Eye in the Labyrinth (1972)

Original title: L'occhio nel labirinto

Following a dream in which she sees him stabbed to death in somewhat labyrinthine surroundings, Julie (Rosemary Dexter), starts to investigate the disappearance of her psychiatrist and lover Luca (Horst Frank). Nobody else, not even his colleagues, seem all that bothered by his disappearance to places unknown, but then, everything we learn about the guy’s character throughout the movie suggests they are most probably throwing a secret party celebrating his absence when Julie’s not looking.

Something’s really fishy about Luca’s fate, though. For one, an armed guy with a gun appears and attempts to smack Luca’s whereabouts out of Julie, something that only strengthens her resolve to find out what’s going on. Not enough to get her to go to the police, mind you, for she has visa issues. Once our heroine manages to find some curious clues leading to a small coastal town where Luca might have gone to, things turn really strange. There are repeated, awkward, attempts at Julie’s life, while her most helpful contact is a gropy disgraced American gangster (Adolfo Celi) who now lives in the cellar of an orphanage. Every other man she meets is a sleaze and/or a voyeur, too.

Eventually, Julie finds out that Luca stayed for some time at a villa on a nearby island where a group of weird bohemians flock around a female millionaire, but what he did there and where he went are quite different questions.

Internally, I had Eye in the Labyrinth’s director Maria Caiano flagged as the kind of Italian genre director who managed to follow every fad and make decent and entertaining but not spectacular movies in it. This giallo, though, is very special indeed. While it is absolutely fulfilling its genre quota of nudity (Julie does tend to undress at the slightest provocation) and violence, it also really hits a wonderful point of low budget surrealism: everything around our heroine takes on the visual qualities of a labyrinth, be it the run-down building that nearly collapses on her head at the beginning, the orphanage or even the villa; everything is filmed with a sense of slight dislocation. In fact, there’s so much of it, the film doesn’t even have to bother with a trip scene when somebody takes actual LSD.

There’s also a wonderful thread of paranoia running through the film. It’s not just that everyone here is a shit heel with no ethical values (and Luca probably was the worst of them all, turning Julie’s search for him more than just a little ironic and sad even before she finds out the identity of the killer). Motives are shifting and dubious too, as are genders, sexual interests and power structures between people. It’s a world where you can’t be sure of anyone, and where even the strange orphan boy who might be your best witness is also a sleazy little voyeur watching you while you sleep (of course in the nude, because Julie does everything in the nude). Julie is confronted with an astonishing amount of sexual harassment of one kind or the other too. The film’s never quite saying that this sort of pressure on a young woman is one of the shittiest elements of the society it takes place in and may have dire consequences for everyone involved, deforming trust and human connections in the worst possible ways, but it is most certainly suggesting it, at least when you’re watching it today.

Of course, human connection and trust twisted and deformed, and how this twists and deforms the human subject does seem to be the main theme running through Eye in the Labyrinth – apart from nudity and violence, of course – with nearly every scene, sometimes in an underhanded and tricky way you’ll only get later on like the business with a witness and a car, making a practical demonstration of some of these things, until stabbing someone to death seems rather more like a logical reaction to circumstances than madness.

Past Misdeeds: A Coffin For The Sheriff (1965)

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts without any re-writes or improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.

A scruffy and unwashed man called not Ringo, not Django, not Sartana, but Shenandoah (Anthony Steffen) rides into a small frontier town. The place has some troubles since the gang of bandit Lupe Rojo (Armando Calvo) has put their base of operations into the area around town.

Shenandoah seems to have something in mind with the gang, though. At first, he does the usual "let's compare our penis sizes" bit by playing the always lovely "poker leading to fisticuffs" game with some of the gang members.

A little later, he subtly interferes with a bank robbery in town, carefully constructing an opportunity to grab a wounded gang member and rescue him from the law. It seems like he wants to join up with the gang.

Unfortunately, Rojo isn't just letting anyone join his merry band of slobbering psychopaths. There is a rather ill-advised membership test in form of a deadly game of hide and seek with guns against one of the original gang members for the potential newbie to survive.

Shenandoah is rather good at the game, though, and uses the possibility of a slowly dying bandit right at his feet to ask some questions about a stagecoach robbery and a murdered woman in Omaha two years ago. Alas, he doesn't get the answers he seeks.

At least, his life's dream of being one of a group of psychopathic bandits who are bound to die rather sooner than later is fulfilled. Nevertheless, he continues to ask pointed questions about the Omaha business. One could get the idea that it is somehow a lot more important to him than raping and pillaging. It might just be possible that our unshaved hero is out for revenge for a certain murder in Omaha.

All goes swimmingly, until Rojo decides to plunder the ranch of a local rancher named Wilson (George Rigaud). Wilson is an old friend of Shenandoah, and the gunman can't help himself but warn him and his pretty daughter (Luciana Gilli) of the ensuing attack.

The following debacle for the gang and Shenandoah's not exactly inconspicuous behaviour weakens his position as a big bad bandit decisively, though, starting off his obligatory torture and the typical finale of bloody vengeance.

If the plot synopsis of A Coffin For The Sheriff (and no, I have no idea what the title has to do with the film) makes it sound as if the typical fan of Spaghetti Western had seen this all before, that impression is perfectly true. There truly is no original bone in Mario Caiano's film's body, but while watching it, I didn't find myself holding that against it.

It is a very thin line which divides the realms of the clichéd and of the iconic. Caiano's film mostly dances directly on the line, doing too much of the expected in the expected manner to come down on the iconic side, yet doing it with too much panache to result in the let-down of the too clichéd.

A Coffin For The Sheriff succeeds as a very pleasant example of its genre (and this isn't exactly typical of the usually rather scattershot Spaghetti Western) mostly through the tightness of its script and Caiano's drive in executing it. While the usual assortment of side characters (with three women fawning over our hero) with their little side plots is there, the film integrates them into the main plot in a sensible way instead of going for a smoke and letting the side plots take over from time to time. This gives the film a sense of wholeness one seldom finds in the genre outside of the work of the Sergios.

But it would be unfair not to give Caiano his fair share of props. Having gone through a very typical career for an Italian director of the time by working in every genre that was popular at the moment, Caiano obviously picked up quite a bit about keeping his plots moving and cutting down on filler while letting his film look much more costly than it probably was through judicious use of rather impressive outside locations. As an old pro (his first writing and assistant directing credits come from the 50s), Caiano doesn't miss out on adding stylistic elements typical of the Spaghetti Western, elements which might still have looked vaguely original to an audience just one year after A Fistful Of Dollars. It is an excellent example of how fast some of the things Leone and Corbucci did visually became part of the visual language of Italian filmmakers trying to make a quick buck off of their successes.

So, friends of frightening close-ups of ugly, sweaty, unshaved men won't miss out here.
Also not atypical for an early Spaghetti are the acting performances. Steffen is (as was often the case with him) a little bland, yet as solid as someone with seemingly total facial paralysis can be, while the bunch of half-remembered character actors playing the bad guys are chewing the scenery nicely.

A Coffin For The Sheriff is probably not the sort of film I'd recommend to a Spaghetti Western beginner. There are just too many excellent films to see first before starting to waste time on one which is "just" very good, but when one has reached the point where one has worked through the classics and semi-classics of the genre, films like this are the little gold nuggets hidden in the dust and mud of the genre.

Three Films Make A Post: When You're Cornered Like An Animal It's Kill Or Be Killed.

Vampire's Breakfast (1987): A very dead looking Western style vampire haunts the Hong Kong nights. Intrepid reporter Kent Cheng Jak-Si is on the case, when he's not taking fake vampire pictures or romancing Emily Chu Bo-Yee. For a Hong Kong horror film, this one's rather atypical, for there's neither an attempt to be as outrageous as possible nor lots and lots of mean-spirited humour (in fact, what there is of humour in the movie is of a rather good-natured kind). Unfortunately, there's also nothing to take the place of these more typical HK horror tricks, so there's really not much to talk about here, particularly since director Wong Chung isn't exactly exploding with imagination, visual or otherwise.

What's left is a mildly diverting movie that's entertaining enough for the ninety minutes of one's time it takes, but nothing more.

Apartment 1303 3D (2012): Look, I've got as much patience for shitty horror movies as the next guy, but there are certain things I find non-negotiable in a theoretically subtle horror movie about ghosts like this one. Unfortunately, this one, directed by Michael Taverna, is all kinds of dreadful, with no opportunity to be clever or just effective that isn't missed, numerous failures of timing and imagination, utterly dreadful dialogue, and a certain actress so bad, the script has her talking to herself instead of emoting. Well, that, or the script doesn't realize it doesn't need its actors to tell the audience what they are supposed to be feeling when they could, you know, act. It's difficult to decide which alternative is worse, and I don't really want to think about this one anymore than I already have, for life's too short for certain movies.

Shadow of Illusion aka Ombre Roventi (1970): Mario Caiano's film is what happens when you replace the satanic cult in your typical occult conspiracy horror film with an Egyptian-themed cult attempting to attain the power of Osiris by sacrificing a woman they take for Isis (Daniela Giordano), and let the resulting film take place in Egypt. It's a decent little flick with a bit too much Egypt tourism, and a rather meandering middle, but there's a lot of interesting temporal and local colour too gawk at. From time to time, Caiano even manages to stage a moment of inspired strangeness and surreality or two. It's a bit unfortunate that Shadow of Illusion is lacking in the tension department, or it could be a minor classic. As it stands, it's a peculiar sort of time capsule for fashion, fears and fascinations of its age.

Technorati-Markierungen: hong kong movies,american movies,italian movies,comedy,horrror,kent cheng,emily chu bo-yee. wong chung,michael taverna,mario caiano,william berger,daniela giordano

Three Films Make A Post: In Illusion-O

Ringo, Face Of Revenge (1967): Four men of dubious morals (Anthony Steffen! Frank Wolff! Eduardo Fajardo! Armando Calvo!) form an alliance to acquire a hidden treasure. There are copious shoot-outs, a bar brawl and a number of double-crossings. The US (Andalucia) have seldom looked prettier.

Another Mario Caiano-directed Spaghetti Western that is sprightly and entertaining, but still leaves me wishing for a bit more substance (especially when it comes to the character work, which is just all over the place) and style, possibly even some surprises. Or some of that revenge promised by the title, now that I think about it.

 

Brain Twisters (1991): Neurological experiments of a near comatose college professor on some of his students cause a series of murders and suicides. It all turns out to part of a big mind control conspiracy. Only a cop-on-the-edge-of-falling-asleep-while-walking and a college-student-cop-love-interest can save the day. Nothing can save the beleaguered viewer from falling asleep. The acting is zombie-esque and the film is only 90 minutes long because everything in it happens very, very slowly. On the bright side, this could be the final cure for insomnia.

 

Paranormal Activity (2007): Given my love for POV horror, and my respect for anyone using a shoe-string budget to not make a backyard zombie massacre, Oren Peli's film should be right up my alley, but it never worked for me while watching it.

I had major problems with the male half of the haunted couple's jerkiness. I never found Micah convincing as a character, his scruples against getting help are transparently there to keep the film's plot from going into a direction it isn't prepared to go in, and not based on anything in his character the viewer is made privy of. I also had my problems with Skippy the cowardly medium. I understand that he's in there to convince us of how serious Katie's and Micah's problems are, but his actions feel as contrived to me as do Micah's, giving the film a very artificial "my first script-writing project" sort of feel.

Despite those contrivances and some pacing problems in the rather draggy first half, I don't think Paranormal Activity is a bad movie. It is just one that doesn't work for me beyond two or three mildly creepy scenes.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,american movies,spaghetti western,horror,thriller,in short,anthony steffen,frank wolff,mario caiano,oren peli

In short: Spies Kill Silently (1966)

aka Spy Strikes Silently

Famous scientists of a humanitarian bend - which in this film means scientists doing things like looking for a cure for cancer, not building death rays, surprisingly enough - die in mysterious ways. It looks like natural causes, but the international secret services soon figure out that the scientists were all murdered. By whom and why is unknown (and the latter will stay unknown even after the movie is through).

The British send the best spy of the Americans (no, I don't understand how that's supposed to work either), Michael Drum (Lang Jeffries) to Beirut to protect a Professor working on the cure for cancer there. Whoever is responsible for the other murders isn't too keen on Drum's presence, so the assassination attempts on him start before he has even had the opportunity to meet the man he is supposed to guard, but if there's one thing Drum is good at, it's killing back people who want to kill him. It's just too bad that he never leaves any survivors he could question about the identity of their boss or bosses.

Despite his awesome powers of face-punching, Drum isn't able to protect his charge. A few minutes of distraction by two cops who inexplicably attack the agent are enough to leave the poor cancer destroyer dead.

At least these two dead cops put Drum on the right track. They were obviously drugged and mind-controlled by some fiendish mastermind. But who, oh who might it be, and what does said fiendish mastermind want? Only lots of travel between London and Beirut will solve this riddle.

Maria Caiano's Spies Kill Silently will probably not go down as one of the unknown masterpieces of Eurospy cinema, but in its modest yet confident way, it is a fun enough little film.

Caiano's direction isn't too sexy or stylish, but it lacks the sloppiness that drags some parts of the Eurospy genre down. Some viewers seem to have their problems with the film's pacing, I however would call it tight enough to work.

The movie stands on the line between the more batshit Eurospy films and a more realistic sensibility. While the big bad's plan and his methods to realize it are beautifully silly nonsense, and the scientist hunt only seems to happen to point his enemies in his direction, the rest of the film is on the more gray and unfriendly side of the genre. Jeffries' Drum is a very competent fighter, yet he lacks the suaveness and the (often annoying) propensity to torture his enemies and innocent women with bad wisecracks many other Eurospy heroes show in abundance. He isn't exactly a believable spy in Le Carré sense, but he's not one of the silly buggers that dominate European spy films either.

The film's action scenes tend to the more realistic side too, feeling a bit more brutal than usual.

"Realistic" is of course a very relative phrase. We are still talking about a film whose evil mastermind uses a mind control drug and a death ray and likes to rant long and pointlessly about his own awesomeness.

Spies Kill Silently is a satisfying little film that hits enough of the required genre beats to be fun.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,spies,eurospy,mario caiano,lang jeffries,erika blanc,in short

On WTF: A Coffin For The Sheriff (1965)

Sometimes, you just want a Spaghetti Western that's satisfied with just being a Spaghetti Western. At times like that, films like this one are indispensable. My review on WTF-Film will tell you why.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,spaghetti western,anthony steffen,mario caiano,reviews,other places