House of Lost Souls (1989)

aka Ghosthouse 3

Original title: La casa delle anime erranti

A gaggle of geology students – actor and character names don’t matter at all even though one of the female students has been diagnosed as a medium by her doctors – are trying to make their way out of the Italian Alps (I think) where they were involved in some sort of research project. Alas, exactly the rock falls they have been concerned about are making the roads back to actual civilization impassable.

Fortunately, there’s a hotel just a bit off from where the roads are blocked, so our intrepid heroes check into an ugly, somewhat brutalist building that probably hasn’t seen a new coat of paint since World War II. The proprietor is monosyllabic, rude, and somewhat creepy. He has good reasons for these character flaws though, for he has been dead for quite some time now, and is in fact just one of the vengeful ghosts haunting the hotel. In the coming nights and days, the number of geology students in Italy will shrink a bit.

By 1989, the once grand – if often bizarre – project of Italian horror was nearly over. Why, even old hands like Umberto Lenzi were lucky if they could at least get stuff like this TV (though at least cable style) movie under way. This time around, Lenzi brought his A game with him, which in my view of Lenzi (there are some of my peers who like his films in general quite a bit more than I do) means he avoided his tendency to bore and sprinkled the sugary deliciousness of non-sequitur craziness all over the proceedings here. The resulting film may be no Spasmo but it sure as ghosts provides the sceptical viewer with all the cheesy nonsense and the bizarre “why not” ideas she might wish for from this sort of things.

So the film is full of interesting dialogue you’ll already learn to love in the very early scene in which we learn that Italian physicians apparently diagnose people as mediums, features acting that fluctuates between the absurdly overdone and the just as absurdly deadpan and which is only made more bizarre by a dubbing track that is special even for English language dubs of Italian films, and presents the audience with a whole lot of nonsense Man probably Wasn’t Meant To Know.

The ghosts are of a rather hands-on type, preferring to kill their victims with knives, except for the Buddhist monk ghost who prefers making classic strangler hands – yes, there’s a Buddhist monk ghost, why do you ask? – and the little boy ghost who is really into telekinesis. All of ‘em really, really love decapitation so there’s are a lot of heads rolling/flying/going around. The film’s best/probably funniest scene presents a little boy being decapitated by a wayward washing machine, curiously enough not the only time I’ve seen a washing machine attack in an Italian movie; hopefully not the last time either.

Other demonstrations of Lenzi’s particular gifts can be found all over the film: there’s an hilariously awkward yet also kinda cool scene where diegetic music is at once the appropriate soundtrack to a murder and the reason the other characters don’t notice it (also featuring one of the female characters leaving the room in disgust – of the music and the company – snarling something about just getting her cigarettes with the loudest silent screw you imaginable appended). Or that moment when half of the characters are already convinced the hotel they’re staying in is a very dangerous place, yet some still stay behind there for no reason whatsoever while the rest goes on a fact finding mission in town.

Ah, they just don’t make stuff like this anymore, and in fact, they didn’t even make stuff like this anymore in 1989, so thanks, maestro Lenzi, for keeping the torch burning.

Three Films Make A Post: Satan's only gift is death...

Ghosthouse (1988): I've repeatedly gone on record stating that I'm generally not as much of an admirer of the film's of Umberto Lenzi as many of my peers are. I do make exceptions for Lenzi's exceptional films, though, so the glorious insanity of Spasmo does have a giant place in my heart, where now also dwells the glorious insanity of the improbable TV movie Ghosthouse. It's a bit of a different kind of glorious insanity you can find here, a very 80s one that appears in form of a completely nonsensical script, acting so stiff one can never be quite sure the actors were actually alive or awake during the shoot, a creepy little girl with a creepy clown doll that plays a creepy clown doll jingle, and reams of rubbery gore.

Also featuring are heroine Lara Wendel wrestling said doll, a character dying in what looks rather like a sea of semen, and ham radios. Not featuring at all is Lenzi's tendency to drag his feet until I get bored, so there's everything to recommend this thing.

Skinwalker Ranch (2013): Somewhat based on a real place of supposed paranormal activity, Devin McGinn's and Steve Berg's film might be the most plain fun POV film I've seen in quite a while, seeing as it features alien abduction, cattle mutilation, a giant canine, what may or may not be a transdimensionally travelling little boy, a vague conspiracy, and what looks like the giant zombie version of a Grey to me. Sure, it's not brilliantly original stuff (there are more alien abduction based POV horror movies than most people know, though Skinwalker's creatures seem to be closer to John A. Keel style transdimensional entities) but it is made with a real sense of fun, often shows very well composed shots, and does know a thing or two about pacing and escalation.

As an old X-Files fan, I can't help but approve of it all.

Horror Stories 2 (2013): 2012's Horror Stories made enough at the South Korean box office to make a sequel commercially interesting, so here's a second anthology movie of (surprise!) horror stories, two serious ones, one comedy tale, and a framing narrative. None of the stories is all that original (though Jeong Beom-sik's comedy tale "Escape" is at least utterly bizarre), but they are fun, competently made, and don't overstay their welcome, which really is all I ask of the segments in an anthology film.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,american movies,south korean movies,horror,in short,umberto lenzi,devin mcginn,steve berg

Three Films Make A Post: Horror so incredible it stretches the mind of man beyond the breaking point!

Armored Car Robbery (1950): Working for RKO's b-unit, Richard Fleischer learned early on some of the virtues that would make him one of the better work-for-hire directors in years to come: an ability to tell a story in the most economical manner while still giving it room to breathe. Case in point is this hard-boiled movie about the hunt for a quartet of armoured car robbers, a film that uses its 67 minutes of runtime to the fullest, trusting in the abilities of a fine cast (particularly Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens and William Talman), and its audience's knowledge of the basics of the genre its working in. I'm tempted to say there's not quite enough depth to Armored Car Robbery but then, like its title, this is a movie that is all about a slick, polished surface that already says all there is to say.

The Crimes Of The Black Cat aka Sette Scialli Di Seta Gialla (1972): For most of its running time, Sergio Pastore's giallo comes down on the side of the giallo as a murder mystery, using a lot of favourite giallo bits and bobs (the amateur detective, fashion models as the main victim group, the black-gloved killer) in an entertaining, yet also somewhat conservative and certainly not lurid manner. Which is a curious thing to say about a movie about a blind composer (played by old wooden face Anthony Steffen with a quiet intensity of obsession I'm not surprised anymore now that I've seen him in enough movies where he actually acts) hunting a killer who uses a black cat as his murder weapon, but there you have it.

The film only becomes truly lurid and crazy with its last murder and final plot twist; fortunately, as the very solid and stylish suspense scene surrounding that final twist and luridness demonstrate, Pastore is well equipped to make a perfectly fun film even without the lurid and the crazy whose absence so often breaks a giallo.

Eyeball (1975): This one is generally treated as one of Umberto Lenzi's best giallos but I can't say I see it. Sure, there's a killer in a stylish red raincoat haunting Barcelona stealing eyeballs, but the red raincoat is as stylish as anything here gets, and the eyeball-stealing less lurid than is sounds. Meanwhile the plot slowly plods along, the mystery bores a bit, and the murders just aren't all that interesting. It's an okay film to watch if you don't have anything exciting at hand, but that's as far as it goes for me.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,italian movies,in short,crime,giallo,richard fleischer,charles mcgraw,adele jergens,william talman,sergio pastore,anthony steffen,umberto lenzi

Three Films Make A Post: The Screen Explodes With Wondrous Spectacle Bigger Than Anything You Have Ever Seen!!

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids aka Das Rätsel des Silbernen Halbmonds aka Sette Orchidee Macchiate Di Rosso (1972): Compared to the awe-inspiring insanity of Spasmo, Seven Orchids is a bit of a lame duck among Umberto Lenzi's giallos, a middling film that plods more or less competently through its plot without doing much that excites. It is (perhaps thanks to the fact it is a German co-production sold as an Edgar Wallace adaptation over here?) quite lacking in the four corner virtues of giallos - sleaze, style, violence and brain-melting insanity - with nary anyone getting undressed, hardly a shot that's particularly interesting to look at (Lenzi instead overuses zooms the way people always say Jess Franco does, even though Franco doesn't), murders that mostly feel harmless, and nothing particularly insane going on even in a few scenes taking place in an asylum.

Seven is not a horrible film - Antonio Sabato's horrid jackets and Riz Ortolani's score are worth the price of admission alone - it's just not particularly interesting.

The Great Impersonation (1935): Alan Crosland's (middle) adaptation of E. Phillips Oppenheim's thrice filmed novel is strictly part of Universal's low budget arm, making use of the studio's b-roll actors and sets built for some of the studio's more ambitious movies. Seen in this context, the film is a rather successful effort, its somewhat melodramatic plot flying by with enthusiastic pace. Despite this, I find myself somewhat disappointed by the film, for, treated with more visual creativity and a deeper script, its wedding of 30s espionage pot-boiler and Gothic romance could have been something rather more special than the competent little film The Great Impersonation turned out to be.

Temple of A Thousand Lights (1965): The last in our trio of mildly diverting movies is another Umberto Lenzi film. Richard Harrison plays a charming rogue without the charm by making his "I'm a mighty fine specimen of man, I am" face a lot, Malaysia plays India, and a lot of Italians wear brownface. The film's attempts at being light-hearted only emphasize how much of an asshole its hero is (his basic humour mode is "racist jerkwad"), and there's little happening I haven't seen in more exciting movies before. Again, this is not a horrible movie, just an excitation challenged one.

Technorati-Markierungen: in short,italian movies,american movies,umberto lenzi,uschi glas,richard harrison,giallo,spies,gothic,adventure,alan crosland

In short: Spasmo (1974)

One suspects rich ne'er-do-well Christian Bauman (Robert Hoffmann) does expect a rather different night than the one he gets when he picks up Barbara (Suzy Kendall) while his supposed girlfriend is watching. What he gets is a gunman (Adolfo Lastretti) assaulting him in Barbara's bathroom while he's shaving off his beard (don't ask). Christian manages to shoot said gunman with his own gun, but then decides that going to the police would be much too complicated and goes on the run with Barbara.

Next up is breaking into an old tower that belongs to one of Barbara's friends, because what would be more logical? This is only the beginning of a rather bizarre time for Christian. Soon enough, he as well as the audience will have to question his own sanity, everyone else's sanity, and the probability of really dumb conspiracies. All while people die and someone leaves very creepy latex dolls picturing murdered women lying around everywhere.

Generally, director Umberto Lenzi's and my sensibilities are in complete opposition to each other; and that's when I just ignore how boring I find many of the man's films. Spasmo, however, is the sort of film to provoke me into rethinking a whole body of work thanks to the sheer power of its wrong-headed awesomeness.

The Italian giallo is often criticized for having ridiculously illogical, random and obtusely constructed plots (even I as a fan of the genre won't deny these criticisms completely), but in Spasmo's case, Lenzi and his four co-writers seem to have decided to pretend to treat that criticism as a rule, to see how far weird yet intense acting, a fantastic Morricone score that gets increasingly strange with the increasing strangeness of the film, and oodles of style can take a film whose narrative decisions are based on characters always doing the least probable thing, with a plot that makes less sense the more of it is explained. Turns out the place a film reaches this way is also known as "my heart", for how could I not love a film that consciously revels in being as insane as possible (because half of its characters are supposed to be insane, which really isn't much of a spoiler) without ever returning to the land of logic and boring normal plotting?

It can be dangerous for a film to be as weird for the sake of weirdness as Spasmo is, but this is an Italian film, and if there's one thing the country's genre films were good at (let's just ignore their usually fantastic aesthetics for the sake of argument here), it's being weird for the sake of weirdness in a natural and organic way, as if strangeness weren't something they strive for, but their natural state of being.

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,in short,giallo,umberto lenzi,robert hoffmann,suzy kendall,ivan rassimov,wtf

In short: Zorro Contro Maciste (1963)

aka Samson and the Slave Queen

(This write-up is based on the Italian language version of the movie, so I have no idea what that "slave queen" business is all about.)

It's the 17th (or 18th?) Century in the kingdom of Norgara (also known as not-Spain). The king of Norgara dies of an illness while visiting an island that's part of his country, leaving two female cousins as hot candidates for his succession. In the white corner is the saintly blonde Isabella (Maria Grazia Spina), and in the grimdark one stands the evil-bad non-blonde Malva (Moira Orfei). Only the king's testament can decide who will succeed him, so the girls are understandably excited to get their hands on it while it makes its way home from said island. Am I the only one disturbed by the idea the king only made his testament when he was ready to croak and far from home when there's no actual line of succession? The queen can only be better than him.

Anyhow, Malva is convinced the king would never leave the kingdom to her, so she - and her lover, captain of the guard Garcia (Massimo Serato) - decide to get a hold of the document beforehand and change it; of course, they'll need a man who is at once a competent hero and a total idiot to get the will for them. Fortunately, Maciste (Sergio Ciani) has stepped out of the TARDIS (warning: movie may not contain TARDIS) without even a shirt to wear and is now - still shirtless, though at times at least wearing a leather vest to protect his nipples - working as a strongman in Norgara, without a clue about the actual political situation, but at once willing to help when he's asked to steal a document. Stealing the will is going to proof more difficult for the dumb slab of meat than he expected, for not only has a bandit named Rabek (Andrea Aureli) already taken possession of it, there's also the fact that Isabella has asked Zorro (Pierre Brice) for help protecting it from her evil cousin.

The heroes will clash repeatedly until Maciste finally gets a clue, and in the end team-up against the true villains of the piece. It's Marvel Team-Up, Italian style.

Leave it to the wonderful and awesome (in every sense of the word) Italian genre film industry at the height of its powers to come up with a crossover possibly more bizarre than Maciste's run-in with Genghis Khan. If you're like me, you will find it a bit unfortunate that the actual execution of the film (directed by Umberto Lenzi in one of his more entertaining moods) is not as bizarre as the title makes one hope for, for while Zorro and Maciste really do fight each other for large parts of the movie, a man of my tastes can't help but hope for some hot Zorro against mythological monster action, too.

That's not what Zorro contro Maciste offers at all, though, because Lenzi's film prefers to put Maciste into a more classic, monsterless (except for a crocodile) swashbuckler of the sort Zorro is usually more at home in, instead of creating a peplum that just happens to feature Zorro, too. Even though that's a bit of a disappointment, the film at hand makes up for it by being a darn entertaining swashbuckler full of swashing and buckling and the expected demonstrations of derring-do, filmed with more spirit than Lenzi's films usually show.

It's a movie that fulfils all the expectation one has for a film of its genre without actually doing much new or exciting with it, yet that is also so good-natured and well done it's impossible not to like it.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,in short,adventure,peplum,umberto lenzi,pierre brice,sergio ciani,moira orfei,maria grazia spina

In short (and ranting): Roma A Mano Armata (1976)

Usually, I as left-wing, pacifist fan of very violent movies can find excuses or creative interpretations to defend those movies in front of myself. Even the notoriously proto-fascist Italian cop movie does not look all that fascist to me. Leave it to Umberto Lenzi to make a film in the genre I find morally repugnant.

Raving, violent psychopath Leonardo Tanzi (Maurizio Merli) is a lucky guy. His police badge is a fine thing to hide behind when he's smashing bones and torturing people. It even affords him a beautiful moral high horse: The evil gangsters you see, are protected by the way too lenient law (you know, the lenience that affords himself to torture and kill people without getting more than a demotion).

He reserves special hatred for the gang of a certain Savelli (Biagio Pelligra), that seems to be lead by the hunchbacked Moretto (Tomas Milian). But Tanzi can't proof anything and the evil, unfair law doesn't allow him to just grab people off the street and incarcerate them forever. What a letdown! Of course his inability to get the gang has nothing to do with the fact we never see Tanzi do any legal and actual police work.

And, you know what? I am much too irritated by the tone of the movie to get deeper into the quagmire it calls its plot. You know how films like this always go, anyway. Just picture the usual with added right-wing ranting and more gangsters who are let on the streets again to do the vilest crimes imaginable.

 

What gets to me most here is the terrible self-righteousness the film exudes. Unlike in other films of this genre, there is not single thing the hero does the movie itself doesn't seem to applaud; I never had the feeling anyone involved in the production even had the slightest thought about the similarity between our so-called hero and the people he is trying to capture.

There's also the problem of Tanzi's character. Most "cops on the edge" get a final and very personal nudge to finally snap. Tanzi is a brutal thug right from the start. The film even includes an attack on his girlfriend that would be quite a nice motive for an escalation in his violent tendencies, unfortunately subtleties of this kind are beyond Lenzi and writer Dardano Sacchetti in this film. Actually, every element to make Tanzi (and the film's morals) more complex is there, Lenzi just seems to have more fun showing us the next atrocity one of those e-vol gangsters commit.

Which leads me to a more technical problem: The plotting is extremely weak, even if you, like me, don't expect all that much coherence from an Italian movie. There's just no dramatic arc to speak of, it's just one damn thing after another with not much more than Tanzi connecting them.

The action is quite great and Merli and Milian are imbuing the little they have to do with a lot of intensity, but really, what's the use?

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,action,cops,umberto lenzi,maurizio merli,tomas milian