THE CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS – Hails from late eighties Italy, although speaks a different language to movies familiar from the fag-end of Italo-exploitation. That’s because most of that last gasp stuff by Lenzi, Fulci et al was still studio product, whereas ‘The Cross Of The Seven Jewels’ is, I think, pretty much an indie flick. There’s a difference in the way things look and pull together, a grittiness to the exteriors, although on the other hand the cinematography and visuals are very basic and bland, the editing stilted, the flow fumbled. What it does share with its better-heeled cousins is a complete lack of sense, although TCOTSJ takes traditional Euro-horror absurdism to much sillier extremes. It’s about a guy whose ‘cross of seven jewels’ seems to protect him against his own lycanthropy… after said cross is nicked by some guys on a scooter, his restorative quest for justice gets him tangled in a hard-to-follow subplot involving the mafia and political intrigue – I say ‘hard to follow’, it may actually be pretty straightforward but I tuned out of this bit because it was skull numbingly boring. Which is a shame, because the rest of TCOTSJ is ecstatically bonkers. It’s hard to summarise this craziness, so I’ll just throw out some random examples – lame satanic s&m scenes populated by cast-offs from ‘hot gossip’, a sexed-up Chewbacca clone who turns out to be the main guy’s demonic father, werewolf make-up that consists of something resembling a tea-cosy cut into the shape of a Norman helmet, an agonising transformation scene where badly faked wolf hair grows shot-by-shot (it takes forever and if you aren’t howling with laughter by the end of it, you may already have switched off), werewolf guy’s strange ability to melt people’s faces in preference to clawing them in the more creature-appropriate manner, something shared with his dad, who at one point causes someone’s stomach to swell and burst just by looking at it… etc etc. I’m not convinced that I’ve captured the bizarreness of this eccentric little charmer, but it will certainly convince you quite well of that by itself if you give it the chance. No idea why it doesn’t have a legit release beyond old VHS; somewhere like Vinegar Syndrome or Severin would be its natural habitat. For now, it is available to the curious on YouTube.
 |