Spasmo

To fully enjoy many of the gialli I've seen recently, the viewer must, as I call it, take a "leap of logic". What I mean is that if the viewer were to stop and think about how illogical things in the movie were, they probably wouldn't enjoy the movie as much. Well, with Spasmo the viewer is asked to take a Grand Canyon size leap of logic. The problem is, I only made it half way across. The illogical actions and reactions the character make throughout the movie ruined much of my enjoyment. When faced with a situation, in almost every instance the characters act and react in the most illogical manner possible in order to advance the storyline. A logical decision by any character at any time would have brought the movie to a screeching halt.

That's not to say that there weren't things I liked about the movie. The latex dummies hanging from trees were a nice touch. The way the murders are shown in flashback at the end of the movie was a fairly innovative idea. But, there weren't enough of these moments.

The acting is what you would expect. The score by Morricone, while good, is not one of his best. The revelation of the murderer is by far the best part of the movie. The DVD from Shriek Show is a mixed bag - good picture, but lots of hiss in spots on the soundtrack.

Overall, this is not one of the better gialli I've seen. If you want to see a far superior giallo by Lenzi, see Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. For what it's worth, I'll give Spasmo 5/10.

SPASMO is a gem, and possibly THE most preposterous, infinitely quotable, bafflingly ridiculous film i have ever seen!

The first half hour provides more belly laughs and crazy soundbites than most comedies, and this is supposed to be a deadly serious psychological horror film.

Find SPASMO. But first: watch the trailer! It's got to be the best trailer in the history of trailers; with a ranting, fevered italian bloke panting/groaning the word "SPASMO" at least ten times, ending in a final uttering of "SPASMO!" that sounds like he's constipated on the toilet, desperately trying to squeeze one out!

Wonderful, wonderful stuff. A joy to behold....

Umberto Lenzi's "Spasmo" is a very weird little film, even by gialli standards. It's a strange combination of Jean Rollin (the middle part in particular feels like something straight out of a Rollin film, in particular "Fascination") and David Lynch, so much so that one can argue how director Umberto Lenzi might be something of a poor man's Lynch. Nonetheless, it works, even if it takes itself way too seriously, often getting surrealism mixed up with cheesiness. The dialog is awfully goofy, and the script jumps all over the place. This might've been Lenzi's intention, and here, he shows that he is actually a pretty competent director, creating genuine suspense as well as some of the most haunting imagery in a genre film. Ennio Morricone's equally dreamy soundtrack perfectly matches the disorienting set pieces and it's perverse sexuality, and it's quite possibly it's highlight alongside the gorgeous cast of women. For those reasons alone, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, also considering how it's pretty tame compared to the works of Fulci, Argento or even Bava, but I love this kind of bizarre cinema, and I don't think the lack of extreme violence and nudity hurt the film at all. So overall, a 7/10 for me - a flawed but throughly entertaining and somewhat obscure piece of Italian horror.

Umberto Lenzi is still playing the old school giallo hand here, which means less stabbing and more psychological games, but that doesn't mean he hasn't found new ways of presenting it. He spends the first hour of the film plunging you into a confusing plot, the explains what you've witnessed, then turns everything on its head again. Nice!

Christian (Robert Hoffman) is out at the beach with lady friend when he spots a corpse lying on the sand. The corpse turns out to be very much alive Barbara (Kendall) whom Christian becomes infatuated with. She runs off, leaving a thermos (!) with a strange name on it. This leads Christian to a boat where he meets Barbara again, and the two of them head off to a motel for some filthy squeazy, as long as Christian shaves off his beard. Of course, some strange man turns up in the bathroom and tries to kill him, resulting in one dead stranger. This happens in 75% of all one night stands.

Things go from bad to worse for Christian as he ends up in a never ending nightmare of people who may or may not who they say they are, dead strangers who come back to life, empty houses and their occupants, and the constant shots of mannequins dressed in sexy lingerie that have been stabbed with blades. Lenzi piles on the paranoia and the mysteries but doesn't lose focus, bringing it all together nicely (even if the twists are a bit cliché by this point).

Still, despite saying "Oh! It's that kind of plot twist!" Lenzi still has a couple of curveballs, one particularly grim and shocking. Lenzi keeps things nice and trippy for the most part too, as certain characters turn up as different people, and even what we've watched up to a point may not be the whole truth. The disturbing sight of sexualised dummies, which seems to have been switched with the real thing on purpose, just adds to the disorientation. The only downside is that some of the acting is a bit iffy. I'm looking at you, Kendall! Ivan Rassimov was fine though.

What people might have a bit of trouble with is home film that Rassimov watches in his office. It has all the zooms, focus shifts and edits of a professional film. When I think about it, I wonder if that was deliberate too...possibly.

I don't know whether it was director Umberto Lenzi's intention or not, but in Spasmo he created a masterpiece of the absurd, a film so convoluted, disjointed, and bizarre in execution that it becomes strangely hypnotic, forcing the viewer to watch to the very end. I can't say I particularly liked the film enough to recommend it to anyone but avid giallo fans, but one thing I can guarantee... you won't have seen anything else quite like it before.

The film stars Robert Hoffman as Christian, a businessman slowly drawn into a strange and terrifying mystery after finding the enigmatic Barbara (Suzy Kendall) laying unconscious on a beach. To try and adequately explain the plot further would take me well over my IMDb word limit, but suffice to say that it's a disorientating head-scratcher, a psychological thriller that veers wildly from one scene to another, seemingly at random, with characters that repeatedly come and go for no rhyme or reason; the dialogue is equally strange, and yet the cast plays everything with complete sincerity, even when having to utter lines as strange as ""Hey, you remind me of a dying chicken" and "It's all so absurd, meaningless. And what's absurd is dangerous".

In true giallo style, Lenzi attempts to pull all the plot threads together in the film's closing moments, but although the revelations in the finalé do justify Lenzi's strange style of direction to a degree, and clears up why there are frequent shots of female mannequins throughout the film, it doesn't adequately explain why Christian is afraid of the dark, or why Barbara prefers her men without beards.