Occhi senza volto

This rare film by Italian sleaze director Bruno Mattei is not - as the English title "Eyes Without a Face" suggests - a remake of Georges Franju's all time horror classic "Les Yeux Sans Visage" (which, as every genre buff should know, inspired Jess Franco's "Les Prédateurs de la Nuit" in 1988, one of Franco's best). "Gli Occhi Dentro" is a thriller in best Giallo tradition and often reminds of the typical genre outings of the 1970s. And this is quite a surprise considering that Bruno Mattei is known for trashy horror and exploitation films, but hasn't made a Giallo before this one.

A serial killer murders baby sitters and plugs their eyes out. The killings resemble crimes from the latest issue of a successful comic book series called "Doctor Dark" about a schizophrenic who is a renowned professor by day and a maniac killer at night. The artist of the comic series is a young woman, and obviously the killer tries to make her suffer for his crimes: she starts finding the plugged out eyes of the victims at her home. After half an hour of the film, it seems that the maniac is caught. But it doesn't take much time to find out that the man apprehended is not the real killer.

The story certainly ain't that original. The actors surely aren't very good. And Bruno Mattei never was a great artist as a director. But all of his films - no matter how shabby - show certain style and atmosphere. And in "Gli Occhi Dentro", he really manages to develop suspense and thrills, and also to deliver enough convincing red herrings for a couple of genre outings. After a swift start and a really cool first half an hour, the film loses a bit of its pace. But Mattei keeps the viewer interested while the plot continues unfolding, and the last half hour culminates in a manic climax to make this undeniably low budgeted thriller big fun for every Giallo freak - and probably makes one sigh nostalgicly towards the 1970s, the Golden Age of Giallo films.

Concerning the plot (which is perfectly coherent for Mattei and average Giallo standards), the pace and the thrills, "Gli Occhi Dentro" is probably the most watchable of all films Mattei directed. Some scenes, though, remind the viewer that Mattei is an old "sleazeball": e.g. the phony close-up of the plugging out of the first victim's eye and a rather unmotivated love scene just before the climax starts. Concerning the gore, Mattei doesn't deliver it over the top. Nevertheless there are some bloody scenes and the murders that aren't as graphic are still quite grisly. All in all, this is a surprisingly well crafted thriller that delivers good thrilling entertainment and doesn't deserve to be as hard to get as it is at the moment. Rating: 7 out of 10.

'Madness' aka 'Eyes Without a Face' is a baffling and poorly executed Italian giallo slasher flick directed by Bruno Mattei that lacks any style, originality or even ambition. The production design is bland and cheap, the visuals are uninspired, the acting ranges from awful to hysterically over the top and the movie's pacing was a slog to get through and lacks any sort of entertainment value whatsoever. There's a reason why the giallo genre was pretty much dead by this point with painfully trashy efforts like this.

The Plot centres around a comic book artist named Giovanna Dei (Monica Carpanese) where a masked killer is copying the look and killing style of her character Doctor Dark by murdering young women, and then starts targeting Giovanna herself.

It took me quite a few attempts to actually sit down and watch this as it was almost unwatchable due to its poor picture quality and dreadful English dubbing. Despite having a surprisingly interesting opening scene, it quickly goes down hill from there on out. The plot could have been interesting, but the lazy direction and incoherent structure lets everything down and even the twists and turns couldn't save it as the movie was simply too boring and sloppily made to keep me engaged.

The acting performances were sub-par all around with Monica Carpanese giving one of the most baffling and unconvincing performances I've ever seen, and the rest of the cast didn't fair any better either as there wasn't a single memorable character in this entire film.

Overall 'Madness' fails on just about every level imaginable and not entertainingly bad enough to be a trashy guilty pleasure cheese. This is definitely one of the worst giallo flicks I've seen so far.

Bruno Mattei's grisly, Gorgonzola-garlanded, gloriously goofy Giallo 'Madness' aka 'Occhi Senza Volto' remains a hysterically hinkey, luridly eye-ball harvesting, frequently hilarious, 90s B-Slasher disasterpiece! Larded with mesmerisingly awful acting, deliciously asinine dialogue, 'Madness' is a must-see romp, unless you happen to be one of Doctor Death's brutally brain-spiked, orb-less victims,natch! Misguided B-Movie maverick, Mattei's absurdly entertaining thriller is a ceaselessly delightful trip into bad movie nirvana! The gruesomely ripe performances are either catatonic or, Bette Davis's worst nightmare! Endearingly inept, compellingly cheesy, this gleefully gormless Giallo delivers an abnormally high quotient of trashy entertainment. The infamous, yet enormously beloved Italian schlock supremo, Bruno Mattei has a truly enviable C. V of magnificently mad, crudely plagiarised, generously blood-basted, cheaply made chunk blowers, and, happily, 'Madness' is right up there with the very worst of 'em! What a sunnier world it would be if ALL splatter films were this much fun to watch!

One thing that I find very irritating in movies: when a character is supposed to be a professional artist (in this case a comic book artist), but their drawings look like they've been done by a child (and a not very talented one at that). I mean, how difficult is it to find someone who can draw decent comic illustrations and who is desperate for a bit of exposure?

That little niggle aside, Bruno Mattei's Madness (AKA Eyes Without a Face) is a fairly effective little giallo - one might be forgiven for not realising that this was by the same director as Rats: Nights of Terror (1984) and Night Killer (1990). The film sees a masked murderer at work, their modus operandi identical to that of Dr. Dark, the serial killer character created by artist (and I use that word loosely) Giovanna Dei (Monica Carpanese): victims are killed with a double-bladed stiletto knife, and have their eyeballs removed, the bloody organs left as a gift for Giovanna.

Eyeball trauma is a staple of Italian horror, and Madness doesn't add much new to the giallo genre, but the film is fun, pacy, and reasonably engrossing throughout; the identity of the killer isn't impossible to work out, but there's always the possibility that you might have guessed wrong. Gore is limited to a few gruesome empty eye sockets and the extracted orbs, and Carpanese supplies the requisite nudity during a brief but enthusiastic sex scene.

Madness is neither Mattei's finest hour (I have a soft spot for Zombie Creeping Flesh and The Jail: The Women's Hell), nor is it his worst (The Other Hell has my vote), but it is definitely amongst the director's better work. I say ignore the director's iffy reputation and give it a go.

Ok italian Giallo with a story more interesting than usual. The budget shortcomings are evident in the setting and the poorly made FX, but the twist ending Is surprisingly effective.