Giallo/italian horror films

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) is director Mario Bava's gleeful homage to Hitchcock; and one of the earliest examples of the Italian Giallo sub-genre of horror/suspense cinema that would go on to inspire an entire generation of horror filmmakers throughout the subsequent two decades. If you're at all familiar with the work of director Dario Argento for example, then you can see the roots of films like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Deep Red (1975) and Tenebrae (1982) already being established by the skillful blending of low-key thrills, character development and good old fashioned murder mystery, as captured by Bava in this excellent, slow-burning suspense piece. Although it may take some viewers a while to settle into the overall tone of the film - with those first few scenes presenting us with a veritable bombardment of information, both narrative and thematic, before the first murder has even taken place - the eventual unravelling of the plot, and Bava's excellent direction eventually draw us deeper into a story that is here punctuated by a charmingly romantic subplot, a miniature travelogue around the tourist traps of Rome, some subtle moments of almost slapstick humour, and the director's always inventive use of visual experimentation.

The usual Gialli trademarks are already beginning to take shape here, with the film focusing on a foreigner - in this case, twenty-year old American student Nora Davis - who travels to Rome to visit her ailing aunt and inadvertently witnesses a murder. Alongside this central plot device, which would be utilised by Argento in many of his greatest films, such as the three aforementioned, we also have the ideas of sight and perception; with the central protagonist unintentionally witnessing something that is shrouded in elements of doubt and abstraction, and thus having to prove what she saw to sceptical police officers and those nearest to her. Bava's film is also given a neat touch of self-referential sub-text; opening with a shot of the central character herself reading a Giallo murder mystery, casting some doubt as to whether or not the film plays out in the literal sense, or whether it is a merely a constructed reality, taking place in her own mind as she reads the book to herself. This is a thread of interpretation that is examined throughout by the filmmaker, with the title of the book itself, "The Knife", having an importance on the plot that perhaps surreptitiously suggest some element of imagined fantasy.

Once we get through those hectic opening sequences, which introduce the characters and a number of potential sub-plots that are essentially window-dressing to throw us off the trail, the film settles into the murder mystery aspect and the burgeoning relationship between Nora and her young doctor friend, Marcello Bassi. Through the relationship, Bava introduces a subtle comment on the Holmes vs. Watson partnership recast as a romantic dilemma, whilst also creating space within his story to let the audience catch up and think about the potential clues already collected in order to lead us to the eventual discovery of the killer's identity. The use of sight and Bava's directorial slight-of-hand is used meticulously for the initial murder sequence; with the director creating a literal feeling of hazy disconnection and a distorted perspective through a somewhat dated visual effect and the always masterful use of light and shadow. Although the actual effect - which replicates the look of ripples on a pond - might lead a more contemporary audience to giggle or cringe, it does tie in with the continual use of water-symbolism in Bava's work, from the final story in The Three Faces of Fear/Black Sabbath (1963), and A Bay of Blood (1971) most famously, as well as a somewhat cheap gag about marijuana cigarettes that will pay off in the film's closing moments.

Again, the use of humour taps into the spirit of Hitchcock, with intrigue, voyeurism, suspense and murder being reduced to mere complications in the continual romantic wooing of Nora by the charming Dr. Bassi. Nevertheless, the thriller aspects are what we remember most clearly; with Bava's always atmospheric direction, iconography and ability to create tension from the slightest movement of the camera. Once the credits have rolled, we release just how subtle much of Bava's use of sight and perception actually was; with a number of scenes leading on from a moment of confusion by the central character, in which she thinks she sees something that turns out to be nothing of the sort. Again, it shows the director playfully undermining the central character; presenting Nora as someone unable to trust her own eyes, and thus, unable to be trusted with the ultimate unravelling of the plot. Nonetheless, Bava also succeeds in throwing us into this enigmatic mystery; undermining our own perspective of the story by showing us important information early on, allowing us to feel superior to Nora with our benefit of a forewarning, only to then cast further doubt in our mind as the gallery of suspects mount up.

Though still something of a minor work for Bava, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is undoubtedly great; enlivened by the fine performances from the two leads, John Saxon (a cult actor with an impeccable list of credits) and the delightful Leticia Roman (I'm honestly quite smitten), and absolutely brimming with style and energy. The gag at the end is in-keeping with Bava's work, but certainly doesn't lessen the impact of the more thrilling scenes that came before, or the air of grand mystery and excitement suggested by his excellent approach to editing, cinematography and design. Beware that the film also exists under the title The Evil Eye; re-edited by Bava for the American market as more of a light-hearted romp (Tarantino calls it's a masterpiece). The version reviewed here is the original Italian version, a minor masterpiece of Giallo thrills, cinematic abstractions and an old-fashioned approach to storytelling that grips us from the start and never lets us go.

Three macabre tales."the telephone".a woman is plagued by threatening calls but all is not what it seems."the wurdaluk".in 18th century Russia a family wait for their father, now a vampire to come home and claim his loved ones and suck their blood."a drop of water". a nurse robs a corpse of a ring and soon regrets it. This film continuously eluded me for many years and i finally managed to see it in it's original form, beautifully restoredand it's worth the wait. the first story is the weakest, although not without interest. the second is the best , very atmospheric and contains a powerful scary performance from Boris Karloff who plays the lead vampire for the only time in his career and this role is one of his best.The last story is short but creepy and features the most scary corpse you'll ever see in a film.This is easily director Mario Bava's best film.only a silly last scene with Karloff dents it a little.

Visually, this may be one of the most stunning films you will ever see. The photography, framing, lighting and use of colour is unequalled in this genre of film making from this era. The fluidity of the camera-work is remarkable and repays repeated viewings to appreciate it fully. The only thing that may make this difficult going for some is the English dubbing so see it with subtitles if you can. The acting is not great and in some places will bring about laughter where it was not intended ditto the actions of some of the victims. The murders are gruesome and graphic even in the cut version of this film and must have been truly shocking to audiences in 1964. The excellent music score fits perfectly with the fashion house setting of the story and the models are beautiful.

Many films on the Video Nasty list are horror cinema's answer to well-respected classics; The Last House on the Left offers a new spin on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, Island of Death is a more brutal telling of the story of Bonnie and Clyde and, indeed, this Mario Bava film owes its plot to the French classic, La Ronde. Bay of Blood is often noted as being an obvious inspiration on the Friday the 13th series, and when taking things such as the setting and a certain murder sequence into account, that is certainly true; but let's not forget that this is also a fantastic movie in its own right. The film starts off with a glorious sequence that opens inside a beautiful manor house. We watch as a wheelchair-bound baroness is brutally strangled, only for the rug to be torn from under us moments later when her assailant is the next one to bite the bullet! It has to be said that the film never tops its opening sequence, but Mario Bava's gore-fest manages to remain fascinating all the way through, as it turns out that the first murder scene sets off a violent chain of events that results in a very high body count.

This film would be properly categorised as a slasher, but its Italian roots ensure that it's often labelled a Giallo, and indeed Mario Bava does include Giallo elements; from black gloved killers and an array of odd characters, all the way to an amazingly convoluted plot. Indeed, the storyline here gets so complicated at times that it's liable to give the viewer an extreme headache, but Bava is always on hand with another glorious murder scene, and as the film features thirteen deaths in it's eighty one minute running time - there's certainly no lack of the red stuff. Bava ensures that the murders are suitably varied, and we get treated from an array of methods of dispatch, including axes, a spear through a lovemaking couple and an excellent scene that sees someone skewered to a wall. Mario Bava's eye for detail doesn't wane with this film, as despite being a grisly slasher; there's still more than enough time for beautiful scene setting. The bay itself looks great and excellently lends itself as a location for savagery, while the decors of the character's homes are elaborately Gothic. With the pitch-black ending, the director shows us that the film isn't meant to be taken seriously, and overall, Bay of Blood is both influential and a great time - and therefore shouldn't be missed by horror fans.

I was extremely surprised with the quality of this film. Mario Bava has created a flawless production. His use of colour is second to none. The sets and lighting are also top notch, conveying an eerie mood. Some lovely point of view shots are also utilized by Bava.

This film tells the story of John Harrington, who runs a fashion house specialising in bridal wear. He is unhappily married to his overbearing wife Mildred and he is also insane.

I would hesitate to call this a Giallo movie as the killer is revealed at the beginning of the film. This is more of a character study of the killer and his journey into madness.

For those interested in thrillers and atmosphere this comes highly recommended. Far better than Bavas better known Bay of Blood, which i found rather cheap looking in comparison.

This is a classic of Italian cinema. Highly recommended.

Art direction and cinematography are as distinctive as any of Bava's other giallo films of the period, but the garbled script to what is essentially little more than a standard body-count movie really lets this one down. After a plodding and talky start, the film disintegrates into a total mess. Bava pulls off the odd visual flourish, but such scenes never gel together. Still, the mesmeric use of zooms, focus pulls, and tracking shots and the stylish use of colour ensures that, from an entirely aesthetic perspective, this film never becomes boring, and as an auteur piece, is well worth a watch. Now, if only I could work out what the hell happened in it...

As I slowly get to watch more Mario Bava movies my enthusiasm for his extraordinary body of work grows and grows. I was already hooked after watching 'Black Sunday' for the first time, but after subsequently seeing 'Kill, Baby...Kill!', 'Planet Of The Vampires', 'Black Sabbath', 'Diabolik' and 'Lisa And The Devil' (and others) I was convinced that he's THE most underrated director of the Fantastic. Now I've watched 'The Whip And The Body' three times and listened to Tim Lucas' informative DVD commentary I'm almost ready to bow down and worship Bava like a god! This is such a fascinating movie... Visually it's stunning, as to be expected, Bava being a top cinematographer before turning to directing. The subject matter is still provocative, but forty years ago it must have been scandalous! In fact the movie was heavily censored and when eventually released in America given the lousy title 'What'. Christopher Lee counts this among his favourite roles and it is essential viewing for his fans. He plays Kurt Menliff, an evil sadistic nobleman returning to his family home after hearing his younger brother has wed. Lee's family has disowned him after a scandal concerning a servant girl he seduced who subsequently suicided. His father the Count despises him, the dead girl's mother, who still works for the Count, curses him, and his brother's new bride Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) fears him. Kurt and Nevenka have a past, not only that, a complicated sadomasochistic relationship. The whipping scenes between the two actors were a bit too much for the censors to handle back in the day, and while they aren't all that explicit, they are still unsettling even today. Lee and the stunning Lavi (best know to most people for her later appearance in the star-studded Bond spoof 'Casino Royale') make a truly unforgettable couple. Many people regard 'The Whip And The Body' as Bava's single best movie. I wouldn't go that far myself, but it's definitely one of his very best films, and is sure to impress anyone who has enjoyed his other pictures. Ghost story, murder mystery, psychosexual character study, whatever you want to call it, it's a highly original movie that will stay with you for a long time. Newcomers to Bava are still best to start with 'Black Sunday' in my opinion, but this movie comes with my highest recommendation.

"The sound that you hear is dripping blood. This...is the beginning of Black Sunday !!" ...These two very atmospheric and mood-setting sentences are heard when the Black Sunday DVD is put into the player. No need to tell you that a better and more tense opening has yet to be created. This movie is an undeniable masterpiece in its kind. A powerful and terrifying experience that was way ahead of its time back in 1960 and now - almost 45 years later - it still stands for an hour and a half of pure terror, devlish fun and sinister fascination. I respect the opinion and dislikes of everyone but not when it comes to this movie...you either admit that Black Sunday is a masterpiece or you're wrong !!

I could give you a thousand reasons why this movie should be seen as the most important horror movie ever made but I'll just stick to the most important ones. Black Sunday ( or The Mask of Satan, as you prefer ) is the debut of Italian genius Mario Bava...Well, not really his debut but the first full length movie after a series of short films and project he didn't get credit for. In it, Bava presents us on a stylish and visually stunning story with an extremely macabre and dark topic. It contains passages of torturement, curses, witchburning, vampirism, massacres and resurrection but it's all brought to us in a very artistic fashion. Bava's profesionalism and style reminds me about the true masterpieces from Universal...Maybe also because the whole movie is filmed in beautiful black and white but merely because of the creepy atmosphere and the morbid topics. Black Sunday does contain rather many violent and sadistic scenes, but it becomes unwatchable or disgusting. Actually, when you look closer at it...it's a fairy tale !! Think about it...: evil witch, ominous castles, dark forests and - on top of it all - a tale of true love at first sight ! Barbara Steele should get as least as much credit and praise though. This stunning beauty can easily considered "Queen of Horror" if it were only for her performance here. Steele has a double role here ( the evil, vampiric Prinses Asa and the virgin Katia ) and her appearance can only be seen as on of beauty and pureness. Barbara Steele - once spit out by the glory of Hollywood - succeeds in convincing the audience that she stars as both an innocent virgin as well as a demonic ancient witch. The cinematic value attached to her character comes extremely close to Karloff's Frankenstein and Lugosi's Count Dracula. After all, Princess Asa was the first true female monster and she has - literally - become immortal.

You're not a horror fan if you haven't seen the perfection of Black Sunday.

In a small town in Transylvanian, police detective Kruger calls upon Doctor Paul Eswai to perform an autopsy on a woman who died a violent death, but the unusual thing is that a coin was embedded in her heart. When Dr Eswai arrives in town he discovers that the town is paralysed by fear of a dreaded curse of a spirit of a young girl who died 20 years earlier and the towns folk aren't all to happy about doctor interfering in their business.

Breathtaking! Yes, breathtaking indeed. It's only my third viewing of a Mario Bava film and what a talented and versatile director he is. This film breathes Gothic atmosphere and chills, with air of mystery to keep you glued to this subtle nightmare. The remote nature of the film adds to the spooky sets with dark shadowy pathways, creepy graveyard, a misty town with its eerie ruins and a downright unnerving Villa Graps, where the locals fear to tread! The whole surroundings come across as rather forbiddingly stark and very alienating. With a colour scheme that jumps out at you and that only Bava can create. What compensates the visual flair is the horrifyingly tense, but mystical score and effectively jittery sound effects. Damn that hissing wind! Also profound camera work that's incredibly vivid and swirling panning all over the place helps convey such a brood mood. There always seemed to be lurking danger even if it wasn't evident on screen. With all that, we are put into a whirlwind of such unease, which bleeds with a high amount of tension and frights.

The odd plot builds on the superstition and the dialogue was rather interesting. Performances were so-so, no one really stood out, but they fit the buck. Really, Bava was the real star here and it shows. Even the special effects were well used, but the make-up of child spirit was damn freaky. Especially those scenes with those hands going pitta padder at the window seal. Shivers ran down my spine! Although, saying that it does have some weak spots in the continuity of the plot and I thought ending was all a bit too convenient. Anyhow, this didn't damaged my experience of this menacing chiller that grows on atmosphere, not violence. The story might be your standard run of the mill, but it's Bava's direction that makes it visually impressive and immensely spooky. Also, what a great title!

To begin with I was a real sap for liking all that commercial crap that the everyday world is being exposed to watching. That was until "A Blade In The Dark" caught my attention.

This was the first film that marked my entry towards Italian horror and what an entrance it was I might add.

The opening sequence is a real knockout not to mention dead scary (even the mere thought is enough to give me nightmares). The only con was the fact the acting was tad bit weak, but at the same time exceptional.

I won't spoil the ending though, but it could've been a slightly improved with a cat and mouse chase that concludes in a bit of a bloody showdown with hero and killer. The highlight in the film for me though was Lara Nazinsky, who plays Julia (the composer's girlfriend) what a firecracker she is.

Though not many would agree about this film being good, it was interesting to know that it was directed with little budget with many of the actors working for nothing and considering Lamberto Bava's credibility of being son of horror legend Mario Bava.

What really annoys me, especially in what passes for 'Thrillers' and 'Supernatural Thrillers' these days, is when films try to be too clever. It all started with 'The Sixth Sense', which was, admittedly, quite a good film, when the film contained a 'twist' - a surprise ending that explained all the meandering, subliminal guff that went on before it. Luckily, there is none of that in 'Demons', which thankfully contains all the ingredients I require in a film - mindless gore! The plot (what there is of it) centers around visitors to a cinema who have been handed free tickets by a mysterious masked man. I don't really need to write a spoiler, as it's fairly obvious what happens but, needless to say, this film is brilliant. Lots of people die in pretty gruesome circumstances by the 'Demons' of the title. There's lots of blood, lots of slime, lots of fangs, ninja swords, motorbikes, helicopters(don't ask!) and a thumping Metal soundtrack. There has been questions raised as to the relevance of the helicopter scene and why it's there, but who cares? A superb example of why we need horror films - to entertain! WATCH IT!

Okay, first of all, anybody who is expecting The English Patient from a movie called "Demons 2" will be sorely disappointed. This is an 80s low-budget Italian horror movie and as such has serious plot, dubbing and acting problems. That said, this is actually a very good movie for the genre.

The connection to the original movie is a bit blurry but it does try to connect the two together. Apparently somebody made a movie about the first incident, and it is this movie that "infects" a new building filled with badly-dubbed Italian actors.

The make-up effects are quite good, and the demons pretty unsettling. I'd say this movie is on par with the original Demons (largely because it is almost exactly the same movie). This is a pretty brutal movie. None of the humorous subtext that you'd find in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" sequels, "Scream" or most other modern horror movies. Nope. Just a bunch of people desperately fighting to survive, and not doing a very good job of it. They aren't all stupid either....they do try. Unfortunately the screenwriters arranged it so that all the windows are unbreakable, and the electric doors unable to be opened.

The movie also breaks some horror movie taboos as children were surprisingly made into victims.

On a lighter note, I would also say that this is the first horror movie I have ever seen (barring Antichrist/Second Coming films)in which a character goes into labor while fighting demons.

An entertaining horror movie.....Never looked at my watch once

I decided to buy the uncut and digitally remastered version of 'Mountain of the Cannibal God' after having read some online reviews, (which were pretty mixed), and after having watched the trailer for the film on some of the other Vipco Screamtime Collection DVDs.

The Horror film genre is one that particularly interests me, as does the sub-genre of Cannibalism and films that have been previously banned, and I feel that this film delivers all that can be expected of it.

There are interesting plot twists and developments, (although the story is very straight-forward), the dialogue is simple but effective and well executed for a film of this genre, it has the former Bond girl Ursula Andress 'in all her beautiful glory', it has an intriguing musical score, lashings of violence and gore that are shot in a fairly realistic fashion, and even an annoying cannibal dwarf! What more could you possibly ask for?

Although perhaps at not quite the same level of entertainment and cinematic quality of a film like 'Cannibal Holocaust', which is far more tense and shocking, this is nevertheless an extremely highly under-rated and enjoyable film that is more than well worth a look if you are interested in this type of genre. However, if you do not like this type of film, then it certainly isn't a film for you - just leave us enthusiasts to enjoy and appreciate it in our own company.

The DVD sleeve hails it as 'one of the best cannibal films you'll ever see' - and I must say that I wholeheartedly (excuse the pun) agree. Go watch it now!

Wow! This one really moves, from the very beginning we are assaulted with seeming misogynist activity involving nakedness and blood. With barely time to breath we are drawn into a fast moving and shocking tale involving a knife slashing serial killer and the beautiful Edwige Fenech's real, imagined or remembered images of violent rape culminated in ecstatic sex. Heady stuff indeed and if that all were not enough Edwige seems unable to keep any clothes on for at least the first half hour. Things calm down a little for a while as we admire the fantastic set design and score at one moment threatening at another sweet and seductive and in accompaniment to the vicious rape scenes almost religious. We struggle to work out just who is killing who as the film turns into a thriller before the wonderful and exciting last part where the twists and turns are for once surprising and a joy to behold. Excellent. Not much finesse but everything else

The most memorable thing about fairly run-of-the-mill giallo The Case of the Scorpion's Tail is the trailer, which shamelessly compares itself to other 'masterpieces on violence' such as The Golem, Battleship Potemkin and M. The film itself is fairly conventional. Director Sergio Martino admits that he padded out the first half after the film's running time came up short, and it shows: it's not until the halfway point that the film gets much in the way of energy. The Scope location photography in London and Greece is attractive and there's some amusement to be had from the terrible model work in a plane explosion or a sunglass wearing villain called Omar who looks like a hung over Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil after being dragged through a thorn bush, but overall the film is nothing to write home about.

"Torso" is a simply stunning giallo. Sergio Martino's movie has some genuine edge-of-the-seat moments, a very attractive female cast, a superb score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis and beautiful cinematography.

While some of the special effects are a little on the poor side, the film succeeds in keeping the viewer enthralled in the plot and its strong points far outweigh any minor criticisms.

I really enjoyed this movie. It's not often that a film can keep me in suspense like this one did. Stylish, thrilling, erotic and gripping, "Torso" gives most other giallo films a real run for their money.

ergio Martino is famous for producing high quality Giallo films and All the Colours of the Dark does that reputation proud! While I cant say that this is as good as the likes of The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh or the amazing Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key, All the Colours of the Darks stands apart from Martino's other films as it's much more psychological, and spends most of it's running time following a single character. The style of the film is very psychedelic, and this ensures that it always feels very much like a movie from the seventies. There isn't a great deal of actual horror, but this is made up for by the disorienting atmosphere, which ensures that the film is always unpredictable. The film works from a screenplay by Martino's regular collaborator, Ernesto Gastaldi, and it's safe to say that this film is Italy's answer to Rosemary's Baby. We follow Jane Harrison, a woman recovering from the car crash that claimed the life of her unborn child. Her recovery takes a turn for the worse when she finds herself under threat from an organisation of Satanists.

The cast is something of a "who's who" of Italian cult cinema. Frequent Martino collaborators George Hilton and the beautiful Edwige Fenech take the lead roles and the film wouldn't feel complete without them. Edwige Fenech fits the lead role like a glove. She's at her best when she's playing the vulnerable victim, and that is the role she has here. The sleazy George Hilton has been better, and he isn't given much to do in this film; but it's always nice to see him in a Giallo. Cult star Ivan Rassimov stands out as the villain of the piece, while Susan Scott; the beautiful actress who has appeared in films such as Death Walks at Midnight and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals makes a mark in supporting role. The plot moves well, and Sergio Martino does a good job of getting us behind the lead character. The music and cinematography are superb, and Martino's use of colour helps to ensure that the film has a vibrant atmosphere, which suits the plot well. The climax is a little abrupt, and despite the scene leading up to it; I've got to admit that it left me a bit cold. The rest of the plot is great, however and while this isn't Martino's most successful foray into Giallo; it's still a very good one, and comes recommended.

One thing I know about this film is that Burial Ground director Andrea Bianchi must have had a great time making it, as filming naked women and bloody murders looks like a lot of fun! As the lurid title suggests, Strip Nude for Your Killer is one of the more trashy examples of the Giallo tradition, and that has lead many to lambaste it as a sub-par effort; I, however, could not disagree more! The film is definitely over the top and silly, but that's the reason I watch Giallo, so criticising it for that is ridiculous. The film takes in pretty much every trash element of the style of film-making, from naked babes to a masked killer and the film is like a catalogue of less than tasteful actions and images. Strip Nude for Your Killer opens with a shot that leaves nothing to the imagination, and shows a woman having an abortion in a backstreet 'medical centre'. After she dies, her gynaecologist arranges for the corpse to be put in a bath full of water. He is killed soon after, and it doesn't take long for more dead bodies to begin piling up at the modelling agency where the unfortunate young girl worked...

It is customary for the Giallo murderer to don black gloves for his crimes, but Bianchi goes all the way again with this idea and has his killer completely dressed in motorcycle leathers! The film benefits from a thick layer of sleaze that runs throughout and fans of lurid cinema are likely to be in heaven with Strip Nude for Your Killer. The fast paced plot is bolstered by some very graphic and nasty murders, as well as a plentiful helping of sex scenes; some of which involve Italy's finest Giallo actress, Edwige Fenech! Fenech has had her hair cut down for her role here, but she's still the sexy little minx that Giallo fans love her for being, and seeing her strip nude is always a treat! It's obvious that the plot itself wasn't important to the director as the film doesn't feature a lot of plot points and the unmasking of the murderer completely lacks any mystery. This film won't do anything for people that like their movies to be politically correct, as the women use their bodies more than their brains and the twisted sense of humour is liable to offend. None of that deterred me, however, as while I admit that this isn't the greatest Giallo...I really, really enjoyed watching it. Recommended!

What Have They Done to Solange? puts all of it's efforts into the mystery that it is uncovering. Unlike a lot of giallo, this one doesn't put the focus on overly gory death scenes and use the mystery as an excuse to string them together; it's focus is the mystery, and the murders are secondary to it. Due to the graphic and sexual nature of the death scenes, however; this is probably a good thing. The plot of the movie follows an investigation of the death of a schoolgirl. After the death, a teacher at the school, Enrico, becomes the main suspect because of his close affiliation to several of the girls in his class. When more schoolgirls turn up dead, Enrico and his wife decide to try and solve the murder themselves.

The mystery pans out very intricately, and small clues as to who is the murder and their motive are given out slowly as the film goes along; thus keeping your interest, but not giving you enough to chew on so that you will be able to solve the mystery, but it does give you enough to chew so that you will be able to develop theories as to who the murderer is. This is a very good thing, as it makes sure that the film is interesting throughout and it is guaranteed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Trust me, you'll be begging to know who and why after the amount of suspense this movie builds up. That's not to say that this movie is all build up either; it pays off the viewer's patience at the end with a conclusion that is satisfyingly tragic, and also one that makes sense, and thereby gives the murderer and his intent a definite degree of potency, and we can even feel a little bit for him. A lot of Italian horror movies seem to fall down at the end as their conclusion doesn't make perfect sense, but that is not true of this movie; and that is a definite plus point.

This movie is given another edge over a lot of other giallo thanks to a great score by the king of great scores, Ennio Morricone. As usual, Morricone's score fits the film and gives it more reason to be memorable. The acting in What Have They Done to Solange? is not one of its main plus points, but it's not bad either. The screenplay is great, though, mostly due to the fact that it doesn't feature anything that's needless and it keeps developing for the entire duration of the movie, and this therefore makes sure that the viewer has to pay absolute attention to the film as missing two minutes of it could result in missing something important to the mystery, and it therefore ties the viewer to the movie in that way. This movie isn't as heavy on style as other giallos; as previously mentioned there's no overly gory death sequences, but it more than makes up for this loss in style with an abundance of substance, and that is better for this kind of intricate mystery.

Overall, What They Done to Solange? is an absolute highlight of the giallo style and is therefore recommended to anyone that likes this kind of movie. Unfortunately, What Have They Done to Solange is not readily available and that therefore means that people that want it will have to dig for it; but trust me, it's worth it.

Black Belly of the Tarantula is both a great thriller in its own right and surely one of the best entries in the Giallo cycle. The film is reminiscent of several like it, but this one is the most cerebral and most sadistic Giallo I've seen. The modus operandi of the killer at the centre of the story involves jabbing his victim with a poison laced needle which induces paralysis. He then proceeds to gut them while they're still alive and unable to do anything about it! Director Paolo Cavara seems to realise just how malicious this plot is, and so the film is not gratuitous. The reliance on the idea behind the murders is far more shocking than any amount of gore; so it doesn't matter that there isn't a lot of the red stuff. Typically, the film works from an extremely convoluted plot which sees a woman, who is also a member of a private health club, become the victim of blackmail. Around the same time; dead bodies start piling up and our hero; an insecure police detective by the name of Tellini learns that the murders are done in the style of the black wasp killing a tarantula...

As ever with Giallo, the film isn't particularly easy to follow; as there's so much going on that it's easy to miss one or two key plot elements. This is, however, far better than having too little going on and unlike many Giallo's, at least this one mostly resolves everything by the conclusion. There's a very potent stream of sleaze running throughout the film also; as if the killer's methods weren't enough on their own. The film features plenty of sex, and it will please some to learn that many of the murders are depicted with the female victim in the nude. The murder scenes themselves are well orchestrated, and director Paolo Cavara delights in showing us the gentle way that the paralysis needle slips into the victims' necks before having their stomachs ripped open with a hunting knife. The cinematography is superb, and it's safe to say that Black Belly of the Tarantula is one of the better looking Giallo films out there. The locations bode well with the film's style, and scenes that take place on a rooftop and in a luxury swimming pool provide visual treats. Overall, I don't hesitate to name Black Belly of the Tarantula as one of the best Giallo's that I've seen and it comes highly recommended!

When people think of Lucio Fulci, it's always his gorier and largely incoherent efforts that spring to mind. Films like Zombie Flesh-Eaters and The Beyond, which are most definitely good films if you like that sort of thing (as I certainly do!); but they don't adequately portray the man's talent. If you want to see the 'great' Fulci films, you need to go back to his Giallo days with films like Don't Torture a Duckling and indeed this film; A Lizard in Woman's Skin. Fulci's first Giallo is a trippy thriller that excellently captures the laid back style of the swinging sixties and blends it magnificently with the thrilling pace that has gone on to epitomise the Italian thriller. The film follows a young woman (Florinda Bolkan) who dreams that she is having orgies with a hippy woman that lives downstairs. Events take a turn for the worse when the young woman dreams that she's killed the hippy, who then turns up dead; brutally murdered in her apartment, in exactly the way that the woman dreamt...

While this film isn't as brutal as some of the later Giallo efforts, Fulci succeeds in creating a foreboding atmosphere and manages to keep his audience on the edge of their seats. The plot line is rather strange, and Fulci makes best use of this through an excellent Ennio Morricone score, which firmly instills the trippy atmosphere in the viewers mind. The Giallo has come to be synonymous with brutal murders and lots of gore but, ironically, Fulci keeps his murders down a minimum and some of them even happen off screen. This is both a good and a bad thing as I, personally, like seeing brutal murders in Giallo's; but on the other hand it allows Fulci to keep the focus firmly on the central murder and he doesn't get sidetracked with lots of blood and gore, which does the film itself lots of favours. The mystery boils down to an excellent ending, in which the film is tied up nicely and we are treated to a great twist and some first rate detective work from the detective on the case. Highly recommended viewing and a must for Giallo fans!

Technically this oddly named giallo is trashy, like all films directed by Lucio Fulci, but morally it is more don't-blame-the-mirror-from-dirt-in-your-face-basement. Someone murders children of smalll Italian village, and everything goes to Hell in the handbasket: children are not pure and innocent, depraved mob murders brutally a mentally unstable suspect, Catholic priest sees sex worse thing than violence, etc. All this gritty realism is shown by cheap-looking photography which never glamorises dry desolate landscape. Gore effects are not over-the-top and aforementioned vigilante murder seems more tragic and horrifying than sleazy.

Actually it is not exactly an horror movie, but rather more a thriller (or, better, a giallo). Visionary, tense, well acted (& dubbed), nice locations (villas, interiors, landscapes, cars, etc.), care to costumes and details, a nice 7 notes tune... it is a truly enjoyable little gem from the (not enough) celebrated Italian gore maestro. The plot itself, assuming it is possible to have such supernatural powers, develops convincingly and without too many disgusting bloody scenes . In some points (the visions, particularly the reversed statue) I had the feeling that Kubrick in Shining (1980) might have stolen something (MURDER...). Will it be possible? Oh, I was forgetting, the actress (O neill) is wonderful, and Ferzetti (Once upon in the West, On Her Majesty's Secret Service) is playing as well.

Lucio Fulci's Cat in the Brain is an inventive and somewhat egotistical tale of a director's decent into madness. The director in question is Fulci himself, who stars in the film. Fulci has become known to horror fans everywhere as 'the godfather of gore', and for good reason, as he has provided us with some of the nastiest and most gruesome films ever to grace the silver screen; from the eyeball violence in films like 'Zombi 2', to a man been hacked to death with chains in 'The Beyond', all the way to the full on gore fest known as 'The New York Ripper'; if you want gore (and let's face it, who doesn't), Fulci is your man. However, all this catering for gorehounds like you and I has taken its toll on Fulci's mental state, and he's quickly delving into madness, brought about by what he films. Fulci's problems don't end at his mental state either, as his psychiatrist that he has gone to see about his problem has took it upon himself to take up murder as a hobby, using Fulci's films as blueprints for the murders!

I've got to say, the acting in this film is absolutely atrocious. There is one scene in particular that involves a hooker, and it's only fit to be laughed at, for both it's acting and it's stupidity. Fulci takes the lead role of the film (obviously). He's not an actor, and it shows, but his performance is actually the best in the film. It's even safe to say that one the whole, the acting is bad for an Italian horror film. Of course, nobody goes into an Italian horror expecting good acting, so it's somewhat forgivable, but I do think that Fulci could have hired some better ones. Bad dubbing doesn't exactly help either. However, something that does help is the fact that the terrible acting is counterbalanced by lots of gore, and it's extreme to say the least! People get their heads cut off, a woman is slain in the shower (and unlike Psycho, here we REALLY see it), people are hacked up, fed to pigs and there's lots and lots of cinema's finest melee weapon - the chainsaw on display, which delighted me no end. The amount of gore is massively over the top a lot of the time, which gives the film something of a 'spoof' feel, but Cat in the Brain is obviously a tongue in cheek film anyway.

It would be hard to make a film about yourself and not come across as being a bit of a big head, and Fulci does indeed come across as a bit of a big head in this movie. His name is mentioned often, and he's on screen nearly all the time; it's not too much unlike 'New Nightmare' in the ego stakes, but it's obvious he had a good time making this, and I for one had fun watching it, so we can forgive him a little egotism. The film's ending lets it down - I saw it coming a mile off, but then didn't seriously think that the movie would take that route, but I was wrong; it did, unfortunately. The ending left me cold, and the film is a better watch if you turn it off just before the final two minutes. However, despite it's ending and terrible acting, Cat in the Brain is a lot of fun and will please Fulci enthusiasts no end, and it is therefore recommended.

Another terrifying Italian shocker from the legendary Lucio Fulci. A family move into a creepy old house and are unaware that living in the cellar is the flesh-eating zombie of a 19th Century surgeon. The little boy is soon a friend with the ghost of the late doctors daughter who warns them to stay away but to little effect. The creature gruesomely kills and dismembers a variety of Estate Agents, Copulating teenagers and Babysitters leading to a terrifying finale in the corpse-strewn cellar. The Lucio Fulci trademark of graphic gore is abundant as ever but it is the atmosphere that makes this movie stand out. Bumps in the night and the ominous crying of children coming from the cellar are just some of the factors that assault and disturb the viewer. This is a truly amazing movie that relies on shock and terror rather than revulsion. The gore just adds to what is already a truly chilling little tale of cannibalism and depravity that will linger in the mind long after you've forgotten about the illogical plot and poor dubbing. One of Fulci's best films. Deserves its cult reputation.

Louisiana, 1927. A group of men storm a local hotel on the edge of a swamp and burst into a painters named Schweick (Antoine Saint-John) room, who they believe is a warlock. They drag him down to the basement, Schweick warns them that the hotel was built over one of the seven gateways to hell, and that only he can protect them from it. They ignore him and brutally beat him and crucify him. Skip forward to 1981. New Yorker Lisa Merril (Katherine MacColl) inherits the now abandoned and run down hotel, and two creepy helpers, the housekeeper Martha (Veronica Lazar) and a general handyman Arthur (Gianpaolo Saccarola). She decides to repair the place and re open it. Unfortunately thing start to turn sour almost immediately, one of the painters falls off his second floor scaffolding. The local plumber Joe (Giovanni De Nava) finds Schweick's rotted corpse behind a wall in the flooded basement, Schweick then gouges Joe's eye out. And Lisa is warned by a blind woman Emily (Sarah Keller) that she is in great danger and must leave. Dr. John McCabe (David Warbeck) and his assistant Dr. Harris (Al Cliver) examine both Joe's and Schweick's corpses. Interested McCabe becomes involved with Lisa and they both start to investigate the strange events. Soon they realize the gateway to hell under the hotel has been opened and zombies are appearing everywhere. Thats the best I can sum the plot up, what plot there is in this film anyway.

Directed by Lucio Fulci, this was the third of his zombie quartet, starting with Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), this and finally the House by the Cemetery (1981). I think their all a bit overrated but decent solid horror all the same. Acting is OK and Katherine MacColl makes an attractive damsel in distress. David Warbeck is OK as the hero, and I liked Jill (Maria Pia Marsala) as the freaky possessed kid. The rest of the cast are just there to be killed in various gore soaked ways, nothing more. Antoine Saint-John in the opening sequence is chain whipped, crucified and has acid thrown into his face all in graphic detail. People have their eyes poked out, more faces are melted with acid, a great scene where a woman has her throat torn out and her ear bitten off by her dog, loads of rotting zombies appear, guys are impaled with shards of glass and little girl Jill has the top of her head blown off. Fulci and special effects man Giannetteo De Rossi don't shy away from the red stuff, thats for sure. For the most part the make up effects are impressive, the best being when Jill gets shot in the face, the worst is when Martin Avery (Michele Mirabella) is attacked by spiders. Not only do the spiders make a squeaking noise for some reason, but the fake spiders look awful as does the fake head which they bite and pull apart, Martin's tongue being bitten looks good though, just a shame about the rest of the scene. It has nice clear, crisp and colourful photography by Sergio Salvati. It's main draw back is the script credited to Fulci, Dardando Sacchetti and Giorgio Mariuzzo, it's bizarre, surreal and doesn't really make any sense which is a problem. There are also big lapses in logic, like the end where Warbeck discovers the only way to kill the zombies is to shoot them in the head, but he still insists on shooting them anywhere but their heads. Overall I liked it, it's stylishly made and features plenty of blood, gore and violence. I just wish the story was a little clearer and things didn't just happen for no apparent reason. Certainly worth watching if your a gorehound or horror fan. Make sure you watch one of the various uncut widescreen DVD's that are available, the only way to appreciate it properly in my opinion. Recommended.

Some films have articles, essays, even books dedicated to explaining how great they are. As a teenager it only took one simple sentence to put City of the Living Dead on my list of films I needed to see..."A woman pukes up her own intestines".

Sadly, at the time the UK censors didn't see the funny side of this, and the other delights contained in this film or it's companion The Beyond, so I didn't get to see them until much later. In some ways I can say COTLD does live up to it's reputation (it IS pretty disgusting) but in others, well, if The Beyond is pleasingly, nightmarishly surreal (and to me it is) COTLD is one of the most bafflingly illogical films I've ever seen.

The story involves a psychic and a journalist rushing to close a portal to hell that's been opened by the suicide of a priest (how? why? how should I know, I only watched the film and that didn't help! The priest comes back as an undead overlord, but was this his intention?). I say rushing but in fact their journey is rather leisurely. Apparently saving the world isn't as important as stopping off for lunch on the way, which is rather odd as they're against the clock on this one - the portal must be closed by All Saints day.

You may think that's a small thing to notice in the film except - and I'm about to give away the ending - they get there TOO LATE to close the portal! Before entering a graveyard for the final showdown with the undead priest they note that it's already All Saints day, they've blown it, yet the film continues into it's climax and a good vs evil face off from which our "heroes" think they're emerging victorious? You idiots! You already knew you blew it, what on earth is going on here?? Then there's the infamous final scene. Supposedly the films disjointed, inexplicable ending is the result of the last bit of footage being damaged and lost for ever, and what you do get is something you really have to see for yourself to (dis)believe. They certainly don't make 'em like that anymore.

If it's gore you want you certainly won't be let down by the drillings, gouged heads, zombie attacks and of course A WOMAN PUKING UP HER OWN INTESTINES, but overall this film is slow moving, and with that ending (for gods sake, that ENDING!) more than a little frustrating. .

A complete suprise to me - having seen Zombie and other Fulci films, with his stereotypical gore and inventive killings (usually at the hands of zombies of some type), Fulci moves completely away from any supernatural tone, to a downtrodden New York in modern-day America. A killer is on the loose, viciously murdering attractive young women. The difference that struck me with this particular film was immediate - the deaths are so much more realistic and cruel. The camera lingering over every explicit detail. Fulci seems to have set out to combine horror with thriller in this flick, and has done so on almost every level - the horror, however, mostly comes from the extremely realistic feel that this movie has and the downbeaten locations where everything occurs. The vicious murders seem all the more believable as a result.

I'd read many reviews for this film before finally watching it (in the UK, this film has an almost legendary cult-status; the BBFC actually had the film reels police-escorted out of the country when it was originally sent to them for certification in 1982), but don't necessarily agree with the way everyone mocks the killer's duck-like voice when talking to the police; if anything, it comes across as macabre and there is a reason for it, from a psychological perspective, revealed at the end. Oh yes - the final killing of the cop's girlfriend/prostitute - is every bit as nasty and prolonged as you've heard; the razor being dragged across her open eye and through her nipple, being slashed continually and slowly to ribbons, is just plain mean!

For me this is by far Fulci's cruelest, most intense piece; Recommended only for Fulci fans and those who want something much more disturbing than any mainstream slasher pic - all others stay away; otherwise this one will leave you feeling depressed for hours afterwards

Now this is how a zombie film should be made! Whilst Lucio Fuci never had the creative genius of Dario Argento in Profondo Rosso, Tenebrae and Suspiria, he certainly knew how to make a good old fashioned zombie/gore movie. In Zombi 2 or Zombie Flesh Eaters (what a title!) as it was known in the UK, a ship drifts into New York with a very large, hungry zombie on board. This leads to two investigative journalists, including gore stalwart Ian McCulloch, with two holiday makers going to the Island of Matul. After meeting a shark wrestling zombie en route, they arrive at Matul where things are not going well. The hospital run by Dr. Menard has turned into a morgue where daily zombie killing has become the routine. Things go from bad to worse as the zombies grow in number and various dismemberment, eye gouging, jugular bites etc ensue. What makes this film so good are various factors. Apart from being one of the first gore films I ever saw, it has no social commentary or hidden meaning and does not try to be a comedy (although some may argue with this). It is a good, honest gore film. The special effects are nice and gruesome, with fantastic zombie make up, great zombie attacks and loads of maggots and worms. The crazy underwater battle between zombie and shark is totally original and not surprisingly has never been tried since. The infamous eye scene whilst a bit creaky still makes the viewer cringe. The acting and dubbing are dodgy but don't detract from the zombie mayhem, the music is great with calypso music to greet the heroes and throbbing effects to welcome the zombies. I cannot recommend this highly enough for good old fashioned zombie related thrills. Also look out for The Beyond and City of the Living Dead in a similar vein.

La Syndrome di Stendahl has met cruel critical comments on its initial release but although it is not at all like his earlier work, it is in fact a far more intelligent and mature affair. Anna Manni, the character played by Asia Argento, has more compassion than any other character in an Argento film, quite unlike the carelessly created cartoon-like characters of his other work. It is true, however that the film drags slightly in the middle, although picks up the pace again for a surprising and beautifully directed finale; and although the film is not as bloody as tenebrae, the violence on display is brutal and sexual (leading to it being cut for release in Britain) and genuinely disturbing. Perhaps not as good as Deep Red or Suspiria, but definitely one of this unusual director's better efforts.

If you're OK with the outlandish work of Italy's premier horror director-able to accept his outrageous story lines and flamboyant style-then you should have a great time with Opera. If you don't, then you won't.

Cristina Marsillach plays Betty, a beautiful young opera understudy who is given a shot at fame (in an avant-garde production of Macbeth) when the star of the show is hit by a car. As any thesp who has 'trod the boards' will know, Macbeth is a production that carries a curse-and Betty soon discovers that the show in which she is now the star is no exception: a killer is systematically offing the staff at the theatre-and poor Betty is forced to watch by the sadistic murderer (who tapes needles under her eyes to prevent her from closing them!).

With the help of a little girl who crawls through her air-conditioning ducts, her director and agent, and a few ravens who have seen the murderer's face (!!!), Betty discovers the killer's identity, and the truth about her mysterious past.

Let's face it... Opera is one crazy film, with its preposterous plot-turns, convoluted death scenes, and an ending that beggars belief. And whilst director Dario Argento has never been one for, shall we say, conventional story lines, this particular giallo is so daft, and features so many of his trademark stylish touches (all ramped up to the max), that it's almost as if, with each successive film, he is seeing what he can get away with (at times almost parodying his earlier work).

This is exactly why I find the film such fun!!!

Argento's camera movements are absolutely incredible: gliding, creeping and, in one amazing scene, even swooping around the opera house above the audience; the power of Verdi's music is combined perfectly with the synth majesty of Claudio Simonetti's score, providing a suitably grandiose accompaniment to the sumptuous visuals; and several outstanding set-pieces (featuring Sergio Stivaletti's nauseating gore FX) go to prove that no-one does death better than Argento (check out one character's stunning demise, in which a bullet passes through a spy-hole in a door in slow motion, and straight into their eye!).

Being such a big fan of Argento, I went into this film with a mixture of massive anticipation and worry that it might not live up to my expectations. With the exception of Sleepless, Argento hasn't made a really great film since Opera in 1987, and while I wouldn't quite call the final instalment of the 'Three Mothers' series a return to form, it's certainly a lot better than the majority of his modern movies. The thing that really made the first two films in this series standout was the colourful sets and fairytale atmosphere, and unfortunately this film features neither. I have no idea if Argento decided to discard these things in favour of a modern setting or if it was the producers who were worried that a seventies style film wouldn't sell, but either way; it doesn't feature here and that's the thing I liked least about this film. The film is slightly more story-heavy than the two previous entries and this time we have more of a clearly defined point. The story is set in Rome and our central character is Sarah Mandy. The film kicks off with the discovery of an ancient urn, and from there strange things start happening. Rape, assault and arson increases and strange people start to gather in Rome. These events are due to the return of Mater Lacrimarum, the most beautiful of the three witches at the heart of this series. It soon becomes apparent that the only person who can stop the evil from enveloping the world is Sarah Mandy, who has a few supernatural powers of her own...

As mentioned, it's the change in style that is the biggest problem with this film for me and the thing that really means it doesn't quite live up to the previous two instalments, but what the film lacks in atmosphere, Argento makes up for in gore (and then some) and it's clear that the great director has lost none of his eye for a brutal and stylish death scene. This film is far gorier than the sum of the gore scenes in both of the previous films, and it's great to see a modern film that doesn't hold back. The gore scenes range from quick to stylised and drawn out but all are very gory - with one notable exception which also happens to be the most shocking sequence in the film! Argento has donned the use of CGI and it's a bit of a shame because it looks rather cheap - but that's only a problem really in one scene. Argento films are not known for fluent plots and great acting, and there's a very good reason for that. This film has more than just a few holes and the acting is not anything to write home about either. As is the case with a lot of his modern films, Argento has cast his daughter, Asia Argento in the lead role. She's beautiful and not a bad actress - but Argento always makes her roles too 'clean', and it doesn't suit her considering the Hellraiser she is in real life! I also didn't like the supernatural subplot with her character; it's just sort of thrown in there and doesn't work very well. Argento makes more of an attempt to establish his mythology with this film than in the previous two and he even makes nods to the first two, though I think more could be made of this aspect of the series. The ending is abrupt but nicely done if you ask me. Overall, I did like The Third Mother a lot - it's only disappointing when compared to the other two films. In its own right; this is a great gory Italian horror flick and definitely comes recommended.

Inferno is Dario Argento's follow up to Suspiria. It's a loose sequel that epitomises both the strengths and weaknesses of its director. It's probably the weirdest film that Argento ever directed. And its one that divides his fans like no other. One thing is certain though - if you require your movies to be plot-driven, coherent and with fully-rounded characters then there is a very good chance you will hate this.

The story, such as it is, concerns a couple of evil female entities that hold sway over two apartment blocks in Rome and New York; the 3rd of this trio of 'Three Mothers' was Elena Markos from the previous film, Suspiria. What follows is a series of bizarre, violent and mysterious events that revolve around these evil women.

Inferno is, above all, beautiful to look at. It's overflowing with gorgeous widescreen compositions full of the amazing Bavaesque colour design that made Suspiria so memorable. Unnatural primary colours abound here. It really is glorious. And to complement this, the décor is of a brilliant bad-taste gaudy aesthetic that creates an atmosphere all of its own. This ambiance is assisted by the soundtrack provided by Keith Emerson. Again, in line with Argento's previous movies, there is a prog-rock element to proceedings at times but it's when Emerson adopts a more subtle approach that he is most successful. In particular, the piano driven main theme is beautiful. There is some thumping Euro prog-rock also, and although I like it for its cheese factor, I can't help but think that it doesn't fit in very well at times. But overall, Emerson does a fine job on this movie, creating a nice alternative to the more intense Goblin score from Suspiria.

One clear weakness in Inferno, however, is the acting. The performances are universally poor. I think the dubbing may be partly to blame though, as it's more noticeably bad in this movie than in any other Argento film. Although it has to be said that the dubbing does create an odd layer of detachment that does make proceedings even weirder than they were already. Nevertheless, Leigh McCloskey is a bland central figure and I can't help but think that the film would be much improved with a better lead. In fairness, no one in this movie is particularly good but I think that it has to be said that the script doesn't help, as it has quite a number of unintentionally silly lines that don't make the actors look too good. Inferno is perhaps the ultimate example of Argento using actors as props. His indifference to them here is entirely blatant.

The story is almost non-existent. The plot only serves to link the bravura set-pieces together. There are extremely few exposition scenes; so few that the film does appear incoherent at times. But then, logic is not something that Argento is in the least bit concerned with here; only the logic of nightmares has any relevance in Inferno. That said, some of the bizarre coincidences that happen are a bit overly silly, such as when Sara asks the librarian where the 'Three Mothers' book is, she is told it's right behind her or when Mark knocks a hole in the floor and finds Varelli's scroll immediately below him - these events are probably supposed to be freaky supernatural coincidences but kind of come across as being a little laughable to be honest. But mostly the strangeness of Inferno works a treat. Unlike Argento's later film Phenomena the weirdness is maintained throughout with an admirable commitment. In Phenomena there were many scenes that were set in realistic settings with fairly normal dialogue. This worked to its detriment, making the bizarre aspects look out of place and at times silly. Inferno has no such realistic scenes or settings. It's always surreal. Right from the word go this is a film that throws you off-balance. The scene in the underwater room is a key example. It's incredibly strange and brilliantly done. But really, it's just the start, as no matter where we go in this film things are always very, very odd. Each location, no matter how normal, becomes menacing - the apartment blocks, Kazanian's shop, the music school, the library and Central Park. Evil is everywhere in Inferno and Argento is unrestrained in depicting it in all it's excessive glory. Although there are a couple of graphic deaths, Inferno is really nowhere near as violent as Suspiria, Deep Red or Tenebrae. It's very much more an exercise in style and suspense.

For better or for worse Inferno is pure Argento. It's an absolute exercise in horror that does not allow logic to get in the way. This is a film that could only have been made in Italy. It has virtually no plot but is 100% cinema. This could only work in the cinematic medium. So, check-in your sense of logic and surrender yourself to the beautiful madness that is Inferno.

Argento's best known film is probably his most expressive. This is a gem to look at with all it's lush Italian colors seeping out like a blood covered canvas. If you are looking for a horror film for intellectuals, this isn't it, but if you want something that will definitely impress you, you've found it. It concerns an old dance company in Freiburg Germany that is headed up by an old witch matriarch who leads the coven in diabolical methods. An unsuspecting student, played wonderfully by Jessica Harper, finds herself piecing together a mystery when she arrives at the school in one of the most enigmatic and beautiful commencements of a film to date. Argento has music, colors, and sounds reverberate like an opera for our eyes to dazzle. He scares us with the rain, the closing of an automatic airport door, and loose tree branches that resemble evil lurking beings. This is one powerful moment. From then on, subtle hints are explored, the supernatural, science, one's faith. Never can we guess what is truly hiding at the academy. One scene of the dance students in the hall is superbly done with loud music, hideous heckling demonic shrieks and strange appearances, this is fantastic eye candy!

With this film, Argento raised the bar for Giallo's. With it's spanning plot, complete with highly inventive ideas and intriguing theme; Profondo Rosso is an absolute highlight in the sub-genre. The film follows a female medium who, while giving a lecture, senses the presence of a murderer in the room that is transmitting murderous thoughts to her. Pretty soon after, she is brutally murdered by an unknown assassin, under the watchful eye of Mark (David Hemmings); a professional piano player. As you would expect from Giallo, Mark then takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of the murder and, along with a nosey female journalist (Daria Nicolodi), he conducts his own investigation. However, things are never that simple and aside from trying to solve the murder, he also finds himself being pursued by the maniac...will he be able to discover the truth before it's too late?

Profondo Rosso is, in the collective eyes of the horror fanatics, Argento's number two (Suspiria being number one). I don't actually agree with that; as I think that Tenebre, Opera and Bird With the Crystal Plumage belong in front of this one, but Profondo Rosso is definitely up there, so who am I to complain? This film features a lot more bloodshed than anything Argento had made previously, and that is definitely a good thing. However, the plot does slow down at times, and it's not paced as well as Bird with the Crystal Plumage is. It's also somewhat wayward, with it spending lots of time on certain things, such as the investigation in the haunted house, and not a lot of time on other things that are just as important to the mystery. Despite there being quite a few death scenes, I do feel that Argento would have been better served either adding another one to increase the excitement, or maybe cutting the film down a little to make it run more smoothly. The murders that Dario does give us, however, are brutal to say the least! We've got a woman burned to death in a bath of scolding water, another woman smashed through a glass window, a man having his teeth smashed against a table (not too dissimilar to the 'curb' scene in American History X) and, of course, the final death, which has to be seen to be believed - an amazingly over the top scenario to say the least!

David Hemmings take the lead role in Profondo Rosso, and does a very good job of it. Hemmings is, of course, most famous for his role in Blow-Up, and his role here isn't too different from that one. Starring alongside Hemmings is Daria Nicolodi, the actress that has starred in a number of Argento's films (Opera, Inferno and Tenebre to name three) and also collaborated with Argento on another fine creation. I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. Also getting in on the fun is Gabriele Lavia, whom Argento fans will remember from Inferno (also, curiously, called Carlo). Dario Argento's direction here is nothing short of sublime. His use of the camera is more than assured and some of the camera angles and images that are presented on screen are amazing. Dario Argento deserves every piece of praise that he gets and anyone that sees this film will not find it hard to see why.

Overall, Profondo Rosso ranks as an absolute must see. It's one of the finest Giallo's ever made and is a career highlight for everyone involved. Highly recommended viewing for all.

After the opening credits the film starts in New York, as American author Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) cycles to JFK airport. He flies to Rome so he can promote his new murder mystery novel 'tenebrae'. Meanwhile in Rome a woman tries to steal a copy of the book from some shop and is caught. She convinces the security guard to let her off. But someone in the store is watching her and has seen whats happened. Back at her flat she is attacked, pages of the book 'tenebrae' are forced into her mouth and her throat is slashed with a straight razor, just like the one the killer uses in the book. The police head straight for Neal to question him, while there Neal receives a letter and phone call from the killer, from then on Neal is thrown in a complex mystery and plunged into the centre of a number of senseless, violent murders. Written and directed by the overrated Dario Argento this is definitely one of his best films. Stylishly filmed with visually pleasing photography, the stand out sequence being the murder of the two lesbians, the camera starts outside of a window looking in at one of the victims, it then moves up a level to another window, it moves across the side of the house to yet another window in which the second victim can be seen playing a record, then the camera moves up toward the roof, glides along it and back down the opposite side of the house from which it started to rest on the killers gloved hand breaking into the house. All in one smooth flowing shot, very impressive. Add to this lots of close ups, strange angles, free flowing camera movements and a nice color scheme, and we have a very good looking film. Acting is OK, most of the lead characters are a little bit bland. While the film does contain a nice amount of nudity, violence and gore it is perhaps a little more restrained than you might expect, except for a scene towards the end of the film where a woman has her arm chopped off with an axe, how much blood?! Having said that the murders are very well done, and Dario films them with style, like the rest of the film. Script wise, I liked the twists and turns but the reasons for some of them didn't make much sense. And one or two bits stray into silly horror film cliché, like the dog attacking the girl, my least favorite sequence in the film. Overall a very good horror mystery. Make sure you listen and pay attention otherwise you may miss some vital plot points, like it appears some of the people who have reviewed it on Flixster did. One negative would be that once you have watch tenebrae once I don't think many people would be interested in watching it again, as once all the twists are revealed it loses its mystery and impact a little. Certainly worth a rent, recommended.

The negative aspect of the film is the same with all of Argento's work. Its really rather dumb. The story and situations are never once believable. Despite being one of Argento's more compelling stories in a film, its still pretty far fetched. Many of the sequences, despite being frightening, are completely implausible when thought of, which definitely lessens the initial shock (the dog chase sticks out in particular). Also, there's not a single interesting or sympathetic character here, which is needed to make the deaths more effective. The acting, outside of the always enthusiastic and watchable John Saxon (who should have gotten the lead role instead of a small supporting one), is very wooden. Apparently Anthony Franciosa was drunk throughout filming and it shows.

Despite all this, the film is still very suspenseful and moves at a quick pace. One other aspect that I really enjoyed about "Tenebre" was the seemingly self-referential moments. The critics of the main character (who is an author) accuse him of misogyny or attempt to read into subtexts of his work which he knows simply don't exist, both of which Argento went through. "Tenebre" is recommended if far from perfect.

If you can get past the initial weirdness of the concept - which includes a teenager who can communicate with insects, a chained-up murderer prone to driving a spike through its victims head's, a monkey wielding a razor blade and more red-herrings than you can shake an Agatha Christie box-set at - then you might just find Phenomena to be a greatly entertaining piece of Argento horror/schlock. The plot, as per usual, is nonsense, and yet, Argento seems to instil it with an almost unbelievable sense of conviction, creating a strange hybrid of Tenebrea's amateur sleuthing style of narrative deconstruction and the warped fairytale fantasia of Suspiria, alongside the more familiar Giallo elements of black-gloved assailants, buckets of blood and an almost pornographic obsession with gleaming, silver, implements of death.

The initial set-up and the opening scenes are fantastic, demonstrating Argento's keen eye for location and composition, as his script finds a young Danish tourist (played by Argento's eldest daughter Fiore) stranded in the middle of the Swiss countryside after missing her last bus back into town. Attempting to find solace, she knocks on the door of the only cottage in sight. When there's no answer, the girl foolishly enters, with Argento brilliantly cross-cutting between the traumatised tourist desperately asking for help, and the thick chains of an unseen foe slowly breaking away from the wall on which they've been bolted. The rhythm and the sense of unease (and later, tension) that Argento creates in this opening scene is phenomenal (sorry!), and is really all the more impressive given the fact that the whole sequence takes place during broad daylight *and* amongst some of the most beautiful and tranquil scenery you're every likely to see!!

From here, the story begins to take shape. There's a killer on the loose with a penchant for dismembering teenage girls. When the head of the Danish tourist turns up after an eight month period of decomposition, the chief of police enlists the help of wheelchair bound entomologist professor John McGregor to study the various insects and secretions that may have collected within the skull to help them define the exact time of death and the possible location of the murder. Across town, Jennifer Corvino, the spoilt daughter of a famous Hollywood superstar, is sent away to the Richard Wagner Boarding school (there's even a disarming Suspiria-style voice over to announce this ten-minutes in), where, on the first night, she enters into a somnambulistic state and inadvertently witnesses a murder. When the school authorities and the other kids find out about Jennifer's sleepwalking episode - and, more alarmingly, her apparent connection with insects (developed during an earlier scene between Jennifer and the school's administrator Frau Brückner and a bee during the drive up to the school) - they chastise her, and subject her to a bizarre medical examination that bring about some alarming subconscious revelations about the night before. Later that day, another girl is killed.

Like Argento's early masterworks, Deep Red (Profondo Rosso), Tenebrae and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Phenomena hinges around the notion of a potential victim having seen more of a murder/murderer than they can fully comprehend. In this case, Jennifer's bout of sleepwalking brought her face to face with the killer and its victim. And, although she remains oblivious to the actual identity of the murderer until much later in the film, she has, by this stage, already seen their face obscured behind a pane of broken glass. Her relationship with insects and her hatred for the school eventually brings her to McGregor, who believes that Jennifer's special bond with the insects could hold the key to discovering the killer's identity, and together, the two hatch a plan to use the insects to retrace the Danish tourist's steps, to, eventually, lead them to the home of the killer.

All of this sounds like complete and utter nonsense when looked at in print (which, to some extent, I suppose it is), but Argento clearly believes in his concept and somehow makes the whole thing plausible... by toning down his usually mind-bending visual style (the baroque colour schemes, cinema-scope compositions and atmospheric camera movements are put aside, with the director going for a much colder visual look, with soft blue hues and black and white production/costume designs captured by a camera that tends to observe from a distance, only rarely getting involved in the action) to give the fantasy a baring in reality, and to somehow, make the whole thing seem a little more believable. Where the film does falter, slightly, is in areas of performance and dialog... the main cast are fine, with the young Jennifer Connelly creating that right balance of bratish adolescence and other-worldly awe as the young girl with the baffling gift, whilst Donald Pleasence brings the same gravitas and sense of overriding authority that he brought to films like Death Line and John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, but the majority of the supporting players are virtually characterless, one dimensional ciphers, handicapped by atrocious dubbing and the director's heavy-handed exposition.

That said, there is fine support from Argento's former partner/fixture/muse Daria Nicolodi in a pivotal role... and although she's subsequently stated that Phenomena is the performance of hers that she likes least of all, I think she creates a truly memorable and quite sympathetic character, who, it must be said, looks surprisingly attractive with glasses and a bad perm!! Perhaps another shortcoming of the film is the dated visual effects, which, quite honestly, were probably dated even by 1985 standards (the swarm of insects' looks like it was crudely photo-shopped in, whilst the point of view shots from the insects are as cheesy as can be). However, these criticisms are quite tenuous, with Argento (for the most part) managing to overcome these minor set-backs to deliver a uniquely bizarre, beautiful and unbelievably violent collage of fairytale/horror/fantasy/schlock.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet is Dario Argento's rarest genre film. It completes the Animal Trilogy and is the movie that preceded the magnificent Deep Red. Having never been officially available on video or DVD, Four Flies remains a bit of an enigma. It's fair to say that it is not an entirely successful movie - it has serious flaws in story and acting - however, it showcases early stylistic experimentation by Argento. And, as such, is an important entry of giallo cinema.

The story involves a rock drummer who accidentally kills a man and is drawn into a web of murder by a masked assassin who appears to have a vendetta against him.

The opening credit sequence is a memorable affair, incorporating pounding drums and close ups of a beating heart. This title sequence, however, is a good indicator of the inconsistencies of the film we are about to see, as included within this impressive opening is a silly section involving a fly that irritates rock drummer Brandon. The inclusion of this nonsense is an early example of one of the films major weaknesses - the comedy. It is never funny. We have a completely unfunny postman, a guru fisherman God who says absolutely nothing of interest at any point and a man with a moustache who tells a succession of abysmally unfunny stories to an audience of giggling women. Argento has never had flair for comedy, it's just not his arena and this film shows why. Imagine how bad a giallo directed by Woody Allen would be, well that's how bad comedy directed by Argento is.

But onwards and upwards. Thankfully he handles the suspense scenes very well indeed. We have the bizarre opening murder in the theatre witnessed by a highly creepy masked figure. A scary scene involving a girl hiding in a cupboard while the killer stalks outside. A sleazy episode in the underground. And, best of all, an excellent set-piece where a woman suddenly realises that she is alone in a menacing empty park that was previously filled with children and haunting carousel music playing over the tannoy. Four Flies is predominantly an exercise in suspense as all of these well handled sequences testify. The violence is restrained even for giallos of the period. Argento more than makes up for this with stylistic flourishes like the nice camera pan of the phone wires leading to the location of the killer, the shots of Michael Brandon driving his car quickly edited together with his subsequent POV approach to the private investigator's office and the deranged asylum flashback scenes. The movie is well shot with a number of inventive jump edits and unusual angles, giving a taste of Argento's films to come.

However, all of these excellent elements are strung together by a somewhat ridiculous plot. There are certainly holes here, for example, how could the newspapers report finding the body of the dead man if he's not actually dead?! And as for the 'four flies' revelation near the end, well I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie but it really is quite ridiculous. And the killer's motivations are, to say the least, uneven. The acting, too, is not helpful. Sadly, Michael Brandon resembles a plank of wood for the majority of his screen-time. His acting range stretches from 'a bit bored' to 'quite annoyed'. He certainly doesn't help draw the viewer in. And where Brandon under-acts, Mimsy Farmer over-acts. It makes for quite unusual viewing when they are on screen together. There is a lack of chemistry here for sure. In general, the exposition scenes are a bit clunky throughout the movie. And we even have a bit of unintentional humour in the exchanges between Brandon and the homosexual private investigator. If you turned the movie on at this point you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching Carry On Giallo.

The music is variable. This was the first movie where Argento incorporated rock music. From here on he would use it extensively. Similar to the rock music provided by future collaborators Goblin, the rock music here is strange, except here it is not strange in a good way. The vocalist sounds like a deaf man trying to copy Robert Plant. It's grim. And it's by Ennio Morricone so it's a bit of a shock but fortunately he also provides some good avant-garde jazzy compositions too. Much better.

Overall, despite its short-falls, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is too interesting a giallo movie to be disregarded. It is a key experimental work in Argento's cannon. It may be flimsy of plot and misguided of humour but, as is the way with giallo cinema, these elements have to be weighed against the more sensory aspects - the visuals, the music, the atmosphere. And happily, there is more than enough good to outweigh the bad.

When I first saw this I thought it was a wee bit undistinguished, much less interesting or exciting than an Argento movie should be. After watching it again I realised I couldn't have been more wrong, as this is a mystery/suspense film as they come, lacking mainly in the gore or twistedness of Argento's best loved work. The plot is nicely complex and intriguing with many suspects and much going on and it unfolds at a good pace as a blind puzzle maker, skillfully played by Karl Malden probes the mystery. The screenplay is by the ever useful Dardano Sachetti and only slips up with a few scenes that have a vaguely cheesy, Americanised feel. Also the film has intrigue in spades but not so much intensity. There are a few murders, not too gruesome, in fact some of Argento's tamest, but they have great style and work in the more intrigue driven context. There is some real fine suspense and camera work, particularly in the break in scene and the rooftop finale. Ennio Morricone provides a customary fine score, creating a good haunting and hypnotic atmosphere for the film. Altogether, this is a fine work, one that all fans of the director or Italian thrillers in general should check out.

Very fine debut that set the trend for giallo for the next half dozen years. The seeds of the genre had already been sown but here Argento strikes out stylishly and makes a massive mark. It was interesting watching this again after having seen so many giallo since first seeing this and seeing just how much influence this had been. There are elements, particularly visually, that we will see developed in later Argento films as well as the many imitators. So many red herrings and unanswered questions, of course, but by now we are used to that and others would be freed by this incompleteness to go on and create marvellous colourful multi-layered nonsense for us all to revel in. The Morricone score must also be mentioned for it is of monumental proportions covering the widest range possible from the children's voices through symphonic passages and to the almost abstract.

Many years ago, when I was too young to see such things for myself, my dad described to me a scene from a cannibal movie that he had watched at the local flea pit: a man finds a scrap of cloth in the jungle; when he picks it up, a trap is triggered which leaves him impaled on a huge spiky ball. Years later, when I myself developed an interest in all things gory, I recalled his description of this moment, but realised that he had never told me the title of the film.

Now, after trawling through virtually every film in the genre, I have finally discovered the identity of this elusive flick: it is none other than Ruggero Deodato's Jungle Holocaust.

Deodato, who would later bring us the incredible Cannibal Holocaust (1980), the king of all Italian gut-muncher films, fills this jungle adventure/survival horror with everything one would come to expect from a cannibal film-graphic gore, animal deaths and nudity- and it is, in my opinion, the first true example of the genre (some may argue that Umberto Lenzi's 1972 movie, The Man From Deep River, should be given this accolade, but the cannibals in that were merely incidental).

The purportedly true story tells of a group of four unfortunates who crash their plane in a remote area inhabited by man-eating stone-age natives. They successfully fix their aircraft, but before they can take off, they are attacked. Two of the group are killed, but Robert Harper (Massimo Foschi) and Rolf (Ivan Rassimov) escape into the jungle, but soon become lost in the dense foliage.

Arriving at a river, they build a raft and head upstream. However, their craft enters some rapids and overturns when they hit a rock. Rolf vanishes into the raging waters and Robert crawls to safety only to be taken captive by the cannibals. He is taken to their cave, where he undergoes much humiliation and torture (he is stripped naked, has his tallywhacker flicked by inquisitive kids, is pelted with rocks, and kept in a cage where he is fed offal and urinated on). On the brighter side, he also meets a gorgeous female member of the savage tribe (played by genre regular Me Me Lai, who is pretty much naked for the whole film) who gives him a hand shandy for his troubles!

After he realises that he is eventually to be used as bait for crocodiles, Robert makes a desperate bid for freedom, taking the lovely Ms. Lai as his hostage. The natives, understandably peeved, set off in pursuit...

Jungle Holocaust is a gruelling tale of survival against the odds that is packed with nauseating scenes of mutilation guaranteed to upset those with weak stomachs. Victims are graphically dismembered, disembowelled and devoured, and a native woman is even seen giving birth and then throwing her unwanted newborn child into a river. But it is a nasty moment where a live croc is gutted that upset me the most, easily rivalling the infamous 'turtle' scene from Cannibal Holocaust for most revolting moment in Italian cinema.

Although not as well known as many other genre entries (such as Cannibal Ferox, Eaten Alive or Mountain of the Cannibal God), this is still one of the better examples of the genre, and essential viewing for all gore-hounds and fans of Italian sleaze.

Ruggero Deodato may be the most hated film director on the planet for his disturbing exploitation masterpiece that is Cannibal Holocaust. It's truly one of the few films that lives up to the hype its marketing gives it. The posters scream, "The one that goes all the way!" How true. "Can a movie go too far?" I think in this instance, yes. Cannibal Holocaust is now and will always be the most disturbing motion picture ever made. The brutality in what it shows and the unbelievable disregard for emotion that the film makers portray is enough to make you shudder without actually seeing the movie. Some of the displays in the movie are hard to even believe a human being could think up such vile and putrid acts, and they're shown in raw, uncut form. Deodato doesn't try to stray away from the action or try to censor with camera tricks. He sticks the camera right into the mix and displays some of the most shocking and nauseating images ever put to film. Of course it's perverse, and of course it's putrid, objectionable, and all other vile things you can think of, but despite all this, it's still an incredible film; a true landmark in movie history.

The movie begins with a TV program about the documentarians who go missing - Alan Yates, director; Faye Daniels, script girl and Alan's fiancé; and Mark Tomasso and Jack Anders, both cameramen. NYU anthropology professor Harold Monroe heads to the Amazon to lead the search "team," which consists of a hardened jungle guide and his young, talented assistant. They witness disturbing and shocking rituals by all three local tribes, the Yakumo, Yanomano, and Shamitari, which is the beginning of the moral stand Deodato takes. After gaining some trust with the Yanomanos, Monroe discovers that the documentarian troupe had been killed. Frustrated with the Yanomanos' hostility and brutality, Monroe trades the group's footage (possessed by the Yanomanos) for a tape recorder. Back in New York, he views the material and discovers who the real savages are. As the film starts out, we sympathize with these four who, for the sake of information, go into the jungle for research, only to be savagely mutilated by brutal primitives. However, we come to realize that the natives were the victims of civilized society by being tortured and exploited in incredibly grotesque and inhumane ways by the documentarians, which ultimately lead to their demise in an incredible, horrifying, and disturbing climax. The climax is all the more disturbing that Faye, the script girl, received the full blunt of retribution, when she was, in fact, seemingly innocent and took no participation in the evil (and actually tries to stop it). The trouble is that she's powerless to the three other men in her group. What Deodato's intentions were to include a character like Faye is unclear, other than maybe to heighten the disturbing factor of the film's climax.

It pulls no punches. There is no chance for you to escape. Every time you think you're finally safe, you're slammed with more and more visceral content. It never stops. However, Deodato does make these horrifying and disturbing images into a cinematic masterpiece. What separates Cannibal Holocaust from other exploitative sleaze (other than being competently made and well acted) is the inclusion of subtle social commentary. Had this been a film that was grotesque for the sake of being grotesque (like Lenzi's later Cannibal Ferox), it would be as reprehensible as many claim. However, the movie instead tests our ethics and our stomachs with some of the most realistically gruesome images ever portrayed on film. The message is simple: while we can think of outsiders and, in some cases, primitives as savages, our hate and discrimination can turn US into the savages (such as racist hate of minorities). The film makes us look into ourselves. We came from savagery, and savages we are. The pinnacle of this is during a scene where the film makers impale a young girl that they just raped, and are smiling at the disturbing result. This also reflects what incredibly visceral images we as humans can find as entertaining, and also suggests that the media stages their sensationalized footage (like the film makers in the movie). And if not, it condemns the media for focusing on the violence and exploitation of the news instead of trying for honest journalism. How is easily explained. The team's goal was to produce harrowing and nasty footage, all to make into a "documentary," and obviously, the more shocking, the more unbelievable, the more successful, and staged the footage to achieve this. The all too obvious irony is that this film is in itself morally reprehensible, and still has an incredible following and fan base.

Though it is an incredible film, it's obviously not for everyone, especially the animal activist, as six animals are actually killed on screen, which is probably the most controversial aspect of the film, and the worst part of which is that the animal killings are actually unnecessary, and have no ground in the plot or morals of the rest of the movie. However, the fake human violence alone, whether it's simple gore or horrific rape, is enough to make it the most brutal movie experience ever. Other mainstream shockers such as Texas Chain Saw Massacre pale in comparison to the savagery of what is Cannibal Holocaust. Never have I felt so depressed after viewing a film, which is amplified by Riz Ortolani's beautiful, flowing melody that shocks and disturbs at times by playing during the most disturbing parts of the movie. If you are able to stomach the film enough to see it, hopefully you'll be able to look past the violence, disgusting material, cruel animal killings, and the outright evil this film depicts and see the true nature of a political statement. The downfall of the cannibal genre, Cannibal Holocaust truly stands in a league of its own.

Just watched this, and its my favourite Ruggero Deoadato film so far. The absence of anything too heinous was a good thing, apart from the first scene. Having said that, there was still a fearsome quantity of gore, turning the film into at times, a curious but hugely enjoyable action/splatter hybrid. It also worked in a few jungle movie tropes, to fun effect, as well as the mighty Michael Berryman as a vicious killer. He comes off even more ferocious than his turn in The Hills Have Eyes and he certainly kills more people. There's some nudity as well, although some of this is dead women unfortunately. The ending could of rounded things off a little more imaginatively and was not quite as spectacular as I expected, although far from bad. Still there were a number of memorable moments and I had a real blast watching this, thus I highly recommend it to any action or splatter fans

The film begins in Canada and New York, with an Asian hitman killing his victims by blowing poisoned darts at them. He is then run over by a truck and killed. The police find some film on him, and wouldn't you know, the film contains scenes of a cannibal ritual, which includes a woman named Sheila's(Janet Agren) missing sister. A professor tells Sheila that the ritual is from a tribe in New Guinea, so she travels there and finds Vietnam war veteran Mark Butler (cannibal film regular Robert Kerman) and pays him to find her sister.

The film then goes off into the usual cannibal film thing. The odd animal is killed, they find parts of bodies etc. It turns out that her missing sister is part of a religious community in the jungle lead by a character named Jonas. He brainwashes all his followers, and has strict rules, like no drinking of alcohol. The version I watched was sadly cut, and some gory scenes that were about to be shown then quickly jumped to another scene. The music deserves mention too, a catchy tune plays during the opening credits. The other music during the film is ok. It's not nearly as good as Cannibal Holocaust, or even Lenzi's other cannibal flick Ferox, but if you like cannibal films it's worth checking out.

Still one of the funniest movies of all time, assuming you're not shocked by cheap gore. Never mind the "20 scenes of extreme brutality" mentioned in the introductory "warning" (ROLL UP! ROLL UP!), there are at least 30 scenes of extreme hilarity....

If you're looking for a good cannibal flick, "Cannibal Holocaust" is the one - still pretty dumb, but good. "Ferox", on the other hand, is the one to choose if you want a good bad-taste laugh. There are way too many hilarious moments to list, but I love the central premise that Lorraine de Selle is going into the jungle to prove that cannibalism DOESN'T exist, and NEVER HAS. Right - I just walked home from the pub and didn't get into a fight, that proves that no one has ever got in a fight on the way home from the pub. And no one who's seen this film will ever forget John "Giovanni Radice" Morghen's acting as he wails the immortal line, "then...THEN THEY ATE HIS GENITALS!!!"

The commentary track on the DVD is fantastic - Lenzi is a hilariously arrogant idiot, while Morghen's camp, bitchy comments had me in hysterics.

But don't believe this nonsense about how "Ferox" is "sickening" for showing a snake crushing something to death, or South American tribes killing a turtle. Have you never watched a documentary about snakes on the BBC or the Discovery Channel? Guess what - they show them crushing things too! And if you don't believe that nature documentary crews actually feed "innocent" animals to predators just to get good footage, you're very naive. As for the turtle -- these tribal guys live IN THE JUNGLE, ok? "But you don't have to show them actually cutting the head off a live turtle!" Well first of all, the fact that it's a "live" turtle is neither here nor there - if it was a dead one, it would still have been killed, duh. And secondly, what? We can eat our turtle soup, but we don't want to watch it being made? Grow up.

Although not technically a cannibal movie (the main tribe are 'head-hunters'; cannibals feature very briefly but no cannibalism is shown), Amazonia shares enough similarities with the infamous gut-munching gore classics of the 70s and 80s to be considered part of the genre.

Catherine Miles (Elvire Audray) is a beautiful 18-year old taken captive by a group of savages after her parents are killed on a river trip. Sold to a member of the tribe for the sum of 'a goose, a water-dog and a turtle', Catherine endures terrible suffering until she is helped by Umukai, a warrior who treats her with a bit of respect. After many months spurning Umukai, believing that he was the one who killed her mum and dad, she discovers that others were in fact responsible. Falling in love with her friendly native hunk, she convinces him to help her take revenge on those really responsible.

Amazonia is pretty close in theme to The Man From Deep River, Umberto Lenzi's classic from 1972, but doesn't quite match that one in terms of quality. However, with a fair amount of cheesy gore (several be-headings, blow-darts in the face, some bloody bullet wounds) and loads of female nudity (courtesy of Audray and the native women, some of whom are pretty foxy), fans of this kind of thing should find just about enough to enjoy in this flick to make it worth a watch.

his was the first of the 6 major Italian Cannibal flicks of the 70's, (and early 80's). And it isn't that bad at all. It has a quite good story, and the acting is suprisingly good. The love story is a little far-fetched, but the film itself is quite enjoyable, except, once again for the real animal deaths.

Not as good as either of Deodato's, but certainly better than Eaten Alive, Cannibal Apocalypse, or Trap Them and Kill Them.

I found the film Cannibals directed by Jess Franco to not be as good as any of the other films he has made. The film is about a Doctor, his wife Elizabeth and their teenage daughter Lana. they go to an isolated hospital in the Brazilean jungle, which is close to the Amazon river. whilst they are there they are attacked by savage cannibals they kill and eat his wife, and they abduct the girl. Dr Taylor manages to get back out of the jungle but he needs psychiatric help no one will believe him about his story of seeing cannibals he manages to find a doctor called Doctor Ana she is the only on who believes his story about the cannibals, so takes the risk of going with him into the jungle. also a few others come along as well The cannibals start to kill a few of the members in attacks. this was quite a poor film to watch .

The acting may be appalling, but it's difficult to tell for sure because this is dubbed -- badly. The direction, by high priest of sleaze Joe D'Amato, is adequate, but it's the unrelenting sex and violence that float this flick's boat.

A lot of "classic" exploitation is, in fact, incredible boring, slow moving, and beyond inept. This is not one of those. This delivers what audiences expect, and it takes the carnage several steps beyond the norm. We get nipples cut off and eaten, a vagina cut open and used as a hole to pull innards through, castration, close-to-hardcore sex, stabbings, beheadings and damn attractive women.

Laura Gemser is her usual stunning self as Emanuelle and is lovingly scrutinized in a couple of love scenes by D'Amato's leering camera.

Some of the photography is surprisingly atmospheric and the score is memorable and moody.

The director is often criticized for his output, but I'm happy to congratulate him for a body of work that is, if nothing else, unashamedly extreme and sleazy. Franco made many more boring stinkers than D'Amato and rarely made anything that wasn't awash with shoddy camera-work, nonsensical plotting and self-indulgent repetition. D'Amato, on the other hand, was a dedicated journeyman who gave audiences what they wanted. He wasn't a genius by any stretch and he was sloppy with his action direction, but he did contribute to an impressive oeuvre.

"Emmanuelle and The Last Cannibals" is textbook trash.

It is uncertain if Absurd actually is a sequel to Anthropophagus the beast. Many sites will say 'supposed' sequel because there are so many different counters. In Anthropophagus the beast, the Antropophagus beast is is a monster, it does not look like a normal person but in absurd he is just a normal man. Also the Anthropophagus beast is a cannibal but in absurd the killer just seems to murder his victims. Also he was left dead on a Greek island and he turns up in Absurd suddenly in normal clothes and in the U.S. There is no recalls whatsoever from the first movie the priest who is chasing him just says he is a killing machine. The killer in Absurd looks a bit like the beast from Anthropophagus due to the moustache but that is it! Another similarity is it is made by the same directer from Antropophagus the beast. Anaway the story.....

The killer (it MITE be the Anthropophagus beast) is injured on a fence at a family home while trying to brake in. He is taken to the hospital where the doctor operating on him is shocked at his ability to recreate dead cells and dead tissue. A police officer (forgot his name) finds a Greek man who is walking out in the middle of the night in the middle of the road. Later on the policeman is at the hospital and finds the Greek man there. The officer puts the two together and starts asking questions (as the killer also comes from Greece, another similarity from Anthropophagus) about who he is and what he is trying to do. It turns out he is a priest and is here to stop the killer. Meanwhile, the killer awakens, kills a nurse by drilling a whole slowly through her brain, and then pops off for a killing spree. In the meantime people are cooked, heads chopped off, hacksaws through skulls and people are strangled and beaten. This movie would easily make an uncut 18 certificate (appealing to UK readers who films like this are always cut or banned) and is on the list of infamous Video Naties. It has never been re-issued but was released on VHS with an X certificate and is now extremely hard to get hold of.

D'Amato's horror film is notorious from its placement on the UK's video nasties list, and certain scenes in it do push the viewer into the outer reaches of stomach churning disgust. The film also has a reputation as one of the worst films on the list, with accusations that it is boring, inconsequential, absurd. It doesn't even seem to be popular amongst D'Amato aficionados. Yet it's a striking work - full of atmospheric tension, horrific visions and the caustic misanthropy about contemporary society which was D'Amato's stock-in-trade.

The film begins in the luxurious setting of a Greek island, where a couple of German tourists - swim-wear clad and equipped with the mod-con accoutrements of the early 1980s - are sunbathing and swimming only to be attacked and murdered by a mysterious figure. This offers a prologue to the main action, in which the same attacker menaces a larger group of Italian tourists who are island hopping and who happen to stop on the killer's island because they've picked up a boat-hiker who is going to be working there as the companion of a blind girl. As usually happens in a stalk-and-slash film, the killer - a giant cannibal played by regular D'Amato collaborator George Eastman (who also scripted) - picks the tourists off one by one and murders by munching into their necks and chomping on their flesh.

The tourists are a typical bunch of middle-class twenty-somethings, concerned with sightseeing, their relationships and grabbing some sun. One of the party happens to have an interest in Tarot cards, and she reads those of one of her companions, a pregnant woman. Unhappily, she sees nothing in the cards, which she takes to suggest that the querent has "no future." This prophecy has an echo of the Sex Pistols' corrosive refrain in their God Save the Queen, a song which predicts the same "No Future" for English consumer society of roughly the same era. And like the Pistols' great anti-Monarchist song, D'Amato's film identifies the cause of no future as coming from those at the top of the social pile. We discover that the cannibal is a scion of a wealthy merchant family, who live in what looks like a typical mercantile, colonial mansion on the Island. This fellow has been involved in a shipwreck, and found himself forced to squabble with his wife in a lifeboat over the body of their son, whose carcass was now the only meat they had. The wife objected, and the man stabbed her in a desperate struggle for survival, after which he seems to have developed a taste for human meat which he satisfies on his murderous spree. But there's something about the scene in the lifeboat which is emblematic of the struggle for survival, the Darwinian survival of the fittest which Capitalism foists on us all. In encountering the cannibal, the tourists are encountering the truth about the system which allows them to afford such luxurious holidays in the first place.

D'Amato emphasises this sense of characters encountering the truth about themselves through their encounter with the cannibal by a series of shots in which they see themselves reflected shortly before seeing him. The German tourist sees himself reflected in the cannibals knife, the first dead Italian confronts a mirror shortly before death and later the boat-hiker has to smash a huge mirror in which she is reflected in order to find her way into his lair and discover his secrets. The cannibal, as in Sondheim's contemporaneous 1980 Broadway musical Sweeney Todd (later filmed by Tim Burton) is a ideal image of a Capitalistic society in which man devours man, a rampage of anthropophagy which ends here with the cannibal literally chewing on his own entrails, a self-devouring monster.

The film's most infamous scene depicts the fate of the pregnant woman, whose unborn baby is ripped from her by the cannibal and the foetus devoured, fresh from the womb. There can be no more visceral an image of a child born into the world of No Future than this, yet those who see it as mere unnecessary nastiness on D'Amato's part might reflect that it has a partial real life analogy in the treatment meted out to Sharon Tate's unborn child in the Manson gang murders as well as a rather more classical forebear in the famous Goya painting of Cronos devouring his child (in D'Amato's film, the father looks on as his child is eaten by the cannibal, but if the mirror analogy holds, he is looking at an image of himself).

Often in D'Amato's films, white Europeans are seen as cursed with a culture which is deadly, cannibalising and exploitative. In setting Anthropophagus on a Greek Island, D'Amato traces that cannibalistic tendency back to its source in the classical civilisation of the Greeks, here stripped of its Romantic, idealized associations and seen as a devouring demon - a Minotaur in its island lair, feasting upon the young who are delivered by ship for sacrifice.

Vietnam vet Norman Hopper (John Saxon) has suddenly begun to relive the nightmare of war in his dreams. He receives a phone call from an old army friend, Charlie Buckowski, that he rescued in Nam, Buckowski and another man Tom Thompson had been found in a Viet Cong prison with a craving for human flesh and both had since been in a mental hospital for psychological analysis. Hopper turns down the offer of meeting his old mate as he is struggling with demons of his own, he believes his wife may be an adulteress, he is also attracted to the very young girl next door and more importantly he is stressed at his increasing craving for raw meat and blood. Buckowski goes on a shooting rampage and kills a few people and is locked up again, but then escapes along with Thompson and he urges Hopper to help them escape the city. Saxon a fluent Italian speaker and a veteran of many Italian films, jumped at the chance of working with the great Margheriti and was immediately impressed by the directors rapport with actors and his talent behind the camera, Saxon was also attracted by the seemingly novel idea that war might be spread by a virus, he was shocked though when during filming he suddenly realised that the virus was a cannibalistic one and he refused to be in any of the scenes containing such acts. For those who like the adventure aspect of a jungle set Cannibal film, this might disappoint slightly, except for a few flashbacks this is entirely set in Atlanta and plays more like a Nam Vet action film with some gore on the side. Still though, the characters are interesting and time is given to their development, Saxon impresses as the troubled Hopper, which is hardly surprising, but he may have been helped somewhat by his depression at the time, due primarily to financial problems he had after the break-up of his marriage. His fellow actors including John Morghen recount that he was rather aloof and distant and not much fun during filming. Margheriti was renowned for his period set Gothic costume dramas and Cannibal Apocalypse was a big change of style for him, gone are all his trademark stylings and in come the more appropriate washed out colours and a steely grey look of the city. The gore is for the most part pretty tame by genre standards but its still effective. The faux disco score was tacky as hell and at times seemed inappropriate to the visuals, but this is still a fun film, and is recommend to fans of the genre

Zombi Holocaust is a Cannible film, Zombie film and Mad scientist film thrown together to make one really gory movie. Some scenes are similar to Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 such as it starts in New York and then they go into the tropical island, the Zombies in the island's church. Even two of the actors from Zombi 2 are in Zombi Holocaust.

The scenes with the Cannibles killing and eating the people are nice and gory, the Zombie make up is good and kind of similar to Zombi 2's Zombie make up. One problem is that we don't see much of the Zombies at first but halfway through the film they do show up.

The Mad Scientist elements are something new since Zombi 2 didn't have a man trying to create Zombies for his research and uses the Cannibles for his experiments. Zombi Holocaust is a great Zombie flick with some good gore effects. Check this out.

HOUSE BY THE EDGE OF THE PARK, for all it's on screen ugliness, is shot in a manner of rare beauty.To look at the plot synopsis, it reads as(and sometimes is) a sickening and at times, unwatchable movie. Yet it stays with you long after you've watched it. A feeling that you've just witnessed a gruesome fairytale, is felt by the viewer, and the final plot twist is quite unexpected as well!

PLOT; Sadistic rapist/murderer, ALEX and his (slightly) retarded buddy, find themselves at a party for spoilt rich kids. Our two villains are there to be purely mocked, for their apparent lack of 'class'...However, ALEX doesn't like to be laughed at, so with his straight-razor, he and his friend begin turning the party into a seige, and subject the rich kids to a night of humiliation and rape.

Perhaps it's the direction, that takes no prisoners, or maybe it's RIZ ORTOLANI's music score (that 'cindy-oh-cindy' theme is forever stuck in my mind)...but the one lasting image is that of DAVID HESS After playing a similar character in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HESS really pulls out all the stops in this one. His character, although a ruthless psychopath, is in turn, fleshed out, sensitive, and in (minor) terms provoked, by a a group of morally ugly rich (young) adults. The (supposed) good guys (and gals) in this movie are, in their own way, just as repulsive as ALEX and his dim-witted partner (MORGHEN) Supprisingly enough, the movie is almost murder free, so it seems that the whole plot is two-thirds poetic justice, for all concerned...That is, until, young Cindy turns up at the party. Then, the movie (and HESS's character) take an extremely nasty turn.

Any technical faults, this unrelenting movie has, will soon be wiped away in the memory, but the underlining feeling of gut-wrenching savagery will remain for many night(mares) to come

There was a distinct lack of truly great horror in the nineties; but this film, Dellamorte Dellamore, tops the list of what little good ones there were. It's actually quite shocking that this came out during a huge depression for horror cinema, because it's easily one of the greatest horror movies I ever saw. Dellamorte Dellamore is a rather strange mix of horror, romance, twisted fairytale and comedy that isn't quite like anything else in cinema; horror or otherwise. The film knows that it's not the usual sort of film, and revels in this fact throughout. Dellamorte Dellamore buys itself a licence do whatever it wants through the fact that it so weird, and therefore no matter what the film throws at you; it's easy to just back and enjoy it. The film is directed by Dario Argento's talented understudy, Michele Soavi and finds an unlikely lead in Rupert Everett. The story follows Everett; the keeper of a cemetery in a small Italian town called Buffalora. He lives there with his assistant; the deformed Gnaghi, but this isn't quite the normal cemetery, however, as here the dead come back to life and it's up the cemetery man to put them back to sleep. When he meets the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his cemetery, however, it appears that his luck is starting to change.

The atmosphere presented in this film is truly brilliant, and one of Dellamorte Dellamore's main assets. A cemetery is always going to present a macabre location for a film's characters to inhabit, but the Gothic design in this film ensures that Buffalora's cemetery is more than the horror film norm. The way that the smoke protrudes from the graves, along with several little special effects that director Michele Soavi has seen fit to implement all help to give the film that unique ambiance that it portrays so well. Soavi has given this film it's own style throughout, and even the zombies adhere to it. Soavi's zombies, like the rest of the film, don't stick to convention and rather than being covered with blood, falling to pieces of screaming "brains!", these zombies really look like they've been underground, and also manage to tie in with the downbeat tone of the rest of the movie. A lot of imagination has gone into Dellamorte Dellamore, and almost every sequence is soaked in it. It's things like the way that the cemetery man's assistant takes the mayor's daughter's head from her grave and puts it in the television that makes Dellamorte Dellamore what it is, and not just any other zombie movie.

Horror movies aren't known for great acting, but Dellamorte Dellamore breaks convention once again on that front. Rupert Everett puts in a performance that goes over and above what audiences have come to expect from him given his earlier roles. Like the rest of the film, he just fits in; and if you'd never seen Everett in anything before, you would think that he made this kind of movie all the time. The fact that he isn't essentially a horror film actor only makes the performance even more impressive. Anna Falchi stars opposite him in three different female roles, and looks absolutely great in all of them. The rest of the cast is made up of lesser-known actors, with the very odd François Hadji-Lazaro standing out most among them. Director Michele Soavi started out working under the great Dario Argento, but the few films he has directed himself show that he is a bigger talent than his resume lets on. Here, for example, he has created a film that absolutely stands on it's own. Dellamorte Dellamore goes beyond the title 'horror film', and comes out in a sub-genre all of it's own. Films like this don't often come to the attention of the mainstream; and that's a shame because originality like this should be praised to high heaven. Dellamorte Dellamore is a film that is impossible to ignore and, providing you can find a copy, ignoring is definitely not the recommended action!

Deliria, Aquarius, Bloody Bird or Stagefright is the horror movie I remember most during my adolescent years, and it freaked me out!!!

There is an extremely high level of violence with Soavi showing in graphic detail power drills being shoved through bodies, severed torsos and the like - all of which initially serves to give the impression that Soavi is a director without any style, just a penchant for ultra-violent dispatch. However there are also a number of occasions where Soavi demonstrates considerably more style - particularly in moments that he blends the suspense with the illusion of the stage, like one sequence where the director directs the killer in the play how to kill an actress unaware that he is directing the killer who really is killing the actress. And once Soavi has gotten his string of victims out of the way he develops the film into a vividly drawn-out series of suspense sequences - in one scene the heroine is hiding in a shower cubicle as a friend is stabbed by the killer in the adjoining cubicle and she must do all she can to stop her friend crying out for help and giving her presence away; or where a cat trips a fan blowing away a pile of feathers revealing the key embedded in the cracks of the stage and the heroine's suspenseful crawl under the stage to try and get it while the killer sits directly above.

Go buy a tub of popcorn and a Coke, this movie is great.

Far better than I remember thinking on my first viewing but that was a while ago and now I think of it one of my first in this field. Probably not a good one to encounter first because it really is such a strange one. Pretty surreal with nuns drifting down corridors, gowns splayed out behind and the dreams, imaginings and nightmares punctuated with goring killings and lusty couplings. Ekberg is fine but so is everybody and they all play weird so that this also helps to give the film an unreal feel even though it is firmly set in a convent and supposedly based upon a true case. A stand out moment is the crushing underfoot of the poor old lady diner's false teeth, as we cut from the vicious trampling to the squirming old lady, hands to her mouth. Music is pleasant enough and effective if a little derivative and if Dallesandro seems the most normal person on the screen that just goes to show something about this true one off.

Even the worst Dario Argento films have managed to at least get DVD releases in the past decade or so, so the fact that Giallo was filmed two years ago and is still unreleased in most of the world aside from a handful of badly received festival screenings where it was laughed off the screen doesn't exactly fill you with confidence. It may not be the director's favorite film by a long shot - despite the misleading 'written and directed by' credit, he was simply a director for hire with the script written by the separately credited Jim Agnew and Sean Keller with the producers apparently no longer returning his phone calls - but it's fair to say that it's a long way from being his worst, thankfully never descending to the depths of Phantom of the Opera or the lacklustre The Card Player. Unfortunately it's also not especially good.

The story is serviceable enough, with model Elsa Pataky abducted by a deformed serial killer who likes to take his time destroying beautiful things and her frantic sister (a haggard Emmanuelle Seigner) teaming up with Adrian Brody's broody Italian-American cop to find her while there's still enough of her to find. Despite the set-up, it avoids going the Eli Roth torture porn route, but there are few of Argento's signature flourishes. Not only are the gloves literally off but the film's one 'big' death scene is nothing to write home about: just a simple fall from a tall building. Worse, a couple of minor twists aside, the plot just plods along with not much happening until the last half hour before a last scene that feels like it was tacked on not so much to give the film a happy ending but because what you suspect was the original ending didn't pack enough of a punch.

While it's generally better executed, there are fewer ideas to play with than his less than impressive Mother of Tears, and what there are are fairly familiar cop movie clichés. True, Adrien Brody's lone cop does have a rather neat backstory explaining why he has a talent for tracking down predatory killers, but the early hints of having a damaging Will Graham-like empathy with his killer come to nothing despite Brody playing both hunters because they're such wildly different performances linked only by silly voices (a grizzled Jack Nicholson-Mickey Rourke hybrid for the cop and an Italian Quasimodo for the killer). It's probably the killer's voice that provided the lion's share of the laughs to those derisive festival audiences, but Brody Methodically overdoes the tortured doleful looks as the cop, at times looking like the Eighth Dwarf, Goatee, after Snow White bit the apple.

On the plus side, thanks to Frederic Fasano's cinematography it's the best-looking Argento film in years. It's not a return to the extreme and vivid colors of the Suspiria years but it's a welcome move away from the pallid and lifeless look of many of his latter movies to something with a bit more warmth to its color scheme and a good eye for the Turin locations. But overall, despite all the Argento touchstones the writers incorporated in the screenplay, it's a rather soft by-the-numbers effort that could have been made by almost any capable director whose heart wasn't quite in it but still tried to make the best of what he had to work with. You won't have trouble making it through to the end, but you won't have trouble sleeping after seeing it either.