It is that time again...

The year is growing old and 2023 is ending. Most of us have lots to do and no matter how much time we think we have, it's never enough. 

All this can add up to a lot of stress, so I figured I'd give you something relaxing and fun to watch.

 

Very British Problems, Christmas edition is a collage of sorts starring some top names in British comedy sharing their Christmas traditions and tribulations. So, enjoy and I'll see you guys on the first day of 2024!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and all that!

 

 

Southbound

Today we're talking about:

Southbound (2015).

Southbound is a horror anthology movie in five parts. I am forced to spoil it a little, but most spoilers are easily spotted and somewhat obvious.

Part 1 – The Way Out.

Two men, Mitch and Jack, are driving down the desert road, harrowed and bloody. Mitch sees these weird skeletal angels that have no lower bodies hovering in the desert. They stop at gas station to get cleaned up, but things take a startling turn which leads into:

Part 2 – Siren.

An all girl jazz band, The White Tights, are staying the night in the motel next to the above mentioned gas station. They are on the way to a gig, but their van breaks down. The girls are young, wild and honestly kind of stupid. “Why is it so hot?” one asks... in the desert. A creepy couple offers to put them up and help with the van, so they go with them. The couple dress and live as if it was the 60's and very soon things get pretty damn creepy. One girl, Sadie, runs away into:

Part 3 – The Accident.

Lucas is driving on the same road late at night while on the phone with his wife and accidentally hits Sadie. She's badly hurt and they are in the middle of nowhere. Lucas calls 911 but doesn't know where they are, so they can't send an ambulance. He is instructed to bring Sadie along to the nearest town. A town that happens to be abandoned. All the lights are on, but no one is there. He finds an equally abandoned clinic and fights to save her life. Ultimately he leaves and we run right into:

Part 4 – Jailbreak.

A scruffy old man, Danny, bursts into the local bar with a shotgun searching for his sister Jesse. The bartender takes him to where she is and he drags her with him despite her protests. Blood is shed as they get stuck in the desert, where she tells him they aren't allowed to be. Truths are told and Jesse drives back to town where she sees a pretty blonde girl, Jem, and we go to:

Part 5 – The Way In.

A married couple and their daughter Jem are celebrating that Jem is going to college. They go to their holiday home when they find masked and armed men outside. They call the police but soon the men break in and all hell breaks loose.

All in all, Southbound is a really cool little horror movie. It has an indie feel and dares to try some new things which delights an old horror hound like me. The actors are all good and the music is top notch. Southbound managed to surprise me once or twice even though a lot of obvious things and tropes happen as well. Accident is my favorite segment and it's genuinely one of the most stressful things I've seen on film. The movie is pretty gory at times, but that is to be expected in horror I suppose. There is a real sense of purgatory in this desert setting, and it seems like everything happens in one night. What I also appreciate is that the movie doesn't explain things. No exposition, no nothing. Just a strange and bloody ride that's Southbound.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, without a doubt. If you're not a horror fan, avoid it, but I assume you would anyway. I was really impressed with this movie about redemption and getting what you deserve.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Nighthawks

This week, I watched:

Nighthawks (1981).

Not to be confused with Nighthawks (1978) which is a movie about a gay man living a double life, or the famous painting by Edward Hopper, this action thriller stars Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams and Rutger Hauer.

We meet Deke DaSilva (Stallone) and Matthew Fox (Williams), two highly effective NYPD sergeants who work on the decoy squad. In other words, they pretend to be vulnerable targets to tempt muggers and then drop the hammer on said muggers. They're tough badasses who always get the job done.

Then we have Wulfgar (Hauer), a freelance terrorist whose brutal savagery has him on the outs with the major terror groups. He goes to New York to prove himself so that the terrorists will beg for his services. DaSilva and Fox are assigned to the new ATAC squad and given anti-terrorist training so inevitably the two sides are going to clash violently.

Nighthawks is an interesting movie. It balances the action with the thriller elements quite well, with neither dominating the film. It's not too long and doesn't overstay its welcome. The actors are all good, the scenery and the cinematography are excellent, so I don't have anything to complain about at all, but there is something missing, and I don't know what that is.

Stallone was still riding high on Rocky when he made Nighthawks, and according to himself he was an insufferable know it all. He did make one cut of the movie and the studio likewise did one as well, so some stuff was lost on the cutting room floor. I really can't say what it is that I'm missing, but whatever it is, it's what's holding this movie from being great.

The contrast between Stallone and Hauer is great. Stallone's dark intense gaze is perfectly matched by Hauer's ice blue eyes. DaSilva is driven but has his limits, while Wulfgar has no limits but is equally motivated. Williams is a great partner to Stallone, staying with him beat for beat without being overshadowed.

This is the first (but far from last) movie where Stallone plays a cop and he did all his own stunts, including climbing down from a hovering helicopter and being winched up to a cable car. All this despite being horribly afraid of heights.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes I do. Nighthawks is good, no doubt about it. Good but not great. Solid but missing an edge, something that makes you want to watch it again and again. That said, I do urge you to watch it. For being a Stallone action movie, Nighthawks is almost subdued, but in a good way. It's nothing like the action movie's he'd go on to make. It has a very realistic feel, with the grimy, dark New York streets and the high quality acting.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I decided to knock a classic off the list, so I watched;

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

This movie, based on a play by the same name, stars Elizabeth Taylor as Martha who is married to George, played by Richard Burton. They receive two guests, Nick and Honey, played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis. There's also a roadhouse waitress and a manager played by Agnes and Frank Flanagan, and that is the entire cast. That's it, six people and two are barely in the movie.

I've been trying to figure out how to explain this movie without spoiling it. Essentially, the older couple George and Martha are both alcoholics, and they receive Nick and Honey as guests. What follows is two hours of drinking, screaming, crying and the most vicious, sadistic emotional attacks I've ever seen in a movie. It is at times horrific to watch, but you kind of can't look away. If it wasn't for the amazing acting talent on display, this would have been a real flop, but it is in fact brilliant.

George Segal and Sandy Dennis both do a really good job, but they are up against Taylor and Burton at the height of their craft, and it's no shame to be overshadowed by such talent.

This is the first movie by director Mike Nichols, who had previously worked in theater, and according to many of the crew, he worked incredibly hard and it shows. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? isn't a cinematographic masterpiece, but it is incredibly solid as a movie. It is also shot in black and white, but unlike say Psycho (1960) which was shot in black and white for economic reasons, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is shot this way for technical reasons. Both Taylor and Burton wore heavy makeup to age them, and this makeup didn't look good in color. Nichols also decided that Burton looked more brooding and sinister in monochrome, and he wasn't wrong.

The story is simple in its complexity. There are layers within layers and you are never really sure what is real and what is a cruel lie designed to cause or hide pain. Just when you think you have it figured out, the movie runs off in another direction, leaving you to follow along as best you can. If any element had failed, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would have gone down like a lead balloon, but all the pieces matter and fit perfectly.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I really do. Unless the subject matter is too heavy for you, you should take the time to watch it. It is a hard watch, but it is also at times strangely beautiful, and seeing great actors pull out all the stops and really go for it is a treat.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

A dose of reality.

This week I haven't watched any movies, but I have a couple of documentaries to share with you.

The first one is The Seven Five, a documentary about some of the goings on at the 75th Precinct in New York back in the late 80's. This movie details exactly how the proverbial Slippery Slope works. How a little skimming turns into a massive crime spree with murders, drugs and massive corruption. 

The Seven Five was a fascinating documentary,and well worth the time to watch. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adZaHShRa3A&list=WL&index=16

 

Our second entry is The Shock Doctrine, a documentary based on a book by Naomi Klein, demonstrating how the economic principles of Milton Friedman has led to the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, how the eponymous Shock Doctrine is used to stun the population and make the really rich ultra rich. I'm not educated enough to be able to critique it  100%, but everything it talks about did happen. I guess you need to make up your own mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3XGZ5rreE

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

Ouch, what a burn

Today we're doing things differently, we're talking about:

The Burning (1981)

But with SPOILERS!

The reason for the spoilers is simple, without them, all I can say about The Burning is “campers are stalked by a madman” which wouldn't be very satisfying. Besides, if you've ever watched a horror movie, especially a slasher, then you can predict 90%+ of The Burning.

The movie opens at Camp Blackfoot, where a group of older kids are planning their revenge against the cruel and sadistic camp caretaker, Cropsy. This goes wrong and Cropsy is severely, almost fatally burned. He is released from hospital five years later, kills a prostitute for some reason, and goes to Camp Stonewater to stalk and kill the kids there, even though they had nothing to do with his burns. We meet all the campers and their counselors, and see Cropsy lurking in the background. A big event, the overnight canoe trip is coming up and soon enough the kids are off and so is Cropsy and his trusty pruning shears. Cropsy kills some kids and we get to the finale.

If you get some Friday the 13^th vibes, it is apparently a coincidence. The Cropsy legend is a genuine campfire story told in real life. It was turned into a script before Friday the 13^th was shot, according to effects maestro Tom Savini who does the effects for The Burning. Miramax clearly wanted to turn Cropsy into a franchise, but the movie didn't sell well enough outside Japan, where it became a huge hit.

The Burning is a very mixed bag for me. The actors are overall very good and stars some famous names in their first movie roles like, Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter. The effects are good, they are Savini effects after all, even though he was extremely rushed, and the cinematography is simple but decent.

The script is sadly weak and the dialogue is pretty awful. If you're feeling generous you can see it as “that's how teens talked back then” and maybe they did, but there are no good lines in The Burning.

Seeing as this movie was released in 1981, and it is one of the original slashers, we can forgive the fairly lackluster setup of “disfigured madman massacres teens” as it wasn't overused back then. What I'm having a hard time with is Cropsy's apparently supernatural ability to travel large distances instantly and to hide in plain sight. It is one of those things you're not supposed to think too much about, but they explain and show so much of Cropsy's backstory that you know exactly what he is, there is no mystery like in Halloween and Friday the 13^th. He is just a disfigured man with murder in his heart, yet he possesses borderline supernatural abilities.

So, do I recommend this movie? Depends really. Dedicated horror fans shouldn't miss The Burning as it is basically a classic, but others can probably find something better to watch. The Burning isn't a bad movie, but it really isn't that good either. It beats out many of the sequels in the more famous franchises but can't compete with their originals.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Hellraiser

Lo and behold, I saw a movie from this decade! The topic for today is:

Hellraiser (2022).

This new adaptation of Clive Barker's original book is directed by David Bruckner with input from Barker himself.

The main character, Riley (Odessa A'zion) is a recovering drug addict who lives with her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), his boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) and their roommate Nora (Aoife Hinds). Riley has a hard time getting her act together, so when her sort of boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) suggests a break in to get some quick cash, she's in. They break into a warehouse to find some, and I quote: “billionaire shit” and instead find the Puzzle Box. Things quickly get extremely nasty on several levels and they desperately try not only to survive, but to understand how and if surviving is even an option.

There are a total of eleven Hellraiser films, of which I have seen all but one. Most of them range from pretty bad to downright awful, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I sat down for this one. I was however very pleasantly surprised, Hellraiser 2022 is actually enjoyable!

First off, it is a gorgeous movie. The shots are lavish and the effects are sterling. The Cenobites, the creatures that are summoned when the Puzzle Box is opened, are almost completely redesigned, and in my opinion, the design is great. In the older movies starting with Hellraiser 1987, they are mutilated beings dressed in black robes with a fetish twist. Bruckner and Barker agreed that this look is not exactly shocking in the 2020's anymore, and to be fair they are correct.

In Hellraiser 2022, the Cenobites are basically naked, but “clothed” in their own partially flayed skin, and decorated with hooks, wires and pearl tipped needles. This has a creepy and disturbingly sexual effect. Nothing about them is alluring but you can't look away. Doug Bradley who played Pinhead, the head Cenobite, in eight movies had this to say about their redesign:

"I'm a bit blown away by this! The clever re-design of the make-up; the shimmer of the "pin heads"; the palette; whatever that keyhole/locket/tracheotomy thing is at the throat. It's simple, subtle, disturbing and sexy. Everything it should be. Peace and Pain, Doug."

The story is alright, with a couple of minor plot holes, but nothing too bad. It's not a blow your mind script, but can you really expect that? The actors are likewise good, but unfortunately the characters aren't. I found it hard to really care about them which does detract from the overall experience. Most of the characters are pretty one dimensional, if even that and Riley is too much of a screw-up for me to really care about.

The score is good, with some elements from the 1987 movie soundtrack incorporated, which gives a nice sense of a nod of respect to the original. There are likewise a couple of lines lifted from the original to do the same. Not quite easter eggs, but a fun thing non the less.

My biggest complaint about Hellraiser 2022 is the fundamental reasoning behind the Puzzle Box. In the second movie, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Pinhead says “It is not hands that summon us. It is desire”, meaning that even if you fool someone into opening the box for you, the Cenobites will take you with them to hell instead of your patsy. This is completely abandoned in the 2022 version. Anyone who as much as nicks themselves on a sharp corner of the box is fair game. I get it though as it adds the idea that no one is safe, but it kills the tempted into your own damnation angle.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, to horror fans I do! I had a blast with Hellraiser 2022, so much so in fact that the two hour run time flew by. It is far from perfect, but definitely good enough that I'll watch a sequel if they make one. Hellraiser 2022 joins the original Hellraiser 1987 and its sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) as the three best movies in the franchise. A couple of the others have elements that are good, but if you watch these three, you've seen the best of what Hellraiser has to offer.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

All the Colors of the Dark

We are back in Giallo territory with Sergio Martino's:

All the Colors of the Dark (1972).

Jane (Edwige Fenech) suffers from terrible nightmares stemming from both her mothers murder and from the fact that she miscarried when she and her lover, Richard (George Hilton), were in a car crash. Jane's sister, Barbara (Nieves Navarro) urges her to talk to the psychiatrist Barbara works for, Doctor Burton (George Rigaud), but Richard hates that idea and urges Jane to just rest and take vitamins he gives her. A recurring element in Jane's nightmares is the man with piercing blue eyes, since he is the one who stabs her mother to death in her dreams. Imagine Jane's terror when that man (Ivan Rassimov) starts stalking her in real life! Or is it real? Is she hallucinating? In one such panicked state, Jane meets her neighbor, Mary (Marina Malfatti) and they become friends. At one point, Mary confides that she got rid of her problems by joining a cult and performing a black mass. Desperate for help, Jane agrees to attend a black mass and that's when things get really crazy.

All the Colors of the Dark is not only an amazing title, but as solid a movie as any Giallo Martino has directed, but it struck me that it is more a Gothic thriller than a Giallo. A fusion of styles, if you will. The actors are good as ever, particularly Fenech who again demonstrates her ability to convey absolute terror with only her eyes.

The cinematography is good as usual, and Martino plays a lot with contrasts here. In one scene, Jane parks her small gray Mini Morris in front of an equally gray Jaguar and you are struck by how they are both gray cars with round headlights, but otherwise they couldn't be more different. Jane and Mary both compliment and contrast each other, and it all just works.

The story in All the Colors of the Dark is both its strength and weakness. It isn't the kind of story that you can really solve, so we don't need to worry about the movie cheating, but with Janes hallucinations and dreams, it is sometimes frustrating to know what is actually happening. I also wish that Jane could have one moment of power, but alas she spends her time screaming, running and falling down. Admittedly, Fenech does that as well as anyone, but it got a bit samey after a while.

While there are some minor plot holes in All the Colors of the Dark, they aren't that bad. Overall, everything is explained in the end, which again is a Martino staple.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes! Obviously Giallo fans should see All the Colors of the Dark if they haven't, but it could also serve as a “beginner” Giallo since a lot of the expected tropes are absent and replaced with more conventional Gothic themes instead. All in all, this is a solid if somewhat confusing thriller that kept me interested throughout.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

The Cremator

This week I watched the Czech black horror comedy:

The Cremator (1969).

This is going to contain some spoilers, so be aware.

The titular character, Karel Kopfrkingl, is a senior employee at a crematorium in Prague. He seems to be happily married with two children, but there is a lot of darkness beneath his constant beatific smile and heavy, bulging eyes. He meets an old army buddy, Reinke, from WWI who has become a Nazi, and who pushes Kopfrkingl to join the party as well. Kopfrkingl isn't that interested, as he only really cares for his crematorium, or Sacred Temple of Death, as he call it, as well as a book on Tibet and Buddhism. Kopfrkingl believes that when the body is gone, the soul is free to reincarnate or go on to its heavenly reward. This means that in his mind, cremation hurries the process along, which makes it a sacred act. However, Kopfrkingl has a weakness: sex. Once a month he visits a brothel in secret, and once Reinke shows him pictures of all the pretty girls he can be with as soon as he joins the Nazi party, Kopfrkingl eagerly jumps on board. He is literally seduced into national socialism, and once he gets a taste of what this can get him, a grim downward spiral starts that will cost a lot of people their lives. After all, his wife is half Jewish...

The Cremator is one of the stranger movies I have seen, so I need to break this down a bit.

The comedy elements seem to be concentrated on a couple who always arrive late to everything, and then leave immediately as the wife invariably becomes hysterical over something, so that her husband has to drag her back out while admonishing her angrily. This happens again and again, but I didn't find it funny as such, rather it adds to the surreal atmosphere that has this movie in a iron grip.

The horror isn't what you might think just from the word either. There are no jump scares, very little blood and no common horror tropes at all. What The Cremator has is an unrelenting creepy and unsettling atmosphere from beginning to end.

Kopfrkingl is played by Rudolf Hrusínský and he does an amazing job! His entire being becomes this disturbing little man who seems harmless at a glance but carries volumes of horror in his soul once you look closer. He has this weird habit of repeating the same lines over and over once something triggers them, like how he met his wife at the zoo, or how he is abstinent, even if it makes no sense to repeat them. He also likes to comb other peoples hair, then his own, even the corpses at the crematorium gets the comb, and you never see him wash the comb either.

The Cremator is shot in black and white by choice to give it a more sinister look, and as it takes place just prior to WWII, the monochrome look fits well with the period. The director, Juraj Herz decided to shoot with a variety of lenses, one that he had to go to France to get, as it was that rare. The strange angles are in order to disorient the viewer, a clever move, since it makes Kopfrkingl's eyes pop more and makes many scenes even more unsettling due to forced perspective. Brilliant cinematography in other words. The movie also uses lots of quick cuts when Kopfrkingl becomes excited by something which mimics his quick darting thoughts.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, it is brilliant, but it is also really strange. The Cremator is entirely in Czech, so unless you know the language, prepare to read the subtitles. I suppose I missed out on a lot of subtleties, as subtitles usually don't convey nuance too well, but this didn't detract from the enjoyment of watching this movie. The Cremator is a bizarre masterpiece and if either Herz or Hrusínský had dropped he ball the entire movie would have fallen apart. I don't think this is a movie for everyone, but if you like disturbing surrealism, do give this a go.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Death Walks on High Heels

Quite a while ago, I talked about The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970) by Luciano Ercoli. That was the first movie he directed, today we're looking at his second movie;

Death Walks on High Heels (1971).

The movie starts with a murder on a train. We then meet the daughter of the murdered man, Nicole (Nieves Navarro), a stripper who lives in Paris with her ne'er-do-well lover Michel (Simon Andreu). It seems her father stole a load of diamonds and everyone wants them. The common belief is that she has them, despite her protestations to the contrary. The killer calls and threatens her before attacking her in her home. Terrified, paranoid and desperate to get away, Nicole leaves town with an ardent admirer from the club where she dances, Dr. Matthews (Frank Wolff). The good doctor is a respected medical man from England and she gratefully jumps the country with him. He spoils her shamelessly and sets her up in a love nest by a lake. Unfortunately, he is already married although unhappily. To make it worse, it's his wife Vanessa that owns all the money, including his clinic. Then things get worse, much worse, until we reach a dramatic finale.

Death Walks on High Heels is solid in all matters from acting, to locations, props and music. No problems at all. The dialogue, at least the English dub, was a bit subpar, but long term Giallo fans are used to that. My biggest complaint is that the movie tries to pack too much into a time frame that is almost too short to handle it. The run time is 1 hour 48 minutes, which is already long, but this story, which is very good, would do better as a short mini series. There is just so much to unpack.

Much like The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, it is almost impossible to solve the central mystery. Not because everyone looks guilty as all hell, but because no one really looks all that guilty in the first place. To solve the riddle that is Death Walks on High Heels, you need a great deal of information, and the movie doesn't give you that until the very end. Instead it drowns you in clues, some relevant, some red herrings and some that you don't know the relevance of yet.

I won't go so far as to accuse Death Walks on High Heels of cheating, but it is close. By the end all the threads are sewed up, and everything makes sense, but up until then I was very confused. The movie also has an interesting tendency of slamming on the brakes and doing a 180, only to do it again moments later. A dangerous technique in film making, but it really works. Ercoli pulled it off, which is impressive considering it was his second time directing.

At times I wondered what I was watching, especially in the early middle of the film where the pace dies a bit, but once the end rolls around I was impressed. As mentioned above, the story is really good, one of the better in all the Gialli I have watched. Often the story isn't that important, it's in how it is told that Giallo shines. Death Walks on High Heels almost does the opposite.

I have a couple of very minor nitpicks I want to share. At one point, Nicole and Dr Matthews is eating fish. The scene is clearly meant to be intimate and erotic, but seeing them plop bits of greasy fish in their mouths was way too gross to be sexy. I also noticed that the junior Scotland Yard officer wears white socks... I very much doubt that would have been allowed. Finally I want to mention the unevenness of the murders. One is very bloody while another is incredibly lame and one even happens off camera. Odd, but no deal breaker.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely! Death Walks on High Heels maybe a bit slow at times, but it is an excellent thriller and a damn fine Giallo.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

What is Giallo Really?

I checked the post listing and realized that I have written about Giallo movies for over a year now, and it has been a blast. Some of these movies have been amazing while some have been awful. I don't write about the bad ones, just to make that clear, but overall, I have loved every minute of this journey.

On occasion I have tried to succinctly explain what Giallo is, but it is a bigger subject matter than what can be described in a paragraph.

Luckily, I have found someone who can explain it, and that's what we're doing this week.The Youtube channel TheKingInGiallo has two videos the chronicle the rise of the Giallo literature as well as the movies. How they came about, how they worked under Mussolini's regime, what influenced them and what they in turn influenced. If anything I've written about these movies has made you curious, do check these videos out.

But beware, there are some very gory images and some spoilers for a large amount of movies. Overall, the spoilers aren't that bad, they drown in a flood of information, but in all fairness, I have to warn you.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD6Svl7tcO8

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Val-dy4yBDc

I'll embed them below, for you convenience as well, but that's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

 

The Psychic

Fueled by last week's entry, The Lizard in a Woman's Skin, I watched another Fulci Giallo;

Seven Notes in Black, a.k.a. Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, a.k.a. Death Tolls Seven Times, a.k.a. The Psychic (1977).

We begin the movie with a woman leaping to her death from the cliffs of Dover while her daughter back in Florence sees it happening. We cut to the current day (back in '77) and the now adult daughter, Virginia (Jennifer O'Neill) is happily married to a rich Italian businessman, Francesco Ducci (Gianni Garko). He departs on a business trip and while she's driving home, Virginia starts having vivid visions. She sees a room in red, a hole hacked in a wall, a woman murdered, a magazine cover, someone being walled up alive and more. Deeply disturbed, she visits her parapsychologist friend Luca Fattori (Marc Porel) to get some advice. Later, Virginia decides to renovate an old palazzo that her husband owns in order to distract her from the visions and as a nice surprise for him. To her horror, she recognizes a room in the palazzo and frantically hacks a hole in the wall. What she finds sets in motion a long investigation and series of horrific events.

That's pretty much what I can reveal without spoiling too much.

Like his other Gialli, The Psychic is beautifully shot. I have been so impressed with Fulci's cinematography in his Gialli that I may have to revisit some of his horror movies to see if it was always there, but I have been too distracted by all the buckets of blood and the hordes of zombies to notice. Time will tell on that one.

The Psychic actually has two plot lines that intertwine. One is Virginia's psychic visions and the other one is everything else. The visions are well done and don't cheat. Everything you see is relevant, whether you and Virginia understand what is shown or not. The other plot is a bit muddled. There were a few scenes where important things were mentioned but it's so quick that if you sneeze, you might miss it. That annoyed me as when I read a synopsis after I was done watching, I realized that what I thought was a bit of fluff was actually a super important clue. This might be an issue with this version of the movie, or just a bit of a screw up.

My other big criticism is that most of The Psychic is really slow. A movie being slow isn't automatically a bad thing, but the sense of mystery and doom doesn't manifest until we get to the “endgame”. At that point everything makes sense and I got the feeling that it wasn't just all worth it but that The Psychic is actually a good movie. Before then, I wasn't so sure.

Besides the lovely cinematography, the rest of the movie is also competent. The actors are very good, particularly Jennifer O'Neill, who's piercing eyes work perfectly for the role of Virginia. I realized while watching this movie that Fulci had a real talent for making people seem sinister so that it was absolutely impossible for me to solve the mystery. I did pick up on a couple of important clues, but not the most relevant one.

At one point, Virginia is gifted a watch that plays the titular tune, and I just knew that I had heard it before. Then I read that Quentin Tarantino wanted to remake The Psychic, but that project failed to materialize. However he used the tune in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and that's where I had heard it.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, it is good, at least when you get to the end. It's not really up there with The Lizard in a Woman's Skin or Don't Torture a Duckling, but it is absolutely worth watching.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

A what in who's skin?

This week we're talking about:

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971).

This Giallo is directed by Italian horror Maestro, Lucio Fulci, who also directed Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), which we've talked about before. Interestingly after Duckling was released, Fulci was accused in court of corrupting a minor until he could prove that it was an adult little person. In Lizard, he was accused of excessive animal cruelty until he could prove, again in court, that it was all special effects. Fulci had bad luck with Gialli and the law.

The story is this: Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan), her husband Frank Hammond (Jean Sorel) and Frank's teenage daughter Joan (Ely Galleani) live in an expensive flat in London. Frank, a lawyer, works for Carol's father, Edmond Brighton who is a wealthy lawyer and politician. Carol sees a therapist in order to come to grips with the vivid and disturbing dreams that torment her. Most of these dreams are about her being seduced by their neighbor Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg). Julia is a bit of a pest in the building as she likes to host drug fueled orgies that are very loud.

One night Carol dreams that she stabs Julia to death, and soon after, Julia is found murdered. Things get worse when it turns out that she was killed in exactly the same way as in Carols dream. The question becomes, did Carol kill Julia? If so, was she even aware that she did it? Was it someone else trying to frame and destroy her by driving her mad?

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin is set and shot in London, presumably because, like with The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, it was a bit fancier than filming in Italy. Fulci does a great job with the scenery here. He fully uses the fancy old buildings and the rolling green fields that are so unlike Italy. In fact, it lends the movie an almost Hammer Horror feel that other Gialli don't have.

Something that confused me at first was how Fulci mostly uses steady shots that allow you to take in everything, but then suddenly uses a handheld, shaking camera with closeups. Then it dawned on me that this only happens when Carol is extremely agitated. The shaking camera mimics her shaking hands as she lights a cigarette to calm her shattered nerves. There is also a brilliant bit when a person is breaking down a door and every time the door is struck, the camera quickly zooms in on Carol. Annoying at first, but effective at hitting us with some of the stress she feels. One could perhaps accuse Fulci of being gimmicky, but it's done well, and I call it clever camera work.

The actors are all really good, no complaints, and the music by Ennio Morricone is... there.

Besides all that, the standout part for me is the story. Sure, the theme of the heroine loosing her mind as she tries to escape the clutches of a deranged killer is not only a regular theme in Giallo, it's pretty overused, but Fulci does something a bit different with this tired trope. I completely failed to solve the mystery and I had a blast doing so. This is an extremely well crafted movie in every aspect. It doesn't cheat, it actually tells you everything, but putting all the clues together in the right order, and from the correct perspective is the tricky bit.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely! A Lizard in a Woman's Skin rocketed up into my top list of Gialli. It is in my opinion one of the best in the genre. Just be warned that there is a lot of nudity, some simulated sex and while the gore overall isn't that bad, the scene that landed Fulci in court is extremely disturbing and gruesome. Be careful who you watch this movie with and you'll be fine.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

A Lizard with Hot Breath

This week I watched a Giallo with the amazing title:

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971).

This is one of those Gialli that was filmed abroad because that was considered more sophisticated than just filming at home in Italy. Iguana is set in Ireland, but apart from that it is a fairly typical Giallo. Which isn't a bad thing at all.

We start with a woman being brutally murdered as she waits for her lover. Her corpse then turns up in the trunk of the Swiss ambassador Sobiesky's (Anton Diffring) Rolls-Royce. The police chief is aware that diplomatic issues could be a problem so he gives the case to Detective Norton (Luigi Pistilli) who is a bit of a dark horse due to his history of brutality. Like in most Gialli, more people are soon killed, with Norton hot on the killers heels, when he's not going out with Helen Sobiesky (Dagmar Lassander), the ambassadors pretty daughter. With the murderer even threatening Norton's aging mother and his teenaged daughter, it becomes a high stakes game of cat and mouse.

I was warned that trying to figure out who the killer is in Iguana is impossible, and I agree. All the suspects act incredibly suspiciously, almost to a comical degree. There is a hint early on, and I picked up on it but promptly forgot it as it isn't mentioned again. I wouldn't say that The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire cheats, it's just not interested in being a solvable mystery.

Since the movie is filmed in Ireland, the scenery is amazing, and makes for a welcome change from Italy. The shots are competent, but not mind blowing and the effects are gory but clumsy. You can always tell that it is a dummy being hacked open, which is fine, but one of the victims has a red line going across her clavicle, yet everyone acts like she had her throat cut. A bit sloppy in other words. There are some continuity errors that would have been easy to fix, but there isn't really anything majorly wrong. A special mention must be made about the dubbing in Iguana. All Italian movies were dubbed, and this is no exception, but when we meet Norton he has a ridiculously broad Irish accent, yet three scenes later it's gone, only to appear sporadically. Almost as if the voice actor couldn't be bothered to do it too often.

I have on occasion talked about Gialli with strong elements of comedy and how rare it is that it works. The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire does this surprisingly well. Norton's mother, a gray haired lady who is half blind and fairly deaf is mostly played off as comedic relief, but because it is isolated to her and not over used, it actually works! The rest of the movie is suitably grim and bloody.

So, do I recommend The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire? To Giallo fans, absolutely. Other movie lovers will probably be a bit too confused at the goings on, as this is pretty much a Giallo for Giallo lovers. The director, Riccardo Freda made a lot of odd decisions, but the end result is good. It shouldn't work, but for some odd reason it does. The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire is not, and never will be one of my favorite Gialli, but I had a great time watching it.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Force 10 from Navarone

Today we're looking at:

Force 10 from Navarone (1978).

This is a sequel to The Guns of Navarone and is also based on a novel by Alistair MacLean. When I say based on, I really mean that. The script is so different from the novel that MacLean modified it into another novel, that's how different the novel and the movie are.

Like in Guns, we again have Mallory and Miller, then played by Gregory Peck and David Niven respectively. There was some thought given to having the original actors return but since they were already too old seventeen years earlier, they recast the roles for Robert Shaw and Edward Fox.

This time they are on a new mission to kill a double agent in Yugoslavia. A US Army Ranger, Lieutenant Colonel Barnsby (Harrison Ford) is on his way there anyway for a different mission and is ordered to give the British commandos a ride. They accidentally pick up a US sergeant played by Carl Weathers and the heroes are off!

Things go wrong, people get killed, stuff blows up and it is a dramatic roller coaster of a ride through the war!

Force 10 is directed by Guy Hamilton, who also directed Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, Diamonds are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun. Besides these four Bond films, he made a few Agatha Christie movies and a bunch of other stuff. I think you can recognize the Bond style here, even though it is a very different kind of movie. It's something in the way he made adventure/action movies.

Actor wise, this is pure gold. Robert Shaw (From Russia With Love, Jaws), Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal, Ghandi), Harrison Ford (Star Wars, Indiana Jones), Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me), Carl Weathers (Rocky franchise, Predator), Richard Kiel ( The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) and the list does not end there. Brilliant cast and everyone does a good job. Richard Kiel is even scarier here than in Bond, and that's without his metal teeth.

In fact, I have nothing technical to complain about. It is a beautiful movie from beginning to end. My biggest gripe is the lack of continuity from Guns. Especially the fact that in the previous movie, Mallory is said to “speak German like a German”, but in Force 10 he doesn't speak a lick of German. I have a real problem with that since the book keeps this skill intact. For some reason, they decided to change that when there was no need to! Very annoying, but not a deal breaker.

Force 10 is almost two hours long, but so much happens, and the locations change so much that you don't really notice it. There are so many exciting and tense scenes, dramatic fights and clever plans that you simply don't have time to get bored.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, of course! I would say that anyone who likes war or adventure movies should see Force 10 and any general movie fan could enjoy it. With a cast like that, you can't really go wrong. You don't even have to see The Guns of Navarone first, but it is the smart thing to do.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Starfield

I wanted to jot down some early thoughts about Starfield. This is in no way a review, just an early impression.

This it the first new IP for Bethesda Game Studios in over 25 years, and as of writing this, I have 25 hours played so I have barely scratched the surface. The numbers are a happy coincidence.

Looking at basic gameplay, BGS has not reinvented the wheel, and why should they? With a few thousand hours in Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and Skyrim, I immediately knew how to play. Movement, guns, melee, using items etc are all the same. Some things like the inventory is partially different, but keep an eye on the tooltips, and you'll be fine. This feels and plays like a Bethesda game and I'm very happy about that. I feel comfortable playing, since the character moves and reacts in a way I'm so familiar with. 

The graphics are in my opinion very nice. There have been complaints online, but I wonder if that is just a matter of taste or if the complainers are forced to turn the graphics down due to hardware issues. Starfield is pretty demanding on the PC, needing 16gb RAM and it wants to be installed on an SSD. get all that and it looks phenomenal.

Looking at the not so basic gameplay, it is quite a bit more complicated. Since this is sci-fi and we're in space, there is space flight and space combat. The flying is fine, at least so far. Nothing is too complicated, although it takes time to learn the new controls. Space combat is somewhat mixed for me. At one point I jumped back in to the system where my quest giver was and found her engaged with three other ships who immediately targeted me. After dying seven or eight times, I adjusted the difficulty from Normal to Very Easy and barely survived the fight. My ship is still completely basic so there was no way of surviving that fight unless you are a very accomplished gamer in the area of dog-fighting, which I'm not.

I don't know that much about crafting yet, but it seems fine. You do need to collect a lot of different materials from different planets and that takes time. You have a scanner that helps you do that, and you can even use the scanner to take and edit pictures which will become load screens. A small but awesome idea.

The character generator is good if a bit fiddly. With a bit of trial and error you can make an awesome looking character for you to play with. Unlike Fallout 4, the main character is not voiced, so unless you go looking at them, you won't see your characters faces all that much. A part of me misses the back and forth dialogue, but in Starfield we at least have more speech options, and the role-playing options are back. Loosing the voiced protagonist is a small price to pay for that.

Some players of the 1 million+ that were playing at the same time have experienced bugs, and so have I, but nothing too nasty. A glitching companion and a status effect that won't go away is about it. I'm sure BGS will fix a bunch of them soon enough.

Speaking of companions, they are a mixed bag. Useful to have around, but also prone to charging ahead and engaging enemies that you are not ready for. You also get the small talk which ranges from funny to please-shut-up-already-I'm-going-as-fast-as-I-can. I usually prefer playing without companions, and there are quests where you have to have one along. Somewhat frustrating, but not a deal breaker.

The space map is awesome and looks great, the ground map is terrible and I hope someone develops a mod for that soon.

To end this first impression: If you like Bethesda's open world games and you like sci-fi, then there is no real reason why you wouldn't like this. Some call it Fallout in space, but that is misleading. Starfield feels nothing like Fallout except for the controls. This is a new game and should be judged as such. So far I'm having a blast playing, and beyond some minor things, nothing to complain about. Just make sure you're PC is able to handle this beast of a game.

I may do another post at a later date giving my opinion then, but until then, that's that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Those are some Big Cannons!

I found a movie called Force 10 from Navarone and the cast list looked pretty good. Then I found out that it is a sequel to:

The Guns of Navarone (1961), which I hadn't seen, so I sat down and watched it. Can't start with the sequel after all.

This WWII epic is based on a novel by Alistair MacLean and is directed by J. Lee Thompson. In a nutshell the story is this:

2000 British soldiers are trapped on a Mediterranean island, and Germany intends to wipe them out in order to intimidate Turkey into joining the Axis. The Royal Navy could easily get them to safety but for a heavily fortified artillery emplacement on the (fictional) island of Navarone. The RAF has tried to bomb the artillery, but to no avail, so it falls to a small commando group to destroy it. The group is led by Major Franklin (Anthony Quayle) with Captain Mallory (Gregory Peck), Greek Colonel Stavros ( Anthony Quinn), Corporal Miller (David Niven) who is also a professor of chemistry and an explosives expert. The rest of the team is less well known today but all solid actors as well.

First off, The Guns of Navarone is 2 hours and 38 minutes long, which is on the extreme end of a movie that is comfortable to watch in one sitting. The reason for this length is that it shows pretty much every step of the way. Early planning, later planning, travel, rock climbing, hiding from the Germans, sneaking into town... etc etc.

The benefit of this is that you get to know the characters very well, and that you don't always see things coming, but it also drags the movie a lot. A lesser director with a worse script would have made a movie that is impossible to sit through. As it is, The Guns of Navarone is something of a masterpiece so it works, but only barely.

Naturally I won't spoil anything, so I won't go into any detail as such, but a lot of the story is easy to guess from the start. After all, no one makes a movie where the Nazis win, let alone back in 1961. Things turn out alright, but of course, at a price. The excitement comes from seeing who makes it and who doesn't. But enough about that.

The Guns of Navarone is the kind of movie that they don't really make anymore, it's just too expensive. It cost $2.000.000 back then and even though it made a hefty profit, I shudder at what it would cost today.

Fun trivia time!

• Gregory Peck portrays a British officer, even though he refused to do a British accent. He also felt he was miscast for the role.

• This is the only war movie David Niven ever did where he didn't play an officer, which he was in real life.

• Niven caught a nasty infection and was hospitalized for a month. This set production back so badly they considered re-shooting all his scenes with another person. He went AWOL from the hospital, finished his scenes, but relapsed and spent seven more weeks in hospital.

• The story is loosely based on the real Battle of Leros.

• All the German tanks were actually American and the Royal Navy destroyers were Greek, as are all the German extras.

• The artillery set was refurbished and reused as cable car terminus in Where Eagles Dare, also written by Alistair MacLean.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely! Any fan of war film that hasn't seen it should see it. Even those who don't care much for war could find this fascinating. There are no big battles, no, but it is no less hard hitting for that. All the acting is superb and it is extremely well done. There are tons of day shots with a night filter, which is annoying after a while, but that is how it was done back in the day. This is an old school epic in the best sense of the word. Well worth it despite the length.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Black Belly of the Tarantula

More Giallo, this time:

Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971).

The plot in this Paolo Cavara directed Giallo is this:

A killer paralyzes his victims with a long needle to the neck before disemboweling them while still alive and conscious. Inspector Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) is on the case, leaving nothing to chance as he chases the deranged killer. He also finds the time to handle some incidental drug smuggling until we get a tense climax.

The reason I can't go into any more detail then that is that it would go straight into deep spoiler territory. There are several things I'd like to go over but that would give away important plot points, so I'll do what I can. Maybe consider this a mild spoiler warning, just to be safe.

What immediately stands out is the presence of Inspector Tellini. In the majority of Gialli movies, the police are in the background investigating, but it is usually an involved civilian who solves the mystery. The police are either too obstinate or incompetent to get the killer, but they sometimes show up in the end to do the heavy lifting. Not so in Black Belly of the Tarantula. Inspector Tellini is intelligent, diligent, competent and sensitive. So sensitive in fact that he contemplates leaving the force as he dislikes the violence and sheer nastiness of it all.

The movie is competently filmed with occasional stand out shots. The music is by Ennio Morricone and suits the movie just fine. The other actors beside Giannini are good, but what irked me is that they bothered to get both Barbara Bouchet and Barbara Bach and then sidelining them both a great deal. With a lesser actor than Giannini, Black Belly of the Tarantula would have been a disaster. Luckily this is not the case.

The biggest problem Black Belly of the Tarantula has is the script. It is pretty messy with odd sidelines that make little sense. Busting a scientist for drug smuggling has no bearing on finding the killer, but we waste time on it anyway. One of the victims is killed off camera and beyond seeing the gloved hand of the killer grabbing her, we wouldn't even know she was dead until later when Tellini talks about it in a depressed, almost offhand manner. There is also a blackmailing plot woven into the story and it all becomes too busy. What is there is pretty good, but it gets muddled by adding too much to the story,

So, do I recommend this movie? I guess I do. There is nothing horribly wrong with Black Belly of the Tarantula, but there are numerous small annoyances. On two occasions a person tells Tellini “I'll talk to you tomorrow” and then they get killed. Once is fine, but using the same ploy twice is sloppy. Things like that. There is no way to solve the mystery as the viewer, it is all down to guesswork. I had the killer on my list of suspects, but that was more because I had no reason to not have that person there. If you are on a Giallo journey do give this movie a shot, it is worth it, but put it lower on the list and give your attention to better movies first. It's okay but it could be a lot better.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Bloody Iris...

This week we jump back into Giallo with:

The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972).

Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo and written by Ernesto Gastaldi, this slick movie takes place somewhere in a large Italian city, I don't think it is ever mentioned exactly where.

The movie begins with a woman being murdered in an elevator on her way up to see a client. Soon enough another woman dies in the same building. All we see of the killer are a black overcoat, a black mask and an equally monochrome hat. Unusually for a Giallo, the killer wears thick translucent rubber gloves instead of the normal black leather.

Anyway, we meet Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paola Quattrini), both models who do risque shoots. By chance they meet architect Andrea (George Hilton) who becomes enamored with Jennifer. Thanks to his influence, the ladies manage to rent the apartment where the second woman was killed. Soon they are also stalked by the killer while the police bumble around, collect stamps and make fools of themselves.

The Case of the Bloody Iris has no shortage of suspects. First there is Jennifer's old lover who runs a sex cult and is furious that she left them and is willing to anything to get her back. Then there is Jennifer's neighbors; a strange old conservative lady who buys gory horror magazines and the taciturn music professor who lives with his elegant lesbian daughter. Of course there is also Andrea, the architect and Jennifer's lover. On the surface he isn't much of a suspect since he is afraid of blood, but in Giallo that means very little. After more death and frantic running around, the movie ends with a pretty satisfying wrap up.

The Case of the Bloody Iris is one of those movies that I like but I'm not sure why. Sure, it has great tension and the general atmosphere is great, but the police are pretty much comic relief which I usually dislike in Giallo. The cinematography is alright with a couple of great shots. Besides Fenech and Hilton, the actors are fine but not that remarkable. The sound is functional to good but not great. Nothing really stands out as noteworthy, but somehow they managed to pull off a better than average Giallo.

This isn't the kind of movie where you can follow the clues and deduce the killer, but I was down to two suspects and my theory of how it could be one of them turned out to be true. That is of course always satisfying, but I don't think that is why I like this movie. Overall there isn't anything really new here, but it is all nicely put together.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. The Case of the Bloody Iris is definitely above average though not one of the great Gialli. Genre fans need to watch it, and thriller fans should like it. It is on the harder side of gruesome at times and there is a good bit of nudity so if that isn't your bag stay clear. Then again, if that isn't your thing, you should probably avoid the Giallo genre in general. The Case of the Bloody Iris is 94 minutes that just fly by.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Hands of the Ripper

This week I was in the mood for some Hammer Horror so I watched;

Hands of the Ripper (1971).

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.

Doctor Pritchard (Eric Porter) and his son Michael (Keith Bell) attend a séance, possibly to expose the medium as a fraud. Shortly after they leave, the medium is murdered, and the police suspects one of the guests, MP Dysart (Derek Godfrey). The doctor, who is a disciple of Freud, suspects that the culprit is the young ward of the medium, sweet but mentally ill girl, Anna (Angharad Rees). It turns out that Anna is the daughter of none other than Jack the Ripper, and due to past trauma, she becomes possessed by him when certain things triggers her. The doctor is unwilling to give up on her as well as his own theories, but things quickly spiral out of control.

The reason I placed the spoiler warning is Anna's heritage, but pretty much every blurb I saw leads with that fact so I don't feel too bad.

Hands of the Ripper is directed by Peter Sasdy who also directed The Stone Tape, Countess Dracula and Taste the Blood of Dracula for Hammer, two of which are some of my favorite Hammer movies. This gave me hope for something really good, but I was a bit disappointed.

Two things keep this movie afloat; the actors and the cinematography, everything else is good enough but nothing special. Prop wise this is typical Victorian studio work, fine but nothing out of the ordinary. The gore, what little there is, is quite tame. For having Ripper in the title and being a Hammer movie, I was expecting a lot more but it is what it is.

Speaking of Victorian, they refer to “Our Queen Victoria” but they also mention that “The Ripper was fifteen years ago”. That places the movie in 1903, which makes it the Edwardian era, not the Victorian since Queen Victoria died in 1901. Not a deal breaker by any means, but a bit sloppy to be sure.

The actors do a good job, particularly Eric Porter and Angharad Rees. Even though Anna is pretty catatonic for a good part of the movie, they have good chemistry and pull you into the story. No one stands out as subpar, which is a plus.

The shot composition ranges from good to really good, particularly the end. Many horror movies are good but ends up with disappointing endings. Hands of the Ripper is the opposite. Tame start, alright middle and an excellent ending. There are even some scenes that makes you sit up and take notice.

All this said, do I recommend this movie? Fans of Hammer, Amicus and that style of movie making should enjoy Hands of the Ripper, but general horror fans will probably be a bit bored. If you set your expectations to the right level, this is a good movie. Not one of Hammers stand out productions no, but good enough to put 95 minutes on.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have great week!

 

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh

I finally got my hands on a movie I've been itching to watch:

The Strange Vice of Mrs.Wardh (1971)

This is Sergio Martino's first Giallo, predating all the others I've written about to far. The story is this:

Mrs. Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech) arrives back in Vienna with her neglectful diplomat husband Neil (Alberto de Mendoza). On her way home, she learns that a razor wielding maniac is killing women, mostly prostitutes. Through her friend Carol, Julie meets Carol's cousin from Australia, George (George Hilton) and they soon develop a romance. Julie is also tormented and stalked by her ex-lover Jean (Ivan Rassimov), with whom she had a stormy relationship. It turns out that Julie likes it very rough in bed, something Jean was more than willing to supply. It was to escape from Jean that Julie married Neil, but sadistic Jean is not a person that takes no for an answer. Things get tenser and tenser as Julie struggles to keep it together while trying to survive.

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is also known as Blade of the Ripper and The Next Victim, depending on where you are. It marks the start of Martino's Giallo career, and the start of a collaboration between him and a small group of actors. He knew who he liked to work with and had no problem doing so. This means that the movie is full of faces that you will see time and time again in his other movies.

Last week in my write-up of The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, I mentioned that one can see the development of Martino's style in it's early stages. This is still true in my mind, but what's fascinating is that The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is much better shot than Scorpion's Tail. Some of the shots are superb and much more artistic than the average Giallo.

The sound is fine to good. A lot of the music sits in the background, where it belongs. However in several scenes there is heartbeat or a kind of dull roar placed over the music that really elevates the tension to a new level.

What really shines are the actors. All the actors do a fine job, but Edwige Fenech knocks it out of the park. In the other roles that I've seen her, she has been collected and in control or more of a side character. Here, as Julie Wardh, she shines in her ability to display paralyzing terror with little more than her eyes. Anyone can scream, cry and run around, but to stand still and show the fear coursing through you with only subtle expressions is impressive.

As for blood and sex, there is a fair amount in The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, particularly sex. The blood should have been more prominent. If someone gets their throat cut, blood doesn't tastefully drip a bit, it gushes. Not a deal breaker by any means, just an observation.

As I was watching, I found plot hole after plot hole, or so I thought. It turns out that, like in Scorpion's Tail, Martino pulls in all the strings and ties them off in a neat little knot by the end. Everything I was going to complain about is sorted and taken care of. Fun fact: the extra H in Wardh was added because a real Mrs. Ward threatened to sue for ruining her reputation. Also a fun fact: throughout the movie, Julie gets red roses with hand written notes. I google translated them all and one states that “Your Vice is a locked room and only I have the key”. This is funny as Martino used that as the title of one of his later movies.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, I do. This is one of those Giallo that should work for all fans of thrillers, not just Giallo fans. It doesn't go too far in any direction and the story is actually really good. It also does something that I can't remember any other Giallo doing, but telling would be spoiling. Can't have that...

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail

 This week the subject is;

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1971).

This Giallo with it's stylishly pulpy name is directed by Sergio Martino, who has appeared here a couple of time with Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), Torso (1973) and Island of the Fish Men (1979). The Case of the Scorpion's Tail predates them and you can sort of tell.

The story is this:

Lisa Baumer (Evelyn Stewart) finds out that the plane her husband was on has exploded in midair. She also finds out that he had a huge life insurance policy that she can claim in Athens. Hot on her trail is an assortment of shady characters who want to blackmail her as well as insurance investigator Peter Lynch (George Hilton). Things soon take a dramatic turn and Lynch finds himself under investigation by the police. At the same time he meets local journalist Cléo Dupont (Anita Strindberg) and they start investigating together while also starting a passionate relationship. In the middle of all this lurks a savage masked killer with a very sharp knife.

The Case of the Scorpion's Tail like the other Martino movies I've seen is a solid piece of work. Like the others, it isn't brilliant but it keeps your attention nicely, the tense scenes are really tense and the actors all do a good job. As I like to do, I tried to solve the case and failed miserably. The killer wasn't my first or second pick and although I was a bit confused at times, everything is nicely wrapped up by the end and more importantly, it doesn't cheat! I hate stories that cheat on the solution and The Case of the Scorpion's Tail is on the up and up.

This movie was Sergio Martino's sixth movie, and you can tell he was getting into the swing of things. His two following movies mentioned above are more stylish and polished, but that isn't a bad thing. It is worth noting that the movie doesn't really start up properly until about the 20 minute mark, and until then, things are a bit slow. Don't let that deter you, things heat up and the action scenes are really nice.

Having a couple of veterans in the lead like George Hilton and Anita Strindberg doesn't hurt either. Their romance feels very real and adds another layer of tension with the murderer skulking in the shadows. The Case of the Scorpion's Tail is not one of the sleazy Giallo movies either. There is some nudity and gore, which is to be expected, but overall it is tastefully done. If you can call getting a broken bottle in the eye tasteful.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, absolutely. I'd almost call The Case of the Scorpion's Tail a pure thriller, but there is enough Giallo in it to honestly qualify for the title. Fans of both genres should enjoy it and while it isn't at the top of the heap, it falls into the category of solid and good. Worth the watch in my book any day.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

The Cat o' Nine Tails

This week I chose:

The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971)

This Giallo by genre master Dario Argento is the second in his so called animals trilogy starting with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and ending with Four Flies on Grey Velvet. I had seen this movie before, but that was 15 years ago or thereabout. I remember that I didn't care much for it, and that was about it.

With all the Gialli I have seen in recent years however, I wanted to give this movie a second chance.

The movie opens with someone breaking into a genetic research institute. The watchman is knocked out, but nothing seems to have been stolen. Retired reporter Franco Arno (Karl Malden) lives nearby with his young niece, who helps him as he is blind. He hears something during the break in and his sharp investigative instincts are alerted. The next day he meets Carlo Giordani, a reporter who is covering the burglary. A short time later, a researcher at the institute dies and Franco convinces Carlo that it was murder. Both men love solving puzzles and team up to solve the mystery as person after person dies.

The Cat o' Nine Tails is by no means a bad movie, let's make that clear. It is wonderfully shot with some great scenes, the actors are great, the score is good but... it is almost two hours long and the story is pretty dull. Unlike Crystal Plumage and Four Flies where the stakes are high and the main character has to keep going, Franco and Carlo could have just given up without all that much happening. Sure, a murderer would probably have gotten away with it, but that happens all the time anyway. The stakes here are so low for most of the movie that it unfortunately turns into a bit of a snooze fest. That changes later on, and there are a couple of really intense scenes. The milk scene is positively Hitchcockian.

Argento has said that The Cat o' Nine Tails is his least favorite movie of all the ones he has directed, and I can see why. There is the nucleus of a great story here, but it gets painted over with scene after scene that plods along in a sedate pace.

There is a bit of romance, but since The Cat o' Nine Tails lacks a female main character, it becomes underdeveloped. The lack of a female lead is actually pretty rare for a Giallo, at least in my experience, but that in itself does not hurt the movie. It simply needed to be shorter and sharper.

So, do I recommend this movie? Again, yes and no. If you just want a fun Giallo then give this a miss, but if you are on an Argento trip then you should definitely watch this. As I said, it's not bad it just isn't as good as what Argento can do. If you set your expectations to the right level, you'll be fine.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Five Dolls for an August Moon

This week we're talking about:

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970).

This Giallo directed by genre stalwart Mario Bava is a fun mess. The story is this:

Rich industrialist George Stark invites two business partners and a professor together with their wives to his private island. The professor who has invented some incredible resin thinks he's there to relax, but he is there so that the businessmen can persuade him to sell them his formula. People starts to turn up murdered, until we reach the end.

As I watched Five Dolls, I got the feeling I was watching an Agatha Christie movie filtered through a Giallo lens, and it turns out I was right. This is essentially a bit of a rip off of Christie's And Then There Were None. The original director dropped out and the producers got Bava instead. He felt the script needed a lot of rework due to being too close to Christie but filming was slated to start two days later and he had no time. No time and no money either. The actors had to wear their own clothes, that's how small the budget was. With all this in mind, it's amazing this movie is not just watchable but even enjoyable, even if only just.

The cinematography is solid, which isn't surprising as this is Bava we're talking about. The actors are pretty solid with some good names like William Berger, Ira von Fürstenberg (who is a genuine princess), Edwige Fenech and more. What isn't good is the soundtrack which alternates between bad 70's jazz and some I don't know what music. I'm not hard to please when it comes to movie music, but this was unfortunately horrible.

As I watched the movie I was being quite hard on it, but upon reading about how hard it was to get anything at all to screen, I feel a lot more forgiving. For a Giallo, Five Dolls for an August Moon is incredibly tame. No real blood and no nudity. If not for Bava's style and experience, there would be no thrills at all. But he manages to pull this movie across the finish line. That said, there are a couple of massive plot holes that did disappoint me. As always, I was trying to solve the mystery but you can't. Not with the information the movie gives you anyway. You might as well just pick a character at random and see if you picked the killer.

So, do I recommend this movie? To completionists, I do. You might wonder why I would recommend Five Dolls for an August Moon at all after everything I just said, but it has heart and Mario Bava was skilled enough to turn a rotten turnip of a script into something edible if forgettable. Hardcore Giallo or Bava fans can find something to enjoy here, but not anyone else. I like Five Dolls for an August Moon but I will probably never watch it again.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Why it's Rude to Suck at World of Warcraft.

Hello!

This week I was planning on talking about the 1974 Giallo, The Girl in Room 2a, so I watched it yesterday. The problem is that it is pretty awful and I don't want to sit here and crap on someone else's hard work. I can be critical, yes, but however I tried, I can't really say anything positive about The Girl in Room 2a.

This left me with a conundrum. I didn't have enough time to watch anything else but I need something, and that's when it struck me. A couple of weeks ago I skimmed a Reddit thread about toxicity in World of Warcraft, and someone linked the following video.

Now, this is 84 minutes long but it's fascinating. The video breaks down how people play WoW, the rise of addons, how Blizzard, unlike many other developers can't make players do anything and how external data affects how the game is played. 

If you have any interest in the subject matter I strongly urge you to watch it.

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKP1I7IocYU

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

 

 

Autopsy

This week I felt like getting back on the Giallo train so I watched:

Autopsy (1975).

Also known as The Victim or Corpse (terrible titles), this Giallo/Horror is known in Italy as Macchie Solari which translates to Sunspots. Autopsy is directed by Armando Crispino and is scored by Ennio Morricone.

The movie opens with sinister footage of solar flare activity before showing us a bunch of very graphic suicides. We then meet Simona Sanna (Mimsey Farmer), a young pathologist working on her masters degree with a thesis on suicides and faked suicides. The morgue she works in is slammed and she is so exhausted that she starts hallucinating that the corpses are coming to life and having intercourse with each other. We also meet her frustrated boyfriend, a rich photographer and race car driver Riccardo (Ray Lovelock). His main source of frustration seems to be Simonas insistence that they don't fool around until after her thesis is complete.

After a grueling days work, Simona returns home and meets an American, Betty Lenox who is staying in the same building, a building owned by Simona's father. Betty is found dead soon after, apparently yet another suicide, but her brother Father Paul Lenox (Barry Primus), insists that she was murdered.

Simona is pulled into the investigation of Betty's death and soon finds herself in over her head. Everyone seems to be hiding something and trust is hard to come by. People die but are they suicides or murders? Can she even trust herself?

By now you have probably noticed that suicide is heavily featured in this movie. There is also an almost absurd amount of nudity and simulated sex. Simona studies what I have to assume are real photographs of medical deformities and crime scene photos, some that are pretty nasty at that. There is also a scene featuring animal cruelty so if you are sensitive, consider this your warning!

Autopsy is labeled as a Horror/Giallo on Wikipedia and that is true. The beginning has strong horror vibes but after a while it seamlessly translates into a pretty typical Giallo. I haven't seen any of Crispino's other movies but Autopsy is nicely shot. The overall vibe is good, you can really feel the heat and stress building and the actors are solid. Mimsey Farmer has appeared twice here before, in Four Flies on Grey Velvet and in The Perfume of the Lady in Black. Lovelock was in Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and in Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man. The rest of the cast are all old hands in Italian cinema and I recognized several faces all throughout.

Autopsy is a solid Giallo even though it feels a bit meandering. The list of possible suspects is a bit too short for such a long winded script and the ending was a bit of a letdown. Instead of the mystery being solved, we are just told who the villain is. Not a deal breaker, but definitely unsatisfying.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, to Giallo and Horror fans I do. I doubt many others would get any real enjoyment from Autopsy. I had a good time, even though this is far from a masterpiece. Even if the ending had been better I'd still rate this as a middle of the road affair which in itself is fine. Solid is still solid.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!