The Unnaturals

A group of English folks (well, German, actually) are trying to get to their home amidst the mother of all thunderstorms that is washing out all the roads. With their car stuck in the mud, they have to walk to a nearby house inhabited by "Uriat" (Luciano Pigozza aka Alan Collins) and his mother. Now this woman (Marianne Leibl) is quite adept at séances and soon the group are sitting around the table where truths will out. These truths, played out via a series of flashbacks, are unsavoury and depict some of the group as malevolent, murdering, monsters. The more we learn, the more dangerous it gets for all concerned. Will they all leave that place alive? Aside from the audio of a biblical storm the sort not seen since Noah, the rest of this is all rather cheaply cobbled together with far too much (badly dubbed) dialogue that, in the end, presents us with a sort of brutal episode of "Upstairs Downstairs". Quite why there is an English setting is anyone's guess - it seems to create additional impediments to the already rather predictably weak characterisations. Eighty minutes felt a great deal longer as it lumbered along to a conclusion about which I simply didn't care. I wouldn't bother, I'm afraid.

A rich old man and his greedy group of hangers-on get stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down (in a thunderstorm, of course) and the motley crew make their way to an old dark house where they interrupt a seance that reveals their deadly secrets...

What's basically an Agatha Christie murder mystery set in the Roaring Twenties gets all supernatural in the last ten minutes but it's too little too late for anyone expecting a horror film. Although flashbacks help open things up, it's still a "drawing room whodunit" at heart with nice period detail (except for the hairdos) and a bit more style than usual for this sort of thing. The (brief) sex scenes are lesbian (were they "the unnaturals"?) but not erotic and the movie's nothing to get excited about, either, despite its reputation as one of the director's best.

To be fair there were some fine moments in this, particularly towards the end, when we actually get to see the action that has been thus far only talked about. Also despite prim early scenes we suddenly get solid girl on girl scenes, one verging on the non consensual, which is unusual. Also as the film climaxes we do get some great shots of eyes, giallo style, wide and fearful but by then it has been a long time coming. Again I have to confess the early scene in the woods in the storm is very well done but once we get to the house (yes, old dark house style) things do begin to drag. There are flashbacks to another big house but it does nothing to relieve the tedium of this extremely wordy piece. Card games, a prolonged seance sequence - are you getting excited, no, not me either. Real shame because everybody performs well, there is good photography and there are enough great moments to make one wish there had been just a few more. The low score is in part to remind me that I would not want to see this again and not that this is completely without merit.

I would love to see a cleaned up copy of The Unnaturals, as I can tell even from the dingy copy I saw that the lush setting of Victorian decadence in the Gilded 1920s time period would be lovely in sharp, clear color.

However, the flashbacks are orchestrated in a less than perfect manner, making them a bit confusing rather than simply creating backstory and tension. Long before Quentin Tarantino was dragging his audience back and forth through a series of crimes, Antonio Margheriti made a creative choice to staple together an upsetting collage of non-linear infidelity and murder. Going character by character instead of back to the beginning was probably not his brightest idea.

Pros: Fantastic gothic atmosphere. Dark and stormy night. Creepy house in the forest. A group of haunted people participate in a seance. I enjoyed the camerawork and direction by Antonio Margheriti. Some of the moving shots helped keep the film engaging. There is a good amount of old-fashioned suspense here. Marianne Koch shines in the cast.

Cons: I thought the ending ultimately took away from the events that proceeded it. I didn't like it. There is a homophobic depiction of bisexual or lesbian woman. I didn't like that either. There are a number of flashbacks throughout the film. Some of them help the film, but some of them derail the momentum of the central story.

At the end of the day, it's worth a watch if you're a fan of these things, but the average viewer can skip this one.