gore is filmed in this is so grotesque and yet elegant. Let’s call it “grotelegant”. This film makes my heart do cartwheels or maybe that’s just some blockage I’m trying to clear. Director Juan Piquer Simón was a mad genius. One of these days, I need to check out his film called Pod People (1983). I’ve heard that it stinks. I throw a frozen pizza in the oven to feed LeEtta and I because we be hungry.

“I’m full of surprises today.”

12:30PM

MADHOUSE (1981)

This might as well be a first time watch for me. I remember enjoying it and brief flashes of the story, but that’s about it. Back in the 90s, I had a bad case of Assonitis. Holy crud, Madhouse doesn’t waste any time getting to the gore. Whoa! I look forward to comparing this one to Happy Birthday to Me (1981), which was released months after this one and has similar story elements. A music score by Riz Ortolani? Bam! TV actress Patricia Mickey plays Julia Sullivan, a teacher at a school for the deaf. Julia gets a letter from her uncle urging her to visit her twin sister Mary in the hospital. Mary has contracted a virus that has disfigured her face but she’s still the same old sis, a cruel and violent psychopath! In a few days, it will be the twins’ birthday and Mary says that has a very special ritual planned for Julia.

Back at Julia’s place, the building’s super Mr. Kimura, played by Jerry Fujikawa, is tinkering with the fuse box. Fujikawa’s Asian stereotype game is tight. A rottweiler just appeared out of nowhere and killed a security guard at the hospital that Mary just escaped from. Apparently, Mary had a huge, mean dog back when the girls were kids that would obey her every command. If it’s the same dog, then it should probably be in a frickin’ museum because it’s gotta be in its mid to late 20s. One thing I love about this movie is that Julia’s and Mary’s backstory feels like it was based on a 70s pulp horror novel. Riz Ortolani brought all of his farty bass plucks and gurgley stomach synth burps to this party. The owner of the building where Julia lives is a new age nightmare woman with a Southern accent that’ll peel the skin right off your ears. She’s great.

Julia’s cute friend Helen comes over to stay the night and keep her company. This actress is named Morgan Most, and she looks so darn familiar. I know her best from a film called Madhouse (1981). Julia’s cat gets gotten and there’s a brief shot of it hanging by its neck. The cat isn’t dead, but it looks rather pissed off at the filmmakers. Boo. Come on, people. Just get a fake cat. You got a fake dog! The scene is crazy creepy though as a mystery woman is stepping slowly towards Helen in the dark of the basement. Mild animal cruelty aside, this one is a lot of fun. The villain takes such perverse pleasure from evildoing that I discover I’m smiling from ear to ear. When this film gets wild, it gets very wild. I kinda love it. Suddenly I’ve got a craving to watch another Ovidio Assonitis favorite, Beyond the Door (1974), but not today!

“I make real good midnight snacks. You hungry?”

1:57PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981)

Speaking of films that I don’t watch often enough, here’s one of them. This Mill Creek Blu-ray looks so damn nice, BTW. A black-gloved killer is stalking a college campus and I’m struck by how original that plotline sounds. The first girl gets it right in the throat zone with a straight razor. She was a member of The Riches or The Elites or The Top Dogs. Whatever their name is, they’re a group of snooty college jerkwads. Luckily for us, the viewing public, these pricks are going to die horribly. The only nice one is Virginia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson) and she’s got some darkness in her past. I can’t judge her too harshly because I once saw C+C Music Factory in concert. The headmistress of the school has it in for the gang and I don’t blame her at all. She has a giant bulldog and he’s such a cutie.

A demonstration with electricity applied to frog legs in class brings back Virginia’s memories of her time she spent in the hospital after a traumatic head injury she suffered as a kid. Her psychologist is played by Glenn Ford. He’s hot. Forget all the psychobabble about Virginia’s fragile mental state, let’s get to the motocross scene. If your movie doesn’t have dirt bikes, did you even make a movie? Speaking of motorized vehicles, don’t get so close to a revving engine when you’ve wearing your Hogwarts scarf. Happy Birthday to Me has both weightlifting and soccer. Is it MY birthday? I can’t believe that this film’s director also directed the sleazetastic 10 to Midnight (1983), a movie I watched with my family when I was way, waaaay too young.

Why am I watching this trash? It features the main cast smoking doobies. I’m scared. Is this even legal to watch in the privacy of my own home? Even though this film is just a little over 110 minutes long, I never find it boring. Virginia’s birthday is quickly approaching, and her dad is too busy organizing the cleanup efforts of some dumb bullshit involving an oil rig on fire. What a selfish bastard! Holy carp, I forgot about the scene at the dance. It contains some delicious disco dancing. The movie delivers what its poster promises with the shish kabob of death which gives LeEtta and I a lot to discuss. What a tasty way to go. While this does have a somewhat similar ending to Madhouse (1981), I think this one is better at delivering the gruesome thrills, and it’s just so darn well made.

“You want me to stick my head in a fucking trash bag?”

4:27PM

DOUBLE EXPOSURE (1982)

I have been saving this DVD from Scorpion Releasing for a very long time. I suppose that this might be a good time to watch it. After an undercover cop disguised as a hooker gets killed by a maniac, the filmmakers get all trippy and keep with the double exposure theme by laying on some nausea-inducing special effects over the opening credits. Once that’s over, we meet Adrian (Michael Callan), a photographer who’s been having strange dreams and vague impotency. His therapist is Seymour Cassel so things can’t be all that bad. Adrian acts like a complete psycho while hitting on a lady named Mindy (Joanna Pettet) who’s just trying to get to her car in the parking garage. She foolishly agrees to see him later. LeEtta made us kielbasa, sauerkraut, and spaetzle for dinner because of all these German movies we’re watching.

Meanwhile the colleagues of the dead uncover cop are getting grief from the police chief, who’s played by Cleavon Little of Once Bitten (1985)! His character’s name is “Police Chief”. That’s creative! Adrian has a dream about murdering a model he’s supposed to be photographing. That’s bad but his homophobic brother B.J. (James Stacy) is worse. He treats Adrian’s gay co-worker like dogshit. What a cool guy. Victoria Jackson has a tiny part in this. More importantly, Frances Bay of Blue Velvet (1986) plays an old woman named “Old Woman”. How did the screenwriter think of that!? Adrian has ghosted Mindy for some reason and has now hooked up with some other chick. He’s a real piece of work.

Holy forking shirt, Grady Fletcher’s fiancée just got killed. I wonder if Aunt Jessica will turn up to solve the mystery! The only mystery is why I wanted to watch this movie. Michael Callan just started monologuing the movie right into the fucking ground. Did he take an acting class? He’s chewing the scenery like it was the last stick of beef jerky hidden in his couch cushions. I don’t like the term “overindulgent” because people use it to describe me all the time. Hold up, Mindy has taken Adrian back after all of his bullshit? Why would she do that? Why is she rubbing her crotch with his foot? LeEtta theorizes that the reels of the film are out of order.

Adrian and B.J. take their dates to a bar that has female mud wrestling. B.J.’s date named Bambi gets him to bet $230 that he can wrassle and win against the reigning champ in the ring. Spoiler alert: he loses. Damn it, Double Exposure is pretty dreadful and has almost lost us completely. But we’re hangin’ on, damn it. And for what it’s worth, the ending is pretty decent and there’s some surprisingly good atmosphere on display. But I have to wonder what the heck happened to this movie. There’s a lot of extras on the disc that might explain things. So now we’re watching those. Just kidding. We’re moving right along.

“Stop kvetching, honey. You could always go back to
microwaving chili at Mexico Joe’s.”

6:08PM

STAGEFRIGHT (1987)

Now, this feels like coming home. I’ve seen this wondrous film so many times that I’ve practically got it memorized. A group of dancers is getting ready for a big show by pulling an all-night rehearsal. Hey, this is just like Noises Off (1992). The show that they’re rehearsing is some crunked up garbage with hookers, murder, and a killer in a huge owl mask. Barbara Cupisti plays Alicia, one of the dancers who sneaks off with her pal so that she can have a doctor look at her injured ankle. They go to a mental institution because they think that psychiatrists treat sprained ankles. After the doctor feels her up, they head back to the theater not realizing that a homicidal killer has escaped from the hospital and secreted (Ew, bro!) himself away in the backseat.

Good old Michele Soavi directed this masterpiece of murder, and he did it just for me. What a good guy! No wait, he did it for Joe D’Amato who produced it. But George Eastman, who wrote this, said that he dedicated the screenplay to me. Giovanni Lombardo Radice plays Brett, one of the dancers. The screenwriter gives Brett all of the best lines. He’s so damn funny. Brett has an antagonistic friendship with his pal Laurel, played by Mary Sellers of Ghosthouse (1988). They attempt to see which of them can be cattier than the other. It’s a stalemate. The killer steals Brett’s owl mask and kills one of the dancers right in front of everyone. Now the key to the only door out is lost and these silly goofs are trapped in the theater.

I’m not the kind of guy who has to upgrade every single DVD in my collection but this old Anchor Bay disc ain’t lookin’ so hot. Normally I wouldn’t care but dang it all, my eyes are so tired right now. The scene where Laurel and Alicia hide from the killer in the showers is so good. Then there’s the whole tableau with all of the victim’s bodies arranged onstage while classical music is blaring, and feathers are blowing around by the fan. I think this is anime because feathers = anime. There’s a black cat in this named Lucifcer but I think he’s played by two cats because one of them is a tabby that’s been dyed black. That’s Hollywood for ya.

QUICK BREAK

LeEtta and I went outside to look at the stars and the mostly full moon. It was very cool outside and windy. I was feeling both elated by the barrage of movies I’ve been shoving into my brain and in pain from another cold front moving in. Those sinus infections I had back in the day really destroyed my shit forever. But the tops of the trees swaying to and fro were so gorgeous that I laid down on our driveway and stared at them while LeEtta looked for constellations. The light pollution and some pesky clouds weren’t helping her. After a little while, we went back inside.

“Enjoy the show, creep.”

8:15PM

AMERICAN NIGHTMARE (1983)

Here’s another one that I’ve never seen before. The cover art for this one and Double Exposure (1982) are so damn gialloriffic that I couldn’t resist. We have nudity and pot smoking in the first few seconds. That’s unacceptable. We are turning this off! The straight razor starts flying and we are off to the last film of the day. Welcome to the world of strippers and prostitutes and Canadians. This dude named Eric is looking for his missing sister (who we just saw killed). She was involved in some skeevy shit, and he wants to find her. This movie is as grubby as the VHS that it was ripped from. Another gay stereotype! These things happen.

Michael Ironside just showed up as a cop and I’ve made a bet with LeEtta that he’s the killer. And minutes later, I am proved wrong. Oh well, good thing I didn’t mention how many thousands of dollars I had intended to wager. Eric turns to Louise (Lora Staley), his sister’s friend to help him and they both take turns giving each other guilt trips. Good gawd, it looks freakin’ COLD up there in that Canada place. I’m starting to fall in love with all of these characters. A decent script and some solid performances are things that movies have sometimes. What’s that all about? Sure, it’s a little bad TV cop drama but I’m very much enjoying this.

I keep seeing Christmas decorations and that excites me very much. If American Nightmare could be a part of our Christmas viewing every year that would make me happy. While running around town trying to get more info, Eric and Louise are accosted by a mugger. Eric makes quick work of this punk by nearly ripping his ear off. Later that night, after arguing about how stripping is bad and how he’s a hypocrite, Eric and Louise meet halfway by having a really long sex scene. Well, this just took a nasty turn. I truly didn’t see that coming. I need a shower now. I mean, I always NEED a shower but this time, it’s because a movie made me feel dirty. Canada, you naughty.

SUNDAY

We went to bed as soon as American Nightmare (1982) AKA Canadian Nightmare (or Hoser Nightmare as David Assassino calls it) was over. I stayed awake for a little while to read a bit more of The Tea Party by Charles L. Grant. I have read many, many books by Grant and I highly recommend him if you can track down his stuff. Anyway, I went to sleep and had many dreams of social awkwardness and paranoia. My giallo killer is being afraid of hanging out with people. LeEtta gave us both a break from yard work for the day, and there was much rejoicing. For breakfast, I drove out and picked up sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches from Panera Bread (not my sponsor). It was a lovely morning but already warmer than it had been the night before but there was rain and cooler weather in the forecast. I decided to stay indoors where it was much safer for my delicate constitution.

“Once the cerebral cells are destroyed, they cannot regenerate.”

9:19AM

ABSURD (1981)

Here’s a cozy little number. I first saw this marvelous Joe D’Amato joint way back in the day as a little kid and it got lodged in my brain. When I got back into horror movies around 2002, I asked about it on a horror message board, giving as many details as I could about the plot. Someone identified it as Absurd (AKA Rosso Sangue AKA Monster Hunter AKA George Eastman vs. Mechagodzilla) immediately and I was shocked that it was so hard to find. I bought the VHS and fell in love with it all over again. Now I have this swanky ass Severin Blu-ray and the soundtrack on red and black swirl vinyl (a gift from my friend Sam). So yeah, I kinda like this one.

This movie is about true love between two men. One is played by George Eastman and the other is Edmund Purdom. Eastman is an undying rage-filled beast and Purdom is a priest out to stop him at any cost. Michele Soavi is back as a young man on a motorcycle. Because his portrayal won him so many awards, he would reprise this game changing role in Tenebre (1982). One thing about this movie is the annoying kid in it. Everyone bitches about Bob in The House by the Cemetery (1981) but he doesn’t hold a candle to little Willy played by Kasimir Berger, son of the great William Berger. His sister Katia is played by his real-life sister Katya Berger. Katia is in traction from some anomaly in her spine and likes to draw circles! Bless her heart.

Mmm, Nurse Emily. She’s played by the lovely Annie Belle, who was more known for her roles in erotic films. I would injure myself forever if she was the one operating on me. Most of this film takes place at night and it’s all just lovely. I wish I could stroll around some cozy looking streets in Italy with George Eastman all night. There’d be no trouble since he’s 9 feet tall. Fun fact about me: it took many, many viewings of Absurd before I realized that it was D’Amato trying to cash in on the success of Halloween (1978). This is also a vague sequel to Antropophagus (1980), but Eastman didn’t want to have the gnarly makeup on this time around.

When my buddy Brad and I were talking about this film on the podcast, we talked about its ridiculous obsession with American football. And of course, the Italians got it completely wrong but football fucking sucks, so who cares?! You have adults dressing up in their finest duds to go to a football watching party which starts at 10pm and where they eat big bowls of spaghetti. All of the play-by-play commentary from the TV is complete gibberish. And bonus, the fanfare they play at the game is the same as the music from Pieces (1982). It’s not too surprising since a lot of that score was borrowed from this one. Meanwhile, there’s a whole subplot involving Willy’s dad being racked with guilt after hitting Eastman with his car and fleeing the scene. I’d be racked with guilt too if my seed had brought the curse upon the world known as Willy.

LUNCH

I went out to get some food from Simply Pho. I picked up egg rolls, chicken with fried rice for LeEtta, and pork with stir-fried noodles for me. So, I guess I didn’t get simply pho but whatever. There were lots of Vietnamese families enjoying lunch there and I did a little sneaky people watching while I was waiting. Probably creepy or maybe I was just hungry. Whatever everyone was ordering looked amazing. So maybe more pathetic than creepy? Who knows? On the way back, I listened to Edsel. There are few things from the 1990s that I enjoy more than that band. Look up their album called Techniques of Speed Hypnosis. It’s great. I’m so full of recommendations this moviethon.

“You haven’t kissed me goodnight for a long time.”

12:37PM

SCHIZOID (1980)

I have been staring at this one on my shelves for what seems like forever. Good old Canon Films. This opens with a lady hunched over her typewriter while writing on her couch. She’s just like me! You fill a hot tub with lovely ladies sipping glasses of wine and you’re creating a situation where anything can happen. Now that one of the girl gang are alone, she’s being pursued by a man with black gloves wielding a huge pair of scissors. He chases her to the California version of the Sawyer Ranch. Hot damn, Marianna Hill of Messiah of Evil (1973) is in this. She plays Julie. She writes the advice column for a newspaper that her ex-husband Doug (Craig Wasson) runs. My God, they would’ve had beautiful children together. Julie is getting anonymous letters from a psycho. He talks about wanting to kill people and he wants her advice for some reason.

Julie and her pals are in a group therapy session led by Dr. Peter Fales. I suspect that their session will not be successful because Fales is played by Klaus Kinski. He may know more about madness than anyone, but I think he mostly just causes it. Dr. Fales likes to sneak a peek at his daughter Alison (Donna Wilkes) whiles she’s undressing. That’s not good. Christopher Lloyd plays one of the members of the group and he sounds like the loneliest man on the planet. He’s so good but I’m glad the movie isn’t about him. That’d be a bit of a bummer. After the session is over, Julie shows Dr. Fales the psycho letter and he gives her a big surprise kiss. His secretary walks in and catches them. He acts all cool and leaves but Julie looks like he hit her with a two-by-four. Another gay stereotype! Damn, these North Americans are giving Italy a run for their money.

Speaking of character actors, John Regalbuto of “Murphy Brown” and Richard Herd of “T.J. Hooker”, are both in this! Ooh, a strip club. We definitely didn’t get enough of that action yet this moviethon. Kinski just had sex with a stripper against a hot water heater. LeEtta is making candles in the kitchen, so she only heard the sound effects of them making the sex act. She said, “Those didn’t sound like sexy sounds!” Holy shit, this was directed by the dude who did Savage Weekend (1979)?! That’s amazing. Julie and Dr. Fales are actually starting up a romance. Duder, I gotta tell ya, that is some weird, inhuman shit. His daughter Alison certainly thinks it’s weird. She’s spying on them from her bedroom window while holding a huge revolver. My brain just reminded me who Donna Wilkes is. She’s Angel from Angel (1983)!

While Julie is getting Kinski’d by Dr. Fales, Doug is snooping around the fire escape, trying to get a look at them in The Bone Zone. A neighbor who looks a lot like Martin Scorsese chases him down the street with a baseball bat screaming, “I’ll fix your ass!” The members of the group therapy session are gettin’ gotten and Kinski saying, “Where is everybody?” to the surviving members cracks me up. Donna Wilks almost looks like she’s trying to cosplay as Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris (1972) in one scene. Now that was a fun first-time watch. I want to own this soundtrack. It’s by some dude named Craig Huxley and damn it, it’s so damn cool.

“I’m depressed and I have a headache.”

2:17PM

EDGE OF THE AXE (1988)

I love how José Ramón Larraz got into the slasher game in the late 80s with this little gem. The killer looks super cool with his creepy expressionless mask. But the real magic of this movie comes from all of the computer rigmarole and wacko character interactions. Gerald is a computer geek with a hipster haircut. He and his friend Richard (no relation) run around town earning extra money exterminating vermin. Today, the owner of the local bar wants them to investigate a foul stench coming from somewhere at his establishment. Surprise, it’s a corpse! Ugh, I hate Richard. No, I’m not talking about myself though I do hate myself. This Richard is such a sleazebag. He brags about only having married his wife, played by Patty Shepard for her money and he’s obsessed with tits. Not his wife’s tits but all the other tits in town. No one ever married Patty Shepard for any other reason than Patty Shepard!

This movie has a love story even sweeter than the one between Eastman and Purdom. Gerald meets Lillian another computer geek just like him. Their online chats are the stuff of legend. Perhaps you’ve heard of The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey. Those hit properties are both based on Gerald and Lillian. Thanks to Arrow Video I was able to retire my VHS rip of this film. This Blu-ray is kinda blowing my mind right now. It just looks so damn nice. And I get to hear the soul deflating country songs and the garbled dialogue of some of the locally sourced actors in HD. Jack Taylor returns to the moviethon! He’s also in HD, glaring suspiciously.

My pal Sam has arrived to partake of this craziness. He is witnessing the blossoming yet complicated love of Lillian and Gerald. LeEtta says that old Ger looks like Jim Carrey and Sam says he looks like Evan Peters of “American Horror Story”. Meanwhile, Patty Shepard and Jack Taylor are having the best interaction ever filmed at the bar. He’s practically making love to her whiskey glass. The computer voice coldly narrating the online chats of the young lovers just blew Sam’s mind. Gerald looks as tired and distraught as the manager at Panera did this morning. Although I suspect that she was just really hungover. Gerald has no excuse.

GYROJETS AND DINNER

Sam and I retreated to the music room where we worked on some new parts of new GYROJETS songs. It was as loud and ridiculous as always. Then we talked about Laser Tag and synthesizers and horror manga. Sam ate one of the pumpkin spice bourbon muffins that LeEtta made, and he found them to be amazing. I could do nothing but agree. They were that good. And then Sam had to take his leave of us. I heated up the leftover beans and rice from Senor Tequila and we made burritos. It was finally time for the last movie of the moviethon.

“Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

6:25PM

NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (1981)

And now I must tussle with Romano Scavolini and his Video Nasty classic. He directed A White Dress for Marialé (1972)?! That kinda blows my mind. I’m loving the hand-painted 21st Century Distribution Corp. logo at the beginning of this. Somebody’s cousin was a skilled draftsman. Or draftsperson. A young man in tighty whities wakes up with a woman’s severed head in his bed. But then he really wakes up in a straitjacket in an asylum. After some diseased jazz plays over the credits, a title card proclaiming “The First Night – Florida” boldly flashes on the screen. I love me some Florida movies, y’all. You know this! Some maniac is running around and scares the Bujebus out of a poor babysitter. One of the kids she’s babysitting looks very amused by all this as the cops are running around outside looking for the aforementioned maniac.

So Mr. Tighty Whities is named George Tatum and he lives in New York City. He is the first quote unquote success with a combination of new anti-psychotic medications. Sadly, his list of mental problems is as long as my arm, so let’s just say things are likely not gonna go well for him on the outside. George goes out in the world to a peep show and he’s haunted by visions of the dead woman tying a man to a bed and slapping the shit out of him. Holy crud, this has some serious dildo on lady bits action happening here. Paging, Dr. Franco! He drives down to Florida and goes to a bar. A country singer armed with an acoustic guitar croons, “I’m feelin’ tired and beat” to which I say, “Fuck you!” George follows a woman home from the bar and brutally kills her to death. But then he apologizes. So, it all works out.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to have some recorder on this soundtrack. And here I thought the harmonica was the worst instrument ever invented. There’s a lady named Susan who likes to leave her kids locked out of the house while she’s on a boat getting groped by a guy who looks like a roadie for The Eagles. When she realizes that she needs to get home to feed her children, he says, “Let them eat Mallomars.” I’m not gonna lie, her kids, especially C.J. the little terror, are pretty awful. Never blame the parents! JK LOL. Susan really sucks. Her boyfriend suggests that they go to McDonald’s, but they dub over him so he’s saying “McDuff’s”. I thought C.J. was making pipe bombs in his bedroom but LeEtta explained that he’s wiring up one of his masks for a prank. Someone show this to my mom so that she will thank the Lord for what a well-behaved child I was.

George feels bad for killing people. He takes his victim to the beach and just screams at the night sky. Nice to see that sometimes a killer has remorse. Sometimes. The babysitter freaks out on Susan after C.J. pulls another prank and I have to laugh. She looks like a true Floridian. I’d say perfect casting, but they probably just grabbed her off the street out of desperation. We get some great impossible computer crapola as a cigar chomping detective is hunting for George by typing questions into a computer and getting instant answers. LeEtta has had it with Susan, but I think she’s mother of the year. This movie gets so weird as the police question C.J. about his dead friend at the scene of the crime in front of a camera crew and reporters. Wut? This is the best prequel to Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) ever made. I seriously don’t know I feel about this fuckin’ movie. It is exquisite suffering.

CIGAR AND FINAL THOUGHTS

I sat out in the carport in the dark smoking an Eiroa cigar and drinking a lime Jarrito. The temperature was already starting to drop. Winter was coming or at least the Florida version of it. I was giddy. After 13 films, 102 murders, and 4 wieners (almost five if you count George’s peepee bouncing round in his tighty whities), I was in splatter heaven. In fact, I had just experienced one of the best moviethons I’d had in years. Slashers and gialli are always battling it out for the open spot in the happy hole in my head but also heart. Intentionally getting lost in that happy space between my two favorite subgenres was fascinating and stupid. It was a snotty and unimaginably selfish gesture to enrage giallo diehards and make myself happy.

On one end of the spectrum, you have Stagefright (1987) and Body Count (1986) which were very successful slashers; and then on the other, you have Pieces (1982) and American Nightmare (1983) which were totally latecomers to the giallo game. Then you’ve got Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1981) and Double Exposure (1982) which I don’t have a clue what the actual fudge category they fit into. As for new favorites, I will definitely be revisiting Schizoid (1980) and Body Count again. Hell, I’m still trying to talk LeEtta into letting me slip American Nightmare into our regular Christmas sleaze watchin’. Only time will tell.

Giallo Meltdown: Thirteen Boogers In A Black Cat’s Eye

Hi there. This moviethon is going to be the third chapter of Giallo Meltdown volume 2, a book that is still currently being written! To check out more, be sure to grab yourself a copy of the first Giallo Meltdown right here. I should probably also say that there are some minor spoilers ahead though I never reveal the identity of the killer or major plot twists. I recommend you seek these films out if you can! On with the show…

Some giallo purists out there say that the heyday of the giallo genre ended in 1972 when the popularity of the films had reached their peak. There’s some great stuff that came after that from directors that didn’t get the memo and thus, some of my favorites didn’t even see theaters until 1975. Personally, I give the glory days of the giallo a much longer shelf life and take it all the way to 1982 when Dario Argento unleashed Tenebre upon an unsuspecting world. But the giallo didn’t stop there! They kept making the damned things for what appears to be kind of forever, often incorporating other genres and trendy film techniques to satisfy audiences. So, I’m headed back to Italy to see just what these latter-day offerings were all about.

FRIDAY

On the way to work this morning, the lady in the car behind me was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes while eating an ice cream sandwich. I started singing to her, “Girl! I wish I had your life!”, but she couldn’t hear me. Work was pretty humdrum today. Thanks to the pandemic, I only go in one day a week and I work all alone in the big office myself. This is how the killer is going to find me. We just had a tropical storm blow through this week and it left behind some decent weather. But it’s frickin’ November in Florida, so anything under 85 degrees is considered decent.

I picked up a big Italian sandwich for myself and a baked potato for LeEtta from Jason’s Deli and we eat while watching Rick Steves travel through Italy. We love Rick. This moviethon contains an almost entirely “unseen by me” lineup and that excites me! After my ceremonial shot of J&B was tolerated (barely), I proclaimed that it was time to get started.

“I don’t want to end up like a larvae!”

5:48PM

BAD INCLINATION (2003)

I hated this film so much the first time I watched it that I refused to include it in the first volume of Giallo Meltdown. But my tastes have changed and I’m ready to give this very late entry another go. A woman preparing herself a giant meal of meat is accosted by a black-gloved killer in her home. He gropes her and then stabs her to death with a giant setsquare. There’s some familiar faces in this including Florinda Bolkan, Franco Nero, and Eva Robbins of Tenebre (1982). The acting is all over the place, the script is hideous, and the dubbing is beyond terrible! I’m kinda loving this.

Bolkan plays Mirta, an artist/art historian who’s trying to con a dumb idiot into buying some forged antiques from her. She catches a girl named Donatella breaking into her car but decides to help her out. She confesses to Donatella that she’s dying and guilts her into helping commit suicide. Meanwhile, the lovely detective Rita is on the case of The Setsquare Killer. More importantly, Florinda Bolkan is walking her wiener dog named Van Gogh and she picks up his enormous (fake) turd so that she can put it in the bed of her nosy maid. She’s a stinker.

So much crazy shit is happening that I’m beginning to lose my mind already. One of the freewheelin’ ladies that lives in the building where the murder was committed has Axel Foley’s theme song as her ringtone. It interrupts her trying to bang some random dude who lives on her floor. A cop investigating a second murder with a setsquare says, “As yet, I don’t want to express an opinion.” A lady who wears feather underwear takes her cat for a walk but this cat has clearly never even seen a harness much less actually been walked by a human. And the calls from the killer sound like a little kid trying to sound scary.

Multiple characters living in the very same building are copying the killer’s methods in order to get away with their own murders. That’s just wild. Detective Rita goes on the Internet and uses a search engine called “MetaWeb”. That’s so old school that it probably never existed. Hooker bonfire! Lascivious sex! While I prefer this director’s other film Bugie Rosse (1993), Bad Inclination is a lot of cheesed out fun. It’s impossible to take seriously but the locations are gorgeous, and the camerawork is decent. Bonus: the ending is as abrupt as it is baffling.

“It’s best if I don’t think.”

7:25PM

SQUILLO (1996)

Carlo Vanzina, director of Nothing Underneath (1985), brings us Squillo. I like to lean out the window and scream “Skweeelooooo!” and the ladies come runnin’. All I’ve heard from folks is that this movie is pretty terrible. I’ll just see about that! The dubbing is also um… hideous! A poor Polish farmgirl named Eva witnesses the fall of the Berlin Wall and then grows up to be a high-class call girl in Milan. Her younger sister Maria shows up from Poland to hang out and then Eva immediately disappears. She goes to cops and meets up with Inspector Tony Ponytail (Raz Degan), a sarcastic pretty boy who looks like a romance novel reject.

In order to find out what happened to her sister, Maria dresses up like a sexbot, pretends to be Eva, and goes on a double date with Barbara, another prostitute. One of their dates looks like Eric Idle. All of this has to do with a company called NEOTECH. They must be the creators of “MetaWeb” which means that Squillo and Bad Inclination are from the same cinematic universe! Please, let Tony Stark be one of Eva’s clients! Well, the two films do have dreadful acting in common, but that’s about it so far. The cinematography on this one is by the amazing Luigi Kuveiller and the score is by musical magician Pino Donaggio.

Maria and inspector Tony have teamed up and are using a baby monitor to stay in contact during her undercover work. Paul Freeman, a fine actor of many, many films is in this as a bigshot client who hires Maria for some naughtiness. Maybe he wants her to pour Jello on his calves or squeeze his throw pillows. Either way, I’m slipping out of my khakis right now just in case things get nasty. Maria is having trouble getting used to the prostituting side of prostitution. After another successful night of giving her sister’s clients blue balls, Tony and Maria hook up. After their romantic talkin’, LeEtta looks at me and says, “Oh, this is so bad. So bad.”

If our lead characters were likeable, that’d be nice. But they’re not. Vanzina sure does like his sepia-toned flashbacks. Oh brother. This is turning into a nightmare. It just goes to show that you can make a big glossy movie with attractive people and it’s still a chore to sit through when the script is torturously bland. I hate to harsh on a movie this badly, but my pet peeve showed up. I hate when characters narrate their thoughts out loud just in case the audience is too dumb to follow along. We’re not! At least Bad Inclination was cheap and bad. The ending of this is a huge letdown as well. Carlo, what happened?

“Normality is his hideout.”

9:12PM

THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE (1986)

From the famously bad to the infamous, I go venturing into true crime territory. This is one of at least three films made about the as yet unsolved Italian serial killer case but that’s not important. What is important is that I’m the Monster of Florence. I began my killing spree before I was born and then stopped when I was nine years old because I was scared of getting caught. Please, arrest me. Suave badass Leonard Mann of Death Steps in the Dark (1977) is in this as a no-nonsense reporter with humongous sunglasses. He and his photographer cronies are relentless at getting the gory details even sneaking photos of the corpses when the cops aren’t looking.

Welcome to the moviethon, Gabriele Tinti! He plays Andreas, a writer who’s been working on a book about the case for years. His girlfriend Giulia (Bettina Giovannini), a journalist herself, encourages Enrico to keep working on his book despite how conflicted he feels about it. I love how claustrophobic and haunting this film feels. The dread starts creeping in almost immediately, and the score by Paolo Rustichelli is kicking ass. Now the film segues into gritty reenactments of the crimes. These are obviously staged because I’m not there.

Andreas and Giulia go see a production of Verdi’s Othello where it looks and sounds as though the actors onstage are lip-syncing to an old record. They run into Enrico and his ditzy lady friend at the opera house, but Andreas is too distracted by the case. He’s getting paranoid and looking for clues everywhere he goes. I’m very happy to report that it feels really good to finally be watching a real movie with a great cast and good writing tonight. The biggest criticism I can make is that this movie is about as subtle as a bullet to the face, especially when we get to see the killer’s life when he’s not out in the night blowing people away.

This movie is brutal and the fact that the killer looks vaguely like Ted Raimi might be my best alibi as no one has ever told me that I look like Ted Raimi. Do I? DO I?! You should call the police and have him arrested. I’m innocent! This is such a strange film and must’ve been really weird for the Italian public to go see a film made just a year after the most recent murders had been committed. So that’s what ties this film in with the first two we watched tonight: tackiness. This is some truly tacky shit and yet, I am digging this movie, y’all.

SATURDAY

I dreamt too many dreams though nothing giallo-like. The one I remember the best was having dinner with some extended family and doing my Robert DeNiro impression which is just me saying “You had your chance AND THEN YOU BLEW IT!” Did Al Pacino say that? We woke up to cats crawling on us, insisting we get started. After LeEtta’s homemade apple cinnamon and raisin muffins and a tangerine, we jumped right into chores. After that fun stuff, I went out to buy lottery tickets and then drive 16 miles round trip just to get TacoSon. Thanks to a bad accident on Busch Boulevard, I had to cut through a very spicy section of Tampa where a lady was screaming, laughing, and spitting on cars. She was wielding either a broom or a mop. The tacos were worth the hassle and of course, I ate too much. The day was disappearing.

“I’ve dragged you into a nightmare.”

12:53PM

TULPA: DEMON OF DESIRE (2012)

Extra special thanks goes out to my bud Justin Kosch for hooking me up many years ago with the following trilogy of films. This opens with some very sensual SEXophone music and some kinky sex. A guy who looks like Adrian Brody’s uncle ties a woman to a bed with some very elaborate knots. Ball gags are never a good sign. He doesn’t get to enjoy himself because a black-gloved killer shows up and kills him to death. The killer cuts off his manly bits and puts them right in front of the girl’s face. Now that’s a real ball gag! According to the credits, legendary screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti worked on this badboy.

By day, the lovely Lisa (Claudia Gerini) works for a generic corporation that buys stocks and has intense meetings about stuff. By night, she gets dolled up and goes to an underground sex club to get her freak on. While out with a friend in the park, she sees one of the girls from the club picking up a John. That night, the girl is chased and brutally murdered by the killer with a merry-go-round and barbed wire. Don’t ask. Lisa’s boss can’t keep his hands to himself which hopefully means he’s gonna get his dingle cut off too. We get to see inside the sex club, and it feels like it’s inside the city limits of Twin Peaks.

Another one of Lisa’s lady friends gets killed in a very sadistic way by the killer. That’s not nice. When she reads in the newspaper about the killings, she freaks out and goes to the club to get the contact info of a guy who works there. Marla, Lisa’s bitchy rival from work, follows her there and takes a picture of her going inside. That’s not nice at all. Well, if you’re going to make a throwback to the golden age of the psychosexual giallo, then this is the way to do it. Tulpa is colorful, trashy, ludicrously violent, and sports a decent music score. It’s not earth-shatteringly original or anything but I dig it well enough.

“What a friggin’ mess. Fuck you!”

2:25PM

ALMOST BLUE (2000)

I’ve been hearing about this movie for a very long time and I keep forgetting to watch it. I suppose that now is a good time to do that since I have put the DVD on and it is currently playing. A police task force is trying to catch a serial killer who targets college students. They call in a profiler/computer expert named Grazia Negro (Lorenza Indovina) to track him down. We’ve got a techno thriller on our hands here, people. Better check in with my AOL chatroom in Linux and see if I have enough RAM to handle this. A blind hacker named (Claudio Santamaria) Simone finds out the identity of the killer’s next victim and contacts Grazia. Shock of all shocks, they don’t get there in time. Whoa, this film is crazy stylish so far.

I haven’t been this excited about cloned cell phones in a very long time. That must mean we don’t watch NCIS anymore. Every time the killer strikes, he steals the victim’s clothes and identity and then moves on. This color palette is reminding me of Thesis (1996), a film that I’m way overdue for a rewatch of. Since Simone the blind dude knows the sound of the killer’s voice, Grazia and her colleagues take him to a party they suspect that he’s going to attend. Good plan! Everything goes to shit but also, it’s a complete clusterfuck. LeEtta says everything is going to be okay because in gialli, the cops never solve the case themselves anyway. This movie is just crazy. I liked it but I will say no more so I don’t spoil anything.

DINNER AND CIGAR BREAK

In order to stick to our Italian theme, LeEtta made us quesadillas from some left-over ground beef she had. Tacos for lunch and quesadillas for dinner? Hillsborough County sent over a representative in a gas mask to let us know that we were violating the Fart Ordinance. After dinner, I retreated out to the carpark for a silky smooth El Centurion cigar and a pineapple soda. While listening to giallo soundtracks, I read Stephen Thrower’s giallo introduction in his book, Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci. The sun set crazy early so after a while, I just enjoyed the evening air and watched my neighbors go about their business.

“I don’t trust anyone anymore.”

5:53PM

THE VANITY SERUM (2004)

And I just made this an Alex Infascelli double feature! After nearly dying during an arrest gone wrong, bitter ex-detective Lucia (Margherita Buy) is now being called in to help her ex-husband/old partner with a new case. A popular live talk show hosted by the popular personality Sonia Norton (Francesca Neri) goes off the rails when a famous psychologist named Dr. Benda gets his comeuppance. He storms off the set and then is drugged and kidnapped. Then a comedian who plays a farting cow on a popular children’s show is also kidnapped. As they investigate these disappearances, they find out more cases are tied to the same episode of the Sonia Norton show.

The cops are running around trying to protect the other guests but they’re not having much luck Another dude from the show is kidnapped after lasciviously biting into a hotdog while naked. I tell you, there’s a fetish for everything. They manage to get to Azzurra (Barbora Bobulova), a former Miss Italy (and now coked up loser) before she too gets gotten. Oops, spoke too soon. The cops screw it up and now Azzurra has been taken as well. Gee, I’m noticing a theme between the two films. All the kidnapped celebs are being held in cages in some weird underground bunker.

After this colossal screw-up, Lucia is thrown off the case and fired (even though LeEtta and I both thought she wasn’t employed). With nothing else to do but wallow in self-pity, she starts looking into the case on her own. I already like this more than Almost Blue. The score by Marco Castoldi is kicking ass and adding to the tense atmosphere of this bizarre and delightfully cynical movie. This is too good to spoil. All I have left to say is you have to seek this one out for yourself.

“This is a shitty film anyway.”

7:31PM

MASSACRE (1989)

A cool dude in mirrored shades and red mittens is cruising down the street to some bitchin’ 80s video game music. He sees a prostitute by the road, pulls over, and then hacks her to death with a hatchet and a switchblade in broad daylight. The credits read “Lucio Fulci presents… An Andrea Biachi film” and I say to that, “God help us.” Now we cut to a satanic ritual in a graveyard with hooded figures and a lady who looks vaguely like Caroline Munro who’s rather perturbed to be waking up in the middle of it all. Oh dang, this is a movie set. Jennifer is the star and she decides to take the night off. The rumors are that she’s a lesbian but back at the hotel she’s taking a shower with a hunky dude. Frankly, I’m shocked.

The director (Maurice Poli), who isn’t satisfied with the fantasy elements of the horror film they’re making, has decided to stage a séance to achieve maximum realism in their movie. The crew who’ve been working hard on the special effects are understandably pissed off about this change of direction. Meanwhile a handsome young police detective is trying to solve the murder of the prostitute. Apparently, this was the work of a serial killer and the cop’s boss (Paul Muller!) is very angry at him for not having solved the case already.

Not too surprising, this is daft already and potentially magical. There’s been a clumsy offer for lesbian sex, an extended striptease, and a four-alarm gay stereotype already. The kookiest séance I’ve ever seen just happened and I’m feeling very good about it. According to the medium, the wrong spirit guide showed up and it must be a teetotaler because he smashed all the booze at the bar. Drunk hottie Lisa, who might be an actress or not, winds up murdered and her body staged on the strangest merry-go-round I’ve ever seen. And I just found out that the movie they’re making is called Dirty Blood. Holy carp.

The cops consulted a computer and it told them there are two different killers at work. They should ask it to got ahead and solve the case because an important film like Dirty Blood must get finished no matter what the cost. Thankfully, the ghost didn’t destroy the bottle of J&B featured prominently in the big important scene where members of the film crew were being bitchy to each other. The more they show of Dirty Blood, the less I understand what it’s about. This is some seriously cheap and stupid crap. I’m smitten. Massacre might be my favorite of this entire moviethon.

“You think I care about your stupid gialli?”

9:30PM

DELITTI (1987)

This opens with a woman talking directly to the camera about a traumatic event that happened to her. From what I’ve read about Delitti, I think she might be speaking about working on this film. A double murder at a villa has taken place and the cops are grilling the suspects. When they lift up the sheet covering one of the bodies, the victim’s face looks like a big pile of lasagna. I’m not trying to be funny; it really looks like lasagna. Then the opening credits kick in with a tune that sounds like a cross between Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls, but in a bad way. This was directed by Giovanna Lenzi who is probably not related to Umberto Lenzi. And the budget appears to be even lower than Massacre’s.

The script is horrid. Here’s an example. Harriette and Susan, two girls who were at the villa the night of the murder, are worried that the killer might come after them. They’re doing mild aerobics together. Harriette starts to strangle Susan, calms down, tries to comfort her even though she was just strangling her, makes a half-hearted pass at her, and then gets in the shower with all of her clothes on. And then we’re off to another scene with people talking about stuff. The detective looks like Great Value Columbo™ played by a bearded Stacy Keach impersonator. When he goes to work, there are not one but two maps on the wall so that the audience knows that it’s a police station. Now he’s chasing a little person who claims to know the killer.

Apaprently, the killer’s method is using a poison that interacts with sugar in a person’s coffee. If they don’t use sugar then nothing happens. But if they happen to use sugar, then the poison is like acid and it turns the victim’s face into a sloppy mess (or “mummified” according to the detective). There is also a healthy dose of music lifted directly from A Blade in the Dark (1982) in the music score. Classy. A lady spends approximately 10 minutes of film time and all of her dignity trying to seduce her lover. Then she runs off to the bathroom so that she can spray deodorant on her thighs. When they finally have sex, he keeps his pajamas on.

If you wanted to make the case that this is the worst giallo of all time, I couldn’t argue with you. But honestly, this is kind of great. It will take me years to figure out what in the world is even going on. Susan runs to a phone booth to call the detective and then she’s menaced by a guy in trenchcoat. He takes off his coat and challenges her to a dance-off. His moves are sick as fuck. LeEtta and I are shook. That dude looks familiar. It’s Saverio Vallone of Antropophagus (1980). And that’s George Ardisson of Date for a Murder (1967). The poor bastards. The detective’s daughter reads gialli and keeps telling him how the cop in her novel is a failure just like he is. I could love this film if it wasn’t 96 damn minutes long. It’s almost bad movie gold. Oh well. Goodnight.

SUNDAY

This time, my dreams were super cool and full of giallo imagery. Just kidding, no black-gloved killers but they were pretty weird. The one I can remember best is that my dad was Kurt Russell and our family made money by building armor and weapons for collectors. I got in trouble because I was playing with his throwing knives and had screwed them up by breaking the tips off the blades. Dad understood but insisted I work in his shop to pay for their replacements. I got up early and ran out to Einstein Bagels for bagel sandwiches. After that, we got started on the yard work. The hot weather was back and it was pretty awful; though we did see a spider we’d never seen before called a Spiny Orb Weaver. So cute! After we eat a frozen pizza for lunch, it was time to get back to the bullshit.

“Oh my goodness! My horoscope said there’d be an exceptional occurrence today.”

12:35PM

APPOINTMENT IN BLACK (1990)

Moody opening music over a black screen and t-shirt-style font credits should be troubling, but I’m assured that this is a “REAL Film Production”. Then the movie goes right into the brutal rape of a young girl. I keep waiting for it to cut away. It doesn’t. Somehow, I get through this without shutting it off. After a “15 years later” title card, a sexy woman named Angela, played by Mirella Banti of Tenebre (1982), is driving along, smiling at herself in the rearview mirror, and listening to some strident garbage rock which LeEtta says sounds like the “Beverly Hills, 90210” theme. Angela goes to a porno theater where she insults some hornballs who’re checking her out.

Angela gets attacked offscreen in the theater toilet and a sleazy guy acts suspiciously. While she’s reporting the details of this attack to a female police inspector, played by Sonia Viviani of Nightmare City (1980), her husband John is at home banging Eva, his blond mistress. When he finds out that she was raped, he confides to his lover that he wishes that Angela had been killed by the rapist. As soon as Angela goes to bed, he goes back to sucking on Eva’s panties. John is an animal. The romantic music sounds like an anal trumpeter spitting his butt wind into the audience’s sad, unprotected ears.

The projectionist from the theater approaches Angela to tell her that he saw the whole incident where she faked being raped. He wants money and he starts raping her. Get me out of here. Angela and John throw a fancy party where all of his asshole socialite friends talk shit about her. So she gets a little too drunk and does a striptease. The only moment of light in this dogshit is when Angela asks the band to play something with some sex in it. The band proceeds to play a happy Lawrence Welk-style floppy dong polka. It’s awesome. Now Angela is being harassed by a man claiming to be her attacker. John and Eva are up to some sneaky shit but Angela is beginning to make some plans of her own.

The most giallo-like thing to happen so far is that someone left a bloody doll in Angela’s car with a switchblade stuck in its face. Ooh, the man who raped Angela as a child died a very horrible death. Hell yes! His dick didn’t get cut off and fed to him but I’ll take what I can get. John and Eva have at least a half a dozen sex scenes in this so that same love scene theme music keeps playing. And here come the double crosses and the triple crosses. Who cares? Other than a couple of decent, atmospheric moments, I highly recommend skipping this fucking trash.

“Wanna do a porno gig? Just the three of us?”

2:15PM

OBSESSION: A TASTE FOR FEAR (1988)

I love how someone ripped this from their laserdisc copy. Thank you, whoever you are. This opens quite strikingly with a giallo villainess menacing a girl with a huge silver 9mm pistol. Diane (Virginia Hey) the photographer is pissed off because the model isn’t good enough at portraying fear on film. Oh brother, this is a high-tech movie with pointless computer screens everywhere. After making her assistant Valerie (Gioia Scola), who’s clearly in love with her, scrub her back in the shower, she meets up with her smug douchebag ex-husband Georges (Gérard Darmon) in his limo. He gives her an assignment to seduce a rich guy for him.

That night, Diane goes to hunt her prey at a fancy nightclub that has little people dancing onstage, people having sex in the booths, and bodybuilders mixing with the crowd. I guess it worked because we see her screwing the guy in the nightclub. At yet another gaudy fashion shoot, Diane is being a dick. When a bodybuilder chick cuts herself, she demands Valerie touch the wound so she can photograph it. Valerie refuses and they shut down for the day. Later, the bodybuilder chick goes to a private videotape session where a killer in black gloves ties her up. She turns up dead and sealed up in a giant bag. Also of note: Diane is narrating this insanity.

Thanks to Diane’s inefficiently sleek car and other weird gadgetry, LeEtta and I just realized that this takes place in the future, as imagined by the people of 1988. That explains the weird sets and everyone acting like aliens. But that doesn’t explain how pretentious this movie is. The police detective looks like he escaped from an episode of “Miami Vice”. Diane gets real sad about the death of the bodybuilder and cries naked while rocking a slammin’ dope jam called “Midnight Blue” by Lou Gramm of Foreigner. This song is so good that I want to rip off my ears and shove them up my urethra. Seriously, this would be a lot better if Diane wasn’t such a jerk. It wouldn’t hurt the movie at all. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t shamin’. I like that she screws everything in sight. She’s just an asshole.

At least Obsession: A Taste for Fear is pretty to look at. There’s so many saturated colors and eye-popping visuals going on that it’s easy to forget that very little is happening. Another bonus is that this is a real movie unlike that lumpy turd called Appointment in Black. Somebody just tried to run over the cop and he shot at their jeep with a gosh darn laser gun. We are on fire in here, bro! Another murder happens and someone yells, “You police pig!” Between the wall-to-wall nudity, the techno gobbledygook, campy soundtrack, and nearly every character acting like a dickbagel, this movie is a lot to take in. It’s certainly unique, I’ll give it that.

DINNER

LeEtta made bacon and broccoli carbonara and it was delicious. While she was preparing it, I laid in the recliner and rested my eyes. I took an allergy pill before bed and felt totally wiped out. After dinner, I washed dishes so that LeEtta wouldn’t suspect that I was a total waste of space. With a glass of iced coffee and a bag of black licorice by my side, I was ready for another movie.

“You can be a great archeologist and still be a fink.”

4:40PM

THE SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS (1982)

I know next to nothing about this Sergio Martino joint other than it’s got Paolo Malco AND John Saxon in it. A New Yorker named Joan (Elvire Audray) has been having weird dreams about the ancient civilization of the Etruscans lately. Her husband is the scrumptious John Saxon, an archeologist who’s been studying the Etruscans over in Italy. These things could be connected. When Saxon is about to ship crates of loot back to New York, somebody sneaks up on him and twists his dang head around backwards! Despite the protestations of her dad (Van freakin’ Johnson), Joan heads to Italy with her husband’s flirty colleague Mike (Paolo Malco).

One of my giallo crushes, Marilù Tolo of My Dear Killer (1972), is here as a rich countess that Joan’s husband was staying with when he got killed. She’s not providing any useful information. A bunch of Fabio Frizzi’s music queues from City of the Living Dead (1980) are mixed into this score. I ain’t complainin’. One of John Saxon’s former colleagues gives Joan an Etruscan pendant of a scorpion with two tails. There’s a fashion shoot with some sexy models happening in some of the ruins. I hope that Diane doesn’t show up and starts screwing everybody. Now Joan’s visions are getting weirder, featuring mysterious Etruscan people and maggots, lots of maggots. I have no clue where this is going but I wish I’d seen it years ago.

Back in New York, Joan’s dad is going through the crates sent by John Saxon and not finding a certain something that was supposed to be stashed inside. Now he’s in trouble with some gangsters and is practically in tears while holding an Estruscan vase. He’s a real Mulligan. Meanwhile, a vagabond flautist tells Joan some cryptic nonsense and tells her she’s the “bringer of gifts”. With all the maggots, fake bats, that music score, and obtuse dialog, I don’t know how this isn’t a Fulci movie. Ruh roh, Joan’s dad just arrived in Italy. but Joan is missing. An assassin in black motorcycle gear sporting a weird pistol shows up and a funny sped up car chase ensues.

More people get their heads twisted and Van Johnson is chewing the scenery and holy heck, we’re only at the halfway mark of this weirdness. Whoa, Claudio Cassinelli of The Suspicious Death of a Minor (1975) just popped up in this as Paolo the archaeologist. He informs Joan that he and his team just uncovered a portrait that looks exactly like her in an old tomb. While Paolo and Joan are out looking for clues, they go see a photographer who has a big honkin’ rebel flag in his studio. The south of Italy will rise again? Holy shit, this has one of the most improbable and bonkers twists in it that I’ve ever seen. What did I just watch?

“It’s all a joke, right?”

6:24PM

THE MURDER SECRET (1988)

Lucio Fulci presents… another film he had nothing to do with. This one is directed by Mario Bianchi, so you know it’s gonna be totally better than Massacre. Don’t tell Andrea I said that! A woman in an asylum has visions or flashbacks of a man driving a car. She’s got dark circles under her eyes and she’s throwing a fit. I know just how she feels. Oh wait, these are memories of Aunt Martha. Gabriele Tinti plays Richard and he was in the asylum as a kid watching his aunt lose her mind. He and his family are on their way to see his estranged Aunt Martha out in the countryside.

Maurice Poli is back again. He must have owed the Bianchi brothers some money or something. He’s got Aunt Martha’s place spotless and ready for visitors but there’s one room that they must never go in. That’s always a good sign. Richard’s cute and horny wife is played by Adriana Russo of A Whisper in the Dark (1976) and The Face with Two Left Feet (1979). Their eldest son shows up in their bedroom in the middle of the night with a shotgun. No, this isn’t the Amityville murders. It’s just -well, I don’t know what it is. The biggest mystery is why crazy Aunt Martha invited them out here and hasn’t shown up yet. Spooky!

Their daughter Georgia (Jessica Moore) acts like a teenager but she’s built like a woman. She tries on Aunt Martha’s nightgown and gets scolded by a disembodied voice for her transgression. Then her bucktoothed nitwit brother named Maurice (wah-wow!) sneaks in, trying to scare her. Later, Maurice gets up in the middle of the night and stares at the staticky TV like a zombie. When strange stuff happens, Richard looks around with his shifty eyes and doesn’t give a clear answer to anything. Not to worry, a black gloved killer shows up and starts making trouble of the butcher knife and chainsaw variety. I am so into this. And it has the longest man on man non-nude grappling scene ever made.

“Everyone is happy today because someone is going to die!”

8:09PM

FORMULA FOR A MURDER (1985)

Here’s another film that slipped through the cracks while I was working on the first book. My only concrete memory of it is that I thought it was too long. Let’s see how it holds up this time. Alberto de Martino, you beautiful son of a gun! I’ve missed you. A priest carrying a creepy baby doll is menacing a little girl on a very steep set of stone stairs. Francesco de Masi is getting freaky with the synths for this opening music. After the stylish slow-motion opening, there’s some priest-on-priest crime.

Wheelchair-bound Joanna (Christina Nagy) is getting some physical therapy from dreamboat Craig (David Warbeck). He’s teaching her fencing, archery, karate, marksmanship, and bomb diffusing. Craig is flirting with Joanna and her sexy assistant pal Ruth isn’t happy about that. Once those pesky American exteriors are out of the way, Joanna goes home and we’re instantly in Rome. Ruth likes to give angry massages, especially when she finds out that Craig has asked Joanna to marry him. There’s a lot of confusing medical stuff with Joanna. She says she can’t laugh without pressing her diaphragm and then she laughs just a moment later.

Her doctor is played by the wildly prolific Rossano Brazzi of Psychout for Murder (1969) and a whole mess of other things. He informs Craig to be careful on their wedding night because as a kid, Joanna was raped by a phony priest and fell down a flight of stairs. Other than her blood curdling screams of pleasure, their wedding night goes exceedingly well. Soon, Joanna begins to see visions of the evil priest holding a bloody baby doll that taunts her with a creepy voice.

Just to add more priests to the mix, Father Davis shows up. It’s Loris Loddi. I’ve seen him before in the wacky Miami Golem (also 1985) and Ruggero Deodato’s Phantom of Death (1988). And now he’s out of the movie. Oops! One thing about this movie is that it shows its cards way too early. I think de Martino and screenwriter Vincenzo Mannino should’ve held off just a bit longer before letting us in on the game. Luckily, there’s lots of style scattered throughout to keep things lively. De Masi, naughty or lazy little devil that he is, inserted the main melody from New York Ripper (1982) into the score when Joanna and Craig are driving to the ferry. Love it. That’s it, I gotta tap out. Later, folks.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Another moviethon has come and gone. I had a feeling that I shouldn’t have ended on Formula for a Murder and I was right. It’s decent but the movie, even though it’s only 85 minutes, is just one idea is stretched out far too thin to not get dull. As usual, I didn’t get to all of the humongous stack that I always pick for myself at the start of these things. The twenty films I picked out were just never going to happen, but I’m cool with that because it means there’s just more material for even more chapters later. Isn’t that a refreshing attitude? Please clap.

Spirits of Death

Spirits of Death (1972)

Mariale (Ida Galli AKA Evelyn Stewart) has recurring visions of her mother’s murder at the hands of her father when she was a child. The grief and the horror of this incident has turned her into something of a shut-in. Her husband Paolo (Luigi Pistilli) keeps her in their castle away from others and keeps her doped up for her own good. When Mariale decides to throw a party with a bunch of she and Paolo’s wacky friends, things quickly get out of hand. The party turns into a decadent feast. Did I mention that Massimo (Ivan Rassimov), Mariale’s old flame, is one of the guests attending this little soiree? Oh shit! Tensions begin to rise and soon the party guests start dropping like dang flies at the hands of a brutal murderer.

The languidly paced yet beautiful Spirits of Death creeps across my TV screen and I can’t help but love it. Stuck somewhere between giallo and gothic horror, this film is both eerily nightmarish and sleepily dull (thanks to its substandard ironic plot). Unfortunately, director and cinematographer Ramano Scavolini would go on to direct only one other horror outing: the elusive slasher Nightmares in a Damaged Brain. Because you know what? I really liked where he was going with this one. Then there’s the haunting and phantasmagorical score by Fiorenzo Carpi and Bruno Nicolai which is impossible to forget once you’ve heard it.

I can’t recommend Spirits of Death (AKA A White Dress for Mariale) for anyone just getting into Italian horror films starting with this one but I think this is worth a look for you seasoned experts out there. The cast kicks ten different kinds of ass with Galli, Rassimov and Pistilli on hand. There’s also plenty of sex and violence to make up for some of the drowsy bits. But the pacing is really out of whack with its moments of noise and freakishness followed immediately by scenes of shaky and strange calmness. This would make a fine double feature with Francesco Barilli’s The Perfume of the Lady in Black.

“Mariale, what is on your mind?”

Something Creeping in the Dark

Something Creeping in the Dark (1971)

During a terrible storm, a group of obnoxious strangers are stranded at a mysterious house in the middle of nowhere occupied only by a lone hippie butler named Joe (Gianni Medici). Among them is a murderous criminal named Spike (Farley Granger) accompanied by two police detectives trying to haul him in. While playing a haunting melody on the piano, Spike makes a strange connection with Sylvia (Lucia Bose), a bored bourgeois lady, much to the dismay of her husband Donald (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart). Things get really strange when Sylvia holds a seance and they make contact with Sheila Marlowe, the recently deceased owner of the house. It seems that Sylvia’s spirit is not the restful type and she wants a new body to possess. People start dropping like flies under strange circumstances and the chances that anyone is going to survive until dawn are slim.

I want to love this movie, I really do. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be one of those reviews. The kind where I can’t be trusted. Director and writer Mario Coluuci only directed one horror film and it’s easy to see why. Something Creeping in the Dark has some great and very weird moments but the pacing is so off, it is almost funny. Almost. There is very little blood but there is plenty of violence with all the strangulation, bludgeoning, and shooting going on. What this movie has a great deal of is sex. Most of it is suggested and it’s as subtle as a sledgehammer (the Peter Gabriel kind).

There’s a little skin on display from Joe’s girlfriend, played by the adorable Giulia Rovai (who went on to star in nothing). The cast is also blessed with two lovely vixens: Lucia Bose and Mia Genberg (who plays Susan, the repressed nerd whose inhibitions come out and play once the ghost is in control), who both get to wear some very skimpy outfits. Lucia Bose participates in the film’s freakiest scene. While Spike is charming Sylvia’s panties off with his piano playing skills, the two of them share a disturbing fantasy sequence. In this daydream (?), Spike chases Sylvia around, slaps her around, and is about to rape her when she stabs him with a knife. She stabs him again and again and again while Spike just laughs maniacally. Genius!

The seance is where this film really kicks into high gear. (Don’t get used to it.) As you may have figured out by now, I love seance sequences in horror movies and this one is pretty superb. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart kicks all kinds of ass here when his character Donald, a natural medium, becomes possessed by the spirit they are contacting. Donald is a little ball of misery and rage and the ghost takes advantage of that with deadly results. It’s nice to see Rossi-Stuart actually getting into his role for a change. When directors didn’t know what to do with him, duder really phoned it in. Check out The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (totally awful) and Death Smiled at Murder (better film, same result) to see what I mean.

I started out looking for a giallo and found whatever this is instead. But I’ve watched Something Creeping in the Dark twice now and I still can’t get a hold on it. Yes, it’s boring. All of the good stuff: the trippy possession and poltergeist sequences, the loungy/eerie soundtrack by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, the painfully obvious model house, the catty and banal dialogue, the always welcome presence of Farley Granger (Amuck!), and general disjointedness, just doesn’t make up for the snooze factor involved. Thanks to a couple of well-crafted scares though, I will be returning to the house of Sheila Marlowe against my will. It’s almost as if she has possessed me as well. What’s that, Sheila? You want me to eat more bacon? Okay!

“This kind of morbid exultation can be harmful to the nerves. I advise against it.”

Shadow of Illusion

Shadow of Illusion (1970)

Advertising executive, Gail Bland (Daniela Giordano), travels to Cairo to do a business deal with a company called Isis Cosmetics. Once there, Gail is beset by all manner of bizarre occurrences and weird people. A cult led by a creepy brother (Antonio Cantafora) and sister (Krista Nell) believe that she is the reincarnation of Isis and want to sacrifice her. Enter Caleb (William Berger), a swingin’ cool cat professor to her rescue. He takes Gail to see the sites, always just one step ahead of the mysterious cult. Every time Caleb leaves her alone, danger rears its heavily eye-shadowed head.

This rather different little film sports some great cinematography from Erico Menczer (The Dead are Alive, The Cat o’ Nine Tails) and a jazzy, fun score from the ever-reliable Carlo Savina (Lisa and the Devil). The plot is very simple and it’s peppered with a lot of foolish behavior on Gail’s part to keep it moving. This gets frustrating after a while but all of it can be explained away by her goofy state of mind (never smoke cigarettes from a stranger in Cairo) so whatever. Luckily, Mario Caiano’s direction is solid and everyone involved delivers decent performances.

There is very little blood but there is some violence and even a little sleaze. Oh and there’s a miserable dance number during a ritual that will have you groaning or cheering depending on your state of mind. I’m sure that the rampant dope-smoking and LSD trip sequence will appeal to a certain type of audience. That’s right, I’m talking to you, druggie!

I can’t imagine that casual viewers will like Shadow of Illusion. But if you’re like me, you’re on a constant quest for every giallo ever made (and I’m not saying this is a giallo) and don’t mind stumbling upon mostly entertaining Italian horror nonsense then you’ll probably get a kick out of this one. This film limps along surprisingly well and just barely stays ahead of its thin premise and awkward dubbing the whole time. About an hour in, I thought to myself, “This is something Jess Franco should have directed.” So you can take that for what it’s worth.

The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance (1975)

It’s 1902, in Ireland, and a group of actresses are invited to stay at the castle of Count Richard Marnack (played by Giacomo Rossi-Stuart). He is especially attracted to Evelyn (Patrizia Webley) because she reminds him of his dead wife. Or maybe she’s missing. Something. Oh yeah, there’s a curse in the Marnack family bloodline where the men go crazy and cut their wives’ heads off. I think that’s what it was. Anyway, it isn’t long before members of the group start turning up with their heads cut off. Ugh, I can’t even summon up the energy to describe this bag of crap.

Man oh man, this is one busted-ass Italian cinematic nightmare. I’ve seen many gialli with weak plots, tepid scripts, awkward actors, painfully over-the-top performances, cheap gore effects, listless direction, bland sets, unimaginative lighting, lame dubbing, and a complete lack of suspense. However, all of these factors rarely occur in the SAME DANG FILM! Alfredo Rizzo, I’m calling you out! The curiously (and severely misleadingly) titled The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance is one dreary movie experience. If you can even get through the longest 89 minutes on Earth, you’ll wonder why you did.

As to why these actors ever showed up to work everyday… Well, it must be some kind of a miracle. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart of The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave and Death Smiled at Murder has certainly been much better in other films. I can’t really blame him for sleepwalking through this one. Krista Nell (Night of the Devils) seems to be the only one having any fun as Cora, the slutty actress. Redhead hottie Femi Benussi (Strip Nude for Your Killer) seems utterly confounded as to the “complex” nature of her role as Sybil, the maid. Shhh, she’s got a secret love for Count Marnack! God help poor Evelyn, played by the beautiful Patrizia Webley in her film debut (ouch).

Comic relief comes from Leo Valeriano as Samuel, stagehand and manager for the actresses. No, wait. I actually have no clue what this duder’s purpose is. Anyway, this sad schmuck is ridiculed by the ladies throughout the film. They refer to him as being “half a man” (?) and never miss an opportunity to remind him that they think of him as a eunuch. As an actor, Valeriano is awful but he does manage to put some of the most bizarre and hilariously inappropriate facial expressions I’ve ever seen into his performance.

The plodding pace of Bloodsucker will destroy your happy thoughts. As for the film’s “finale”, um… no. The big reveal goes off like a wet firework. For those of you brave souls out there who insist on seeing every Italian horror movie ever made and for those that will ignore my warnings about the unfathomable suck that is The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance, here is the only reason to watch this film: sex and nudity. Oh yeah, and there a couple of really pathetic and cheap severed heads. Dang, this may just be the worst giallo ever made. Yeah, don’t watch this… unless you want to.

“The world is a stage but sometimes it isn’t.”

Say Uh… Phenomena!

[Reader beware. There are major spoilers coming up.]

Whenever the wind is in the trees, I think of Phenomena and nothing feels right or normal in the best way. Released in 1985, Dario Argento’s twisted fairy-tale masterpiece has always had a strange effect on me. It’s a ridiculous world of tangible impossibilities with an atmosphere of doom and insanity hanging around every corner. Imagine if your fantasy world got caught in the kitchen disposal and then you were able to film it; the end result would look a whole lot like Phenomena.

The film starts as Jennifer Corvino (played by Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous actor, arrives at a Swiss boarding school. Jennifer has a sleepwalking problem and one night while she is wandering around the closed section of the school, she witnesses a girl being murdered by a psychotic killer. She meets wheelchair bound Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), an entomologist living with his helper chimpanzee who’s been enlisted by the police to help track down the murderer. He seems to think that Jennifer’s sleepwalking is a symptom of burgeoning mental powers. McGregor’s hypothesis proves to be true as Jennifer soon realizes that she can communicate with insects. They decide to use her strange gift to catch the killer.

When the unlikely duo gets too close to discovering the truth, the killer comes after Professor McGregor. Now alone against a sadistic psychopath, Jennifer mistakenly takes shelter with Frau Brückner (Daria Nicolodi) who turns out to be the mother of the deformed creature that has been doing all the killing. With the help of a detective (Patrick Bauchau) and her insect helpers, Jennifer just barely escapes with her life. Frau Brückner kills the detective and comes looking for our young heroine. Jennifer’s ultimate rescue comes in the form of John McGregor’s chimpanzee that gets revenge for its slain master by taking a straight razor to the insane woman.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I was intrigued by a segment on an MTV show called “Stephen King’s World of Horror” about Dario Argento. It talked about a film called Creepers and I sought it out. The cover of the VHS tape entitled Creepers really blew my mind. It features a painting of Jennifer Connelly (“The chick from Labyrinth!” I thought to myself) holding a handful of flies and other insects. These creepy crawlies were flying out of her half rotted face and I was completely mesmerized by the sickening beauty of this image. At this point in my young life, my parents were allowing me to rent whatever horror films I pleased. They had given me their old VCR to hook up in my room so I had absolutely no trouble getting this particular flick by them. There was a mix-up at the video store and the film Creeper (AKA In the Devil’s Garden AKA Assault from 1971) was in the Creepers case by mistake. Once that was resolved, I finally had the film in my hands.

Little did I know what awaited me on that tape. Creepers is actually Dario Argento’s giallo-fantastico masterpiece Phenomena, minus about 28 minutes of footage. A few very brief shots of gore had been trimmed but most of the cuts had to do with the plot and Jennifer Corvino’s character development. The most shocking moments in the film: the big reveal of Frau Brückner’s murderous and hideously deformed child and Jennifer falling into a pit of rotting corpses, remained intact on the rental copy I watched back in the day.

I love Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini’s childish plot. Everything that takes place in Phenomena, no matter how ludicrous, made perfect sense to my young mind. Even now, I’ll catch myself just nodding and smiling as the events unfold that would likely cause most rational folks to start throwing furniture at the screen. How is it that a girl with the ability to communicate telepathically with insects just happens to become best buds with a crippled entomologist who just happens to have been researching the psychic powers of insects throughout his career? I guess that is a small concession in a film that also features a dang chimpanzee armed with a straight razor that brutally savages his master’s murderer.

I especially love the film’s minimalist set design of the finale. The brilliantly lit monochromatic and sparsely decorated walls help focus the viewer’s attention on the action and give it a stark bleakness. Phenomena also has a hypnotic quality, a morbid melancholy (a little something which I call “The Vibe”) that I’ve rarely found in American horror films. Similarly, Joe D’Amato’s horror films often have little to no set design and I can’t help but feel this perfectly communicated sense of claustrophobia and horror in my bones. I’m sure one could assume these things were kept simple to keep production costs low but so be it, I’m already smitten.

The music of Phenomena ranges from spectacular to totally inappropriate. Simon Boswell and Goblin contribute the ethereal pieces and the horror stingers. And though they sound great where they are placed within the film, “Flash of the Blade” by Iron Maiden and “Locomotive” by Motörhead are disruptive to the flow of the rest of the soundtrack. Now don’t get me wrong, I was a metalhead during my early teens and the inclusion of these songs only made me love this movie all the more. But even as a youngster, I knew that “Flash of the Blade” has nothing lyrically that fits with what’s happening onscreen. Argento’s indiscriminate love of (often cheesy) heavy metal rears its ugly head again in his next film Opera but with less or more success depending entirely on your taste in metal.

A classic Italian horror film needs a great cast and Phenomena is certainly no slouch in that department. Leading the cast is a young Jennifer Connelly (who Argento spotted in Once Upon a Time in America and decided to cast her) and Donald Pleasence who was serving time in Italy between Halloween sequels. Daria Nicolodi is totally batshit crazy as Frau Brückner, one of my favorite villainesses ever captured on film. Belgian born actor Patrick Bauchau (of “Carnivale”) plays Inspector Geiger, the detective who almost saves the day but who dies horribly (off camera).

Sadly, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly has since distanced herself from Phenomena and her time spent in Italy. In a 2004 interview with Vogue, she disses the film and her performance in it saying it was little more than an excuse to vacation in Europe. I can’t help but laugh at this because this is best thing Connelly has ever done or ever will do. No, I’m not kidding. As far as I’m concerned, Jennifer Connelly’s career tanked in 1986 with only a few minor points of interest since (Mulholland Falls, Dark City and the Dark Water remake). There’s still a chance for her to redeem herself but only if she returns to Italian horror.

One of the greatest character actors of all time, Donald Pleasence, delivers his performance of Professor John McGregor with his usual morbid sincerity. Pleasence is totally convincing as the renowned entomologist even while he is dishing up the corniest dialogue. He easily mesmerizes the viewer into believing his every word. In an interview in Profondo Argento, the actor mentions that Phenomena had one of the silliest scripts he’d ever read. I find this very curious. Perhaps he’d forgotten about Paganini Horror and Fatal Frames of hadn’t made them yet at the time of the interview. Those two totally wacko Italian horror films are easily sillier than Phenomena.

Near the end of the film, we have traveled with Jennifer through windswept Sweden, entered a girls’ school with almost no discernible curriculum, been knocked with her into a pit full of carrion and squirming larvae, and joined in her desperate psychic cry to her insect brethren to chew the face off her diminutive tormentor. Moments later, everything changes as Jennifer is swimming to shore thus washing away the horror (and filth from the corpse pit) and we’re led to believe that the horror is finally over. For me, this ethereal scene is the most resplendent of the film and is a transcendent landmark for Italian horror. This peaceful moment is interrupted when Jennifer’s father’s lawyer who shows up to take her home. No easy denouement here as Argento has one more showstopping setpiece tucked up his sleeve.

Phenomena is a feverish, outrageous, and gory maggot party that will always be at the top of the list of my favorite horror movies of all time. I cannot stress enough how badly you need to see this film or see it again if you’ve already taken the plunge. There’s a whole lot of ugly, a whole lot of weird, and a whole lot of beauty packed into Argento’s whacked out beast. This film stands very tall among the dozen or so horror flicks that had a huge impact on my young brain. Phenomena’s somnambulistic evil grows as the years go by and every time I am drawn back in, I get just a little closer to happily losing my mind.

Giallo a Venezia

Giallo a Venezia (1979)

A couple, Flavia (Leonora Fani) and Fabio (Gianni Dei), are found murdered by the shore. Strangely enough, Fabio was stabbed to death with a pair of scissors while Flavia was drowned nearby and then her body dragged out of the water. Police inspector DePaul (Jeff Blynn) begins to slowly piece the case together with the few suspects and clues that he can find. He uncovers that in life Fabio was a voracious sex addict whose tastes were becoming more and more extreme with Flavia being little more than a toy in his games. Suddenly, the killer goes on a violent and bloody rampage against people connected to the murdered couple and it’s up to DePaul and the Venice police to apprehend him before any more lives are taken.

From writer Aldo Serio (Watch Me When I Kill) and director Mario Landi (Patrick Still Lives) comes, Giallo a Venezia, a sleazy, slimy, and truly trashy late 70s Giallo. Heavy on sex but light on plot and logic, this is one dirty flick. Some decent twists help the lame plot limp along until it finally sprints full speed to the end. The gore effects are cheap but nasty enough to keep me from complaining too much. More depressing than scary, Giallo a Venezia is a mean-spirited and sordid little film if there ever was one. The bipolar soundtrack ranges between utterly inappropriate disco circus music over sex scenes to pitch perfect chilling horror string arrangements in the stalking scenes.

The gorgeous Leonora Fani (The House by the Edge of the Lake) plays one of the most heart-wrenching characters I’ve ever seen in a giallo. Flavia’s short life is quite tragic and it really shows just how effective Fani’s performance is when I felt twinges of grief once her story reached its conclusion. The sinister looking Gianni Dei (The Last Round, Patrick Still Lives) who plays her “man”, Fabio, is an equally good actor, able to portray the terrifying aspects of sexual addiction. These two actors’ scenes together are especially hard to watch as Fabio’s addiction becomes ever more sadistic which leads them both down a path which will lead to their eventual destruction. The wildly sexy Mariangela Giordano (Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) is on hand to make things even steamier. Who or what is Jeff Blynn? Aside from being the worst detective in Venice, Inspector DePaul also eats eggs and sports a non-hetero disco mustache.

Giallo a Venezia? More like Porno a Venezia! So yeah, I guess that the sex scenes are meant to show Fabio and Flavia’s destructive relationship but under the leering eye of cinematographer Franco Villa (Malabimba: The Malicious Whore), things get pretty ridiculous after a while. The brutality of the murders makes up for their somewhat sketchy effects and their close proximity with the lengthy softcore scenes also gives them a creepy edge. Giallo a Venezia is a halfway decent Giallo that is saved by its gory violence, good acting (not from Jeff Blynn), beautiful actresses, a bizarre musical score, and a thick coating of Euro-sleaze. Prepare to feel dirty afterwards, I know I do.

Autopsy

Autopsy (1975)

Mimsy Farmer plays Simona, a student of pathology, who begins to suspect that a string of recent suicides (blamed on sunspots by the media) may, in fact, be homicides. Matters take a downturn for Simona when she begins experiencing grotesque hallucinations which puts a strain on her future career as a pathologist as well as her relationship with her boyfriend, Edgar (Ray Lovelock). After her father’s plucky mistress, Betty (Gaby Wagner), turns up dead of an apparent suicide, she is convinced there is some kind of conspiracy. Betty’s brother, Father Paul (Barry Primus), joins Simona in her search for a killer that might not even exist.

Armando Crispino (The Dead are Alive) directs this tense, hallucinatory, and unsettling giallo. The tension and dread boil over in Autopsy and the viewer gets the sense that death is everywhere. The film is profoundly trashy (with hints of necrophilia and other various perversions) but with yet another brilliant score by Ennio Morricone and precise cinematography by Carlo Carlini (Virgin Terror, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye), Autopsy is raised above its willingness to wallow in the muck.

Barry Primus gives the viewer their money’s worth with his wild portrayal of the rageaholic and epileptic Father Paul. Ray Lovelock of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Murder Rock is very cool as Edgar, Simona’s very understanding (he has a porn slide collection) boyfriend. Keep an eye out for Ernesto Colli (Torso) as the bewilderingly creepy morgue attendant, Ivo. The film may run a little long but it’s worth it, even if just for the scene where Farmer finally snaps on this guy.

Of course, the star of the show, Mimsy Farmer, gives us another of her grand, yet flawed, performances. Farmer is truly is an acquired taste and her trademarks (her shrillness, that darn pouty look) can get annoying. However, it’s easy to forgive (and even grow fondness for) Farmer, the perpetually braless staple of so many great Italian horror flicks: The Perfume of the Lady in Black, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat, just to name a few.

Autopsy’s disarming credit sequence of the sun, heat, sounds of crying, moaning, and screaming leads right into an excellent montage of suicides utilizing various means (drowning, razor blades, submachine gun, etc.). I would be lying if I said the film keeps up this intensity throughout but how could it without being an endless stream of people offing themselves? Instead, the opening grabs the viewer’s attention and prepares you (somewhat) for a 100 minute stretch of weirdness. Unfortunately for splatter enthusiasts, even the bountiful gore in the first third of the film takes a backseat to the oppressive mood of Autopsy.

Autopsy is a film that delivers its brooding theme of death, insanity, and mystery with change to spare, making it easy for recommendation to giallo fans. Sure, the killer may not be wearing black gloves this time around but the film has its share of priestly malfeasance and crazy twists to make it a solid entry in the genre. Hell, there’s even a rushed and confusing explanation behind the killer’s motive which should make fans of the yellow films feel right at home.

Sex of the Witch

sexofthewitch

Sex of the Witch (1973)

The Hilton family has just lost its patriarch and now the kids are fighting over the big inheritance. Someone has taken the initiative to kill the family off so that their chunk of the cash is bigger than everyone else’s. By using a set of Javanese fingernail covers (?), the killer has managed to harness the power to hypnotize people or something like that.

Why am I being punished? Oh yeah, I actually went looking for this junk. Just by the title alone, I knew that I was going to get screwed by Sex of the Witch (AKA Il sesso della strega) but I didn’t know just how screwed. The film is a supernatural giallo with a weak inheritance scheme disguised as a plot. Daniele Patucchi’s musical score is pretty with its warbling piano pieces and the castle scenery is nice. Unfortunately, there are very few locations, mostly dull lighting and only occasionally inspired cinematography; so the film gets very dull to look at very quickly. At a hippie party/concert, some colored filters are used to liven things up but the scene is so useless, it’s a wasted effort.

The cast is populated by some lovely ladies including Camille Keaton (Tragic Ceremony) and Marzia Damon (Evil Face), but the characters are so indistinct that it’s impossible to care about them or keep track of what’s going on. It almost seems as if there is footage missing or scenes are out of order. Sex of the Witch is just incompetent filmmaking at its most irritating but some very, very desperate viewers might get a kick out of some this flick’s sleazy weirdness.

Ugh, this supernatural giallo is exactly the trashy Eurotrash softcore crapfest that I thought it was going to be but just less interesting. Sure there are hilarious internal monologues, some bouts of pseudoscience and a dog named Twinky but this is just a mess. I’d call the film mildly diverting but that might be too generous. Sex of the Witch is just a baffling murder mystery with lots of sex and a little violence that is impossible to figure out, even if one wanted to. And trust me, no one is gonna want to. For an even more confusing yet actually entertaining giallo, check out In the Folds of the Flesh.

“If you read our entire family history, you’d arrest us all!”

Doomed Moviethon

Horror and Cult Movie Reviews for the Casual Insomniac

Giallo