In 1979 Werner Herzog quite boldly took to remaking F.W. Murnau’s expressionistic classic Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens 1922. A strange move as Herzog already had made himself a name as a director and perhaps even more considering the importance of the original flick. This however didn’t stop Herzog who in many ways surpass the original and neither did it stop other filmmakers from venturing into Nosferatu territory, perhaps to lesser success.
Almost a decade later screenwriter/producer Augusto Caminito got more than he bargained for when he set about making something of a loosely connected sequel to Herzog’s seventies arthouse success. Although being Klaus Kinski and holding the largest ego in the world, Caminito’s production soon ran into trouble when original director, and veteran on the scene of Italian low budget horror fares, Mario Caiano stormed off the project, or was fired depending on which of the myths you want to believe in, after one of many loud fierce arguments with troublesome superstar Klaus Kinski. As the story goes La vittima designata (The Designated Victim) 1971 director Maurizio Lucidi directed parts of the movie, Star Crash 1978 and Contamination 1980 director Luigi Cozzi helped out and directed sections of the film, and according to his autobiography Kinski too directed a fair amount of the flick, although I wouldn’t know about that. Finally Caminito himself stepped away from his producer/screenwriter desk and took over the role of director himself.
After a rather out of place rural opening the movie skips to Venice. Vampire hunter Professor Paris Catalano [Christopher Plummer] arrives at the house of Princess [Maria Cumani Quasimodo] who with her friend and priest Don Alvise [Donald Pleasence] has summoned him to help her with a situation… with the bad dreams she has been corresponding with him about. Helietta Canins [Barbara De Rossi] takes Castelano to an underground crypt where they talk about the possible inhabitant of the large coffin that lies there. Catalano is curious about a painting that Princess has had taken down before he arrived and here starts a series of backstory explanatory flashbacks concerning the family and Nosferatu. They all wind up going to visit a medium to help them dig deeper into the family history and low and behold, the vampire awakens and leaves his crypt!
So far it’s all been a wind up and build towards the vampire movie iconic moment – the ascent of the monster! From here on Kinski wanders around Venice searching for Helietta summons him with some chants when the medium releases him. Unsurprisingly Helietta, and her sister Maria [Anne Knecht] turn out to be the descendants of Nosferatu’s long lost love, Letiza, the woman on the painting. After decades of longing for his lost love, Nosferatu seeks out the woman who summoned him and plans to take her as his mate.
No movie moving within the Gothic realm is complete without at least one scene featuring Gypsies – and Nosferatu in Venice features a splendid Gypsy-queen and her band of happy dancers moment. As the carnival in Venice starts, Nosferatu arrives and starts his rampage which leads him right into the arms of Helietta and the awaiting threat of vampire hunter Pars Catalano and the build up towards the final battle and the last act which has some pretty effective twists luring in the shadows to shake the audience around.
It’s a shame that the movie get’s s much slack and there’s some really decent moments in Nosferatu In Venice, and despite reprising a previous role, Kinski does give a pretty good performance – as he mostly did, even on the movies he supposedly hated working on. Nosferatu In Venice really suffers from that somewhat unjust bad reputation because it is a better movie that it’s said to be. Yes, it plays safe within the realm sticking to rules and regulations of the genre, but at the same time it dares to stick it’s neck out and twist formula around, even if it’s in the smallest ways. It could be because of the somewhat slow pacing, but at the same time it has a few neat effects and some nudity towards the ending. It might be because it's perhaps more of an arty horror flick than your regular gorefest. Anyways, I had fond memories of the movie, and they are still there after revisiting it again.
Being a complex actor to work with, there where obviously issues with Kinski on set. One of the most apparent being his refusal to shave his head and completely dedicate himself to mimicking his former portrayal of Nosferatu, hence the full head of tattered hair he sports here. Caminito’s movie does bring a few of Herzog’s traits with him through, such as the rats symbolising plague, a metaphor for death, and also lifted over from the original sources is the ”totes angst” of the vampire. The totes angst of Nosferatu here is rather straightforward. Longing for love, evading death. It’s a romanticised portrayal, which is not to far from the original source as the vampire quite often holds a since long gone passion for a former lover and realises his own mortality when that fire is later relit by a like worthy character… think of Mina Harker who in the original Bram Stoker book reminds the vampire of his long lost love which makes him obsessed that he moves from Transylvania to England to be near her… not saying that Dracula is the original vampire story. I’m pro John Polidori for that one.
Something that caught my attention this time around and perhaps it’s something that is quite under used in the movie is the angst about dying found in the Plummer’s Catalano character. One of the first lines of dialogue he has is when he tells the Princess that he’s going to die soon. It’s a cheap but effective gimmick that hooks the audience as we want to know why he’s going to die, how will he die, and how come he knows he’s going to die? Unfortunately it’s never taken any further than being mentioned a few times. Neither is it brought up in the final battle between Catalano and Nosferatu – instead Catalano packs up and fuck’s off proclaiming that he’s been defeated. This obviously sets up Kinski as the winner in the battle over life and death. Now it may seem strange, but at the same time it’s a fascinating twist as the vampire genre commonly suffers from the problem that the audience end up rooting for the vampire and not the vampire hunter. There’s an effective little symbolic scene to end his arch in the movie, but it’s still a shame that one didn’t use the “I’m going to die” threat more creative.
The somewhat out of place opening sequence where hunters accidentally shoot a bat sets a tone for the movie. Where it’s considered to be bad luck to kill a bat, there’s no love lost on the ones that suckle blood from the farm animals. Vampires are no longer a threat, but more something that one can toss aside and let the dogs mangle. It’s an odd sequence as the rural landside of the title sequence and opening scene then is discarded for the tight corridors of Venice. This may be a metaphorical moment of the movie as they claim to ignore vampire folklore, i.e. rules and regulations, and that’s exactly what happens in the movie, traditional vampire lore is cast aside. The vampire can survive shotgun blasts to the gut even though it leaves a gaping hole in his stomach, he can roam the streets in daylight and has a reflection. In a sense it says that traditional rules are abandoned, and new ones are put in play. This is obviously a trick that most modern vampire flick tries to do, bend the rules and come up with a new variation, although here it's still quite innovative.
Finally something has to be said about the soundtrack. Luigi Ceccarelli performed a lot of the music on the movie, and if it sounds familiar it’s because a large amount of it is renditions of the 1985 Vangelis album Mask. Although it may be something that can scar a movie with the music is very specific for a certain time period – much like the eighties Metal that plagued several Italian genre pieces, it sounded great at the time, but shit today – the electro orchestrated ambience of Ceccarelli work for Nosferatu in Venice.
Perhaps after getting a taste for directing, Kinski would follow Nosferatu in Venice with Kinski Paganini 1989 a movie he directed all on his own, and which would become his last movie. Caminito on the other hand never directed a movie again but did produce a handful of decent pieces including Kinski Paganini, Abel Ferrara’sKing of New York 1990, Tinto BrassPaprika 1991, and Marco Ferreri’sHouse of Smiles 1992.
Image:
Widescreen 16x9
Audio:
Stereo 2.0, English Dialogue, which means the beloved work of Nick Alexander graces the movie.
Extras:
None, although this is composite of various DVD & VHS resulting in a brilliant version, so that should make up for it.
ALIEN 2 – On Earth Original Title: Alien 2 – Sulla terra Directed by: Ciro Ippolito Italy, 1980 Horror/Sci-fi, 85min Distributed by: Midnight Legacy
Finally, one of the most anticipated releases of 2010 hit’s the machine. If there ever was a movie that I wanted to be see again, it certainly was Ciro Ippolito’sAlien 2 Sulla Terra (Alien 2 – On Earth) a movie that I still remember the exact moment I first spotted the cover art for in an old VHS rental catalogue in the early eighties. Which for some odd reason used the scene with the police car at the end on it's original packaging... it was obviously changed for a more grizzly design with a severed head later.
Thelma Joyce [Belinda Mayne] is part of a team of spelunkers who go up to an unexplored cave system as part of a weekend expedition. At the same time a space shuttle is on it’s way back to earth after failing its mission. Unknown to mankind at the time, the shuttle has brought with it a strange parasite, which has taken on the form of blue crystal like rock. After breaking down on live television, due to something of a mental disorder making Thelma see monsters, her boyfriend Roy [Mark Bodin] comforts her and takes her to the bowling alley where the rest of the gang are waiting for them. Burt [Michele Soavi], part of the team, sees one of the odd looking rocks and sticks it in his pack. But when they get into the caves, the rock starts pulsating, and pretty soon it turns out that the rock is in fact an alien egg. Trapped deep beneath the earth, the speleologists have to find a way out of the dark damp underworld and this time the monsters are not in Thelma’s mind!
Alien 2 – On Earth is often called a shameless Alien rip off, boring, and [insert your own damned amateur film critic slur for how bad the movie is here]. But let it be known that when you get into watching European low budget cinema, the first thing you learn is that these movies play by an entire different set of rules. There’s no place for customary beats and logic narrative, as these movies have to move fast and punch hard to keep the audiences from getting ahead of the films. Plot holes, illogical moments and spiteful deception are all part of the game. That’s why you only will find true moments of outlandish atmosphere, profound horror and mind-expanding surrealism in these pieces. Where else will you see a goddamned zombie fighting a shark underwater, where else will you see man-size rats in uniforms torch humans, where else will you see a oedipal dead kid biting off his mother’s tit… You get the point; it’s the stuff that draws the rest of us to these movies, and safely away from predicable movies that simply waste our time.
Directed by Ciro Ippolito, under the pseudonym Sam Cromwell, Alien 2 – On Earth is possibly as rare and unheard of as it’s creator. Ippolito and Alien 2 – On Earth are not the usual starting ground when watching Italian genre pieces, but rather something that you may be lucky to discover after some time when you have worked your way through the common starting points of Argento, Bava and Fulci. So who is he? Who is the man behind it all, Ciro Ippolito, and what is his place in the wonderful world of Italian Genre Cinema?
Born just after the Second World War - in 1947 -, the Nepalese Ippolito was part of cinema since childhood when he first appeared in a minor supporting role in Turi Vasile’sClasse di ferro (Class of Iron) 1957. Class of Iron was a comedic musical, later spawning quite a few sequels, but perhaps most note worthy for it’s script, partially written by a young Antonio Margheriti. Already mesmerized by the magic of cinema so early on, it’s no surprise that whilst acting on his second movie, Roberto Rossellini’sAugustin d’Ippona 1972, Ippolito jumped at the chance to prove himself whilst assisting the assisting directors. Staying in the realm, taking small parts in diverse movies, amongst them Gianfranco Migozzi’s classic Flavia, la monaca musulmana (Flavia the Heretic) 1974, the next natural step was to get involved with writing too.
1978 saw Ippolito billed as one of the writers, and also gaining a producers credit on Alfonso Brescia’s Polizietti Napoli serenata calibro 9, together with Brescia and Piero Regnoli – remember, the guy who wrote Andrea Bianchi’sLe notti del terrore (The Nighs of Terror) and Lenzi’s Incubo sulla città contaminata (Nightmare City)1980… Ippolito would co-write several other hardboiled Neapolitan Polizietti’s in the years to come, and finally he got the chance to helm a movie of his own; Alien 2 – Sulla Terra (Alien 2- On Earth). Ippolito continued making movies, either behind the camera or behind a desk as producer, and to this day has some thirty plus titles to his name, but Alien 2 – On Earth is the one we will remember him by when the man comes around.
Putting it into context, in 1979 Ridley Scott’s truckers in space slaughtered by unseen xenomorph success story Alien rocked the movie world. Obviously it inspired a whole heap of low budget followers that wanted to get a piece of the sci-fi horror scene. And everyone put their spin on it too, just like Luigi Cozzi’sContamination, Alfonso Brescia’sLa bestia nello spazio (The Beast in Space) and Ippolito’sAlien 2 – Sulla Terra (Alien 2 – On Earth) not to mention the zombie and post apocalypse movies that make up a huge part of the passion held for Italian genre cinema. As these too often refer to and use science fiction traits in their dark tales of a world gone to hell.
Now, Alien 2 – On Earth may not be the best movie inspired by a larger studio original, and it's in no way the worst either. But Alien 2 – On Earth works, it’s entertaining, and it is a magnificent movie that still has some really good moments of terror, suspense and shock. It’s also note worthy that the movie has moments reminiscent to John Carpenter’s seminal sci-fi horrorThe Thing 1982, and Neil Marshal’s The Descent 2005, even though it was made years before both of those flicks.
Like a lot of low budget Italian quickies, Alien 2 – On Earth gets a lot of shit tossed at it from impatient viewers looking for a quick fix of blood and guts. One constant remark being that it’s “painfully slow”. Now I can’t really agree, because even though there’s no initial attack to set a protagonist and twenty minutes pass before there is a first gore sequence, and at that a brief one, Alien 2 – On Earth doesn’t really move that slow at all. There are several reasons for claiming that. The first being that the first twenty minutes are spent setting up the ordinary world and the characters who live there. Sure it may be shallow, but establishing stuff is exactly what this early part of the movie does. It’s also where quite a lot of valuable information is planted. Thelma’s “inner visions” of monsters that are causing her great trouble – the same one’s that make her freeze on the TV interview at the start, the parallel story with the returning astronauts – see it’s a genesis story, they brought the alien with them, and smaller details like when the team walk into the bar and talk about the size of the unexplored cave system they have discovered. Small details, that come into play later in the movie. So please, stop with the bitching about nothing happening, start reading movies in a different way and be patient.
There’s a fair amount of little details in the script by Ippolito that amuse me, because I always appreciate a well written story – that doesn’t mean dialogue, I want my Italian genre movies to have corny dialogue, it’s also part of the form – but in the script there’s good stuff, such as the logic procession of things. Being speleologists, an area that combines several fields, geology amongst them, it’s really no surprise that Burt [Soavi] sticks the rock in his pack! He obviously wanted to check that rock out later, and where better to store it than his backpack. There’s also logic to why they simply just don’t leave the cave the way they came in. Because there’s the treat of the monster at the top of the decent they went into to rescue Jill. Instead they are forced deeper into the underworld as they search for an alternative way out, and the deeper they get, the tighter the suspense creeps in.
Then there’s that slow build that constantly get’s a hammering. But by skipping a classic initial attack and merely hinting at the dangers – such as the kid with her face smashed to a pulp – it allows the punch to be harder when the blood starts flowing. There’s nothing like unleashing a terrifying, unknown being into a dark cave where we all naturally would experience a certain level of claustrophobia. And even if it was budgetary restraints that inhibited Ippolito to fully expose and reveal the monster – despite that great tentacle attack on Cliff, and the really freaky p.o.v. from inside the beats mouth during the climax – it works in favour of the movie, because there’s no way in hell that they could have come up with anything that would have been as disturbing as H.R. Giger’s alien designs. So keeping it off screen and posing a threat in the off screen space works wonders for this little gem.
There’s also the inventive use of a subplot concerning the returning space shuttle and the astronauts. This is more or less the same kind of thing that George A. Romero did with Night of the Living Dead 1968, through the TV and radio he told of a genesis of the disease that made the dead get up and walk. It’s the same function that the space shuttle subplot has in Alien 2 – On Earth, but with some brilliant stock footage use to actually show us the events instead of just talking about it. In some cases stock footage is a gift to creative filmmakers, Ippolito uses stock footage to get the images that his budget wouldn’t allow him, and this is a great example of how you intercut that footage with your own to create a believable world. It adds dimension and gives a bigger-better-faster look when we actually see the space shuttle, the huge US Navy ships preparing to intercept the shuttle on it’s re-entry and all that stuff.
The ending is dark and haunting, and not too unlike the world in peril scenarios that the zombie and post apocalypse flicks used to climax with. The scenes of an abandoned San Diego are really effective and evocative. Cinematographer Silvio Fraschetti’s use of an early morning on location before the city comes to life to create an eerie atmosphere. But the location that really stands out and definitely makes the movie look a hell of a lot more expensive than it was is the caves. Shot on location at the Castellana Grotte in southern Italy, these almost a hundred million year old caves really make the movie. Just imagine what it would have looked like built on a set, without depth or perspective…instead Ippolito took his cast and crew 70 meters below sea level captured the whole the thing for real.
The cast is an odd mix, none of them are really big genre names, and most of them only have a single screen credit with Alien 2 – On Earth. But Belinda Mayne did work on several other movies and TV serials, Mark Bodin who plays her boyfriend Roy held a part in Joe D’Amato’s infamous Anthropophagus the same year and then there’s everyone’s favourite bit part actor turned director Michele Soavi. Someone really should put together a video of all his death scenes, because I can’t remember many movies where Soavi was still standing at the end of the show. And all good genre geeks know they are in good hands when Nick Alexander worked as the dubbing editor on the movie.
Finally, there’s the score. Amongst my favourite soundtracks, Guido and Maurizio De Angelis works are quite common. Their score to Alien 2 – On Earth, performed under the pseudonym The Oliver Onions, really is a good one. It has a wide range spanning from soft guitar ballads to the great electro funk and brooding horror sounds which suit the movie like a glove. It’s a treat that Alien 2 – On Earth was made just before the Italians started sticking pop and rock songs on the soundtrack, because those movies age as fast as the music in them did, whereas the splendid instrumental compositions still hold an eerie atmosphere and power to them.
To sum it all up then; Alien 2 – On Earth is a splendid little grim flick most likely inspired by Scott’sAlien, but definitely not a rip-off or an “Italian Sequel”. This is a very potent movie that stands sternly on it’s own two legs. Has a decent cast, uses some good themes, and packs a great soundtrack. Not to forget that this release looks amazing.
Midnight Legacy has undoubtedly carved themselves a great groove on the scene with the release of Alien 2 – On Earth. Everything about this release, from the contents to the final artwork and Chris Mantovi's original design is top notch. Skeptics be gone, hail the new king, and with a few more rare titles like this one under their belt it’s fair to say that Midnight Legacy will be giving the competition a run for their money, because even with just one title on the market, they are the most interesting company in the game right now. I know that I’ll be saving the cash that I was thinking of putting on BluRay’s of the holy trinity Fulci, Bava and Argento towards the future Midnight Legacy releases instead, because I’d rather watch stuff that I haven’t seen in ages than watching an upgrade.
The movie has never, and when I say never, I’m even talking about the few screenings the movie had when it played theatrically in 1980, looked better than it does on this BluRay limited edition. Taken from a 35mm negative, the colours are vibrant, the image is stunning, and being a complete novice at BluRay all I really can say is that the detail of image is outrageous. If this is the future then I’m glad that I finally found a movie that motivated me to upgrade all my home entertainment equipment. If you have a BluRay player, and if you are into Italian genre cinema, then this is a must have release. A splendid piece of genre cinema to put amongst the collection - because the spine is numbered, and this time around there's still time to come along from the start. I’ll leave you with that, as now I’m going to sit through Ciro Ippolito’s fascinating Alien 2 – On Earth on BluRay one more time as I await future titles to be announced from Midnight Legacy.
Image:
Widescreen 1.85:1 (1080p HD resolution)
Audio:
Dts-MA 2.0, English Dialogue
Extras:
There’s a Trailer and an eleven minute long special effect outtakes reel showing some alteration in some of the scenes. This material is in HD too so there’s no love lost with this disc at all.
Here's an awesome Australian trailer, which obviously doesn't reflect the quality of the Midnight Legacy release.
Screengrabs taken from Matt Paprocki on doblu.com Check out his detailed review which is more technically savy than this one is, and there's even a three part interview with part of the Midnight Legacy team about the disc, the passion and attention put into bringing Alien 2 - On Earth to BluRay for the first time.
The Raiders of Atlantis Aka: Atlantis Interceptors Original Title: I predatori di Atlantide Directed by: Ruggero Deodato Italy/Philippines, 1983 Action/Adventure, 93min
Weren’t the seventies and eighties just bloody great? Weren’t the B-movies of this time period so much better than they are now? These days cheap DV, crap dialogue and shitty acting all feel so damned rough, raw and most often lack the passion for making an imprint. Back in the eighties (and before then too of course) B-movies and even worse were at least shot on film. There was a larger machinery behind the process, which demanded more than just calling up your mates and shooting. B-movies where still all about telling the best story for the least bucks, and they did make some really great movies. But the best part of it all was that these cheap low budget flicks pretty quick ended up on video (some on the big screen if we where lucky) for the thirsty home entertainment crowds outside of the native countries, which constantly fuelled our cravings for cheap kicks; Hong Kong kung-fu movies, European and American horror, Giallo and exploitation movies, Italian Spaghetti Westerns and Bud Spencer - Terence Hill action comedies that we could watch with our mates in front of the gargantuan video tape recorder. And watch them we did, over and over again.
Following the Australian low budget surprise hit movie Mad Max 1979, directed by George Miller, Italian movie producers, screenwriters and directors went post apocalypse mad. Movies like Sergio Martino’s2019: After the Fall of New York 1983, Joe D’Amato’sTexas Gladiators 2020 1982, and Endgame 1983, Enzo G. Castellari’s trillogy The Bronx Warriors 1982, The New Barbarians 1982, Escape from The Bronx 1983, Lamberto Bava’sBlastfighter 1984 and Lucio Fulci’sThe New Gladiators 1984, to name a few, hit hard and milked the path of the impending doom, biker gangs in barren wasteland to the max, and in it creating the splendid Italian Post Apocalypse genre.
Ruggero Deodato also directed his take on this amusing little subgenre, and even through screenwriters Tito Carpi [one of the writers on Deodato’sLast Cannibal World (together with Deodato regular Gianfranco Clerici), Enzo G. Castellari’sThe New Barbarians 1982 and Escape From the Bronx 1983] and Vincenzo Mannino [who wrote Deodato’sThe House on the Edge of the Park 1980, Phantom of Death 1988), Castellari’sThe Last Shark 1981, Lucio Fulci’sThe New York Ripper 1982 and Murder Rock – Dancing Death 1984 together with Gianfranco Clerici too] took the task of setting yet another adventure in the bleak future, they did try something that differs it from the other urban city end of the world movies, they brought in one of mankind’s most cherished and fascinating myths, the legend of Atlantis.
Time for a quick fix if you haven’t seen this delight since the age of video: Shot in 1983, the movies is set in a near future - 1991, Miami, Florida - or rather a distant past watching it these days Mike [Christopher Connelly] is a old school action guy who comes across as a mix between Don Johnson in Miami Vice and Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films, as he jump starts the movie with his compadre Washington [Tony King], as they rush through a rapid kidnap scenario. The dudes are paid and take off for a weekend of cruising the seas outside Miami. A helicopter blasts by them and tauntingly circles them before taking off for the horizon. We cut to an oilrig like location where Professor Peter Saunders [George Hilton] greets Doctor Cathy Rollins [Gloia Scola], and pretty quickly delivers the exposition needed. ON the bottom of the sea, a Russian atomic submarine lies abandoned, and the plan is to raise the sub, but during the preparation, they have found some strange ancient tablets that can only be encrypted by Dr. Rollins. Well a movie without conflicts is a boring movie, so as soon as they start their successful levitation of the Sub, the shit hit’s the fan and an electrical storm blacks out the entire coast. Up from the bottom of the ocean a glass encased island forces it’s way to the skies, creating such tidal waves that the oilrig topples over and crashes into the ocean. Luckily Mike and Washington are in the area and manage to save but a few survivors – James [Michele Soavi], Professor Saunders, Bill Cook [Ivan Rassimov] Frank [Giancarlo Pratoi] and Dr. Rollins and together they set of for shore, not the island which would have been the obvious choice, but for the safety of land.
At the same time that this strange aquatic phenomenon has been taking place out at sea, mysterious gangs have been roaming the streets, creating chaos and raising havoc amongst the population. Murder is their game, and the Atlantis Interceptors are their name. These gang members, led by Crystal Skull [Bruce Baron] and ancestors of Atlantis, are killing off the people of our world in their quest for the knowledge that will make the Atlantians the truthful rulers of the world once again… and after a few violent battles, the finally find the one they are looking for. Yeah, you may have guessed it, Dr. Rollins is the woman with the knowledge, and the Atlantians snatch her right from under Mike’s nose. Needless to say this is at approximately midpoint, dramatically speaking, movie wise we’re two thirds through. Mike persuades the rest of the gang that they have to go to Atlantis – the island that rose earlier – and take back Cathy. Hence starts the jungle adventure part of the movie, and also gives Deodato yet another opportunity to shoot in the Philippine jungle, which see’s most of the cast meeting their deaths in various battles against the Atlantis Interceptors. As all good things come to an end, so does even The Raiders of Atlantis, and after the the final bout between Crystal Skull and Mike, which you probably already can guess the outcome of, there's a spectacular and enigmatic meeting with Cathy, now hailed and worshiped as a god by the Atlantians as she’s cracked the code to their power. In the somewhat confusing climax, the survivors’ race towards freedom as Atlantis once again closes its glass casing and returns to the bottom of the ocean. Phew - what a rush. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
There are a few wonderful tricks in this movie, tricks that make it an enjoyable flick. The first being the way the sell Christopher Connelly’s character Mike. Just like those hard formulated James Bond movies, and the Indiana Jones flicks, The Raiders of Atlantis starts up with the culmination of the previous mission which shows Mike and his sidekick Washington breaking into a house, kidnapping some dude, punching and shooting their way back out. They deliver the kidnapped victim to the mobster who gave them the task, get paid and take off for new adventures. Just before they get to the rendezvous place, the mobsters’ henchmen deliver the following dialogue: “They made it!” – “They always do!”
This little action opening shows us that Mike and Wash’ are men of action, they don’t talk bollocks they get the job done. No task is too hard for the duo, and we also understand that they have been around the block a few times before. This is further indicated as they get closer to the rig later, and meet up with their fellow adventurers. They already know who Cross [Rassimov] is, and as they alter share a beer, and fly the helicopter they reference previous adventures. The reoccurring gag where Mike calls Washington “Wash”, instead of his new name as a reborn Muslim, Mohammed, also adds to the layers as their friendship obviously goes so far back that Washington has always, and will always be Wash.
And that’s pretty much what you take with you into the movie, as it sets up Mike and Walsh as the shit kicking action heroes that they are, and they do kick some shit in this wonderful, sometimes cheesy, but excellent action flick which manages to do the job and keep me entertained for the ninety-two minute duration of the film.
The stunt team – Rock Stuntman Team – frequently used in Italian movies, pull off some great bits here. Apart from the usual falling off bikes and high cliffs in the jungle of Atlantis (much like they fell off horses and rooftops in the Spaghetti Westerns), they also perform some amazing aerial stunts as they throw themselves out of a moving helicopter onto a moving buss containing our group of protagonists. Impressive stuff to say the least, and definitely one of the highpoints of the movie.
Needless to say the re-naming of the movie: The Raiders of Atlantis, is once again a cunning trick of the marketing department and the producers, and is only there in an attempt to cash in on the success of Spielberg’sRaiders of the Lost Ark1981, and the original title – I predatori di Atlantide translates as The Predators of Atlantis, is a more understandable title, as no one really raids Atlantis, but rather the Atlantians are the predators. And in some bizarre way the screenwriters have even managed to pack in a warning to mankind in the movie. After Atlantis has risen again, the Atlantians start killing mankind as they feel we have misused it. Gang leader Crystal Skull makes it quite clear when he declares his mission with the line of dialogue - ”You have violated our world, and therefore you must be punished. All of you will be executed!”
Directing under his pseudonym Roger Franklin, Deodato’s splendid The Raiders of Atlantis was edited by Vincent Thomas, or rather Vincenzo Tomassi – Fulci’s main man in the edit suite, there’s some pretty grand special effects by Gino De Rossi (decapitations, classic Deodato booby trap in the jungle, deadly darts and an arrow through the head), the mighty Nick Alexander supervised he English dialogue version (and provided the Dub for Rassimov’s Bill Cook) and there’s a real chunky score by Maurizio and Guido De Angelis under the cryptic name Oliver Onions. Great combinations that make it a highly enjoyable movie, and keep an eye out for Deodato in a cameo appearance on the oil rig during the first half.
Image:
Fullfram 4:3
Audio:
Stereo. English Dialogue, Swedish Subtitles
Extras:
Well it’s taken from an old Swedish rental tape, but theirs is actually a trailer for Fabrizio De Angelis’Thunder 1983 after the movie.
Here's the great trailer, and if you pay attention, you'll even catch Deodato in there.
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? Original Title: La polizia chiede aiuto Directed by Massimo Dallamano Poliziotteschi / Giallo, 1974 Italy, 90min Distributed by: Shameless Screen Entertainment.
Story: Vittoria Stori, a district attorney and Police Inspector Silvestri team up to break a mysterious case concerning a young woman, who at first appeares to have taken her own life. But the autopsy shows foul play and pretty soon their leads bust open up a fiendish ring of teenage prostitution lead by men in high positions of society. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a homicidal maniac appears to be one step in front of them, doing his best to eradicate all the witnesses and sending death threats to Stori trying to force her away from the case…
Me: What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is a fine piece of genre cinema from Massimo Dallamano, perhaps best known for his classic Giallo What Have You Done To Solange?Dallamano was a fantastic director who unfortunately made only a dozen movies in his short career as a director, just less than twenty years, before dying in a car crash in 1976. Although in his short time as a director of fine movies, he really did give us some amazing ones and was no stranger to crossing and mixing genres be it Sexploitation flicks, Gialli, Gothic horrors, or his fantastic Poliziotteschi movies. But Dallamano was not only a director of great movies; he actually started his career as respected cinematographer who shot many of the great westerns including the two first Dollars installments for Sergio Leone.
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is no exception to his splendid track record. It is a really great movie that has stood the test of time well. In many ways it is so much more satisfying than much of the contemporary movies that I waste valuable time watching.
The movie starts with police officials busting into an apartment only to find a young woman, an apparent suicide, hanged naked from the ceiling. From the start it looks like a routine case, a young woman who took her life after discovering that she was pregnant. (Here’s the reoccurring “illegal abortion” theme previously explored byDallamano in Solange) But pretty soon the autopsy shows her neck and vertebrae are all bust up wrong for a suicide. She must have been murdered somewhere else and then placed in the attic apartment. Someone has had a hand in her death and the police soon start to piece the bits and pieces of evidence together leading them on a wild goose chase that eventually takes them to the top of the corridors of power. And where many have previously felt that this movie has a sudden lame anti-climactic ending, I feel that it’s quite a fitting ending, especially for being set in the seventies. Year ago there was much respect for the superiors and you never dare to raise a question to those sat with the power. In modern society today we see businessmen and politicians fall from grace each and every day, but back then it wasn’t as common and in some way the nihilistic ending is fitting for the movie. Despite all their hard work they still just can’t get to the real criminals.
What makes What Have They Done to Your Daughters? such an entertaining movie, apart from top notch acting and stunning photography by Franco Delli Colli, is the great combination of Poliziotteschi and Giallo that Dallamano uses throughout the movie. After setting up a conventional Poliziotteschi where clues are searched for, matched and then going after their suspects, gory deaths a fantastic mutilated corpses scene that is really good and definitely one of the best I have seen on screen in ages. No cheap effects here it’s all remarkable stuff. And this combo which started in his previous movie What Have They Done to Solange?, also inspired several other directors to blend the two genres such as Sergio Martino’s excellent The Suspicious Death of a Minor scripted by maestro Ernesto Gastaldi, and Alberto Negrin’s Red Rings of Fear that both play off the underage prostitution Giallo/Polizioteschi angle. Great movies indeed.
After setting up the crime and detective works scenarios, Dallamano throws in a masked, leather wearing killer stalking the district attorney Vittoria Stori [Giovanna Ralli]with a meat cleaver in traditional Giallo style. This gives some of that wonderful stalk and slash sequences that make the Giallo so loveable, and then there is a brilliant car chase sequence that goes on for ages, but feels like a few minutes because it’s so well composed. Inspector Silvestri [Claudio Casinelli] almost has his main suspect within his reach but the killer escapes and takes off on a motorcycle with Silvestri in hot pursuit blasting down small back streets (which is always a joy to see as it probably explains why they always have those damned small cars in Italian Poliziotteschi) before taking to the off road and speeding to safety through a train tunnel. Leaving Silvestri fuming as he once again just by inches misses his man. And this is the way the movie plays out all the way through, Silvestri hot on the heels and just by a fraction missing the suspects as the plot twists and turns towards the finale.
Apart from the great narrative, What have they done to your daughters also has a fantastic score by Stelvio Cipriani, the masterful composer that I feel is easily on par with Morricone's versatillity and tremendous amount of varied genre scores. Featured on several compilation albums the title track to La polizia chiede aiuto is also featured on the great compilation CD The Sound of LOVE + DEATH that can be found as part of the now out of print Luciano Ercoli 3disc box set released by NoSHAME films a few years back. A really fabulous CD that definitely showcases the great music of this equally fantastic composer, Stelvio Cipriani, and has been part of my Cinezilla playlist on my iPod for the last two years. (I have even got my kids singing along to Franco Micalizzi’s title tack to Umberto Lenzi’sNapoli Violenta this summer so the passing on of parental interests is going fine so far.)
What Have They Done to your Daughters? Is a fantastic little gem that engaged me profoundly, as district attorney Stori and Inspector Silvestri try to bust the ring of child molesters. It’s an impressive and solid tale that on several occasions even outshines some of the more known movies of the genre, and I actually feel that this one may even be better than the more know What Have They Done to Solage? Thanks to the guys at Shameless Screen Entertainment it’s finally available on DVD once again and you get the English dub, so no more falling behind trying to keep up with the Italian dialogue with out subtitles of the Mondo Home Entertainment release of 2005 and the early 2000 Redemption release. The only down side to this release is that I would have preferred to have the Italian dialogue with optional English subs, but you can’t get everything you ask for and just a English dub is fine because this is one of hundred of Italian movies that Nick Alexander worked on the dubbing with, which always signifies a decent well worked dialogue.
Image: 16x9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English Dialouge, 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo
Extras: Trailers for Tonino Valerii’sMy Dear Killer, Aldo Lado’sNight Train Murders, Sergio Martino’sTorso, Corrado Farina’sBaba Yaga (which Shamless painstakingly restored to HIS vision of the movie, not the butchered version available previously), Ruggero Deodato’sPhantom of Death , Lucio Fulci’sBlack Cat and the theatrical trailer for What Have They Done to Your Daughters?