Ombre roventi

It's kind of hard to describe this thing, but here goes: an Italian model (Daniela Giordana)has been lured to Egypt for a fashion shoot. It turns out though that she has caught the interest of a strange cult who believe that she is the reincarnation of the goddess Isis. The cult is led by a strange and possibly incestuous brother and sister (the latter played by Krista Nell). Much nudity and ooga-booga nonsense ensues, including a lesbian scene between Giordano and Nell where the evil sister tries to bring out the fashion model's inner-goddess, and a truly bizarre fog-machine saturated finale which involves Giordano splayed out naked on a fake rock for about ten minutes while the entire cult dances around in ritual sacrifice (why they wanted to sacrifice the reincarnation of the goddess Isis frankly eluded me).

Mario Caino was a decent director most famous for "Nightmare Castle" with Barbara Steele, although his best film was probably the early, pop-Freudian giallo "Eye in the Labyrinth". He directed this somewhere between those too, and his direction is pretty serviceable I guess. Obviously, the raison d'etre of this whole thing is female nudity. Daniela Giordana was one of several Miss Italys (or Miss Teen Italys) to end up in European "adult" films of the era (although she was not nearly as ubiquitous as Gloria Guida and didn't end up in hardcore like Lili Karati). Krista Nell was an alluring and mysterious Austrian actress who died young in a car crash. Her work was very consistent at least--I've yet to see here keep her clothes on for an entire movie.

But does this movie have much appeal beyond cheesecake? Well, no, but if you're in the mood for cheesecake...

Heading off for a photoshoot, a model arrives in Egypt to begin her assignment only to find that the company she works for required her to be there in order to fulfill the prophecy of a strange cult believing she is the reincarnation of an ancient god and tries to get away.

This was quite the fun if slightly flawed Euroshocker. What manages to work nicely for this one is the fact that there's a relatively nice sleazy piece of atmospheric shenanigans at play here that really works nicely for the first half. The idea at play here, that she's been brought there for a significantly different purpose than what she's been lead to believe, gets this off to a nice start with the strange treatment she receives at the airport despite the expected nature of her arrival to the way nobody seems to support the company's existence. Wrapped together with the strange dreams and visions including her in sapphic embraces with a strange woman as well as the surrounding glares from cult members, the first half has a rather nice and mysterious atmosphere that nearly matches the ambiance given by the authentic Egyptian locations. Since that is a rather foreign and unexplored culture, the constant talk of the different gods and their legendary powers, the deep culture cultivated by the religion and placing all the time amongst the different artifacts and locations here makes this one quite appealing during these sections as there's a great amount of supernatural tied together here for an appealing story.Once that in turn leads to the strange cult and their powers, this one takes off rather nicely into the Eurotrash realm as the first scenes showing their sacrificial ways and offering up the woman before the entire cult makes for quite a rather intriguing premise as for how it's dropped into the film as a whole while the later sequence showing her being trapped and captured by the cult as they prepare her for the ceremony where she's sexually attacked and targeted before the last minute rescue attempt makes for a nice lively bit of action to see getting played out here. That gets built up even more in the finale which is all sorts of cheesy fun with the completely over-the-top ceremony played out in the temple as there's quite a lot of energetic tribal dancing and gyrating that occurs during the preparation attempts which gives this one a nice feel coupled with the sleazy thrill of it taking place while she's in the nude the whole time and ends with a bang as there's the fiery, explosion-filled climax that gives it a nice punch. These here are the film's positive points, although it does have a few minor issues holding it back. One of the film's biggest stumbling blocks of the fact that hardly anything at all happening in this one. The vast majority of time is building up the fact that there's a strange, mysterious secret amongst the coven that involves her, but rather than get any direct and irrefutable elements that signal she's under the attack of something it's mere suggestion at play here. The endless romance scenes showing him trying to win her trust and the travelogue scenes of them in the city are simply bland and really drag this one down somewhat, making for quite a long time without anything at all happening throughout this one as the pacing comes off really stilted and dragging at times. Likewise, there's also the rather confusing main story in the second half as there's never any clear- cut sign throughout this one about who's on which side as the alliances are which is then further complicated by the actual finale as that never really clears it up either. These here what hold it back even though it has a lot to like here.

Rated Unrated/R: Full Nudity, Violence and Language.

This low budget effort was clearly made because someone got permission to use some pretty astonishing Egyptian locations and they had some film school drop-outs to use as extras and just went out there and made something up. The more structured dialogue is the most putrid nonsense and the rest more or less evolves around the leading lady, Daniele Giordano, in and out of clothes, running about and asking people to help her. From what, why and who cares I cannot be troubled to relate and yet I didn't hate this movie. At first there is a dreaminess to it as we ponder what might be going on and then the exotic locations captivate us whilst the dramatic shifts in music keep us awake. All leads, of course to our poor heroine being tied naked to a rock whilst those about her cavort in dry ice. She looks great spread out as she is but she's probably there for ten minutes of film so goodness knows how long she actually spent there. Still, lots of funny cigarettes seemed to have been smoked and I'm sure a very good time was had by all.

A fashion model is lured to Cairo by a mysterious cosmetics firm. Once she gets there she soon becomes aware that something is not right and it transpires that a weird cult is after her on account of the fact that they believe she is the reincarnation of their goddess, Isis.

Shadow of Illusion was directed by Mario Caiano, an Italian director responsible for several genre films, most notable of which is probably the breezy giallo Eye in the Labyrinth. The most notable aspect of that one was possibly its soundtrack, which was distinctive in that it was a jazz-fusion affair. In this one, the music is also a standout; with a mixture of dark jazzy musings, Euro lounge and North African themes. The main star is Daniela Giordano, a former Miss Italy, who was especially good in Mario Bava's Four Times That Night. In this one she sports flaming red hair and is the focus of the film. There was one especially well executed dream sequence and it did also seem that the exotic Egyptian location did offer something quite different which was used to good effect. I have to point out at this stage, however, that I saw this ultra-rare film on a truly battered copy, so some of its charms will definitely have eluded me and I consequently have had to take this into account. Overall, it seemed fairly middling though, although I am sure my opinion would improve if I could see it on a half-way decent print.

A young girl obeys the call of ISIS and goes to the Middle East to join them.

Ah, but this is 1970, and ISIS are a make company, not a bunch of religious nutters, and Gail Bland has been invited to join them as a model in Cairo. It's bad enough being a young girl on her on in a foreign country, but when mysterious people keep trying to get her attention and the make up company doesn't seem to exist, what's a young girl to do?

Well, once the hippy Egyptologist cult started putting the moves on me, I'd be back on a plane quicker that you could say 'Get your idealistic smelly hands off of me and go and get a job'. Gail on the other hands goes to a nightclub with them and has a trippy dream instead. William Berger shows up as a seemingly friendly face who goes on at length about the legend of Osiris, Isis, Seth and someone else which kind of goes some way into explaining why the hippies are so interested in Gail. Romance also ensues as Gail and William take in the sights and try and track down this cosmetics company.

By the mid-seventies, the old 'mysterious cult' plot would have been done to death, but this might be one of the earliest attempts at it. That said, it's lacking in the old gore but if you're a nudity fan you get some of that. There's also a scene where the cultists are performing a ceremony and are seemingly invaded by the cast of Fame, so that gave me a chuckle at least. I'm a fan of William Berger and that carried the film for me, as he always looks like he's having a blast, whatever he's doing.

What was all that crap with the photographs though? That didn't make any sense.