Tag: Italy

Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis [Other horror films: Chi sei? (1974), There Was a Little Girl (1981), Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1982)]

Commonly known in the USA as Tentacles, Tentacoli is a movie that could have been better. As it is, it’s not a bad time, but it can be a bit dry, and perhaps there’s not enough action to bolster it.

I first heard of this film in a rather unconventional way. See, I’m a big music guy – I listen to pretty much everything (save blues and jazz), and some of what I listen to is quite out of the mainstream. There’s a band called Tentacle PornMonster, sort of a pornogrind/goregrind mix, and their song ‘The End Of The Tentacle Orgy On The Beach’ starts off with a trailer for this movie, finishing off with calling it the ‘most gripping suspense you will ever experience.’

Since that point, I’ve wanted to see it, and some years later, I did. I can’t really remember much about what I thought about Tentacoli the first time I saw it – certainly I recall the regatta sequence – but while I find it a decent time, I can’t say that there weren’t quite a few times when the film wasn’t that engaging.

There’s no doubt in my mind the best scene is the aforementioned junior regatta. A bunch of young kids go out on a yacht race, but something else (and by ‘something else,’ I mean a giant octopus, not Marjean Holden) wants to join in on the festivities. It’s a good sequence from the beginning parade with the jaunty music to the flash-freezes used throughout, followed by the action in the water and the tragic premature conclusion of the regatta. It’s good stuff.

Another thing I really enjoyed about this was the music. There was a bunch of funky music throughout the film – it was sometimes suspenseful, it was sometimes jaunty – and it was always fun. I’m not sure why Italy’s movies of the 1970’s and 1980’s has more noticeable music than the United States counterparts, but in my personal view, they do.

Bo Hopkins (Night Shadows, Sweet Sixteen, A Crack in the Floor) was pretty good. I liked his relationship with the whales, and in fact, his little speech to the whales toward the end was pretty emotional. John Huston (The Visitor) was fun, though he doesn’t really have anything to do in the latter portions of the film. Henry Fonda was okay, but his character never got the comeuppance he was due, not by a long shot.

Others, such as Delia Boccardo (A Black Ribbon for Deborah), Claude Akins (The Norliss Tapes, Monster in the Closet, Where Evil Lives, The Curse, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo), and Shelley Winters (Poor Pretty Eddie, The Mad Room, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, The Initiation of Sarah, The Devil’s Daughter) all did decent, but none of them added that much to the movie as a whole.

I think the biggest problem with this, aside from it sometimes being a bit dull, is that the finale, the final battle between the giant octopus and two killer whales, just isn’t that engaging at all. I mean, it’s about five minutes of them fighting underwater (as one can expect) while Hopkins’ character tries to escape the fray and survive. It just wasn’t an interesting finale, and I think it probably could have been done better.

Naturally, this is, in many ways, a rip-off of Jaws, but in typical Jiggy fashion, I do tend to enjoy it more. Partially, as I mentioned in It Came from Beneath the Sea, it’s due to the fact I enjoy octopi, and the octopus here was pretty fun when he popped up.

Even so, I can’t say the movie is great. It’s entertaining at times, but other times it can be a bit of a struggle to sit through, and the fact it’s an hour and 42 minutes doesn’t help matters. Some sequences were really fun, such as the regatta, but overall, I tend to find this around average.

7/10

Directed by Pupi Avati [Other horror films: Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (1970), Thomas… …gli indemoniati (1970), Tutti defunti… tranne i morti (1977), Zeder (1983), L’amico d’infanzia (1994), L’arcano incantatore (1996), Il nascondiglio (2007), Il signor Diavolo (2019), L’orto americano (2024)]

I have to admit that, though I expected a decent amount from this giallo, given the positive reception I’ve heard as long as I’ve known about the movie, La casa dalle finestre che ridono struck me as more than a little disappointing.

Commonly known as The House with Laughing Windows, this Italian movie definitely had some charm to it, not to mention tension and a pretty foreboding atmosphere, but I also don’t know if they explained everything as well as they could have.

And I don’t like saying this, either. The movie currently has a 7/10 on IMDb (with 5,394 votes), and since finishing it, I’ve read theories and ideas on some of the things in the film, such as how it’s a take on Italy’s cowardice during Mussolini’s reign. A lot of these ideas are interesting, but I usually expect gialli to lay at least a decent amount of it out, and that’s not what happened here.

Sure, there’s a shocking scene at the end. Anyone who’s seen this movie knows the scene I’m talking about. But what does it mean? I have no trouble buying that there’s a mass culture of silence in the community (as it’s pretty clearly stated in the movie), but there’s so many unanswered questions that, no matter how atmospheric and oppressive the movie is, I’m bothered by it.

The performances weren’t the issue here – Lino Capolicchio (Il signor Diavolo) made for a perfectly fair lead, Francesca Marciano an acceptable love interest, Giulio Pizzirani was good while he appeared, and Pietro Brambilla, while odd, was okay. Vanna Busoni’s character appears for five minutes, but then entirely disappears, which was an interesting choice.

The red herrings throughout weren’t bad ideas, but some of them (such as the watch Fransesca Marciano’s character has) seem to be set up, only to never be mentioned again. The whole movie, on a side-note, seems to move pretty quickly, but there were times when I was wondering what exactly was worrying the characters, as little we’d seen up to that point really seemed worth being frightened over.

Not everyone needs answers, and obviously, plenty of people enjoyed this one quite a bit. I was hoping to be one of them, but I just can’t. Maybe I can grow to appreciate this one with future watches, but the fact that so much is left unclear rubs me the wrong way. If I wanted an artistic allegory about post-fascist Italy, I wouldn’t be a horror fan, and this one, while it has it’s strong elements, just felt off to me.

6/10

Directed by Lucio Fulci [Other horror films: Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971), Non si sevizia un paperino (1972), Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (1975), Sette note in nero (1977), Zombi 2 (1979), Gatto nero (1981), …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981), Lo squartatore di New York (1982), Manhattan Baby (1982), Murderock – Uccide a passo di danza (1984), Aenigma (1987), Zombi 3 (1988), Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988), Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio (1988), La casa nel tempo (1989), La dolce casa degli orrori (1989), Un gatto nel cervello (1990), Demonia (1990), Hansel e Gretel (1990), Voci dal profondo (1991), Le porte del silenzio (1992)]

Known best as City of the Living Dead, this Lucio Fulci film is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I’ve only seen it once, and it’s been over ten years since that occasion, so this is one I definitely wanted to revisit. As it stands, though, I think the movie is just okay.

Lucio Fulci is a director that I appreciate, but a lot of the work I’ve seen from him doesn’t generally impress me too much. I quite enjoy The Beyond, and both Don’t Torture a Duckling and The New York Ripper are hella fun, but sometimes his films don’t hit the right spots, and while I enjoyed bits and pieces of City of the Living Dead, this is a good example of that.

Overall, it’s probably more cohesive in my view than The House by the Cemetery, which is a positive. I sort of liked the final ten minutes – the final scene leaves quite a bit up to interpretation, but given this is the first of the Gates of Hell trilogy, I can dance to that tune. The base story isn’t bad, and I did like how it took an hour for Carlo De Mejo and Christopher George to finally meet up.

It’s the gore here that’s of primary interest. There are a few disturbing scenes here, but the sequence in which a poor woman regurgitates her organs has to be one of the most sickening scenes I’ve seen in recent times. The special effects are decent – sometimes the brains look a bit bleh, and the power drill scene seemed a bit janky, but City of the Living Dead did have enough gore to keep things moderately interesting, not to mention the maggot showers.

Also, despite the name, it’s sort of hard for me to see this as a zombie movie. Sure, zombies appear, but it’s nothing at all like Zombi 2 – here, the zombies teleport, crush someone’s skull, take some of their brain matter, and move on. It’s a much more supernatural take on zombies, which fits in with the tone of the movie, and definitely felt unique, but it’s sort of hard for me to fully enjoy it.

One thing I did enjoy was the sequence in which a woman wakes up in a casket after having been buried. People thought she was dead, of course – they weren’t being dicks. It’s a tense moment, as another character is slowly walking out of the cemetery, occasionally stopping, as he thinks he hears banging and screaming from a grave behind him. It’s stretched out wonderfully – at times, it feels like he’s actually leaving the cemetery, and the buried character, behind. That was a quality tense sequence.

Christopher George (Whiskey Mountain, Graduation Day, Day of the Animals, Mortuary, Pieces, and Grizzly) was okay, but I can’t say I thought he had a lot of character. In fact, I think that holds true for a lot of the performances here – Carlo De Mejo, Janet Agren (Rat Man, Eaten Alive, and Panic), Catriona MacColl (The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery) and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Apocalypse, and House on the Edge of the Park) were all fine, but none felt well-developed, especially in Radice’s case, as he felt like such a random character.

Obviously, different people have different takes on Fulci films. I know some people who rather love this particular movie. For my part, though, it feels somewhat confused, the plot not particularly well thought out, the finale somewhat impressive, but again, nowhere near as great as The Beyond. I still enjoy this more than The House by the Cemetery, but I do feel it’s a bit below average, at least with having seen it twice.

6.5/10

Directed by Lucio Fulci [Other horror films: Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971), Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (1975), Sette note in nero (1977), Zombi 2 (1979), Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980), Gatto nero (1981), …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981), Lo squartatore di New York (1982), Manhattan Baby (1982), Murderock – Uccide a passo di danza (1984), Aenigma (1987), Zombi 3 (1988), Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988), Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio (1988), La casa nel tempo (1989), La dolce casa degli orrori (1989), Un gatto nel cervello (1990), Demonia (1990), Hansel e Gretel (1990), Voci dal profondo (1991), Le porte del silenzio (1992)]

For a long time, Don’t Torture a Duckling (the well-known English title of this giallo) has been among my favorite Lucio Fulci films. That’s probably still true, as it’s a pretty solid giallo, and while not overly violent, has a decent amount going for it.

The story is fun, and somewhat atypical as far as gialli goes. The victims are almost exclusively young boys, and while their deaths aren’t violent (they mostly seem to be strangled or suffocated), there is a certain pleasure in seeing a younger victim range, as not too many films deal with dead kids.

I also love the setting, being a rather rural and small Italian town. It’s filled with superstitious people, which unfortunately plays a part later on in the film when some confessed killers come out of the woodworks. There’s a lot of mob mentality in the film, kept in check partially by the mostly logical police force.

Most of the central performances were pretty good. Tomas Milian was a bit generic, but he was more interesting once he began working with Barbara Bouchet’s (The Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times) character. The main faces we see from the police force were all fun – especially Virgilio Gazzolo, but both Antonello Campodifiori and Ugo D’Alessio were solid also. Marc Porel (who died at the young age of 34 in 1983) was great here, and Florinda Bolkan had quite the tragic story to her.

Unlike later Fulci films, this movie is pretty tame as far as the violence goes, with two exceptions. There’s a sequence in which a woman is beaten with a chain – if you remember the opening to The Beyond, it’s quite similar. It looks hella painful to get chain whipped across the face, so I may avoid that part of Italy. Also, there’s a character who falls off a mountain at the end, and their face bumps and scrapes against the mountain. The thing falling is obviously a dummy – it looks incredibly fake. Even so, the sequence is quite fun.

In fact, the finale is quite great overall. During the scene in which the character is falling to their death, we’re given flashbacks as to explain the reasoning behind the revealed killer’s actions, why they went out of their way to kill kids. It’s even a bit emotional, with soft music playing in the background, and it’s a finale, despite the dummy, that has always stuck with me.

Like I said, this has been my favorite Fulci film for a long time, and I think that’s still pretty true. I finally watched The New York Ripper earlier this month, and I quite liked it, and it might be fair to say that Don’t Torture a Duckling is on par with that one. Even so, I think this one is a bit better – the mystery is mildly more interesting, and the finale is definitely a bit stronger.

I don’t think Don’t Torture a Duckling is perfect. Unlike Dario Argentino with Deep Red, Fulci’s been unable to amaze me quite that much. Even so, Don’t Torture a Duckling is quite a good film, and definitely a giallo that’s worth seeing.

8/10

Directed by Lucio Fulci [Other horror films: Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971), Non si sevizia un paperino (1972), Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco, ovvero: Dracula in Brianza (1975), Sette note in nero (1977), Zombi 2 (1979), Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980), Gatto nero (1981), Quella villa accanto al cimitero (1981), Lo squartatore di New York (1982), Manhattan Baby (1982), Murderock – Uccide a passo di danza (1984), Aenigma (1987), Zombi 3 (1988), Il fantasma di Sodoma (1988), Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio (1988), La casa nel tempo (1989), La dolce casa degli orrori (1989), Un gatto nel cervello (1990), Demonia (1990), Hansel e Gretel (1990), Voci dal profondo (1991), Le porte del silenzio (1992)]

Commonly known as The Beyond, Lucio Fulci’s …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà is definitely a slice of Italian horror worth seeing, if only for the goriness alone. I don’t personally find it an amazing movie, but it can be decently fun if you’re a fan of Fulci’s work.

I’ve seen The Beyond before, but it’s been a long time. I’ve only seen it the one time, and I can’t quite fathom exactly how long ago that would have been, so coming into this one again was a treat. I was slightly hesitant – when I revisited The House By the Cemetery in recent times, I wasn’t blown away – but this film has more going for it, at least in my eyes.

The story, such as it was, isn’t too bad, dealing with a hotel placed on one of the Seven Gateways of Hell. It’s the second part of Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy, sandwiched between City of the Living Dead and The House By the Cemetery. Luckily, there’s not much reason to watch them in order, as they stand alone perfectly fine, and like I said, I found this a bit better than The House By the Cemetery.

For a certainty, it’s not for the plot, which is a bit janky. I mean, let’s be honest, most people don’t come into a Fulci movie for the plot, so that’s not a big problem, and the main point – a woman inherits a hotel, and soon terrifying things start happening – gets across just fine. And since most probably come for the gore, they certainly came to the right place.

It’s hard to say what my favorite scene here was – part of me wants to say either the final scene, which was quite creepy (if not a bit nonsensical), another part when the characters leave the hotel, but in the light, we see plenty of souls through the windows – that scene was shot quite beautifully.

As far as the gore goes, though, I’m a sucker for eyes. So are tarantulas, apparently, as a paralyzed man has one of his eyes punctured and torn from his head by a tarantula. Another one takes a portion of his lip; another, his tongue. As someone with mild arachnophobia, that was a harsh scene. There was also a great shotgun blast to the head, along with someone’s head shoved through a spike, causing, you guessed it, her eye to come out. A woman got her ear and throat torn off by a dog, and a woman’s face got melted by acid. All around, a film for the whole family.

Only two performances come close to mattering, and I’m not sure that they really do, as they don’t really impact much that happens in the film. Catriona MacColl (City of the Living Dead and The House By the Cemetery) was perfectly adequate as the lead, though her character can be a bit of a dick, I feel. David Warbeck (Miami Golem, Rat Man, and The Black Cat) was more well-rounded, but his character also wasted a lot of bullets in the last twenty minutes, so I can’t love him too much.

Speaking of which, the final twenty minutes of this one does contain an all-out zombie attack. To be honest, I forgot that happened in this film, but the zombies themselves (while not looking particularly great – Burial Ground zombies were totally more awesome) were appropriately creepy, and it led to a solid finale. Also, the score in this one was fantastic – that piano theme (as sampled in Necro’s “As Deadly As Can Be”) was simply gorgeous – so I can’t be too unhappy.

And that’s really how I feel about the movie as a whole – it was an enjoyable rewatch. It’s not my favorite Fulci movie, as both Don’t Torture a Duckling and The New York Ripper exist, but it is a fun slice of supernatural and zombie horror.

7.5/10

Directed by Andrea Bianchi [Other horror films: La tua presenza nuda! (1972), Nude per l’assassino (1975), Malabimba (1979), Le notti del terrore (1981), Maniac Killer (1987), Incontri in case private (1988), Gioco di seduzione (1990)]

This offering of a late 80’s giallo leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not an exceptionally poor movie, but it is an exceptionally generic and forgettable one, and save a few scenes, I don’t know if it’s worth it.

Which is a bit of a shame, because the director here is Andrea Bianchi. He’s probably best known for Burial Ground, but he also directed Strip Nude for Your Killer and Malabimba. He’s not an extremely big name, but I will admit I was expecting a bit more from this one once I saw he directed it (and the fact this was apparently produced by Lucio Fulci didn’t help).

The story isn’t a terrible one – a film crew working on a horror film are being killed off by a mysterious killer. Admittedly, it takes something like 40 minutes to really get moving, and the finale isn’t particularly great, but the basic story has potential.

As far as the kills went, they were okay when they popped up. The film opens with a woman being attacked, one of her hands getting cut off, and then being decapitated. And this happened in the first two minutes. It takes a while after that, though, for more kills to take place, and none of them (including a throat-slitting and someone getting stabbed multiple times with a spike) are quite as striking as the first.

One thing I really think hurt the film were the characters. We’re sort of just thrown into the cast and crew of those making a horror film, and it takes a bit for them to really stand out, and I’m not sure that some of them (including one of the leads, Patrizia Falcone) ever did. There’s only one character I really took notice of (played by Danny Degli Espositi), and that’s not particularly ideal.

In fact, because of that, performances are close to impossible to really discuss. I’d say that because he stood out, Danny Degli Espositi was pretty decent (despite not really doing that much), and I guess that Gino Concari made an okay detective, but despite having a nude scene, Silvia Conti was pretty much just there, and Lubka Lenzi was pretty much interchangeable with everyone else.

By the mid-80’s, giallo was pretty close to dead, and in the latter half of the decade, they weren’t easy to come by. Massacre is a pretty low budget film, and stylistically it seems far more akin to some SOV slasher like Night Ripper! than it does something like Lamberto Bava’s You’ll Die at Midnight (which was a reasonably solid giallo from the latter half of the 1980’s). I can’t blame Andrea Bianchi too much for that, but that ending, man, was just painful.

I won’t say that Massacre has been a film I’ve wanted to see for years, but it has been on my radar of movies to take time with. I can’t say I’m that surprised by how forgettable the movie tended to be, but at least I saw it in Italian as opposed to dubbed, which I could only imagine would make it worse. Even so, Massacre wasn’t a particularly great time.

5.5/10