What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Dave Boy]

Unfortunatly, Zucco has not much to do apart from informing Bela that the lone women are on their way up the road and talking mumbo jumbo at the voodoo ritual.

Next up....


THE MONSTER MAKER (PRC 1944)

Dr. Markoff is experimenting with a cure for Acromegaly. A disease which deforms the body. While at a piano concert, he spots a girl who is the spitting image of his dead wife. He injects the girls father with the Acromegaly disease and will only cure him if he will get his daughter to marry him....

Entertaining horror. The disease of Acromegaly is a real one, and actor Rondo Hatton had it. Universal used these features for The Creeper in a couple of their horror films. PRC used this disease for Monster Maker and some critics once again see this as using the disease for entertainment and therfore dismiss the film.
But like I said, for me this is entertaining. I have seen the film before and can find no wrong in it. Anyway, in the end it all turns out okay.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

I'm a little bit behind in posting my latest viewings so excuse me whilst I try and catch up a bit...

The Euro-goodies of course keep on flowing...

Five Women for the Killer (5 donne per l'assassino) (1974)



Middling giallo about a reporter who comes home from an overseas assignment to find his baby (who may not actually be his because he's infertile) in the hospital and his wife dead.

One of the the most noticeable things about this one is the abundance of J&B product placement, plus the reveal ending is kind of spoiled by a very obvious 'clue' as to who the killer is near the end... I guess they'd emptied the red herring barrel by then.

Overall it's a pretty engaging film and rather nasty in places - what with our gloved killer going around slashing the wombs of pregnant women. A jazzy score adds to the psychedelic mania on offer and the performances are generally pretty solid.



65/100


The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive (L'arma, l'ora, il movente) (1972)



After a sexually promiscuous priest is stabbed to death in a church, it is up to Renzo Montagnani's detective to find the culprit - however, he instead decides to arrest the wrong man (the unscrupulous looking church caretaker) and shacks up with one of the dead priest's ex-lovers. Red herrings aplenty, seedy goings on within the clergy, a weird kid who may have witnessed the murder, and a graphic throat slashing are some of the high-lights of this rather interesting slightly off-beat but stylish gialli. Recommended.



71/100


The House of the Yellow Carpet (La casa del tappeto giallo) (1983)



A curious home invasion thriller that turns psychologically giallo concerning Franca and her husband Antonio, who decide to sell a yellow rug which was a gift of Franca's stepfather. One day, while Antonio is out, a strange man calls around saying he wishes to buy the rug. He then holds Franca hostage and says he killed his wife on that same yellow rug. Franca then kills the man, or has she...

Despite a simple, but fairly effective story line, The House of the Yellow Carpet unfortunately falls victim to being made in the '80s where the giallo trend was waning and films, for want of a better term, were becoming more 'TV like' as the Italian studios were no longer interested in pumping money into home grown crime/mystery/thriller films. This is reflected in the overall production quality and the acting. The script is also a little lacking at times, although the plot certainly carries it through to its rather weird conclusion pretty effectively. Whilst not up there with some of the genre greats from the early '70s, this one is certainly a curio that's worth checking out for fans of the genre.



52/100

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) (1979)



Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

I'd been avoiding this one for a long time mainly because it sounded pretty shit, but also partly because the cover art on the UK release never grabbed me (how shallow do I sound?), The Criterion cover above is certainly more appealing from a 'catches your eye' kind of standpoint, however does look bizarrely a little Aztec for what is essentially a pre-WWII set West German film. Anyway, in my ongoing quest to fill in some blanks where checking out highly acclaimed classic films are concerned - in amongst all the euro-sleaze, sex, and murder of course - I finally decided to check this one out and was surprised at what a gripping but fun yet emotional ride of a film it really is with great performances all around. It pitches itself (at least it did to me) as an offbeat comedy (some of it towards more of the dark side of the comedy spectrum) coming-of-age drama, however this is counterbalanced by the war trappings and all the horrors contained within them.

A film I probably should have checked out sooner. Never judge a book by its summary as well as its cover, I guess.



81/100

[Nordicdusk]

I have Tin Drum about a year now still not gotten around to watching it i will change that soon now.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

All the Colours of the Dark (1972)

Of all the gialli i own Sergio Martino's All the Colours of the Dark is perhaps the most genre bending. For the most part, indeed right up until the final fifteen minutes, this superb film is purely and simply a horror film without any giallo elements whatsoever.

The story concerns Jane, (Edwige Fenech) a young woman living in London, who following personal tragedy is having recurring nightmares of a man with blue eyes stalking her with a knife. From here the film delves deeper into Janes psyche as she is coerced into taking part in a Black Magic rite as all her dreams seemingly become a nightmarish reality.

I really like Sergio Martino as a director. In films like Your Vice is a Locked Room and only I have the Key, Blade of the Ripper, Torso and The Violent Professionals he epitomizes Italian cinema of the 70's. Sex, violence, crime, murder...you name it. In All the Colours of the Dark he seemingly leaves his giallo / crime comfort zone and drags us kicking and screaming into a terrifying dream world of violence and sexually explicit black magic. The film has a disorienting effect the longer it goes on, as Jane's reality becomes lost in her nightmares and gives the viewer a woozy unrelenting confusion as you feel trapped alongside her, seemingly as unhinged as she is. Some of the ritual scenes are genuinely frightening as Fenech is gang raped by the sect members on more than one occasion and the film really gets under your skin due to Martino's eerie surreal camera work and a traumatic score from Bruno Nicolai.

It's only in the final reel that the film sports any resemblance to a giallo thanks to some unconventional plot twists and turns.

The film has a strong cast including a deliciously creepy Julian Ugarte, George Hilton, Nieves Navarro and Ivan Rassimov, but it's the outstanding Fenech, in her best performance from what i've seen, that really holds the film and keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Martino's film is often mesmerizing, extremely gripping and always unpredictable. Quite simply, All the Colours of the Dark is one of my favourite Italian horror films of all time.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

I have Tin Drum about a year now still not gotten around to watching it i will change that soon now.

Although it's been well over a year since I saw it last, I thought it was brilliant.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

I have Tin Drum about a year now still not gotten around to watching it i will change that soon now.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you do manage to check it out, Nordy.

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you do manage to check it out, Nordy.

Im at a loose end tonight i might throw it on later.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Checkpoint (1956)

Taut industrial espionage thriller starring Stanley Baker, who breaks into an Italian car factory and steals some blueprints for a new fuel system. Naturally things go pear shaped and Baker accidentally kills a guard in a shootout and blows up the factory (as you do) resulting in him being wanted for murder throughout Italy.

Checkpoint doesn't mess about. Running at a tight 80 mins the above all happens in the first ten minutes. The next half hour is all planning how to get Baker out of Italy by his boss, James Robertson Justice. Finally coming up with the idea of Baker joining a race team from Florence to Switzerland.

In a final and rather dramatic last half hour amid some frantically shot driving scenes in the Italian hills, the film becomes a precursor to The Italian job with Baker's final predicament above Lake Lugano.

Although the story as a whole is on the perfunctory side, the film has a good cast including Jess Franco regular Paul Muller, and the road racing sequences and opening fight scenes are superbly done and remarkably exciting. The film is also a vintage race car spotters dream...and in colour too, surprising for a mid fifties British film.

Recommended.

[Nordicdusk]

Sounds like my kind of film with the vintage cars i must invest cheers Dem.