Bay of Blood (1971)

Director: Mario Bava
Writer(s): Bava, Filippo Ottoni, and Giuseppe Zaccariello, from a story by Franco Barberi and Dardano Sacchetti
Starring: Claudine Auger, Luigi Pistilli, Claudio Camaso, and Anna Maria Rosati

Why is this movie better known as Bay of Blood, and not Twitch of the Death Nerve, one of its many alternate titles, and one of the best horror movie names in cinema history? Image Entertainment's 2001 DVD version is the only major release to use that title, but the DVD itself, which is long out-of-print, was maligned for its terrible sound quality (an issue that continues to be a problem, though subsequent releases have gradually improved upon it.)

The lackluster Bay of Blood moniker insists it's nothing more than a tired slasher cliché, a notion that couldn't be further from the truth, if only for two specific reasons: 1.) it's the film that arguably laid the groundwork for the American slasher film, and 2.) it's better than almost all of them that would follow. While the 45 years since its release has eroded away some of the effectiveness of Bay of Blood's gore effects, the focus on its story (as thin as it is), along with director Mario Bava's fiendishly inventive cinematography and unforecasted death scenes, still makes this riveting, required viewing, even today.

The plot is threadbare, but somehow more advanced than most films of its ilk: Countess Federica is an old, wheelchair-bound woman, who owns a large amount of valuable bayfront property. As the film opens, she is sullenly wheeling through her bedroom, stopping only to stare sorrowfully out her rainy window, before she is confronted by an unseen killer, who wraps a rope around her neck, and kicks her wheelchair out from under her, leaving her to asphyxiate under her own weight. The camera pans up, revealing the killer, an older mustachioed man who takes off his gloves, and leaves a suicide note explaining that she can't take it any more. He is about to move the corpse, when he himself is dispatched, stabbed several times by a different unseen killer.

With this one scene, we can tell we are watching a master of his craft once again reinventing the wheel: Director Mario Bava is said to have “invented” the Italian giallo, with films like The Evil Eye (aka The Girl Who Knew Too Much) and Blood and Black Lace. With Bay of Blood, he not only created the American slasher, but has somehow managed to avoid the future cliches that would plague the slasher, while simultaneously leaving enough of them intact to leave DNA evidence all over the subgenre. We have nude women skinny-dipping, and having sex before getting killed; there's a random car full of partying young adults that merely show up with the sole purpose of adding to the body count; there are graphic, violent deaths that would later become a staple of horror cinema; all of the common things we have come to expect from watching horror franchises like Friday the 13th, and the Halloween series, is here in full force (Friday the 13th Part II even went so far as to directly lift two deaths from this film).

But it's not necessarily what's here, but what's missing that makes Bay of Blood such a fascinating 84 minutes: the deaths are rarely foreshadowed with tacky soundtrack cues, meaning they are often sudden, and shocking; Bava foregoes the typical atmosphere by having a majority of the action take place during the day; and there isn't a single masked killer, but rather a series of killers, all trying to off the competition to become rightful heir to “the bay”. There's even a baffling “twist” ending that manages to be both moronic, and fitting, paving the way for a startlingly upbeat final theme song.

Speaking of themes, the soundtrack was composed by prolific Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani who hits on some fantastic themes here, while avoiding the cliches of most similar releases: The cue leading to the opening murder is jarringly beautiful, foreshadowing none of the dark events to come; likewise, some of the violent aftermaths of the murders feature orchestral sections that work in direct contrast to the violence, making them more haunting than they should be. There is, of course, the camp typical of Italian horror soundtracks (there always seems to be at least one cheesy track in all of them), but none of them feel out of place; at its best, it's an outstanding score, while in lesser moments, it's merely a good one.

Following the intro, we meet the bizarre residents living in “the bay”, who all either stand to gain or lose something from the sudden death of the Countess: There's Simon, a man who lives off the creatures he catches in the bay, and who may be hiding a family secret; Frank Venture, a real estate agent who notices the demand such property could fetch; his secretary/lover Laura, who feels abandoned by his sudden leaving for the bay; Paolo, an entomologist who spends his days catching bugs and torturing them in the name of science; and his wife, Anna, who puts too much of her stock in Tarot cards and mysticism. Rounding out the cast of would-be killers is Renata, the estranged daughter of the mustachioed man killed in the opening scene, and her husband, Albert; the two of them arrive later to claim the bay for themselves, where they find—like everyone else—that it won't be that easy.

Then there are the four teenagers who show up and make everything even more difficult. They break into Ventura's empty cottage to steal liquor and party, but soon find out that they are victims of circumstance, when they are killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These deaths, which occur in rapid fashion, are probably the most memorable kills contained herein; a couple also stand as being some of my favorite deaths in any movie. The buildup is also fantastic, with one of the teenagers running from a killer that only she can see, while tribal drums set up a frantic tension missing from the rest of the film; it proves that, when inspired, there was nothing that Bava couldn't do.

I'm not sure that I would consider Bay of Blood to be even in the top 5 things Bava ever did—it lacks depth and often becomes repetitive--but it's easily one of my favorite slasher movies. I've stated before that I get bored of the same ol' stuff all the time, so the sight of masked killers stalking oversexed teenagers for 90 minutes gets incredibly old. That's partly where the ingenuity of Bay of Blood lies—it kills its teens in under five minutes—somehow making a four-decade old film one of the more interesting subversions on the very subgenre that it helped to create.

RATING: 7.5/10

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Nightmare City (1980)

Director: Umberto Lenzi
Writer(s): Antonio Cesare Corti, Luis María Delgado, Piero Regnoli
Starring: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, and Francisco Rabal

Aaaah, the Italian zombie movie. On the one hand, it has provided us some classics, such as Lucio Fulci’s 1979 epic, simply and appropriately titled Zombie, and on the other, it has given us some abominations, like Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. This is a film so inept, that it goes beyond the entertaining kind of bad, and instead becomes a masochistic exercise of unbearable proportions—and of course, I am talking about for the viewer.

Fulci’s zombie exercise worked because, although the plot was threadbare, and the writing atrocious, it was obvious that time and care went into something on the production; of course, I would be referring to the effects, both in the gore, and the make-up department. Very rarely are either of those anything less than astonishing, and that’s even comparing them to modern films, who have mastered the art of computer-generated blood but will never master the spirit of the “real” thing.

Lenzi’s film does not work, because the whole film looks like it was written and shot in one of those 72-hour filmmaking competitions, where contestants have three days to write, shoot, and edit a movie. The “zombies”, which I guess for technicality’s sake, are actually “mutants” (though billed as zombies in all film-related literature) simply look as if they’ve had mud smashed onto their faces, while a vast majority of the kill scenes simply consist of poorly edited attacks—a zombie will apparently stab (more on this later) a victim in the chest, with the camera set up behind the victim, the camera will cut to a shot in front of the victim, and all of a sudden the person’s face is covered in blood.

As with many Italian horror films period, this one is only loosely plotted: An airplane lands on a runway in an unmarked European city. After it becomes apparent there is no one in the cockpit, police are called to the scene to investigate. A reporter, Dean, is on hand to interview a scientist about a radioactive accident that is all over the news. He brings his cameraman with him to investigate this mysterious plane, in the meantime. Finally, the doors open, and out step the mud-faced radioactive mutant-zombies. What makes these undead creatures even more interesting than the normal brain-dead shamblers we’ve seen in so many previous movies, is that not only can these run, but they also seem to retain similar brain capacity compared to when they were alive. This spells trouble for survivors, because these mutant-corpses can shoot guns, swing axes, and stab with knives—so basically, they’re just radioactive supermen described as zombies in an attempt to appeal to the masses.

Anyway, Dean is so horrified by what he sees, that he runs to the nearest television station and interrupts a terrible live dance routine to try to warn people about the impending attack. Surprisingly, television station owners don’t take kindly to people interrupting their shows to ramble on about gun-toting zombies, and so his speech is cut off, and he is kicked out of the station. Down but not out, he instead narrows his focus; instead of trying to warn everyone in the city, he sets his sights on just warning his wife, Anna, who works at a nearby hospital.

After they escape the hospital (which is under attack), the rest of the movie consists of the couple on the run against seemingly insurmountable odds, interspersed with random footage of large groups of people being killed by the mutant beasts. That might sound like a formula that could work, but given the uncoordinated “fight” and kill scenes, it all just comes off as an improvised, rushed mess. Even the Dean and Anna scenes are largely uneventful, with Dean briskly walking away from a threat of danger that never feels urgent.

It doesn’t help matters that Dean is the kind of character who is always so calm and collected, that he can’t be bothered to run, even when the situation dictates it. His face also seems to be used only when absolutely necessary, meaning he frequently looks blank and lifeless in the face of dangerous situations, and this is the guy that we’re supposed to be rooting for. There’s also something that annoys me about his wiry facial hair that I can’t quite put my finger on…it looks like it was glued on, or something. Everything about him screams the opposite of “tough lead character in a mutant-zombie film”; “librarian” would be more the character that springs to mind.

I know, I know, these movies are often terrible and, to an extent, that’s their appeal. But as I said earlier, there has to be a line between “enjoyable bad”, and “just plain bad bad”, and this one tends to fit snugly in the latter category. It’s very rarely humorous, whether intentionally or not, and the kill scenes are largely thrown-together; as is everything else. Even Stelvio Cipriani’s score feels out-of-place, and he’s usually pretty reliable: it might be a pretty decent score, just not for this film. It’s not scary, it’s not adrenaline-pumping…it’s just a rather slow slog that never amounts to much. I guess in this regard, it might have more in common with the film than one would think.

RECAP: Nightmare City is that worst kind of horror film: one that’s so plainly godawful that it’s not even entertaining in a bad kinda way. The kill scenes are poorly-staged and terribly-edited, while the gore scenes are cheap and hokey. Makeup effects consist only of smearing mud on people’s faces, apparently, so even those are pure hokum. Even Stelvio Cipriani’s score feels like it was just thrown in randomly, and his music is usually pretty close to a sure thing. I really want to end this on a positive note, but I’m seriously struggling to even come up with a positive that I can justify. This movie does have a following, so fans of this kind of movie might like it, but I’m definitely not among its champions.

OVERALL RATING: 1.5/10

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Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Writer(s): Fulci, Roberto Gianviti, and Gianfranco Clerici, from a story by Fulci and Gianviti
Starring: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian and Irene Papas

I have always wanted to see Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling, but was never in the right mood when I had chances to see it. Me being a gorehound at the time also played a role in that decision: I had heard that it wasn’t as violent as films like Zombie, or The Beyond, and just figured it would bore me. Well, after signing up for an all-horror streaming service, I found it amongst the films being offered, and decided right then and there that it was time to clear my mind of any expectations, and finally view one of Fulci’s rare forays into the giallo film.

And what I learned from it is that, admittedly contrary to my beliefs, he was actually a talented director. Now please don’t take that the wrong way (as easy as it would be to do), because I happen to really enjoy the Fulci movies that I’ve seen. Zombie is a cinematic landmark of the subgenre (I’m still shocked that Microsoft, of all companies, used the underwater zombie vs. shark sequence in a nationwide television advertisement for something-or-other), while The Beyond compensates for a terrible, nonsensical plot with some top-notch gore effects—not to mention an excellent finale featuring zombies inside an abandoned hospital that ranks as one of my favorite moments of any such movie. So there is no doubt in my mind that this man was capable of getting high-quality simulated wounds on the screen; many of them even hold up as pinnacles of the genre today (the little redhead girl getting her head blown off in The Beyond, anyone?)

But Don’t Torture a Duckling is Fulci at his most clever—it’s a well-directed, and yes, even well-written mystery that quietly weaves in and out of any number of twists and turns, until it arrives at a surprisingly poignant finish that is as convincing as anything Fulci has ever put to screen. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece—nor did I get one—but this is nevertheless a gripping cinematic turn that is a lot closer to perfection than I would have ever expected it to be.

Since the many twists and turns are a big part of what make giallo films special, I won’t elaborate into a lot of details here—the more that you discover on your own, preferably while watching the film, the better. Don’t Torture a Duckling starts off with the murder of a young boy. As the townfolk try to figure out who among them is the killer, a couple more children disappear. Could it be the mysterious woman who came on to one of the missing children a mere hours before he met his untimely demise? Or what about the local witch, who gets angry at the children for messing with the grave of her own dead child? Or is it the reporter that has come to help investigate the killings? Or maybe one of the policemen sabotaging his own investigation…much like the masters of the genre, Fulci makes sure there’s never a shortage of possible suspects or motives floating around, which truly lead to some brilliant, and thoroughly unexpected, revelations.

But here, he also demonstrates a competence in the director’s chair that I’ve never seen in any of his other films. Like the scene where a woman is murdered, in fairly graphic fashion, while the radio plays in the background. Midway through the extended kill scene, the song ends, with the disc jockey announcing that the next song will be slower; it is, and this slower, sad song provides the remaining background music to a scene that starts off brutal, and actually ends up being harrowing. This sequence was the first time that I really stood up and took notice of Fulci’s actual talents, which he tended to bury under buckets of blood and gimmicky kill scenes. This sadness also manifests itself, as I hinted at earlier, in a twist ending that’s similar to ones that have been done before, yet manages to elicit actual sympathy, for even the killer (in a way), thanks to Fulci’s excellent direction.

Of course, it is an Italian horror film, so it’s not without its fair share of bad: the English dubbing frequently crosses the line into self-parody, with voices that don’t come close to matching up to the people using them, and the grand finale features special effects so terrible that I can’t believe Fulci let them stay in the film at all. It also takes quite a while to get going, with the first half feeling slow and uneventful when compared to the second half, which finally starts to advance the plot.

However, this finds the director at his overall best, at least from the limited filmography I have seen from him. He seems confident and assured, and doesn’t merely fall back on special effects as a way to distract from the plot holes in his later films. Here, he’s blessed with a great script (that he also helped to co-write) and a fantastic story. And while there’s really nothing that’s all that new here—it is, after all, modeled after a pretty basic mystery storyline (who’s killing these children?)—Fulci’s fresh take on it makes it a gripping film with more than a few surprises in store for his open-minded fans that don’t mind letting the graphic violence take a backseat to the story.

RECAP: This is Fulci’s best overall movie that I’ve seen. Gorehounds will be largely disappointed that, aside from a couple scenes, there’s not much of his trademark gore, but there are a couple after shots of young corpses that are still completely jarring. Here, the mystery of the plot takes center stage (who’s killing the young children in a village) and thanks to assured direction from Fulci, it rarely becomes anything less than gripping. He even imbues some genuine emotion into the film at a couple different points, making it so much more than the one-note gorefests his later films would become (very enjoyable gorefests, but one-note nonetheless). The dubbing leads to some unintentional hilarity, while the film does take quite a while to take off, but the quality of just about everything here (save for a terribly hokey final death sequence that I’m seriously shocked Fulci himself signed off on) is loads better than just about anything else he would go on to do. Great stuff.

RATING: 8/10

Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper (1980)

Director: Joe D'Amato
Writer(s): D'Amato and George Eastman
Starring: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, and George Eastman

Skip this paragraph if you’ve heard me talk about my boring, movie-themed childhood, or want to avoid ruining this film's "pivotal" scene: When I was a late-teen/early-twentysomething, I went through a long phase where I tried seeking out the most graphic movies I could find. Anthropophagus was consistently mentioned as one of the “pinnacles” of such movies, and yet, for whatever reason, I never saw it.  It has gained infamy based on one harsh sequence, so known as the “fetus-eating scene”, because, in it, a pregnant character’s fetus is eaten, making it an appropriate nickname.

As I have mentioned in a previous review, slasher movies are the mainstream movie equivalent of hardcore pornography: no one cares about the story, they just want to get to the graphic bits.  Well if that analogy is considered accurate, than Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper is the equivalent of a sex addict having to settle for softcore porn; there are long buildups to nothing, and despite its notoriety, there is surprisingly little violence, at least until its finale.  But by then, we have waited 70 minutes for something to happen, and it’s too little, too late.

It’s the kind of movie that makes much better background noise than it does actual viewing material—there’s really no mystery to speak of, save for what happened to an island’s previous inhabitants—but the answer to this is pretty clear from the outset.  To pay Anthropophagus any close attention is to simply waste your time; and by doing so, we have already put more effort into the whole production than the filmmakers themselves.

Tisa Farrow (of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie fame) plays Julie, a woman who solicits the help of some tourists looking to take a tour of Greek islands.  She, too, is looking for an island, but (surprise!) even though it’s along the way, it’s not one of them featured on the tour.  She talks them into dropping her off, where she can be reunited with some friends who inhabit the almost-uninhabited island.  With some reluctance (one of the tourists reads tarot cards, and gets a bad vibe about the place), they all agree to go.

There, they are hunted, one-by-one, and usually in long, drawn out sequences that end up with the characters being completely fine.  It’s seriously around the 50-minute mark that we even get our first glimpse of the “grim reaper” of the title, and even then he doesn’t become a main focus until we’re more than an hour in. I suppose I should be grateful that director Joe D’Amato at least tries to build some suspense, instead of just focusing on the graphic deaths, but it simply feels like padding, rather than anything of substance.

About the highest accolade that I can give it is that the killer’s makeup is pretty decent.  I have seen the actor (George Eastman, aka Louis Montefiori, who also co-wrote the film’s screenplay) in another production (Mario Bava’s excellent Rabid Dogs), and in complete makeup, even in close-ups, he is completely unrecognizable.  The gore scenes, for the most part, are pretty standard, save for the aforementioned infamous scene; though I didn’t find it to be as stomach-churning as I was expecting, I still have to give D’Amato props for at least trying something new.

Unless you are either a die-hard Italian horror fan, or a slasher film completist, there’s really not much here that’s worth the time investment required to watch it.  About the only thing that might make it worthwhile, is the fetus-eating scene, but that’s available in several locations on YouTube—if that’s the main reason you want to see this, as it was mine, then just spend the two minutes watching it online, and skip the rest.  Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

RECAP: A slow-moving “slasher” movie about a group of tourists being hunted on an uninhabited island, Anthropophagus has received attention for a nasty sequence that got the movie banned in several countries.  As grotesque as it is, it’s shockingly the only bit of creativity in this droll mess, which features no suspense, a bloated run-time of 90 minutes, and drawn-out scenes that are meant to build terror, but only end up leading to yawns.  If you’re merely curious about the infamous murder sequence described above, then save yourself 88 minutes and watch the clips of it online.

RATING: 2/10

FETUS SCENE (WARNING: NOT FOR SQUEAMISH OR MINORS)

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Demons (1985)

Director: Lamberto Bava
Writer(s): Bava, Dario Argento, Dardano Sacchetti, and Franco Ferrini, from a story by Sacchetti
Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, and Fiore Argento

It can be amazing how the human mind can evolve over time.  Naturally, we outgrow certain things, like our propensity to play with tiny cars or dolls; that’s not really the part that’s confusing.  I’m focused more on how certain memories—not just from childhood, but from any earlier point in life—can remain held in such high regard for so many years, but upon revisiting that memory, it can take a complete 180-degree turn in a matter of minutes.

Exhibit A: Lamberto Bava’s Demons, a movie which I had nothing but fond memories of from my teenage years.  Now, even in my young naïveté, I was always aware that this was a bad movie.  There’s no real way to deny that; the characters are so ignorant that they don’t even resemble actual humans, the dialogue is atrocious, and the plot is half-assed and pointless.  But there’s one area where the movie excels, and that’s in the special effects department.  I always remembered that the demons looked cool, and the gore effects were strong.

Revisiting it today (and showing it to my wife for the first time) was one of those times when nostalgia felt like it stabbed me in the back; as bad as I knew the movie was going to be, it was even worse.  Don’t get me wrong: Demons can be a very entertaining movie.  It might be for all the wrong reasons—it feels like you’re watching a joke that everyone is in on except the filmmakers—but at the very least, it’s not boring.  Well, not at first.  The characters are so inept that there are many classic nuggets of unintentional hilarity, which help to hold your attention until the demons come, and the killings start.

This isn’t one of those movies where a plot discussion is even necessary, but here goes: Cheryl (the beautiful Natasha Hovey) is given a random movie ticket by a bizarre, mute stranger.  Frightened by the ordeal, she does what any other normal person would do:  request another ticket for her friend, Kathy.  The ticket has nothing but the name of the theater on it (the Metropol), which no one has ever heard of.  Not to be off-put by such a small mystery, like how a huge theater gets put up in the middle of a very busy city essentially overnight, Cheryl enthusiastically talks Kathy into going with her.

We get a wide cast of stereotypical characters, though none of them really belong.  Like a pimp with two of his hoes, one of whom just has to try on a decorative metal mask and nick her face, and a blind man, who apparently enjoys going to movies so he can annoy the people around him when he constantly requests his daughter to describe everything that’s happening on the screen.  Once the movie-within-a-movie begins, we get our first glimpse of the similarities between it, and the action inside the theater:  It’s every bit as poorly written and acted.  Then, a short while later, we catch a glimpse of another resemblance to the two movies: What’s happening on the screen, is very similar to the events happening in the theater itself!  It all starts when a character in the movie nicks his face on a metal mask that they find in the tomb of Nostradamus (?).  Uh oh, sound familiar?  One of the pimp’s hoes cut her face on a metal mask outside of the theater, too!

This turns her into a demon.  I’m not quite sure how, and neither are the writers (characters go from thinking it’s the movie, to the theater itself, before abandoning any interest into what’s causing it shortly thereafter), but I guess it really doesn’t matter, because for a little while, we get some much-needed gore!  As remembered, the effects really are great, as are the makeup effects.  The demons look appropriately threatening and aggressive, and we are treated to such scenes as a woman being scalped, and a man getting his eyes gouged out.

The only problem is that the movie just keeps going on, and on, and the characters only get dumber and dumber.  For example, the survivors spend several minutes tearing up the seats in the theater, and using them to block any way in, hoping they can hide out until help comes.  Then one character simply hears a noise on the other side of a door, and is somehow not only convinced that it is someone that’s come to help them, but easily manages to convince everyone else.  Whoops!  Turns out it wasn’t a police officer or friendly person after all, but a group of demons!  Oh well.  It was a simple misunderstanding that could have happened to anyone.

It’s just under 90 minutes long, but it felt like two full hours by the time it was done; about ten minutes of that comes courtesy of an ending that needlessly rambles on, merely enforcing a point (and diluting the effect of said point) that it already made completely clear.  It does attempt one final twist (cleverly after it starts rolling credits and we have put our guards down), but it easily could have done the same thing a lot sooner.

I get that old-school Italian horror movies are not known for their intelligence, and just about all of them are shining examples of style over substance.  I enjoy a good number of these films (with Lucio Fulci’s Zombie and Dario Argento’s Suspiria springing immediately to mind), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all should be given a pass for complete stupidity; when nobody is being killed in graphic ways, Demons manages to get tiresome pretty quickly, and the predictability of its plot, and long, rambling ending, certainly don't do it any favors. 

RECAP: Well, my teenaged memories of this movie didn’t quite live up to those of my 31-year-old self.  Demons is awfully, terribly bad; thankfully, this actually works to its advantage, at least early on in the film.  The dialogue is so completely inane, and the plot so terribly conceived, that the movie almost manages to approach its own brand of genius.  Then the characters get irreconcilably stupider as the movie goes on (and the best character gets killed), and so it goes from being entertaining, to just flat-out frustrating.  The 90-minute run time feels more like two hours as the ending drags on and on, long after making its point, only so it can attempt one more (admittedly cleverly-timed) twist; but the payoff is not worth the wait.  The only legitimate pluses: The special effects, from the gore sequences to the makeup on the demons, are pretty darn good, and there are a couple of excellent sequences of the monsters stalking their prey.  Overall though, I’d say it fell pretty far short of the mark for me.

RATING: 5/10

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Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971)

Director: Aldo Lado
Writer(s): Lado; additional dialogue provided by Ruediger von Spies
Starring: Ingrid Thulin, Jean Sorel, Mario Adorf, and Barbara Bach

What can you say about a film like Aldo Lado’s Short Night of Glass Dolls (original title, Short Night of the Butterflies)?  It was released to DVD as part of Anchor Bay’s Giallo Collection in the early 2000s where I purchased it based entirely on the brief synopsis on the back.  But while it certainly has some elements of the giallo, marketing it in this way does the film a little bit of a disservice; I was expecting at least some blood and gore, a staple of the subgenre, to help keep me entertained, and upon first viewing, was massively disappointed when there was next to none.

Knowing that for this go-around, I went in with a more open mind.  While I still feel it falls short of its potential—it manages to drag very slowly in places, and the plot goes a little too far off the deep end—there are still moments of genuine suspense, with an absolutely pitch-perfect, and pitch black, ending.

Gregory Moore is an American journalist visiting Prague with his beautiful girlfriend Mira.  Shortly after attending a party with Greg, she disappears, and in true giallo style, he teams up with a few friends to look for her himself.  The police don’t take kindly to his attempts at heroics, and when nothing else seems to turn up, start looking at him as a suspect.  Can he get to the bottom of the mystery, before it’s too late?

Sounds like a simple, straightforward little mystery, right?  Well, Short Night has one absolutely brilliant twist:  Gregory Moore is incapacitated from the beginning, discovered lying in bushes by a groundskeeper and believed to be dead.  But while he is physically paralyzed, his brain functions as normal; so the entire story above unfolds in his memories, as he’s trying to piece everything together as his body is prepared for an autopsy.  It essentially plays out like a story-within-a-story; we cut back and forth between his visions, and sequences in a morgue, where he silently pleads for people to realize that he’s still alive.  Despite the film’s tendency to drag in parts, there is a great gradual, raising tension between the mystery of Mira’s whereabouts, and his own fate—as he gets closer to the truth in his mind, it becomes a race against the clock to beat the start of his own autopsy.    

That gives Short Night enough to elevate it above typical mystery fare, but I found the ending to Mira’s story be rather convoluted and…well…stupid.  The internet is rife with conjecture about what happened (well, “rife” is a strong word, considering I don’t think many people have even seen this), but no one seems to know for sure, and even Lado himself seems to sidestep specifics.  It definitely has a feeling of surrealism, but given the relative tameness of the rest of the movie, it really feels out of place.  I can see where that kind of juxtaposition could make it infinitely more shocking, but it felt tacky to me.  The ending to Greg’s story, though, packs a helluva punch.

On a technical front, Short Night is very impressive.  The cinematography is always good, but a couple scenes are memorable.  Ennio Morricone’s score isn’t befitting his best work, but it serves the movie well.  Its biggest downfall are the dubbed voices and English dialogue…I would have much preferred subtitles, but there doesn’t seem to be a version available in its original Italian language.  As it stands, the dubbed voices are pretty bad, and the English dialogue is sometimes atrocious.  But I guess these are small prices to pay for the convenience of having this film available on DVD, so I’m at least gracious in that regard.

RECAP: It drags in some parts, and the English dubbing is frequently awful, but Short Night of Glass Dolls is still a unique entry in the Italian giallo subgenre, helped along by a fascinating, original plot and a brilliant finale that will hit you like a ton of bricks.  Gorehounds will be severely disappointed—there’s nary a drop of blood—but those that enjoy mysteries should really get a kick out of this.

RATING: 7/10

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Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) (1975)

Director: Dario Argento
Writer(s): Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, and Gabriele Lavia

Dario Argento, much like Mario Bava before him, has always been a student of the “style over substance” school of thought; his movies, when at their best, are exercises in violent elegance.  Suspiria may very well be considered his swan song, the pinnacle of his talents as director, but Deep Red arguably finds him at the top of his game.  The deaths are certainly stylish, as can be expected, but those that are heading into it solely for the kill scenes might be a little let down:  In 126 minutes, there are only seven scenes of violence (about one every eighteen minutes), and only a couple of those are graphic. 

But whereas a slasher movie (or in this case, more accurately, a giallo film, which are essentially Italian slasher films, with a direct influence on the American versions) with few kill scenes is usually a recipe for dullness, Argento works at a fever pitch, throwing everything he has at the viewer.  The end result is a stunning work, and although I would stop short of calling it a horror masterpiece, it very well may be Argento’s masterpiece.

Marcus Daly is an English musician living in Italy (more specifically, as we will hear ten thousand times, a “pianist”) who witnesses the murder of a psychic.  He rushes to try to help her, but by the time he reaches her, she is dead.  A short while later, another person is killed, under very similar circumstances.  Obsessed with finding the identity of the murderer, and putting an end to the crimes, Marcus circumvents the police, and teams up with female reporter and part-time love interest Giana Brezzi (played by longtime Argento collaborator Daria Nicolodi) to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Of course, take away the names and this broad synopsis could describe any one of a thousand different movies (or novels, or plays, or…), but not many of them have the same impact that Deep Red does.  For every additional plot convolution—in typical mystery style, the constant uncovering of clues feels very arbitrary, rather than logical—Argento throws in another artistic decision that keeps us on our toes; the murderer plays the same children’s song before they murder, and also “warns” victims by hanging a plastic doll from a noose at the soon-to-be crime scene.  The little artistic flourishes that abound throughout keep us engrossed, especially in the many instances when its logic fails.

The constantly roaming camerawork is near legendary; from simple camera movements, or montages of dark interiors, Argento somehow manages to ratchet up the tension.  He successfully creates an atmosphere that almost every horror movie tries to replicate, but so few successfully manage; that evil could be hiding in any shadow, and can strike at any time.  This also has a lot to do with the lighting, especially during nighttime scenes, and Argento pulls off natural lighting with relative ease; we knew he could go over-the-top thanks to films like Suspiria, but his style here is more realistic and downplayed, without trading off any of its effectiveness.  Any budding film director, whether interested in the horror genre or not, would do well to study his compositions to get a true understanding of how to master the visual craft.

It should go without saying that another big part of cultivating the desired ambiance depends heavily on the score, and for Deep Red, Argento relies on Italian rock band Goblin, part of a frequent collaboration that would end with his release of Sleepless in 2000.  While their music in Deep Red is far from their best work (a couple tracks are very repetitive, and the same few are used over and over again), it nevertheless remains a breath of fresh air from the genre, even today.  Eschewing all the typical earmarks of a horror score—string swells to alert of incoming danger and sudden shrieks that signify jump scares or character revelations—Goblin’s work is uptempo rock.  This makes the kill scenes kinetic and almost adrenaline-pumping, giving them a “life”, so to speak, and a resonance that wouldn’t have been possible with a more dramatic, straightforward set of music. 

It’s not without its problems:  The writing is relatively standard, and just relies on piling one implausibility on top of another, while the acting is a moot point, given the dubbed Italian voices (although you can clearly see they are often speaking in English), so none of the performances have any kind of impact.  But for those that are more intrigued with the visual aspects of film, Deep Red has a lot to offer well beyond the genre’s trademark gore.

RECAP: Suspiria gets all the press, but Deep Red just may be Italian director Dario Argento’s best work; a visually-inventive giallo film that, what it lacks in substance (and it’s a lot), it certainly makes up for in style.  The camerawork and lighting are extraordinary, the blood scenes are well done, and there are some inspired artistic touches spread throughout that never allow it to be anything less than fascinating—for a slasher movie with only seven deaths that just surpasses the two-hour mark, that’s saying a lot.  It’s definitely not perfect:  The writing is standard, and the acting contributes nothing to the overall story (due in large part to the Italian cast speaking in English, only to be dubbed in Italian, somehow standard for these kinds of films).  But for those who don’t mind allowing the writing and characters to take a backseat to technical brilliance, then Deep Red just may be what you’re looking for.

SCORE: 8/10

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The New York Ripper (1982)

Director: Lucio Fulci

Writer(s): Fulci, Dardano Sacchetti, Gianfranco Clerici, and Vincenzo Mannino

Starring:  Jack Hedley, Almanta Suska, Howard Ross, and Andrea Occhipinti

Depending on who you ask, Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper has either achieved cult status as one of the director’s best, and most brutal films, or is panned as being a cruel, misogynistic film with little-to-no redeeming qualities.  The former viewpoint is generally shared with fans of Italian horror cinema, or more specifically, the Italian “giallo” film, which is basically the Italian equivalent of the American slasher film; the latter, is shared by virtually every film critic who has seen it.

It is true that just about all of its violence is directed at female characters, and is shown in sometimes cringe-inducing detail; it is actually these qualities that I find most intriguing.  But rather than load the film up with graphic deaths, Fulci lets his foot off the gas about midway through, leading to a long gap between any murders.  And like many Fulci flicks, when there is no blood, it’s painfully boring.  So much so that my wife and I got up to do other things while just allowing this to run as background noise; when that still didn’t lead to anything, I eventually fast-forwarded it to the next violent scene, which mercifully happened to take us to the ending.

Typical of many Italian horror flicks released in the States, The New York Ripper features actors of all nationalities speaking in their native tongues, with all of it overdubbed into English.  While I find it to be an annoying trait (I would rather just have English subtitles), it’s made even moreso by the absolutely terrible dialogue, which is often unintentionally hilarious, although the terrible voice acting certainly didn’t help.  About the only good decision in the sound design is the batshit crazy idea to have the killer talk like a certain popular cartoon duck (?). While it may sound terrible (and for some folks, the execution will be as dumb as it sounds), I thought it was incredibly effective, and was one of the few genuinely brilliant ideas in a movie that is clearly content with achieving mediocrity.

Still, there are enough moments of graphic bloodshed to keep fans of violent cinema entertained for at least a few minutes, with the climactic scene (involving a razor blade and several parts of a woman’s body) being so effective that they are virtually “must see” moments of cinema brutality.  I certainly can’t recommend it as any sort of a classic, even within Fulci’s limited resume, but there might be enough here for gorehounds looking for a quick fix…just don’t expect much more than that.

RECAP:  In the film’s first-half, the misogyny and graphic violence actually combine to create an appropriately menacing atmosphere; one that is helped along by the peculiar decision to have the killer talk like a duck (?).  But by allowing the deaths to stop, and the focus on ‘whodunit’ to take over, all the momentum of the first half is gone, and there’s very little to recommend, beyond the sparse, yet impressive, bursts of violence.

SCORE: 4/10

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