Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980-1989
Author: Roberto Curti
Date: 2019-03-07 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Performing Arts; Film; General
Description: The Italian Gothic horror genre underwent many changes in the 1980s, with masters such as Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda dying or retiring and young filmmakers such as Lamberto Bava ( Macabro , Demons ) and Michele Soavi ( The Church ) surfacing. Horror films proved commercially successful in the first half of the decade thanks to Dario Argento (both as director and producer) and Lucio Fulci, but the rise of made-for-TV products has resulted in the gradual disappearance of genre products from the big screen. This book examines all the Italian Gothic films of the 1980s. It includes previously un
Publisher: McFarland

Italian Gothic

Horror Films,

1980–1989

Also by RobeRto CuRtI

And FRom mCFARlAnd

Mavericks of Italian Cinema: Eight Unorthodox Filmmakers, 1940s–2000s (2018)

Bracali and the Revolution in Tuscan Cuisine (2018) Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of a Born Filmmaker (2017) Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979 (2017) Tonino Valerii: The Films (2016)

Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969 (2015) Italian Crime Filmography, 1968–1980 (2013)

Italian Gothic

Horror Films,

1980–1989

RobeRto CuRtI

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina

ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7243-4

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-3524-8
lIbRARy oF ConGRess CAtAloGuInG dAtA ARe AvAIlAble bRItIsH lIbRARy CAtAloGuInG dAtA ARe AvAIlAble

© 2019 Roberto Curti. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover: Italian lobby card for the 1981 film Murder Obsession, featuring a screaming Anita strindberg

Printed in the united states of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
to Cristina, my light half.

Acknowledgments
my most sincere thanks go to the following, who in one way or another contributed to the making of this book: mark thompson Ashworth, enzo boetani, Ricky Caruso, davide Cavaciocchi, Francesco Cesari, brigitte Christensen, luigi Cozzi, michele de Angelis, Pierpaolo de sanctis, Alessio di Rocco, Christoph draxtra, steve Fenton, Jacqueline Freda, mario and Roderick Gauci, Julian Grainger, troy Howarth, Peter Jilmstad, Frank la-fond, stefano loparco, leandro lucchetti, Fabio melelli, domenico monetti, Antonio José navarro, Chris orgelt (bIFFF), stefano Patrizi, Alberto Pezzotta, Roberto Poppi, Fabio Pucci, luca servini, Pete tombs, david C. tucker, davide vincenti.

vi
table of Contents

Acknowledgments
vi

Introduction

1

A Note on the Entries

11

Abbreviations

13

Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980–1989

1980

15

Blow Job (Soffio erotico) 15

•

Inferno 18

•

Macabro 30

•

Il medium 34

• Mia moglie è una strega 36

• Ombre 39

•

Paura nella città dei morti viventi 42

1981

51

L’altro inferno 51

•

Black Cat 55

•

Bollenti spiriti 60

•

C’è un fantasma nel mio letto 62

• …E tu vivrai nel terrore!

L’aldilà 64

• Fantasma d’amore 73

• Murder Obsession 75

•

Quella villa accanto al cimitero 84

1982

93

Amityville II: The Possession 93

•

Assassinio al cimitero etrusco 96

•

La casa stregata 99

• Manhattan Baby 101

• Notturno con
grida 105

• La villa delle anime maledette—The Damned 108

1983

111

La bimba di Satana 111

•

Zeder 114

1985

121

Dèmoni 121

•

Fracchia contro Dracula 127

•

Monster Dog,
a.k.a. Leviatán 130

1986

134

Anemia 134

•

La casa del buon ritorno 136

•

Dèmoni 2 … l’incubo
ritorna 139

1987

142

La croce dalle 7 pietre 142

•

Spettri 146

1988

149

Blood Delirium (Delirio di sangue) 149

•

Il bosco 1 152

•

La casa

3—Ghosthouse 154

• La casa 4 (Witchcraft) 157

• Killing Birds—

Raptors 159

• Il nido del ragno 162

• Nosferatu a Venezia 166
vii
viii Table of Contents 1989

171

La chiesa 171

• Etoile 175

• I frati rossi 178

• Paganini

Horror 181

• Streghe (Witch Story) 185

Appendix 1: Direct- to-Video Releases

189

Appendix 2: Made- for-TV Films

199

Bibliography

211

Index

215

Introduction

“World champions!”

riddled with eleven gun and machine- gun bullets, stuffed in the trunk of a red Renault on July , 982, Italy won the 2th edition parked in the very center of Rome.

of the FIFA soccer World Cup, defeating West Aldo moro’s killing marked the begin-Germany 3– during the final match at the “sanning of the end for the Red brigades and other tiago bernabeu” stadium in madrid, spain. Al-terrorist groups. It generated a widespread most 37 million Italians were watching tv on sense of revulsion in public opinion, and that night, and as the referee blew the final whis-many defections from the ranks of these tle the nation exploded in a collective exultation, groups. the bR and other groups performed
while tv commentator nando martellini
more violent acts, with 29 victims in 978, 22
shouted, over and over, “Campioni del mondo!”

in 979 and 30 in 980. but the terrorists were (“World champions!”). It was more than just a becoming more isolated, and with the contri-victory: it was a collective catharsis, and not only butions of the so- called “pentiti” (repentants) because soccer was (and still is) Italy’s most pop-the bR columns were dismantled. but moro’s ular sport. the soccer World Cup came as a death was the deflagration that started a chain symbolic revival, marking the end of one of the reaction of political events, such as the resign-darkest periods in Italian history.

ing of the President of the Republic Giovanni After the kidnapping of premier (and
leone on June 5, 978, and the Communist
leader of the democrazia Cristiana party) Aldo Party losing 4 percent of votes in the June 979
moro on march 6, 978, at the hands of the elections—marking a negative trend for the terrorist group brigate Rosse (Red brigades), first time since 948—and abandoning its the whole nation had fallen into a state of strategy of “historic compromise,” that is, the shock. the ensuing 55 days of moro’s impris-plans of a government in convergence with
onment, the exhausting negotiations, the let-democrazia Cristiana in name of a greater
ters written by the premier to government
political good (to which moro was also favor-leaders, his family and the Pope, and moro’s able: not by chance, his body was found in a dramatic photographs in his cell sent to the road symbolically equidistant from the newspapers by the brigate Rosse had marked democrazia Cristiana and Partito Comunista the eruption of death on the political scene.

Italiano headquarters). Finally, in mid–octo-death and politics had become one and the
ber 980 a long and massive strike at turin’s same: a grim, terrible spectacle which had in-FIAt automobile plant (which had started
vaded every single minute in the media, day after the company’s announcement that it after day. All this had climaxed on may 9, with would lay off some 4,000 employees due to the finding of moro’s lifeless body, executed the market for cars being in recession) came by his kidnappers after a summary “trial” and to an unexpected end with 40,000 FIAt em-



2 Introduction ployees marching through the streets of turin they wanted to purchase cars, clothes, jewels and demanding their right to go back to work.

and other expensive status symbols, eat and It was, as the Washington Post noted, “the ul-drink in fashionable restaurants. Consumerism timate repudiation of both their own union had become a way to elevate oneself above his leadership and, of course, the Communists.”2
or her social status and feel like a member of After the collective commitment of 968,
the elite. the climate was favorable for the ad-the social struggles and their degeneration, vent to power of another political force. In 983, which gave way to the “years of lead” (973–
the rise of PsI (Italian socialist Party) and bet-

980), characterized by the violent confronta-tino Craxi’s designation as prime minister was tion between the state and the militant ter-the coronation marking such an era.

rorist groups, ordinary people were losing milan, the economic center of this new
touch with politics. the disengagement (or trend, the design and finance capital, was nick-

“political reflux”) led to the refusal of ideolo-named “la Milano da bere” (drinking milan) gies and parties and the rise of neoliberal for its excesses—cash, cocktails, cocaine—and ideas. the discovery in 98 of the subversive silvio berlusconi was its undisputed emperor.

pseudo–masonic lodge Propaganda due (or

Already a successful entrepreneur who had

P2) didn’t improve upon this widespread dis-founded his empire on construction with the trust. A clandestine far- right organization led building of the residential neighborhood of by licio Gelli, P2 counted among its members milano due (milan two) in the late 960s,
some of Italy’s most powerful individuals berlusconi had entered the world of commu-

(politicians, industrialists, military leaders, et nication and television as early as 973, when cetera). Its plans for a “democratic Rebirth”

he set up a small cable television company encompassed corruption, murder and as-named telemilano, originally limited to serv-sorted crimes (including, possibly, a partici-ice the milano due area, which later evolved pation in the 980 explosion at the bologna into Canale 5, Italy’s first national private tv train station, which killed 85 people and station. between 980 and 984 berlusconi (a wounded more than 200), and were aimed at

P2 member, incidentally) expanded his broad-the control of mass media, suppression of casting empire by absorbing the competitors trade unions, and the radical rewriting of the and becoming the monopolist in the tv mar-Italian Constitution in order to favor a total-ket with his company Fininvest: in 982 he itarian state.

bought Italia  from the Rusconi family, and the P2 scandal further weakened the na-two years later he acquired Rete 4 from mon-tion’s political conscience. A “silent majority”

dadori. In 984 he owned the three major net-came to the fore, and the new decade marked works outside RAI, each targeted at a specific the return from the public to the private sphere: audience (general, young, female/elderly).

Italians were rediscovering consumerism, and the constant violation of the laws on the part the advent of private tv networks gave new of berlusconi’s channels prompted the mag-impulse to frivolities, advertising, and all things istrate to forcibly obscure them, but Craxi, revolving around pure and simple entertain-berlusconi’s close friend, was the right man ment. Italy’s 982 soccer triumph (with the new in the right place, and he came to his aid.

President of the Republic, ex- partisan sandro between october 984 and June 985, the Pertini, watching the game on the stands of the socialist premier favored the development of madrid stadium, significantly representing the berlusconi’s tv empire with the so- called whole of Italy) became the coronation of all

“decreti Berlusconi” (“berlusconi decrees”), that—and more. After a decade of blood and which made this system “temporarily” legal.

bullets, people wanted to smile. even more, It wasn’t until 990 that a new law (the so-

Introduction 3
called “Legge Mammì”) consolidated what theatrically dropped dramatically. In the Craxi’s decrees had established, making berlus-

969–970 season there were 587 releases, in coni the most powerful man in Italy.

979–80 there were 480, and in 989–90 the number decreased again to 376. In the early

980s, the hardcore porn market had been an Death Smiles at the Murderer, or:

illusory oasis for some, but by the end of the Cinema vs. Television
decade, home video (with movies being dis-
tributed not only in video shops, but in news-the number of spectators, venues and
stands as well, often at cut- rate prices) had al-films distributed theatrically can provide an most completely consumed that area too. the idea of the quick death of Italian cinema rise of home video in the mid–980s meant
throughout the decades. In 970, there had that some titles found a second commercial been 525 million moviegoers; in 980 the life: lucio Fulci’s films, for instance, were number had decreased dramatically to 24.8
among the most rented in video stores.

million. In 990, there would be only 90 mil-newspapers announced “Berlusconi a
lion. meanwhile, the seconda and terza visione capofitto nel cinema”4 (“berlusconi dives venues—second-run and third- run cinemas, headlong into cinema”) in July 986, reporting located in the outskirts of cities and small the news of the tv mogul’s massive entry in towns respectively—were gradually closing
the movie business through a deal between
down, engulfed in the red- light circuit or sim-Reteitalia—a subsidiary of the Fininvest hold-ply dismantled to make room for banks, ing owned by berlusconi, founded in 979 and megastores and bingo halls, cutting short the devoted to producing and purchasing films
commercial life of b- movies. the ,560 the-and tv programs—and one of the country’s
aters (of which 6,929 were “industrial venues”

major distribution companies, medusa. At
while the rest comprised parish cinemas, cul-first Reteitalia was fully engaged in foreign tural associations, and so on) active in 970
tv acquisitions, submitting Italian audiences were reduced to 8,453 in 980 (of which 5,336
to a steady diet of American tv shows, from were industrial venues) and 3,923 in 990

The Dukes of Hazzard to The Jeffersons, but (with 2,59 industrial venues). the percentage berlusconi’s plans rapidly expanded to cinema.

of first run theaters on the market, which was the company began purchasing the “diritti
a very low in 970, at just .6 percent, became d’antenna” (broadcasting rights) in 983 by 92 percent in 980, and 94 percent in 990.3
paying huge sums in advance to producers, a this indicated that there was no longer room system which soon replaced the “guaranteed for the “mercato di profondità” (deep market), minimum” advanced by distributors for the
which allowed most genre films a long period theatrical release: nanni moretti’s Bianca, re-

(years) of commercial exploitation before leased in February 984, had been the first mo-their withdrawal from distribution. many tion picture officially co- produced by films were distributed only regionally, such Reteitalia. In 986, with 70 to 80 billion lire in-as those aimed at southern audiences, and
vested, berlusconi had become Italy’s biggest rarely if ever arrived in big cities, while others film producer. that same year Reteitalia ac-opened directly in the second- run and third-quired 49 percent of medusa. the year 988
run circuit. these were the first victims of the opened with berlusconi’s company taking muted market conditions, as they were not
control of the Cannon cinema chain in Italy, granted a commercial theatrical run any which consisted of 50 theaters,5 and resulted longer.

in berlusconi owning or operating 300 the-

In fact, the number of films distributed
aters across the country. then, in october of

4 Introduction the same year, Reteitalia—who already owned is a shame … we need competent people …

other distribution companies, namely orion-it sucks walking across those corridors and Cdi, Cidif, dmv and other minor ones—ac-sniffing all this political smell instead of quired 00 percent of medusa. “now we are a having someone in charge who truly knows
major european company,” berlusconi ex-about spectacle and culture.”9 It goes without ulted.6 In march 989 Reteitalia cut a deal with saying that genre films were barely repre-mario and vittorio Cecchi Gori, the owners sented—a few exceptions being Roberto
of the Cecchi Gori distribution group, to cre-Faenza’s Copkiller, Giorgio bontempi’s Notate a new company devoted to producing and turno and Antonio margheriti’s Il mondo distributing films in the Italian market.7 born di Yor (all 983), and duccio tessari’s Tex e il with an ambitious investment of 250 billion signore degli abissi (985). As for the Gothic lire, Penta Film—described triumphally as a and horror genre, the only significant titles

“full cycle company which carries a movie
financed by RAI were Pupi Avati’s remarkable from production to theatrical distribution, zombie yarn Zeder (983), which turned out and then from the theaters to the living room, to be a box- office disappointment, and Alberto that is the home video”8—acquired a key po-Abruzzese and Achille Pisanti’s virtually un-sition on the market, both theatrical and seen political vampire allegory, Anemia, quickly home video.

shelved after an inauspicious screening at the RAI (the national broadcasting com-

986 venice Film Festival.

pany) had been co- producing films since 963, Reteitalia took quite a different direction but its output grew after the notorious law 03
with its productions. besides a bunch of art-

(April 4, 975), which acknowledged its eco-house titles which would grant the company a nomic monopoly on television (while admit-cultural legitimacy rather than big profits (inting the legitimacy of local television net-cluding works by marco Ferreri and marco bel-works) and urged the company to set up “a
locchio), its offerings featured a prevalence of specific structure dedicated to the production comedies and genre films—often co- produced of films, in financial co- participation with with existing companies such as luciano mar-Italian or foreign companies.” over the years, tino’s dania Film—aimed at younger audiences, RAI was devoted to financing mostly cultural-including gialli, horror and Gothic films, such oriented products, sometimes shot in dual
as lamberto bava’s Morirai a mezzanotte (986) versions: a feature- length film for cinema re-and Le foto di Gioia (987), marcello Avallone’s lease, and an extended cut for a two- part air-Spettri (987) and Maya (989), Pathos—Segreta ing on prime time a few months after the the-inquietudine (988, Piccio Raffanini), Nosferatu atrical run.

a Venezia (988, Augusto Caminito), Il nido del Federico Fellini, ermanno olmi,
ragno (988, Gianfranco Giagni) and michele michelangelo Antonioni, marco bellocchio,
soavi’s La chiesa (989). In turn, RAI struck a the taviani brothers were among the auteurs deal with producers mario and vittorio Cecchi who benefited from RAI’s financing, but the Gori to invest more in genre cinema: among choice of titles produced by the company re-the titles co- produced by this new venture there mained spotty, awkwardly blending commit-was dario Argento’s Opera (987).

ted projects and forgettable ones, with the but the massive presence on the market
inner logic likely being simply that of political of Reteitalia and RAI meant the Italian movie intervention. In the words of scriptwriter industry would gradually set out to make tonino Guerra, in the corridors of RAI, “one films aimed more and more at a television au-can detect too much the smell of the politidience, with easily understandable conse-cians who are behind the executives. And this quences: tamer products, devoid of the sexual

Introduction

5
and violent excesses of the past. Censorship most of the mainstream. Audiences wanted
raised its head again, too. Whereas in the to laugh, and the likes of Renato Pozzetto,

970s it had been the magistrates who seized Paolo villaggio, Adriano Celentano, enrico those films judged “obscene” (a practice which montesano and Johnny dorelli meant surefire reached its peak in the early 980s with a mass box- office hits, which sometimes—as was the seizure of hardcore film all over the Italian case with Mia moglie è una strega (980, Castel-territory), during the decade a number of lano & Pipolo) starring Pozzetto and eleonora committees, associations and other guardians Giorgi, Bollenti spiriti (98, Giorgio Capitani), of the public moral appeared, watching over starring dorelli and Gloria Guida, or the Paolo the impressionable minors and influencing
villaggio vehicle Fracchia contro Dracula (985, the board of censors. meanwhile several rep-neri Parenti)—borrowed plots and ideas from resentative and groundbreaking auteurs had old fantasy classics. It was an attempt to give disappeared (think of Pasolini, for instance) new blood to an industry experiencing a non-and the weight of television had become deci-stop hemorrhage of moviegoers.

sive. In turn, censorship changed, in part, its focus by giving more attention to “fears and preoccupations that come out of psy-chologists’ environments, mostly toward the spreading of violence, because sex seems to be less important for them.”0 moreover, political agendas were submitted to commer-
cial ones: while judging a movie, the main issue was its final destination—television.
this would lead to the 990 mammì
law, which severely limited the tv airing
of films, by forbidding to broadcast films with a v.m.8 rating and relegating those
with a v.m.4 rating after 0:30 p.m. A movie had to be certified for all audiences to be aired on prime time, which led to a
massive resubmitting of old films that had been rated v.m.4 and v.m.8 to the rating boards, in order to obtain a new screening certificate after several cuts. In fact, it was a powerful weapon of barely disguised censorship, and a much more effective one than there had ever been.

There Will Be Blood…

All this heavily influenced Italian cin-
ema in general, and the Gothic and horror
movie genre in particular. It’s no surprise, Italian locandina for Bollenti spiriti (1981, Giorgio Capitani), one of several Italian comedies of the early then, that comedy became by far the most

1980s which borrowed plots and ideas from old fan-profitable genre of the decade and engulfed tasy classics.

6 Introduction As for the horror genre, the decade

(980) and Andrea bianchi’s Le notti del terrore started with a big- budget production, dario (98)—the latter produced by Gabriele Crisanti, Argento’s Inferno (980), which however who also gave the world the mind- numbing failed to become a trend- setter, and in April Patrick vive ancora (980), a rip- off of Richard of that year the death of mario bava and the Franklin’s 978 film Patrick (a surprise hit in feature film debut of his son lamberto Italy, where it was released with a new score by (Macabro, co- scripted and produced by Pupi Goblin) plus a little bit of Cornell Woolrich’s Avati) marked a symbolic turn for Italian
novel Rendezvous in Black thrown in for good fantastic cinema. meanwhile the old glories measure. Also in the game were luigi Cozzi stepped aside or headed toward different (the Invasion of the Body Snatchers–inspired genres. Riccardo Freda managed to direct

Contamination, 980), umberto lenzi (Incubo one last motion picture, the low- budget sulla città contaminata, 980, as well as the Murder Obsession (98), while Antonio
gory non- horror cannibal adventure diptych margheriti, after the vietnam War/cannibal Mangiati vivi!, 980, and Cannibal Ferox, 98, film hybrid Apocalypse domani (980), for
following Ruggero deodato’s controversial Can-most of the decade stuck to more profitable nibal Holocaust, 980) and Aristide massaccesi products—namely war yarns and adventure

(Antropophagus, 980, and Rosso sangue, 982).

flicks, Raiders of the Lost Ark–style—aimed these films had little if any Gothic blood in to please foreign audiences, after the West-them, but plenty of blood nonetheless: they are ern and the poliziotteschi had dried up.2
noteworthy principally as a testimony to the last It was precisely abroad that lucio Fulci
fireworks of Italian extreme cinema.

established himself as Italy’s most prominent dario Argento’s directing and producing
horror film director in the early 980s. be-output during the decade certified him as the tween 980 and 983, following the success of Italian “master of Horror” (as per the title of Zombi 2 (979), the director helmed a handful a 99 luigi Cozzi documentary), a commer-of titles that offered an original take on Gothic cially successful name brand that was to Italian themes, with the notable exception of the cinema what Ferrari was to cars, or Armani to ultra- violent giallo, Lo squartatore di New high fashion. Argento produced lamberto York (982), and were distributed abroad with bava’s two Dèmoni films—Dèmoni (985)

some success. Fulci’s original aesthetics of fear and Dèmoni 2 … l’incubo ritorna (986)—
and violence attracted the interest of French which introduced the type of sophisticated critics, who called him “poet of the macabre,”

special effects that would rival American hor-but in Italy, despite the commercial success of ror films and launched sergio stivaletti as some of his films, he was perceived as a bItaly’s answer to renowned u.s. special make-filmmaker.

up effects artists such as Rick baker and Rob Fulci’s Gothic tales, which sported literary bottin. their box- office success seemed to in-influences (from lovecraft to Henry James) in dicate there was a mainstream market for rea-addition to the cinematic ones, were liberally sonably budgeted, technically polished horror imbued with conspicuous gore. others followed films.

the same thread with plenty of gruesome on the other hand, the relationship be-graphic deaths, mutilations, disembowelments tween horror and the small screen was far
and gallons of hemoglobin spread before the from idyllic. lamberto bava’s giallo, La casa camera. this was the case with the zombie subcon la scala nel buio (983), originally devised genre following Fulci’s exploit, with the likes for tv, was released theatrically not least be-of marino Girolami’s Zombi Holocaust (980), cause of its graphic violent scenes, and the bruno mattei and Claudio Fragasso’s Virus
same happened with bava’s Morirai a mezzan-

Introduction

7
otte. most notably, Argento’s controversial ap-under the misleading label “Lucio Fulci pre-pearance as special guest in the tv show Gi-senta” (“lucio Fulci Presents”).

allo (october 987–January 988, Rai due), As for Fulci himself, his severe health is-where he introduced a series of gory short sues were only one of the causes that resulted films he directed, “Gli incubi di Dario Argento”

in his transition from “poet of the macabre”

(dario Argento’s nightmares), caused a con-to his decidedly less impressive low- budget troversy, with many protests on the part of output of the late 980s, with such works as spectators. In 986 Reteitalia commissioned his horror comeback Aenigma (987)—not a
the making of several Gothic and horror tv Gothic film by any means, but another Patrick movies, hoping to intercept those audiences rip- off mixed with references varying from who rented horror videos and followed late-Carrie (976) to Patricia Highsmith’s short night broadcasts of old and recent films alike.

story The Snail Watcher—and the ill- fated lamberto bava was recruited to direct the

Zombi 3 (988), both let down by mediocre
four films in the “Brivido giallo” series, and scripts, bad actors and shoestring budgets.

so were lucio Fulci and umberto lenzi for a lamberto bava, who had seemed to be on
similar project named “Le case maledette.” the the verge of becoming second fiddle to Ar-results were far from satisfying, and, most of gento as Italy’s most commercially successful all, they proved that tv execs were willing to horror filmmaker, eventually chose the path allow the genre on the small screen only in an of television, with questionable results. the overly diluted form, as shown by the bland brightest promise of Italian horror seemed to

“Brivido giallo,” but there was no room
for the uncompromising, over- the-top
gore of “Le case maledette.”

the ill- fated destiny of made- for-
tv Gothic and horror films reflects the
illusory well- being of a nation living
above its possibilities. In 982 Italy had emerged from a period of recession and
would undergo a constant expansion
that had economists refer to “a second

Italian economic miracle” after the
early 960s’ boom. but it would end
abruptly with the international reces-
sion of the early 990s. similarly, the
dreams of grandeur of Italian horror—
exemplified by Augusto Caminito’s

Nosferatu a Venezia, an ambitious se-
quel to Werner Herzog’s 979 film,
starring Klaus Kinski, which turned out
to be a commercial and artistic disas-
ter—were reduced by the end of the
decade to hit- and-run productions de-
signed for home video, such as the se-
ries of films produced on a shoestring

French lobby card for Quella villa accanto al cimitero
budget by luigi nannerini and An-

(1981), one of the films that earned Lucio Fulci the defi-tonino lucidi and were distributed
nition of “poet of the macabre” from French critics.

8 Introduction be the talented michele soavi, whose transi-the important thing to many was to disguise tion from low- budget (Deliria, 987) to the their national identity, in a chameleon- like Argento factory (La chiesa) crowned him as game that went in the opposite direction than the next big thing in the genre.

the gory excesses of the early decade. once the However, it was becoming harder and
motto was to stand out, to exceed, to harder for debuting filmmakers to find financ-exaggerate; now, it was to dissimulate.

ing for their work. some opted for help from the state through Article 28 of the 965 Italian law on cinema, which had instituted a fund The Changing Faces of Italian
to finance films “of national cultural interest,”

Gothic
but the results were little- seen products that barely surfaced in theaters (La casa del buon the main characteristics and figures of
ritorno, 986, beppe Cino), not to mention Italian Gothic cinema can often be found that their “cultural interest” was debatable to under a very different light in the films made say the least, as with the abysmal La croce dalle during the 980s. take the witch, for instance: 7 pietre (987, marco Antonio Andolfi). but the evil seductress, the temptress, the driving relying on state support meant that genre proj-narrative of the genre since the days of La ects (popular products, hence not culturally maschera del demonio (960), is in turn se-relevant in the common opinion) were mostly duced by the present- day commodities and cut out. As for Reteitalia’s approximations to becomes a benevolent housewife who takes
the horror genre, the box- office results proved care of her wealthy husband in Mia moglie è disappointing, while RAI’s investments in una strega, an example of comedy feeding young filmmakers would “offer study material vampirically on the genre’s clichés and depriv-to some willing cultural scholar,”3 to quote film ing them of their primal essence. on the other historian Paolo mereghetti, for their often in-hand, La casa 4—Witchcraft (988, Fabrizio explicable choices, with obscure and scarcely laurenti) or Il bosco 1 (988, Andrea marfori) attractive titles that sank to well- deserved revisited the seductive witch within a context oblivion.

inspired by sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (98) throughout the decade, small companies
and the new wave of gory American horror
such as Aristide massaccesi’s Filmirage kept films. throughout the decade, the most inter-producing low- budget horror pictures aimed esting take on the figure of the female sorcer-at foreign markets and gave debuting filmmakess in all its subversive essence was marco bel-ers a chance to make their bones. A new gen-locchio’s La visione del sabba (988). though eration of directors surfaced, namely michele not a Gothic horror movie per se—and there-soavi, Fabrizio laurenti, Claudio lattanzi and fore not included in this volume—it is never-Andrea marfori, but there were also young theless an intriguing look at sexuality and the independent, underground filmmakers who
battle of the sexes in today’s society by way of tried their hand at the horror genre, such psychoanalytic symbols and evocative dream as Giovanni Arduino and Andrea lioy (My
sequences set in the 6th century, which reprises Lovely Burnt Brother and His Squashed Brain, one of the Gothic’s main tropes in an original

988), and the milanese Fabio salerno, who and thought- provoking way. bellocchio uses made several interesting super8 and 6mm the theme of sorcery to explore the idea of an short films characterized by heavy cinephile irreducible feminine, in the story of a psychia-references, screened at specialized festivals.4
trist (choreographer/dancer daniel ezralow) but, as shown by such works as the Gothic-who is called to examine a delusional young oriented Streghe (989, Alessandro Capone), woman (beatrice dalle): she claims to be a

Introduction

9

350-year-old witch and almost killed a man media, although in safer and more glamorous who had sexually assaulted her. likewise, terms than the run toward sex of the previous the film employs the fantastic, by mixing past decade(s). bellocchio’s film had what most and present, reality and dream, realism and Gothic films made during the decade lacked—
fantasy in the very same shot—and sometimes eroticism, either explicit or not. still, the blend-with extraordinary visual inventions—to tell ing of hardcore porn with Gothic and/or suthe protagonist’s escape from the “mediocrity pernatural themes had produced a few notable of reason,” as one critic called it.

hybrids in the early 980s, which attempted to With its complex, thought- provoking vi-include sex scenes within a proper narrative sion of woman as an order- shaking element in frame, namely Alberto Cavallone’s surreal Blow a male- oriented society—a notion in tune with Job (Soffio erotico) (980) and mario bianchi’s bellocchio’s work of the period: see also his La bimba di Satana (983), a remake of Mala-

“scandalous” 986 film Il diavolo in corpo—La bimba (979, Andrea bianchi).5 on the other visione del sabba pointed indirectly at the de-hand, the Piero Regnoli–scripted Malombra
piction of woman as an object of desire, which (984, bruno Gaburro), a loose adaptation of had been relaunched by television and the Antonio Fogazzaro’s novel which had inspired one of Italy’s proto–Gothic films,
mario soldati’s Malombra (942),
sported hardly any Gothic ele-
ments, and turned out to be a
glamorous soft- porn tailor- made
for the voluptuous starlet Paola
senatore, in the wake of the trend
of erotic period films spawned by
tinto brass’ La chiave (983). but,
as the decade went on, the “adult”

elements were discarded.

Classical Gothic was usually
revisited within the context of
spoofs (such as Fracchia contro

Dracula), while the politically
committed approach to the genre
that had proven so fruitful in the
past had virtually disappeared:

Anemia was a less than remarkable
exception. similarly, the attempt at
exploring an Italian flavor of the
genre resulted in very few and
often obscure films, as was the case
with Giorgio Cavedon’s downbeat
ghost story Ombre (980), with

Pupi Avati’s Zeder standing out as
a startlingly original achievement.

As proven by the diffusion of

Marco Bellocchio’s La visione del sabba (1988) reprises one of Gothic and horror films via home
the Gothic’s main tropes (the seductive witch) for an intriguing look at sexuality and the battle of the sexes in today’s society.

video, the genre had been adopted

0 Introduction by a different and much younger audience—

NOTES
teenagers who purchased popular horror comics such as Dylan Dog and watched horror 1. see Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy.

Society and Politics 1943–1988 (london: Penguin uK, movie marathons on tv. dario Argento un-

990).

derstood it well: his 985 giallo, Phenomena, 2. “the end of the Fiat strike,” Washington Post, october 29, 980.

and the Dèmoni diptych were aimed at a pub-3. see barbara Corsi, Con qualche dollaro in meno. Sto-lic who listened to Iron maiden or mötley
ria economica del cinema italiano (Rome: editori riuniti, 200), 24–29.

Crüe, a generation of film buffs who could 4. “berlusconi a capofitto nel cinema,” La Stampa, July savor the cinephile homages and would also

7, 986.

5. Gian Guido oliva, “berlusconi: ‘l’87? È andato così,”

buy the soundtrack albums.

Corriere della Sera, January 5, 988.

Postmodernist Gothic evolved from the

6. Paolo Calcagno, “siamo una major europea,” Cor-mélange of references in the films scripted riere della Sera, october 28, 988.

7. P.Ca. [Paolo Calcagno], “Patto berlusconi—Cecchi by dardano sacchetti for lucio Fulci, which Gori,” Corriere della Sera, march 8, 989.

stuck to the habit of borrowing themes 8. maurizio Porro, “berlusconi e Cecchi Gori: la Penta Film è in orbita,” Corriere della Sera, october 25, 989.

and ideas and reworking them in a different 9. tonino Guerra, quoted in Franca Faldini and Gof-way (often, it must be added, with impressive fredo Fofi (eds.), Il cinema italiano d’oggi, 1970–1984

(milan: mondadori, 984), 393.

results), to the open homage and self-refer-10. domenico liggeri, Mani di forbice. La censura cin-entiality of Dèmoni and especially soavi’s ematografica in Italia (Alessandria: Falsopiano, 997), 83.

La chiesa, Italy’s most self- conscious and co-11. Which explains such paradoxical episodes as a deputy prosecutor envisaging the crime of “complicity in herent postmodernist horror movie of the obscene spectacle” for the members of the rating board decade. other, less impressive examples were who had classified 9½ Weeks (986, Adrian lyne) with only a v.m. 4 rating, allowing it to be broadcast at prime time the self- conscious Anemia, which amply disin december 987 on Canale 5.

played its makers’ elitist approach, and Fulvio 12. margheriti returned to the science fiction/horror genre with Alien degli abissi (989).

Wetzl’s feature length debut, Rorret (988), 13. Paolo mereghetti, “Piccoli film crescono (976–
about a psycho cinema owner (lou Castel)

998),” in Alberto barbera (ed.), Cavalcarono insieme. 50
anni di cinema e televisione in Italia (milan: mondadori who screens only horror films and picks his electa, 2004), 37.

female victims among the most impression-

14. born in 965, salerno made his first short film, able in the audience; he then attempts to have Spirit, at 4. several more followed: Cadaveri (982), Extra sensoria (985), Vampiri (986, presented at Cattolica’s them revive traumatic fears in real life. the mystfest), Mezzanotte (986, predating Hellraiser), Arpie premise partly recalls Fade to Black (980, (987) and Oltretomba (987). In 990 salerno directed the

6mm feature film Notte profonda (990), which cost only vernon Zimmerman), Anguish (987, bigas

 million lire, followed by another short, L’altra dimensione luna) and of course michael Powell’s Peeping (993). He committed suicide in 993, at just 29 years old.

15. the same cannot be said about other porn films Tom (960), and Wetzl is remarkably bold in with sparse horrific and supernatural elements, sketchily recreating key scenes from no less than three inserted between one graphic sex scene and the next. this is the case with Orgasmo esotico (982, mario siciliano, as Hitchcock films: Psycho (which becomes

“lee Castle”), in which sonia bennett plays a witch who Blood in the Shower, directed by a “Graham puts her deadly spell on the other characters, including sutherland” but replete with bernard Her-marina Hedman (credited as marina lotar), resulting in assorted deaths and in Hedman turning up as a zombie to rmann’s music score), Strangers on a Train and perform one last fellatio. In the circular ending it is Dial M for Murder. but the theoretical dis-revealed to be a dream … or maybe not? However, siciliano’s direction is so dire that one never cares about the course about cinema seems to have been lifted plot, but the sex scenes are even more boring. Nera … calda from some not- too-bright film student’s

… e dolce (987, A.P. spinelli [Alessandro Perrella]) is a rip- off of Jonas middleton’s golden age classic Through the thesis, and the only thing more awkward than Looking Glass (976), starring future porn star Rocco the acting is the concept that a movie theater siffredi as a malevolent sex phantom who lures the heroine (marie-Christine veroda, credited as “Jennifer o’naeale”) that specialized in horror films would attract into sex escapades, including a particularly unpleasant cli-enough spectators to survive in late 980s max involving a close encounter with a horse.

Italy.

A note on the entries
this volume lists all the films produced
dino de laurentiis, who had relocated his
and released in Italy between 980 and 989
production company overseas for financial
that in my view can be defined as “Gothic” (ac-reasons, and developed from an original cording to the analysis included in my previous script by dardano sacchetti, possibly the most volume Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969, active scriptwriter in the genre during the on pages 3 to 9, and continued in my 1970–1979
decade. As for the werewolf movie Monster
volume), or have prominent Gothic elements Dog, a.k.a. Leviatán (985), listed in official and themes to them. the entries include sources as an out- and-out spanish production spoofs, hardcore films or modern- day riffs on (but financed by the dutch producer eduard classic themes and characters (the ghost story, sarlui with his company Continental motion the werewolf, the vampire). each entry is listed Pictures), it was filmed in spain by genre spe-according to its first official screening or the-cialist Claudio Fragasso, who also scripted it.

atrical release date instead of its filming or its each entry features a comprehensive
submission to the rating board. this led to the crew and cast list, based on the film’s opening exclusion of such titles as lamberto bava’s and closing credits. uncredited extras are also made- for-tv remake of La maschera del de-listed, if noteworthy. Please note that on some monio and luigi Cozzi’s The Black Cat (a.k.a.

occasions the Italian crew and cast members De Profundis) which are dated 989 on the adopted english pseudonyms: whenever pos-Imdb but were in fact screened or released sible, I included the participants’ real names later: La maschera del demonio premiered in after their Anglo- saxon aliases. Also featured June 990 at Rome’s Fantafestival, whereas are filming locations, running time, screening Cozzi’s film was shot over a period of time certificate (visa) number, release dates, Italian between spring and fall of 989 and is copy-box- office grosses, alternate titles; a brief syn-righted 990 in the credits. Its video premiere opsis; and an essay on the film, often with took place even later, in June 99.

the inclusion of little- known or never- before-As with the previous volumes, I did not
seen data regarding production history and include spanish majority co- productions di-assorted trivia. As for filming dates, whenever rected by spanish filmmakers, such as Estigma possible I included the official ones as reported (980, José Ramón larraz), which was not
in the Public Cinematographic Register in even released theatrically in Italy. on the Rome, but bear in mind that this official source, other hand, I opted to include two films that although very valuable, is not 00 percent reli-were filmed abroad and financed with foreign able, as sometimes the dates registered don’t money but helmed by Italian directors. dami-correspond to the actual ones (see, for instance, ano damiani’s Amityville II: The Possession the case of Argento’s Inferno). still, it is useful (982) was produced by an Italian mogul, to date a movie’s production properly.



2 A Note on the Entries unlike previous decades, box- office
lease. some of these titles fall flatly into the grosses were sometimes problematic to find, Gothic genre, while others feature minor or due to the lack of proper sources (such as sparse Gothic elements, so I have decided to maurizio baroni’s invaluable Platea in piedi discuss them in a comprehensive essay for the volumes, which stop at 979) or sometimes
sake of explaining their common production the unreliability of data. I have taken advan-history and their main traits and themes, while tage of various sources, including Roberto giving much more room to those that have

Poppi’s Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film proper Gothic qualities. the second appendix dal 1980 al 1989 and, starting from 985, the covers Gothic made- for-tv films, with two issues of the monthly magazine Ciak si gira series produced by Reteitalia during the with the list of the year’s top 00 box- office decade, namely “Brivido giallo” (consisting of films, but for some of the more obscure titles four films directed by lamberto bava) and “Le the grosses were not available.

case maledette” (four films directed by lucio the entries are listed under their original Fulci and umberto lenzi). In both appendices, Italian title, followed by the english title (re-the entries are arranged in chronological order, ferring to the u.s. theatrical or video release) according to their shooting dates; for “Brivido in brackets and italics. If there was no english giallo,” they are arranged based upon their language release, a literal translation is in-original air date.

cluded, but not set in italics. Please keep in the information bits provided through-mind that the films are mentioned throughout out the text are the result of thorough research the text under their original Italian title, for from a variety of sources such as academic instance Quella villa accanto al cimitero, not texts and essays and other assorted material The House by the Cemetery.

(interviews with filmmakers, producers and the book features two appendices. the
actors, old newspaper articles and reviews, first covers direct- to-video releases, namely ministerial papers and archives). Whenever the eight films of the series “I maestri del possible, I located and consulted the original thriller” (a.k.a. “Lucio Fulci presenta”), which scripts deposited at the luigi Chiarini library were never submitted to the rating board and of the Centro sperimentale di Cinematografia didn’t receive any certificate for theatrical re-

(CsC) in Rome.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the credits list for each entry

Crew
dresser; se: special effects; so: sound; soe: special sound effects; sP: still photographer; AC: Assistant camera; ACo: Costume as-sPFX: special make-up effects; ss: script su-sistant; ACon: Assistant continuity; Ad: As-pervisor/script girl; stC: stunt Coordinator; sistant director; Ae: Assistant editor; Amu: svFX: special visual effects; W: Wardrobe/

Assistant makeup; APd: Production design as-seamstress.

sistant; Artd: Art director; Asd: Assistant set designer; b: boom man; bb: best boy; C: Camera; Chel: Chief electrician; CHoR: Choreog-

Production
rapher; Co: Costumes; Con: Continuity; d:

directed by; diald: dialogue coach/dialogue Adm: Administrator; AP: Associate pro-director; doP: director of photography;
ducer; eP: executive producer; Gm: General dubd: dubbing director; e: editor; el: elec-manager; PA: Production assistant; PAcc: Pro-trician; GA: Gaffer; Hair: Hairdresser; KG: Key duction Accountant; PCo: Production Coor-grip; lt: lighting technician; m: music; mA: dinator; Pm: Production manager; PR: Pro-master of arms; mix: sound mixer; mu:

duction runner; PRod: Produced by; PPs:

makeup; oe: optical effects; Pd: Production Post-Production supervisor; Ps: Production designer; PrA: Press attache; Prm: Property supervisor; Pse: Production secretary; PseA: master; s: story; 2ndAd: 2nd Assistant

Production secretary assistant; um: unit man-director; sC: screenplay; sd: set decoration/set ager; uP: unit publicist.

3

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Italian Gothic Horror Films,

980–989

The films are listed alphabetically within each year.

Notes are given at the end of each entry.

1980

Blow Job (Soffio erotico) (Blow Job—Erotic Countess Angela, who helps Stefano pick a win-Whiff)

ning horse. In return she asks them for a ride to D: Alberto Cavallone. S and SC: Alberto
her villa in the countryside because she wants Ste-Cavallone; DOP: Maurizio Centini; M: Ubaldo fano to help her “pass the gate.” During the trip Continiello; E: Alberto Cavallone; AD: Michelan-they meet some surreal characters, including a gelo Pepe; AC: Carlo Marotti; ChEl: Armando biker whose head looks like a skull. At the villa, Dramis; El: Costante Martinelli, Aldo Gentili; KG: a sinister- looking butler named Alphonse awaits Gaetano Barbera; G: Aldo Negretti; MU: Silvana them. Strange things ensue: Angela puts a spell Petri; SO: Pietro Spadoni; SS: Emilio Taliano.

on Diana, who becomes ill; Stefano goes looking Cast: Danilo Micheli (Stefano Vicinelli), Anna for a doctor and meets a young, beautiful woman Massarelli (Diana), Anna Bruna Cazzato (Annamed Sibilla, who gives him a magic powder to gela), Mirella Venturini (Sibilla), Valerio Isidori cure Diana. The Countess and Diana leave Ste-

(Alphonse), Antonio Mea (Hotel Concierge); fano alone in the villa and go to a ball; in the mid-uncredited: Martial Boschero (Hotel Customer), dle of the night, Sibilla comes out of a mirror and Guya Lauri Filzi (Woman at Party), Hassen takes Stefano to a cave where she hypnotizes him, Jabar (Masked Party Guest), Pauline Teutscher and they make love. Then Stefano finds himself (Suicidal Woman). PROD: Martial Boschero for again in the villa, in the middle of an inexplicable Anna Cinematografica [and Pietro Belpedio, un-ritual which turns into an orgy: Diana, seemingly credited, for Distribuzione Cinematografica 3]; in a hypnotic trance, dances with the guests in PM: Martial Boschero; PSe: Maria Ludovica turn, regardless of him. The mysterious biker Bologna. Country: Italy. Filmed in Riolo Terme, shows up and turns out to be a woman with a Ravenna and Cesena, Italy. Running time: 80 min-skull mask; she starts a primitive tribal dance, utes (m. 290). Visa n. 74774 (.7.980); Rating: and all those she passes by drop dead, until she V.M.8. Release dates: .7.980 (Italy), 6.2.

and Diana are the only ones left in the room.

984 (Spain); Distribution: Distribuzione Cine-Diana becomes mad at Stefano and falls out of a matografica 3. Domestic gross: 42,37,000 lire.

window. Stefano is left alone with Angela: she and Also known as: Blow Job—Dolce lingua (Italy, al-Sibilla are one and the same, a powerful witch ternate title); Blow Job (Trabajo de absorción) who absorbs her lovers’ energy in order to rein-

(Spain).

carnate into a new body. Stefano confronts and Stefano and Diana, two young and penniless apparently destroys them by shattering the huge actors, flee from a hotel without paying the bill, mirror in the salon. Then he suddenly finds him-taking advantage of a woman’s suicide. Later, at self back at the hotel. The woman who has coma racetrack, they meet a scarred older woman, mitted suicide is revealed to be Diana. Amidst the



6 1980 Blow crowd, Stefano glimpses Sibilla and Alphonse, for free to the production but asked to be on set staring at him…

when the explicit sex scenes were shot. The ex-Always a controversial filmmaker, who had
treme poverty shows throughout the film, shot managed to cut for himself a niche as a singular on a shoestring and harmed by inadequate ac-auteur whose works blended eroticism, politics tors, especially the bovine- looking Dario (especially Third World- related themes) and ex-Micheli. Yet the result is strangely fascinating, perimental film style, by the late 970s Alberto and certainly doesn’t deserve the crass contempt Cavallone had made the transition between (and lack of critical depth) reserved to it by some erotic cinema to hardcore porn. “It is a deliber-biased historians of Italian porn.

ately pornographic film, but with a political con-The director’s mystical and esoteric intertent. A movie about violence as a means of com-ests are well in evidence here. The story is spiced munication and knowledge in a repressive with literary references that vary from Carlos society.” This is how he announced Blue Movie Castaneda’s writings to Aldous Huxley’s 94

(978), labeling it as “Italy’s first hard- core essay on drugs, The Doors of Perception. As the film… . The characters discuss like in a progres-director explained, “the whole film was focused sive comic book, shoot, copulate and sodomize, on the possibility of escaping from our own bod-kill and ejaculate in a mixture where everything ies, by modifying sensorial perceptions through is dream. The only reality is sex, with its func-the use of drugs or self- concentration.” Blue tions pushed to the extreme.”2 But his choice was Movie conveyed a stark, grim and matter- of-fact also dictated by the rapidly shrinking market, view on the contemporary world, in which con-and the impossibility to mount the projects he sumerism leads to alienation and madness; Blow wanted to make (such as Dream, a violent rape-Job, on the other hand, is a metaphysical and and-revenge tale set entirely in a department elusive, even escapist fantasy which nevertheless store). Even though his films—most notably exudes the same pessimistic feel. Significantly, Spell—Dolce mattatoio, 977—were advertised at one point Sibilla says: “The world is tired, its as Italy’s answer to Walerian Borowczyk and end is near, people have lost the will to live… . ”

Dušan Makavejev, there was little or no room Dialogue was never Cavallone’s biggest for him as an independent director who worked asset, and such lines as, “I don’t know what got outside Rome.

me today, I feel like a bitch in heat” are definitely Following Blue Movie, Cavallone split his
not Shakespeare. But the protagonists’ words activity as a filmmaker into two. On the one convey the director’s disconsolate vision of the hand, he worked on television, returning to his present and link the film to his previous works.

origins as a documentarist with the reportage Whereas Blue Movie was about a world smoth-Dentro e fuori la classe, broadcast in three parts ered by commodities such as Coca- Cola and (respectively titled Io sono … capisci?, Boh! and Marlboro cigarettes, the characters in Blow Il pezzo di carta) on Rai Uno from November Job cannot see beyond the merely phenomenal 27 to December 2, 979, to very positive vision that today’s consumerist society has in-reviews.3 Parallel to that, he was now fully dab-stilled in them, and discuss even death in down-bling in hardcore porn.

to-earth, materialistic terms. In the early scenes, Shot during the Summer of 9794 with the
set in a cheap hotel, we meet the protagonists, working title La strega nuda (The Naked two young, penniless actors, Stefano (Micheli) Witch), Blow Job was an extremely rushed pro-and Diana (Anna Massarelli), who see a woman duction, officially financed by Martial Boschero’s throw herself out of a window from the room company Anna Cinematografica but in fact pro-above. Their reaction is telling: “We are made duced by Pietro Belpedio, one of the pioneers of of guts, of dampish matter,” Stefano comments, Italian porn with his company Distribuzione cynically comparing the dead woman on the

Cinematografica 3. Boschero—the brother of floor to “an overturned bowl of spaghetti with actress Dominique Boschero and one of Caval-lots of sauce.” Thus, when the witch talks about lone’s closer collaborators—had a cameo as a a “key” to “open a gate,” referring to a threshold customer at the hotel in one of the early scenes.

to another dimension, Stefano and Diana can Filming took place almost entirely in a villa near only interpret her words literally, unaware of Riolo Terme, in North- East Italy, near the city their real significance, because, as Sibilla tells of Faenza. Belpedio recalled that the villa be-Stefano: “You, like all the others, refuse to see longed to a dirty old man, who gave it almost beyond the images of your eyes… . ” They are

1980: Blow

7
empty, desperately void inside: it’s no surprise hippie woman who exudes an earthier, sunny that Stefano confesses: “I have many air bubbles sexuality, yet equally mystical and mysterious.

in my head… . Many white air bubbles.” But The result at times recalls Jean Rollin’s Blow Job’s ordinary, squalid everyday world films—take the sequence where Sibilla emerges proves permeable to forces and presences be-from the bathroom mirror and leads Stefano yond our comprehension. Magic is all around away in the night, which has the same striking us, as are doors (and mirrors, like in Inferno) to naivety as the grandfather clock scene in Le fris-other dimensions.

son des vampires (970). Cavallone was especially Blow Job is the closest the director came to proud of the ensuing sequence where the witch making a proper horror movie: at times, it al-brings Stefano to a cave and makes him drink a most looks like a live- action version of one of magic potion, especially the 360° shots following the adults- only comics made in the 970s, such Sibilla from the man’s point of view, as she as Oltretomba or Storie Blu. Cavallone’s take on moves in circles around him like a predator and the main themes of Italian Gothic—the haunted then hypnotizes him with snake- like moves.

house, the warped space/time continuity, the Other parts are definitely less successful: the ball gullible male hero, the duality between animate sequence in the darkened hall, with the enig-and inanimate—is imbued with the director’s matic participants carrying torches while danc-literary and cinephile tastes, with at times striking a waltz and Alphonse directing a spotlight ing results. The recurring character of the skull-on them, and Stefano vainly trying to catch masked biker echoes Jean Cocteau’s Orphée Diana, looks like an excerpt from some thread-

(90), and the plot itself is basically a reworking bare avant- garde experimental oddity. It soon of Cocteau’s film, from which it also reprises degenerates into a confused orgy whose partic-some central ideas, namely the characters cross-ipants are masked and made up like birds and ing a mirror which acts like a boundary between animals. The scene gives a measure of the inner this world and the afterlife. The one- eyed witch duality of Cavallone’s cinema, always striving to and her scarred butler Alphonse recall the overcome its limits but ultimately unable to princess played by Maria Casarés and her enig-fulfill its ambitions, wavering between remark-matic chauffeur Heurtebise (François Périer), able visual intuitions and slapdashness.

while Stefano and Diana are modern- day verAll this concurs to form a shaky, one- of-asions of Orphée and Eurydice. The seductress kind concoction that blends atmospheric fan-

(and bisexual) witch literally splits into two to tastique, elusive symbols, pretentious dialogue, put the man under her spell, as had happened bouts of tasteless H.G. Lewis- style gore (con-in Damiano Damiani’s La strega in amore centrated in the aftermath of the suicide scene) (966),6 and Cavallone was likely familiar with and explicit sex. In a late interview the director Carlos Fuentes’ novel Aura which had inspired denied that Blow Job featured any graphic sex Damiani’s film. Moreover, the dual appearance scenes except for “one simulated [sic] blow job,”7
of the witch—played by two very different ac-but this claim was refuted by other participants tresses—pays homage to Buñuel’s Cet obscur in the film. A hardcore version was filmed, and objet du desir (977). The actress playing the the cast features three uncredited performers countess, Anna Bruna Cazzato, is characterized who would work again in Cavallone’s hardcore as a mature dark lady, and wears a make- up that films: the Dutch Pauline Teutscher (the girl who has the left side of her face crossed by a deep commits suicide) and the Italian Guya Lauri scar and without an eye—a mutilation she hides Filzi, plus the Lebanese actor Hassan Jabar. The behind huge dark glasses and hats that recall latter two appeared in the orgy scene.

the titular diva in Billy Wilder’s Fedora (978).

Blow Job was first rejected by the rating

It is a yin/yang image of beauty and horror, se-board on February 23, 980, after Cavallone reduction and repulsion that recalls the character fused to perform the cuts that had been replayed by Barbara Steele in Amanti d’oltretomba quested,8 for a total of 3 minutes and 6 seconds.

(96, Mario Caiano). Her butler Alphonse (Va-In May 980, in appeal, he eventually obliged, lerio Isidori, in a role devised for Luciano Rossi) and the movie was given the censorship certifi-is similarly scarred, all over the right side of his cate with a V.M. 8 rating, on the condition face, as if to underline a link between them, a that the title be accompanied by the subtitle subterranean complementarity. On the other Soffio erotico (Erotic Whiff), which the board—
hand, Mirella Venturini’s Sibilla is a young evidently not too familiar with English lingo—

8 1980: Inferno assumed was “the title’s contextual and faithful tatoio. Incontro con Alberto Cavallone,” Nocturno Cinema translation into Italian,” as requested by the im-

#4, September 997, 4.

8. Namely, as reported in the ministerial papers: “) Sex-plementing regulation to the 962 law on cen-ual intercourse in the opening scene: the bit in which the sorship (D.P.R. 2029, ..963). However, the man’s member is seen and the part in which the woman is blatantly allusive posters bore the more explicit astride the man; 2) Lesbian scene on the sofa: the whole subtitle Dolce lingua (Sweet Tongue), and fea-part in which Diana is masturbating Angela; 3) Scene of tured the image of an open female mouth, a the coupling in the bathroom, heavy shortening; 4) Cave scene: the bit in which the erect member of the man is sight which undoubtedly helped the film’s com-seen, shortening of the scene in which the woman licks mercial success. Blow Job performed well in Italy the man; ) Mating more pecorum during the orgy.”

and was also released in Spain: it premiered in Madrid in June 984, in the hardcore version, as Inferno (Hell)

Blow Job (Trabajo de absorción), to poor box-D: Dario Argento. S and SC: Dario Argento; office.

DOP: Romano Albani (Technicolor, Technovi-

The director’s next film was La gemella sion); M: Keith Emerson, arranged by Emerson erotica (Due gocce d’acqua) (The Erotic Twin—
and Salmon, conducted by Godfrey Salmon; E: Dead Ringers), a disappointingly bland erotic Franco Fraticelli; ArtD: Giuseppe Bassan; SD: thriller (shot in hardcore version as well) fea-Francesco Cuppini, Maurizio Garrone; CO: turing among others Teutscher and Filzi, which Massimo Lentini; MU: Pierantonio Mencacci; retained none of Blow Job’s weird fascination.

Hair: Luciana Maria Costanzi, Giancarlo De Facing severe economic problems, in the early Leonardis; AD: Lamberto Bava; 2ndAD: Andrea Summer of 98 Cavallone accepted to direct an-Piazzesi; SVFX: Mario Bava, Pino Leoni; C: other hardcore porn for Boschero and Belpedio.

Idelmo Simonelli (underwater sequence: Gian-He ended up making three, very weird ones—
lorenzo Battaglia); SE: Germano Natali; SOE: Baby Sitter (also known as Il nano erotico), Pat, Luciano Anzellotti, Massimo Anzellotti; SOE ed-una donna particolare, and … e il terzo gode—
itor: Attilio Gizzi; Sound engineer: Francesco which he signed under the pseudonym Baron

Groppioni; B: Giancarlo Laurenzi; Mix: Romano Corvo.

Pampaloni; KG: Agostino Pascarella; GA: Alberto Altibrandi; SP: Francesco Bellomo; SS: Maria Serena Canevari; AC: Michele Piccia-Notes
redda, Stefano Ricciotti; SO: Mario Dallimonti; 1. For an in- depth analysis of Cavallone’s work, see DialD: Neil Robinson; W: Berta Berti; AsstArtD: Roberto Curti, Mavericks of Italian Cinema. Eight Unortho-Davide Bassan; AsstSD: Massimo Garrone; Set dox Filmmakers. 1940s–2000s (Jefferson NC: McFarland, painters: Giorgio Palomba, Mauro Tiberi; AE: 208), 28–63.

Piero Bozza. Cast: Leigh McCloskey (Mark El-2. “Spogliandosi discutono,” Corriere della Sera, August

2, 977.

liot), Irene Miracle (Rose Elliot), Eleonora 3. Dentro e fuori la classe depicted an ordinary day in Giorgi (Sara), Daria Nicolodi (Elise Delong Val-three schools from different parts of the nation—respec-adler) Sacha Pitoeff (Kazanian), Alida Valli tively a technical institute in Genoa, a lyceum in Rome and (Carol), Veronica Lazar (The Nurse), Gabriele an agrarian institute in Cosenza—with interviews with the students. Cavallone shot over 4,000 meters of film, Lavia (Carlo), Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. (Prof.

without any pre- existing script, and granting total freedom Arnold/Varelli), Leopoldo Mastelloni (John the of expression to the interviewees to preserve spontaneity.

Butler), Ania Pieroni (Musical Student), James It was a return to his early days, which explored with an Fleetwood (Cook), Rosario Rigutini (Man), uncommon sensibility the world of teenagers at school, Ryan Hilliard (Shadow), Paolo Paoloni (Music their problems, the relationship with their parents, their dreams (or lack thereof) for the future. The documentary Teacher), Fulvio Mingozzi (Cab Driver), Luigi was characterized by a singular pessimism: as a critic Lodoli (Bookbinder), Rodolfo Lodi (Old Man noted, “it seems there are no wishes, nor ideals, ambitions in library); uncredited: Lamberto Bava (Passer-or fights to share.” G.B., “Quegli studenti ghettizzati…,”

by in New York), Andrea Piazzesi (Passer-by Corriere della Sera, November 27, 979.

4. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, in New York). PROD: Claudio Argento for shooting started on August 6, 979.

Produzioni Intersound (Rome); EP: Salvatore 5. The 9-page outline and the 99-page script deposited Argento, Guglielmo Garroni; PM: Andrew Gar-at Rome’s CSC are titled La strega.

roni, Angelo Iacono; UM: Cesare Jacolucci; PA: 6. For an in- depth analysis of Damiani’s film, see Anna Maria Galvinelli, Saverio Mangogna, Roberto Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957–1969 (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 20), 7–76.

Michela Prodan; PAcc: Carlo Du Bois, Ferdi-7. Davide Pulici and Manlio Gomarasca, “Il dolce mat-nando Caputo, Carla Menicocci, Egle Friggeri;

1980: Inferno

9

New York production services: William Lustig.

Then, one day Argento realized he was Unit publicist: Enrico Lucherini, Walter Afford.

healed. Around the same time Daria Nicolodi ADM: Solly V. Bianco. Country: Italy. Filmed in resurfaced in his life, and what followed was the New York and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios and most satisfying period in his career, with R.P.A. Elios Studios (Rome). Running time: 06

Suspiria opening overseas to enthusiastic audi-minutes (m. 2896). Visa n. 74729 (2.8.980); Rat-ences (among them, a young Stephen King, who ing: V.M.4. Release dates: 2.8.980 (Italy), would mention the maggot scene in his 98

4.6.980 (France), 6..980 (Spain), 9.2.980
essay Danse Macabre) and becoming a world-

(West Germany), 9.3.980 (Japan), 9.980 (UK), wide hit. It even inspired some foreign epigones, 8..986 (USA); Distribution: 20th Century–
namely Norman J. Warren’s Terror (978) and Fox. Domestic gross: ,33,763,000 lire. Also Richard Marquand’s The Legacy (978), two known as: Horror Infernal—Feuertanz der Zom-movies which explicitly borrowed from
bies (West Germany).

Argento’s work—and, in case of Warren’s film, New York. Rose, a young poetess, discovers the British director acknowledged it in inter-from a book she borrowed from elderly antique views.

dealer Mr. Kazanian that the building where she Before he started working on his next pic-lives is one of three houses—the other ones being ture, Argento decided to take a long break, tak-located in Freiburg and Rome—built by an ing advantage of a promotional tour in the architect named Varelli for the Three Mothers, su-States: this resulted in his association with pernatural entities who have the power of life and George A. Romero, with the Italian director co-death upon humanity. Rose writes a letter to her producing Dawn of the Dead (978). Argento brother Mark, a music student at the Rome con-liked America so much that he not only chose servatory, telling him about her discovery. However, to set his next movie there (something he the letter is stolen by Mark’s girlfriend Sara, who already had in mind since he finished Suspiria2) soon meets a horrible death together with a casual but he moved to New York to complete the acquaintance, a man named Carlo. Meanwhile, in script for what he would later label as “one of New York, Rose is horribly murdered too. Upon the most mysterious projects in my career”3: the learning of his sister’s death, Mark takes a plane to second part of his esoteric journey in the world New York to investigate. He settles in Rose’s apart-of alchemy. As with the previous film, the title ment and meets the other tenants, who include an would be composed of only one word, a elderly wheelchair- bound professor and his nurse, universal one which recalled Medieval images: the drug- addicted countess Elise and her servants Inferno.4 Daria Nicolodi had a part in the writing, Carol and John. More gruesome deaths ensue, in-even though this time she only devised the basic cluding Kazanian’s death during a moon eclipse.

storyline: “At the beginning I didn’t want to have Eventually Mark finds the solution to the mystery anything to do with it, after all the shocks and and comes face to face with the elusive Varelli…

injustices of Suspiria… . But they kept telling me The impulse had become irresistible. There that I was the only one who could write a similar was only one answer to the fury that tortured story, and in fact there were not many people him. The production of Suspiria, his most am-well versed in the matter in Italy. So, I accepted, bitious and elaborate film, had psychologically also because I had the whole story already in my drained Dario Argento, and the end of his rela-head. I wrote it and as a reward I got a beautiful tionship with Daria Nicolodi had marked him trip in the Caribbean.”
deeply. He was the father of two daughters, who Then Argento set out to pen the script, in were away from him. He was young, rich and utter isolation in his beloved hotel rooms. The famous, but he wasn’t happy. At that time, as he result of several months’ work was a 267-page recalled in his memoir, he had been often screenplay, divided into 99 scenes described in tempted by the thought of suicide. He had even minute details, including set elements and cam-barricaded himself in his hotel suite on the top era movements. Dardano Sacchetti was called floor of the Grand Hotel Flora, in Rome’s via in for a last- minute, uncredited job as consult-Veneto, moving a wardrobe and a table against ant:

the French window so that, when the impulse of throwing himself into the void grabbed him It was a friendly collaboration, but completely irrel-in the middle of the night, it would be impossible evant. Dario had been working on the script for six to quench it.
or seven months. He had just finished it. He was

20 1980: Inferno about to start shooting and, as it happens when you Leigh McCloskey (cast after James Woods, his finish a work, he had some doubts. His father and first choice for the lead, backed out to shoot The his brother called me and asked me if I could spend Onion Field), Irene Miracle (chosen for her past some days with Dario and be his sparring- partner, as a professional swimmer, which would help so to speak. The pact was that I could ask all the her perform a long scene underwater), Sacha money I wanted, but I wouldn’t sign the script, what-Pitoeff (of L’année dernière à Marienbad fame), ever may happen. I read the script and for a week I plus faces seen in his previous works (Daria Ni-spent seven to eight hours a day with Dario, in a hotel colodi, Alida Valli and Gabriele Lavia) and new

… he told me his doubts, we talked about them, and eventually Dario became convinced that the script ones, such as Eleonora Giorgi and Leopoldo was all right as it was, except for one scene. We dis-Mastelloni, and the Romanian Veronica Lazar, cussed some changes, but when Dario rewrote it he Adolfo Celi’s wife. The casting choices were also only changed a marginal detail—nothing more. So, telling about Argento’s status as one of the coun-for a week I gave Dario my professional availability try’s most popular filmmakers: Lavia, in his first

… but there is nothing of mine in the film.6
movie role in five years, was by then one of Italy’s most noted stage actors,2 and Giorgi’s presence Filming started in Spring 979, on a budget was widely publicized in the Italian press. The of 3 million dollars. Argento had cut a deal with blonde actress (then the wife of producer Angelo Twentieth- Century Fox, who had had an unex-Rizzoli) was at the top of her game at the box-pected hit with Suspiria, and the company se-office, dividing herself between auteur films (Di-cured worldwide distribution rights to his new menticare Venezia, 979, by Franco Brusati) and film. First, the director and his crew moved to commercial cinema (Mani di velluto, 979, New York to shoot some exteriors and the Cen-alongside Adriano Celentano). But the film tral Park scene and faced many issues due to the didn’t have a strong lead for the American mar-union laws. Then, on May 2, 979, shooting ket: McCloskey had worked almost exclusively began in Rome for a total of 4 weeks, at the De on TV, and his main claim to fame had been Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios and R.P.A. Elios studios Tom Kotani’s The Bermuda Depths (978)—not (where the façade of Rose’s palace was built).

exactly an earth- shattering title.

The Public Cinematographic Register in Rome Reportedly, Argento kept the ending a se-reports April 6 as the official beginning of cret for his cast as well: Giorgi told the press that shooting, but a more plausible start date for the the last page of her script bore the line “You will U.S. shoot seems to be May 7, 979. Claudio Ar-know the ending when we shoot it.”3 The gento and others claimed that the New York actress’ claims must be taken with a grain of salt, shooting went on for “two weeks, ten days, given that her character is killed off way before something like that”7 and articles of the period the climax. But Veronica Lazar confirmed that mentioned that filming in New York had lasted she learned about the true nature of her charac-two weeks.8
ter only near the end of the shoot. It was typical The newspapers gave ample coverage to the
of Argento to take precautions in order not to making,9 and highlighted the film’s complexity give away too much of the plot, so as to maintain and high budget, which made it a “horror kolos-his reputation for unpredictable twist endings.

sal”—the French- German term colossal, or Speaking of which, when Suspiria came out, in kolossal, being a typical expression used in Italy Milan there were some amusing attempts at boy-to label big- budget movies, and accordingly Ar-cotting it: an unknown hand had written in gento was rather intimidated at first by the com-spray under the posters the line “THE MUR-plex production machine.0 Moreover, the many DERER IS THE HEADMISTRESS”—a laughable
special effects took lots of time and money. The attempt at a spoiler if there was one. Argento director had even considered shooting some was amused by the fact, and often recalled the scenes with electronic cameras (as Antonioni anecdote in interviews and in his memoir as would do with the 980 made- for-TV movie Il well.4
mistero di Oberwald, with Luciano Tovoli as Suspiria had been Argento’s “first act of d.o.p.), but eventually he changed his mind as murder” toward the genre that he had perfected, the results were unsatisfactory; some scenes in-the giallo, and after breaking “the most deep-cluded in the script were discarded because of rooted taboo” he had found himself experiencing technical reasons.

“not guilt, not anxiety or fear, but freedom.” In-Argento put together a cast that included
deed, freedom is Inferno’s most evident trait,

1980: Inferno 2
thematically and stylistically. In contrast to Sus-4. A flight at crazy velocity (either shot at a very piria’s relatively straightforward narrative, In-low number of frames a second or removing frames ferno adopts a more volatile approach. “It is as during printing) on some roofs and streets in the city.

if it was an ensemble of stories which slip into

. Panning shot from above a bed. A woman is one another,” he wrote. “Over the course of the lying on it. Next to her, two or three people. Halfway through the panning shot, the woman arches her narration the characters take a direction and back, stiffens, and dies. But the camera is already then suddenly the viewers realize that whoever going away.

they thought was the protagonist is actually a 6. A girl is putting her neck into a noose. She marginal figure, and the story changes shape jumps into the void, hanging herself.

under their very eyes.” Rather than a homage 7. Very fast zoom in on the facade of the building to Psycho—to which the unexpected early death where Sara lives.6
of Rose (Miracle) has been compared—this narrative scheme brings to mind Luis Buñuel’s Le Argento filmed only part of it, cancelling fantôme de la liberté (974), which had utilized some shots (#, #2, #4, and #) because, accorda similarly episodic framework.

ing to d.o.p. Romano Albani, “they didn’t fit with Such freedom of approach is exemplified in the scene, they weren’t useful.”7 Yet the director the film’s most abstract scene, where we get to see regretted not having shot #, which he described Death at work, portrayed as a child’s game, before as “the POV shot of a lightning bolt which starts Carlo (Lavia) and Sara’s (Giorgi) murders. A hand from the top of the clouds and hits the city,”8 a cuts out the heads of four childish human figures decision forced by the special effects he had to on black paper, and a series of deceases (human work with not being up to the idea.

and animal) ensue, within the space of a few sec-Never one to lose a chance to play with his onds. The rhythmic montage, which recalls the public image, Argento stressed Inferno’s uncon-opening scene of Macchie solari (97, Armando ventional structure in interviews by claiming Crispino), riffs on the Soviet montage theory—
that it was “difficult to understand even for me, which Argento had employed in a satiric way in the author, to the point that during the shoot I Le cinque giornate (973)—by connecting appar-often have to reread the script in order to clear ently disconnected images by analogy, and thus up my mind.”9 When asked about the film’s emphasizing their common denominator: death.

theme, he replied: “My movie wants to explore It’s a stunning variation on the myth of the Parcae and find the key of the big secrets of life and (or Fates), the female personifications of destiny death.”20
who controlled the metaphorical thread of life of As in Suspiria, Argento reconnects with every being: Clotho spun the thread, Lachesis the world of fairy tales. The director himself measured it, Atropos cut it short with her shears, acknowledged this, referring to his film as “a choosing how and when someone would die.

thrilling fairy tale.” Not only does the sequence The scene was longer in the script, and de-where Sara ventures into the basement of the li-scribed as follows:

brary—only to find a menacing, ogre- ish figure intent on cooking something presumably un-While the music acts as an accompaniment, rhythmic healthy and most certainly horrible (a magic po-as well, a series of 7 scenes start. They will be very tion? an unfortunate human victim?) in a boiling brief, 3 seconds each. And the camera will fly over cauldron—hark back to typical fairy tale cliché, the images as if on the run, so as to appear as an aerial but Argento admitted that the fate of Sara herself flight over a series of episodes.

references Sleeping Beauty: “[she] pricks her fin-

. The moon, up in the sky, is obscured by a huge ger, and in that precise moment she enters a sort black cloud. The black cloud fills the screen. It’s of parallel world—enchanted and haunted—
shaken by a blinding white lightning. The camera from where she will never come back.”2
flies against the lightning. More bouts of lightning Dream—or nightmare—is Inferno’s driving
cross the sky. The screen turns white, while it looks force. Characters behave according to a dream-as if the camera has thrown itself in the middle of like logic and find themselves in nightmarish the lightning bolt and…

2. Three cats mew and brawl in a corner of the situations. The film’s oneiric quality is best courtyard.

summed up by the surreal sequence—shot in a 3. A big green lizard with a triangular mouth has water tank at the De Paolis studios with Gian-caught a moth bigger than it, which struggles as it is lorenzo Battaglia as cameraman—in which Rose being savaged.

dives into a small pool where she lost her key,

22 1980: Inferno Italian lobby card for Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980), depicting one of the film’s surreal highlights: Rose (Irene Miracle) diving into an underwater room underneath her building and discovering a fascinating yet deadly submerged world.

only to find herself in a huge underwater room, for unusual areas and geometries to emerge. Per-fully furnished and replete with a rotten corpse haps Argento was thinking of Aldous Huxley which pops up unexpectedly, changing the tone and Carlos Castaneda’s works on the subject of of the scene from wonder to horror. Argento altered and enhanced perception through likely got the inspiration from Jean Cocteau’s drugs? With its fleeting image of a calm sea, Orphée, although another antecedent is the se-Mark’s dream—another last- minute addition quence in Caltiki il mostro immortale (99, Ric-absent in the script—is another puzzling mo-cardo Freda, Mario Bava) in which Bob (Daniele ment that defies narrative logic. Is it a symbolic Vargas) dives into a pool inside a cave and dis-moment, depicting Mark’s subconscious? Or covers human remains on its bottom. Albani merely an abstract parenthesis in which Ar-complained that the scene didn’t come out as gento’s imagination runs loose, free from the striking as it could have been, for the water was limits of storytelling?

rather too muddy due to the underwater shoot, In this absurd universe where actions, the fake dust on the submerged furniture and events and especially deaths are connected to so on. He asked Argento to reshoot it the fol-each other according to a logic that escapes ralowing day, but the director was immovable.22
tionality but cannot be attributed to chance, the Despite these imperfections, Argento’s develop-Fantastic element comes from the “visionary dement of the scene is something extraordinarily struction of any established order, which recom-beautiful, and its manipulation of Cartesian poses itself only in the unity of measurement of space is exemplary.

the single shot”23 Or, as Kim Newman put it, The sequence makes a pair with the explo-

“every sequence is a meticulously orchestrated ration of the tunnel under the floor undertaken mini- symphony of camera movement, stylized by Mark (McCloskey). These are surfaces and lighting, sound effects, music and found ob-volumes that could not and should not exist, jects… . Argento makes ordinary events myste-doors of (unprecedented) perception that allow rious, exciting, erotic or horrifying. Previously,

1980: Inferno 23
the murders in Argento’s films … have all been De Quincey’s 84 book Suspiria de Profundis.

set- pieces. Inferno is all set pieces, and thus all The buildings were actually thresholds to Hell—
of a piece.”24
a concept not dissimilar from The Sentinel (977, Argento had chosen New York because it

Michael Winner), but developed in a strikingly would offer “a poetic setting” to his movie, but original way. Even more than in Suspiria, the what appears in Inferno is the director’s ideal vi-house as architectural emanation of evil has a sion of the Big Apple: a depopulated night city, central importance in the story. The three houses a surrealistic, almost abstract vision, even more are not only “the repository of all [the Mothers’]

so if one thinks that Rose’s apartment building secrets” but have a life of their own, and their hu-was actually an invention on the part of the pro-manization is made explicit in a line of dialogue.

duction designer—even though inspired by an

“This building has become my body, its bricks existing edifice, namely St. Walburg’s Academy, my cells, its passageways my veins, and its horror a Roman Catholic school for girls in the Late my very heart,” Varelli’s voice confesses: a Gothic Revival style built by the architect John baroque extremism of Shirley Jackson’s Hill W. Kearney and completed in 93.2 The House or, even more appropriately, Richard concept the director had for New York in the Matheson’s Hell House.

film is best explained by a scene he had devised To give this dreamlike world of cries and
but eventually discarded and never shot, similar whispers its own lights and shadows, the in tone to the one about “death at work”: an un-director concocted a rigid and original color known hand (possibly Mater Tenebrarum’s) scheme with his director of photography Ro-picks up a crystal ball with a tiny miniature of mano Albani, formerly Luciano Tovoli’s assistant.

the Manhattan skyline in it, and starts shaking Argento wanted Inferno to have a different look it, causing a thunderstorm. The image recalls than Suspiria, but just as striking. This time the the beginning of Citizen Kane (94), with dominating colors would be violet, lavender blue Charles Foster Kane’s hand dropping the crystal (or periwinkle) and raspberry. “I only wanted ball; and like Kane’s “Rosebud,” Inferno’s New two basic colors, all the tones of blue and pink—

York is a child’s memory, or perhaps a child’s and so it was,” Albani explained. “There is only dream—not a real city.

one red spot in the film, in the library scene, But Argento’s Rome was an unorthodox
when someone calls Giorgi with a mysterious vision too, not unlike the visual mosaics of dif-voice… . Dario was very happy, very enthusiastic ferent cities he put together in his previous about this choice: ‘Yes, yes, let’s not make it a films. The Rome setting is relegated to a few kaleidoscope like Suspiria, let’s make something scenes shot at the so- called “Quartiere Coppedé”

different.’”26 Even the blood was not red, but dark (Coppedé district)—not an actual district, though, blue, almost black, as in the scene of Rose’s death but a group of buildings in the Trieste district in by guillotine.

a mixture of Liberty, Art Déco and references to Some elements pay explicit reference to Sus-Greek, Gothic, Baroque and Medieval art. It was piria, namely the taxi ride in the rain (the cab designed in early 900 by architect and sculptor driver is even played the same actor, Fulvio Min-Gino Coppedé, a visionary just like Varelli who gozzi, whom Argento cast as a “lucky charm” in left the project incomplete on his death in 927.

all of his films up to Phenomena), the presence The exterior of the library where Sara ventures of Alida Valli, and the architectural ornaments is actually the same building as the one seen of the New York building. Another element of in La ragazza che sapeva troppo (963, Mario continuity is the nod to melodrama, in the blend Bava) and Il profumo della signora in nero (974, of music and scenic action. The choice of Keith Francesco Barilli).

Emerson—writing his first film score—con-The link with the director’s previous film firmed the director’s idea of “making a rock is given precisely by buildings, and not just be-opera … a film for young people.”27 Argento was cause both pictures end with one of them on fire.

as much a rock star figure as Emerson was, and Expanding the barely sketched myth of Suspiria, both knew and appreciated each other’s work.

Argento (and Nicolodi) imagined the existence In a way, having him on board was the fulfill-of three “palaces of evil” designed and built by ment of an old dream, as the director claimed an alchemist/architect whose very name recalls he had been toying with the idea of working the elusive alchemist Fulcanelli, for three “Moth-with Emerson, Lake & Palmer since the days of ers” whose names were again lifted from Thomas 4 mosche di velluto grigio (97).

24 1980: Inferno With its wild reimagining of Giuseppe The sequence in Central Park, with Kazan-Verdi’s opera chorus Va, pensiero (from the ian attacked by rats, goes even further. Argento third act of the 842 opera Nabucco) as a /4, builds the suspense with an almost unbearable keyboard- driven Prog- Rock extravaganza to ac-sadistic crescendo, with the invalid man falling company the scene of Sara’s taxi ride, the former into the pool of water (originally Kazanian was ELP member gave the movie a soundscape in
to have two wooden legs, which he would lose tune with the type of music to which Italian in the muddy lake) and lying there at the mercy twenty- somethings were listening: in 980, of the rodents, screaming in pain for help. In the British progressive rock was still the most pop-distance, a hot dog vendor29 hears the screams, ular subgenre among them, as certified by such notices the elderly man in danger, throws away music magazines as Ciao 2001, and Punk was his cap, grabs a hatchet and starts running to-looked at with diffidence by many. Moreover, ward him. The build- up, aided by Emerson the blond keyboardist had become a household silent movie- like piano score, is irresistible, and name even among general audiences, after his the shot- by-shot construction of the scene appearance in the closing credits of the popular seems to hint that Kazanian is going to be saved (and unconventional) TV show Odeon. Tutto
at the last minute. But then, surprise: the appar-quanto fa spettacolo (broadcast from December ent savior turns out to be an agent of Hell, and

976 to April 978) as a ragtime- era pianist play-with a few well- placed strokes in the neck he fin-ing rearranged versions of Honky Tonk Train ishes poor Kazanian (the hand was that of as-Blues and Maple Leaf Rag. Argento was deeply sistant director Lamberto Bava, who managed impressed by Emerson’s approach: “He com-to get a convincing performance out of the imposed the music practically on the spot. He sat bibed Pitoeff). It is a blatant joke which “openly before the screen, behind a keyboard, and he ratifies the playful unpredictability of death”30
played while we screened the film back and at the expense of the audience, who are treated forth. He had the projection stop, wrote on his to a macabre gag when they least expected it. It music paper, and then started again. I have never is almost the grim reversal of Suspiria’s elaborate seen anyone do this.”28
symphonies of death, although the scene was Even though Argento pushed the pedal on
originally even more complex in the script, with the gore in Inferno, the results are rather different the agonizing Kazanian glimpsing a Charon- like from Suspiria. The most gruesome moments figure coming out of the sewer tunnel, on a boat, waver between outrageousness and black-amidst the fog. The boat scene was ultimately humored mockery, even more unabashed than
discarded because, as Albani explained, the the odd verbal joke (“Have you ever heard of water in the lake was too shallow. Another the Three Sisters?” “Do you mean those black grotesque gory scene, cut from the final edit, was singers?”), and even more biting in a movie so the death of John the butler (Mastelloni), who dark and pessimistic. The murder of Carlo, with is strangled with a curtain rope, so violently that its masterful use of diegetic music, sound and his eyes pop out as if he was a living Tex Avery words, manages to take the viewers off- guard and cartoon (always true to himself, Argento works as the perfect “boo” moment. As he leaves handled the rope personally, holding it so tight to check the electricity generator, the lights in around the actor’s neck that Mastelloni col-Sara’s apartment come and go, as does Va, pensiero lapsed).3 In the finished film we only get to see which was playing in the background. At a certain the aftermath of the scene, with Carol discover-point he stops answering to Sara’s questions, and ing John’s disfigured body, but it’s never clear the frightened girl follows him to the storage how that happened.

room. For a few seconds the audience is left with All these scenes have in common the use
a doubt: is Carlo an agent of evil? Is he going to of crude, sometimes rudimentary weapons jump out and kill Sara? Or is he already dead?

(butcher’s knives, hatchets, an ersatz guillotine Then we hear Carlo’s voice again, calm, reassuring in Rose’s death scene) which sometimes are re-and almost joking: nothing bad has happened to placed by animals acting as agents of evil.

him. And then, in that split- second—an impos-Felines, in particular, are ubiquitous. A horde of sibly brief gap for anything to happen—the man cats assault Elise (Nicolodi) in what remains the appears again, with a long knife stuck in his neck.

film’s weakest death scene, with Bava Jr. and his The use of timing here is arbitrary as it is unfair, assistant Andrea Piazzesi throwing felines at the but it achieves the desired result.

actress’ stand in—Maurizio Garrone32—just like

1980: Inferno 2

Aristide Massaccesi had done over Luciano like a modern- day version of De Quincey’s Rossi’s face on the set of La morte ha sorriso al-opium eater.

l’assassino (973); and Kazanian is so obsessed The script elaborated on the idea of old
by cats that he captures them and takes them creatures praying on the young: in an unfilmed to the lake to drown them, with gruesome re-scene near the beginning, while on her way to sults. Originally Argento had devised a scene the mailbox, Rose was to meet a 40-year-old depicting a rabid cat in a courtyard, with white woman in a black cloak, who suddenly, and al-foam dribbling from its open mouth, which most subliminally, turned into an old hag. The would serve as a counterpart to the antique Three Mothers are described by Varelli as dealer’s death. Thousands of rodents were im-

“wicked stepmothers, incapable of creating life,”

ported from China for the scene, and a lot of queen bees who bewitch men and deprive them them escaped, hid in the studios and bred.

of their will, as they did with the architect—who

“They’re still there, after over 30 years! Our will show up as an impotent figure on a wheel-rats!” Claudio Argento quipped.33
chair, at the mercy of his nurse/lover/wicked Animals (a key presence in Argento’s oeu-stepmother (Lazar). It’s an image which recalls vre since the very beginning) are everywhere in the ending of Alberto Lattuada’s black comedy the film—living or dead, killing or being killed, Venga a prendere il caffè da noi (970), starring embalmed or portrayed in objets d’art. They re-Ugo Tognazzi as a middle- aged man who settles flect their human counterparts’ actions or status in the house of three wealthy spinsters (Francesca (such as the caged bird in Elise’s apartment), but Romana Coluzzi, Milena Vukotic, Angela Good-they are also the keys to unveil alchemic mys-win) and sets out to seduce them, only to end up teries that are denied to humans. The script’s in a wheelchair after suffering a stroke, served opening even included a shot of a row of ants and revered, but in fact dominated, and sexually disappearing into a hole in the floor in Rose’s defused, by the three queen bees. In this sense, apartment, hinting at the secret passage “under-Argento’s film can well be considered a horrific neath the soles of [her] shoes” which is the final take on this type of grotesque comedy centered key to solve the mystery in Varelli’s book. By on vampiric female figures—see also Marco Fer-following the insects, Mark will reach the archi-reri’s Una storia moderna—L’ape regina (963)—
tect’s secret apartment: the affinity between the and not surprisingly it doesn’t feature proper hero/heroine and the insects will become central male figures besides the boyish Mark: the other in Phenomena and will be reprised in the epi-men in the film are either elderly and/or crippled logue of Opera.

(Varelli, Kazanian) or sexually ambiguous (John As with Suspiria, the main characters are
the butler), and the only one portrayed as het-artists, sensitive souls who can see and feel be-erosexual and sexually active (Carlo) is dis-yond the ordinary world. Suzy was a dancer, patched within a handful of minutes.

Rose is a poetess, and Mark34 is a musicologist.

In the conservatory scene, Mark notices a

Rose has a sense of smell so developed that she stunning- looking young woman caressing a cat can feel the sickly sweet smell that is typical of in her lap, who stares at him intently and makes the infernal buildings described by Varelli, and him dizzy. Romano Albani’s lighting singles her which people mistakenly attribute to a “cookie out in the room, as if struck by a (not-so) divine factory” nearby (sweetness as a tempting trap is light—almost a blasphemous version of a Ren-again a nod to fairy tales—think of the marzipan aissance Madonna. Unlike Suspiria, here Argento house in Hansel and Gretel), and Mark is as weak depicts a seductive sorceress who captivates the as any young romantic hero—pale, sickly and male and puts a spell on him, one of the arche-subject to fainting: an impulsive, ineffectual types of Italian Gothic horror. According to lead. At first, he and his sister even communicate Daria Nicolodi, the woman is not one of the by way of letters,3 as if they belonged in another Three Mothers: “She was a witch. She couldn’t era. Like Suzy and her unfortunate schoolmates have been Mater Lachrymarum because the before them, they, too, are overgrown, asexual Mater is Death. She was rather an emanation, in children, bodies in the splendor of youth whose that moment very visible and seductive, as so vital forces are absorbed through magic spells very often Death has been portrayed.”37 This oth-and potions, and who are preyed upon by elderly erworldly appearance, however, is not just Ar-people like Varelli. The same can be said about gento’s cinephile homage to Bell Book and Countess Elise,36 diaphanous, feverish and weak Candle (98, Richard Quine), whose most

26 1980: Inferno iconic image featured Kim Novak holding a Ultimately, such ambivalence is echoed in the Siamese cat; it is also an interesting key to pen-poster, which features a sinister skull with female etrate the author’s approach to the female uni-lips emerging from the darkness, and which verse at a time where Italy was experiencing the recalls Asa’s face magically rejuvenated in La rise of the feminist movement, portrayed in con-maschera del demonio (960). It is an image of sex-troversial terms on the screen. Fellini, in the uality and death with few equals in the realm of contemporaneous La città delle donne (980), Italian horror, and further underlines the director’s had his alter ego Marcello Mastroianni tried and complex look at the eros/thanatos duality.

condemned by a court of liberated feminists.

Inferno marked Argento’s professional en-

In Inferno, the mysterious witch is played counter with Mario and Lamberto Bava. Mario by Ania Pieroni, then the lover of politician (and took care of some special optical effects, painting future prime minister) Bettino Craxi: a ravishing maquettes and concocting other trick shots: as young woman who displays an aggressive, recounted by Tim Lucas,39 the elderly master cre-somehow vulgar beauty (pouty lips, heavily ated some cityscape views by way of milk cartons made- up eyes, bright red lipstick) and who is covered with photographs, as well as a sculpture lighted like a glamorous diva. Argento would that augmented Rose’s apartment building, cast her again in Tenebre as the kleptomaniac which is set on fire in the climax. Bava also took who becomes the murderer’s first victim, but care of the special effects for the final appearance first we had seen her, defiant and provoking, put of Death—a scene which incidentally recalls a a much earthier spell upon another man (Enio moment in 6 donne per l’assassino (964), in Girolami), using her sexuality like a credit card.

which Tao- Li (Claude Dantes) advances toward In these two images of seduction, embodied by the same woman, one can perhaps see the director’s problematic vision of womanhood in the 980s. Argento had already depicted a feminist type, Gianna Brezzi, in ambiguous terms in Profondo rosso (97), where she proved a much stronger presence than the ineffectual hero, but also a sinister, suspicious character who could as well have been the murderer. In his following film he would portray liberated women either as expressions of evil or as the victims of a mad moralizer. Whereas Tenebre—
populated by Lolita- esque nymphs, buxom lesbians, real- life transsexuals and femmes fatales in shades and red shoes—represented an explosion of unbridled and predatory sexuality in Argento’s cinema, in Inferno sexuality is either denied, repressed or alluded to in a sinister manner, most notably in the couple portrayed by Alida Valli and Leopoldo Mastelloni, who seemingly have an ambiguous relationship—
even more puzzling since Mastelloni is a controversial and openly gay stage actor, notorious for his provocative behavior, while Valli here portrays a masculine, stern woman. It was Nicolodi who convinced Argento to cast her friend Mastelloni, with whom she had acted in the TV
movie Tre ore dopo le nozze, directed by Ugo Gregoretti. “I managed to have Leopoldo in Inferno, whereas Dario absolutely didn’t want him, because he said, ‘No, I don’t want a gay butler!’

But eventually, after many tortures, he succeeded in making him stop wiggling and walk straight.”38
the stunning Italian locandina for Inferno.

1980: Inferno 27
the camera, before being revealed as a reflection sound of the voices carried as a flow into the in a mirror—by way of lights and a semi-conduits of the building); Earth (the reference transparent mirror. The script featured a some-to the mystery key “under the soles of your what different climax, with Death portrayed not shoes,” and the tendency to “sink into the as a hooded skeleton (a less than convincing magma … and the brute matter. Everything moment, actually) but as a monstrous fleshless points downwards, toward the lowest, the invis-figure, with eyes emerging from the orbits and ible, and what is hidden ‘below’”42); Fire (the exposed teeth. Other special effects in the scene cauldron and the flames in the basement of the were discarded, making it less powerful than it library, the final conflagration).

had been devised on paper, and a bit under-But, above all, the film conveys the idea of whelming compared to Suspiria’s climax. Lam-books as carriers of an occult and exclusive berto was the assistant director, and he and knowledge. Varelli’s opening monologue men-Dario developed a strong bond, which resulted tions the rule of silentium, “silence,” which al-in Bava Jr. working again as a.d. on Tenebre and chemists vow not to break, in order not to upset Argento producing his two Dèmoni films.

profane minds with their secrets. Argento—with The Bava connection can be stretched furthe amiable complicity of De Quincey—recreates ther. With its ronde of gory knife murders, his own surrogate of the Necronomicon, but he always suspended between the truculent and the also centers an entire sequence on the theft of a ridiculous, Inferno recalls the overexcited chain book that will cost Sara’s life, and makes one of reaction of Reazione a catena (97), of which at the main characters an antique book dealer, who times it seems a supernatural remake of sorts.

is given one of the picture’s key lines of dialogue: During a memorable sequence in La frusta e il

“The only true mystery is that our lives are gov-corpo (963) Bava’s camera displayed the direc-erned by dead people.” In some other director’s tor’s disinterest toward the story, by cutting from film this could be read as a political statement; two characters discussing a key plot point to a here it expresses a deeper, philosophical truth: vase of red roses, thus turning the viewer’s at-our very life is governed by books, which tention from their words to the visual elements contain nothing but the words and thoughts and surrounding them. Here Argento does some-dreams of dead people speaking to us from anthing similar in the scene where Elise explains other age. (In the script, Argento wanted to em-to Mark the myth of the “Three Mothers”: the phasize the concept by having Varelli’s voice ris-camera moves away from them and, mimicking ing slowly in volume in the opening scene, as if the wobbling motion of a sound wave, it ap-coming from far, far away in the past and grad-proaches the air ducts from where the sounds ually approaching the viewer).

propagate in the heart of the building; Elise’s The characters of Inferno spend their time voice becomes confused and unintelligible, and reading, translating, and thinking over a cultural the audience is denied vital bits of information.

heritage that opens up an unsuspected view of The only thing left to do is let oneself be carried the world. They read books in Latin, the lan-away by the mere flow of images. However, the guage of enigmas to be weighed and interpreted.

scene is not a hint of the author’s disregard for (In the same year, Umberto Eco published his the narrative, but rather the sign of a rhapsodic, best- selling period mystery Il nome della rosa, whimsical inspiration, which leaves behind nar-set in the Middle Ages and with a riddle in Latin rative logic in favor of visual expression.

playing a central role in the plot.) It is as if our And, indeed, Inferno is, in Argento’s words, fathers had delivered to us an opaque vision of

“full of riddles that will be left mostly unex-the world: a cataract, a veil destined to be torn plained”40 as well as of alchemical and esoteric from the opening of the “third eye.” However, references, from the homage to Gurdjeff (the awareness does not lead to superior wisdom, but celebrative plate which signals his stay in the rather to the astonished contemplation of the New York building4) to the presence of the four horror that rules our lives, as in the ineffable tri-natural elements. Water (the descent of Rose into umph of Death that ends the film.

the flooded room, the rain that accompanies Inferno was released in Italy on February

Sara’s taxi ride, the murder of Kazanian in the 7, 980, to mixed reviews. Film critic Giovanni lake); Air (the nauseating smell that pervades Grazzini, in the Corriere della Sera, labeled it as the areas around the houses, the irruption of the a “fine butchery,” and even though he praised invisible presence in the university hall, the Argento’s direction, he judged the result as man-

28 1980: Inferno nerist and even boring, dismissing the
emphasis on gore as follows: “One
wonders whether to force the viewers
to look away from the screen and
bring them to the point of throwing
up is a merit to be proud of.”43 Tullio

Kezich complained: “Despite a few ef-
fective moments, and a few sequences
of true Fantastic cinema, there are too
many counterparts of gloomy banality,
as well as concessions to the brutal tastes of audiences already contaminated by the aesthetics of hooligan-
ism.”44

During filming, Argento pointed
out that the film was “the second part
in a trilogy on modern alchemy”4
started with Suspiria, which he would
complete the following year, but he
soon abandoned the idea. The main
reason was the underwhelming box-
office grosses. The initial response was
enthusiastic: reportedly, on the night
of the premiere in Rome, the theater
owner (producer Peppino Amati) had
to give back 00 tickets because the
venue was packed full, with people
even sitting on the floor, while in

Turin, on the Sunday of its release, the
film grossed the astonishing sum of 24
million lire.46 But after the initial en-

Japanese poster for Inferno, featuring a collage of the most thusiasm, audiences were gradually
frightening bits.

disappointed by Argento’s switch to-
ward out- and-out supernatural horror. Daria York venue in August 986,0 and a couple of Nicolodi recalled that people told her, “You have months later it was released to home video on been Argento’s ruin, we followed him until Pro-the subsidiary Key Video label. When asked fondo rosso but afterwards one can’t understand about it by Maitland McDonagh, Argento said anything anymore.”47 The film was a good suc-he didn’t know the reason why, but in his mem-cess, however, and ended up at the fourteenth oir he mentions that after the premiere Fox’s place among the season’s top- grossers, and head Sherry Lansing told him she didn’t like the eighth among Italian releases of the year.48 In movie’s narrative structure at all.2 In the end, this respect, it was topped by seven comedies—

Inferno’s biggest virtue—freedom—turned out such as Pasquale Festa Campanile’s Qua la to be its commercial ruin in the States.

mano, Castellano & Pipolo’s Mani di velluto and Argento’s next project, Oltre la morte—an

Maurizio Nichetti’s debut Ratataplan—which 80-page treatment about a cannibalistic spree gives an idea of the commercial path taken by set among the homeless in New York—was re-Italian cinema of the period.

jected by Dino De Laurentiis and then the man-Inferno was released theatrically all over uscript mysteriously got lost. Soon the director Europe49 and even in Japan, where Argento was moved to a more traditional project, at least on enjoying a huge cult. The response overseas was paper: Sotto gli occhi dell’assassino, a giallo in-disappointing, though. 20th Century–Fox did spired by autobiographical events, namely an not commit to a wide theatrical release, and the anonymous phone caller who called himself film was shelved for five years. It had a brief the-

“The Great Punisher” and made death threats atrical release and played for one week in a New during Argento’s stay in Los Angeles.3 It even-

1980: Inferno 29
tually became Tenebre, his most violent and nostra signora degli orrori,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Da-grim film to date, and one of his very best.

vide Pulici (eds.) Le tre madri. Guida alla trilogia di Dario Argento. Nocturno Dossier #64, November 2007, 4–.

Throughout the 980s Argento sporadically

6. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

returned to Gothic themes. After turning his gi-com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php? option= com_
alli into neo- Gothic works with the uncondi-content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=79).

tional opening to the irrational, with Phenomena 7. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “I testimoni,”

he took the reverse path, bringing back the in Gomarasca and Pulici (eds.) Le tre madri, 44.

8. “After two weeks’ shooting in New York, the crew many fantastique and fairy tale- related ideas to of Inferno, written and directed by Dario Argento, has re-a logical explanation: the monster of the castle turned to Rome to shoot the interior scenes, which will is a deformed child, the frightening matres of last 4 weeks.” [not signed] “Kolossal dell’orrore di Dario the previous films are replaced by a real mother, Argento,” La Stampa, May 24, 979.

9. For instance, a piece published on May 23 in the Cor-but no less terrifying. At the same time, the di-riere della Sera wrote: “For four consecutive nights, at New rector reshaped his approach to cinema and re-York’s Central Park, there has been a simulated moon modeled its aesthetics, with an operation of re-eclipse … those nights the moon got dark at every take of juvenation aimed at the teenage public. Whereas the movie Inferno, which director Dario Argento has been movies such as Profondo rosso, Suspiria and In-shooting in America for some days.” Franco Occhiuzzi, “Un inferno tutto d’Argento,” Corriere della Sera, May 23, 979.

ferno were aimed at young adults, Phenomena 10. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I testimoni,” 44.

is a giallo rereading of Suspiria in a teen- oriented 11. Paolo Mereghetti, “Dario Argento: per fare paura key, which assimilates the language of music ha usato anche Verdi,” Corriere d’Informazione, March 6, videos and includes excerpts of heavy metal

980.

12. On his part, Lavia has been adamant: “Certain hor-tracks used as an auditory counterpoint to the ror films by Dario Argento, Profondo rosso, Inferno … have gruesome scenes on screen. On the other hand, become cult movies, but I did them only for money. I was the emphasis on the maternal nature that can paid well, and an actor doesn’t have a fixed salary… . ”

either lead to madness or perdition or otherwise Emilia Costantini, “Gabriele Lavia. Sono innamorato dalle give salvation, embraces an escapist Neo-elementari,” Corriere della Sera, October 3, 207.

13. Maurizio Porro, “La Giorgi in un viaggio di ricordi,”

Romanticism with vague New Age traits. A sim-Corriere della Sera, April 3, 979; Adele Ferrari, “Eleonora ilar approach returns in the epilogue of Opera, Giorgi: ‘Sono meno infantile e molto più felice,’” Corriere an unofficial rendition of The Phantom of the d’Informazione, May 2, 979.

Opera in which the director expresses once 14. Argento, Paura, 28.

15. Ibid., 230.

again his passion for melodrama and tries to 16. Excerpt taken from Davide Pulici, “Inferno: dalla make opposing tensions coexist—a giallo plot sceneggiatura al film,” in Gomarasca and Pulici (eds.) Le and a drive toward the irrational—in a precari-tre madri, 37.

ous stylistic and narrative balance.

17. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I testimoni,” 4.

Argento resumed the myth of the Three

18. Fabio Maiello, Dario Argento. Confessioni di un maestro dell’horror (Milan: Alacran, 2007), 26.

Mothers in 2007, with the third chapter in the 19. “Un brivido che si chiama Argento,” Corriere della trilogy, La terza madre.

Sera, June 0, 979.

20. Occhiuzzi, “Un inferno tutto d’Argento.”

N

21. Argento, Paura, 23.

otes

22. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I testimoni,” 44.

1. Dario Argento, Paura (Turin: Einaudi, 204), 26.

23. Roberto Pugliese, Dario Argento (Milan: Editrice Il 2. Ibid., 23.

Castoro, [986] 20), 66.

3. Ibid., 230.

24. Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies (London: Blooms-4. Around the same time, Salvatore Samperi was bury, [988] 20), 47.

preparing a film to be titled Inferno, loosely inspired by 25. See Rachael Nisbet, “Rose Elliot’s Apartment Build-Dante’s poem and set in the present day. The script, written ing in Inferno,” in http:// hypnoticcrescendos. blogspot. it/
by Samperi, Giorgio Basile and Gianfranco Manfredi, was 208/ 03/ rose- elliots- apartment- building- in. html.

in the director’s own words a mixture between 26. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I testimoni,” 44.

Hellzapoppin’ and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with 27. Mereghetti, “Dario Argento: per fare paura ha usato strong political overtones, “a journey in the confusion of anche Verdi.”

today’s world, especially in the left and ultra- left, also con-28. Daniele Costantini and Francesco Dal Bosco, Nuovo ceived as an excursion in various film genres—Western, cinema inferno. L’opera di Dario Argento (Parma: Pratiche giallo, romantic, etc.” Lamberto Antonelli, “Ombre rosse, Editrice, 997), 84.

Marx e Guevara nell’Inferno visto da Samperi,” La Stampa, 29. Played by James Fleetwood, a bass singer whom Ar-January 26, 979. Eventually Samperi (who had thought of gento had seen in Alban Berg’s Lulu directed by Roman Roberto Benigni for the role of Dante) abandoned the Polanski and conducted by Christopher Keene, which overly costly project and made the 90s revivalist comedy caused a controversy at Spoleto’s Festival of Two Worlds, Liquirizia instead.

in 974. Occhiuzzi, “Nasce in America l’inferno di Ar-5. Davide Pulici and Marco Cacioppo, “Daria Nicolodi: gento.”

30 1980: Macabro 30. Pugliese, Dario Argento, 68.

Avati; DOP: Franco Delli Colli (Kodak, Tele-31. Maiello, Dario Argento, 37.

color); M: Ubaldo Continiello (Ed. Gipsy); E: 32. Garrone, the animal trainer for the film, also re-Piera Gabutti; ArtD: Katia Dottori; CO: Katia placed Sacha Pitoeff for some shots, since the rats had started biting the actor for real. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I Dottori, Gian Franco Basile (for Bernice testimoni,” 49.

Stegers); MU: Alfonso Cioffi; AD: Rosanna Roc-33. Ibid., 44.

chi Bava; SE: Antonio Corridori, Angelo Mattei; 34. Mark Davis—not Elliot—in the script.

C: Antonio Schiavo Lena; AC: Gianni Modica 35. Whereas, in a blatant inconsistency, their phone call from New York to Rome, takes place with no apparent time Canfarelli; AE: Carlo D’Alessandro; AsstD: Dario zone differences.

Amadei; SO: Gianni Zampagni; SOE: Luciano

36. Elisa Taylor Ursi—not Elise Delong Valadler—in Anzellotti, Massimo Anzellotti; ChEl: Michele the script.

Pellegrini; KG: Mario Pizzi; Generator Operator: 37. Pulici and Cacioppo, “Daria Nicolodi: nostra Roberto Cuccoli. Cast: Bernice Stegers (Jane signora degli orrori,” .

38. Ibid.

Baker), Stanko Molnar (Robert Duval),

39. Tim Lucas, Mario Bava. All the Colors of the Dark Veronica Zinny (Lucy Baker), Roberto Posse (Cincinnati, OH: Video Watchdog, 2007), 009–09.

(Fred Kellerman), Ferdinando Orlandi (Mr.

40. Argento, Paura, 23. See, for instance, the recurring Wells), Fernando Pannullo (Leslie Baker), Elisa element of glass objects which the characters inadvertently smash to pieces shortly before their own violent demise.

Kadigia Bove (Sally). PROD: Gianni Minervini 41. The detail, absent in the script, acts as a symmetrical and Antonio Avati for A.M.A. Film (Rome); element with Suspiria (where on the façade of the Tanz PM: Gianni Amadei; PS: Alessandro Vivarelli; Academy we had seen a plate celebrating Erasmus of Rot-PSe: Rosa Mercurio; PA: Francesco Gesualdi; terdam’s stay).

42. Pugliese, Dario Argento, 6.

ADM: Raffaello Forti; Cashier: Fiorella Bologna.

43. Giovanni Grazzini, “Pregiata macelleria,” Corriere Country: Italy. Filmed in Gardone Riviera (Bres-della Sera, February 8, 980.

cia, Lombardy) and Crespi d’Adda (Bergamo, 44. Tullio Kezich, Il nuovissimo Millefilm. Cinque anni Lombardy) and on location in New Orleans.

al cinema, 1977–1982 (Milan: Mondadori, 983), 20.

Running time: 89 minutes (m. 2448). Visa n.

45. “Un brivido che si chiama Argento.”

46. Mereghetti, “Dario Argento: per fare paura ha usato 74887 (3.27.980); Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: anche Verdi.”

4.7.980 (Italy), 0.4.980 (Spain), .3.98

47. Pulici and Cacioppo, “Daria Nicolodi: nostra signora (France), .27.98 (West Germany), 0.28.983
degli orrori,” .

(USA; Canada); Distribution: Medusa Dis-48. The box- office data of about a billion and a half lire refer to the grosses in the first- run theaters of the 6 “capo-tribuzione (Italy), Les Filmes Jacques Leitienne zona” cities (Ancona, Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Flo-

(France), Cinefrance (West Germany), FVI rence, Genoa, Messina, Milan, Naples, Padua, Palermo, (USA). Domestic gross: approx. 60,000,000 lire.

Rome, Turin, Trieste, Venice), that is, the major cities in-Also known as: The Frozen Terror (USA), Baiser cluded in the “Borsa Film” in the Giornale dello Spettacolo.

macabre (France), Macabro—Die Küsse der Jane As for the overall grosses, according to Franco Montini, Inferno grossed 4, billion lire overall. Franco Montini, “La Baxter (West Germany).

fortuna al box office,” in Vito Zagarrio (ed.), Argento vivo.

Note: the song “Jane in Love” is performed Il cinema di Dario Argento tra genere e autorialità (Venice: by Gil Ventura (E.M.I. records)

Marsilio, 2008), 66.

New Orleans. Jane Baker, a married woman

49. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen by 2,42 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding with two children, has an affair with another to 88,86 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/
man, Fred Kellerman. When her elder daughter Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 394).

Lucy discovers it, she drowns her little brother in 50. Nina Danton, “Inferno: mythic horror tale,” New the bathtub and then calls her mother for help.

York Times, August , 986.

While Jane and Fred are driving home, they have 51. “I don’t know why. It’s a mystery. It’s incredible, working with the studios. Every stupid person arrives with a terrible car accident in which the man is decap-an opinion; they start every sentence with, ‘For me… ’ And itated. One year later, Jane moves to the place I don’t care what they think, I don’t care about ‘For you… ’

where she used to meet her lover. The house is That’s not the way I work.” Maitland McDonagh, Broken owned by a blind young man, Robert Duval, who Mirrors/Broken Minds. The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (London: Sun Tavern Fields, 99), 236.

lives alone with his elderly mother. Robert, who 52. Argento, Paura, 23.

is in love with Jane, starts hearing weird noises 53. Ibid., 238.

coming from the woman’s apartment, and decides to investigate. Little by little, he discovers a Macabro (Macabre, a.k.a. The Frozen Terror) horrible truth: Jane keeps Fred’s severed head in D: Lamberto Bava. S and SC: Pupi Avati,
the fridge and uses it as a sex fetish…

Roberto Gandus, Lamberto Bava, Antonio

“Why don’t you pay us a visit?” the man on

1980: Macabro 3
the other end of the line asked. “We have an Even though the theme of necrophilia re-offer for you, you know?” When Lamberto Bava calls two milestones of Italian Gothic such as was summoned to the office of the Avati broth-Riccardo Freda’s L’orribile segreto del Dr.

ers, sometime in Summer 979, he was an expe-Hichcock (962) and Mario Bava’s Lisa e il diavolo rienced assistant director. At 3, he had learned (973), Macabro depicts a pathological case that the craft with his father, whom he assisted since has nothing to do with the grand excesses of tra-the mid–960s, and had worked with the likes dition. It is indeed macabre, as the title suggests, of Aristide Massaccesi (on Sollazzevoli storie di but also squalid and repellent, closer to the mogli gaudenti e mariti penitenti, 972, and antics later depicted graphically in Nekromantik Pugni, pirati e karaté, 973), Mario Lanfranchi (987, Jörg Buttgereit) than to the delirious, (on Il bacio, 974) and Ruggero Deodato (on Ul-dreamlike mood of Freda and Bava’s films.

timo mondo cannibale, 977, L’ultimo sapore del-Moreover, Macabro develops the Gothic tale no l’aria, 978, and Cannibal Holocaust, to be re-longer in a mythical dimension, but in a domes-leased early in 980), and he had just finished tic one, as with Shock (977). In a way, the film working with Dario Argento on Inferno. “I was can be also seen as a late appendix and, in some very happy, and told myself, ‘Gee, how I’d like respects, a compendium of themes explored to be Pupi Avati’s assistant… ’”
in the “Female Gothic” works of the previous At Avati’s office, Pupi and Antonio showed decade,7 but the mentally unstable Jane Baker him an American newspaper clip about a woman recalls Daria Nicolodi’s character in the 977
who had killed her lover and kept his head in the film rather than the disturbed ladies (in black fridge. “Will it be Pupi’s next film?” Bava asked.

or white) played by Mimsy Farmer (Il profumo

“No, we’d like you to make it!” Within a week, della signora in nero) or Florinda Bolkan (Le Lamberto, the Avatis and Roberto Gandus had orme, 97). She is a very different kind of hero-written a -page treatment, and while Antonio ine than we were used to meeting in the classic Avati attempted to involve Medusa in the financ-Gothic film: not particularly attractive, a bit ing, Bava Jr. went back to the U.S. with Argento vulgar- looking, Jane is a disturbed housewife to do some reshoots for Inferno, as some of the who finds solace in adultery and will be haunted footage presented technical defects.2 While he by the memory of her deceased lover. The theme was overseas, Antonio Avati called him: Medusa of the “forbidden room” which hides a dark sex-had greenlit the project. Six weeks later, in Noual secret, typical Gothic fare (see Cynthia’s at-vember,3 Lamberto Bava was shooting his first tempts to sneak into her husband’s quarters in film as a director.

L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock), is also devel-The genesis and making of Macabro were
oped in a non- glamorous, matter- of-fact man-very quick, as was typical of low- budget projects.

ner. Almost all the film takes place in the sub-The script was cranked out in  days,4 and film-urban villa where Jane used to meet with her ing lasted for four weeks. There was no inter-lover, anxiety arises from everyday situations, ference whatsoever from the Avatis, not even in and horror is concealed in the household object the choice of the actors. The female lead, in the par excellence, the fridge.

director’s words, “had to be not really beautiful, If Macabro lacks the sparse oneiric and sur-and about 40 years old,” and the Liverpool- born real elements of Shock, it nonetheless retains a Bernice Stegers, who in that period was in Italy, similar look and directorial restraint. This could acting in Fellini’s La città delle donne, seemed be a point in favor of the thesis that Shock was perfect for the role of Jane Baker. Bava chose the in equal parts the work of Lamberto as Mario, Croatian Stanko Molnar over Michele Soavi for but the similarities can be traced back to the the role of the blind landlord Robert Duval, who scripts, which Bava Jr. co- authored and which becomes suspicious of the strange goings- on in carry a trace of his different sensibility.

his house. On the set, the debuting director For me, in Macabro, fear comes from the inside: the didn’t feel the same inadequacy as Pupi Avati anxieties, frustrations, all the psychological disorders.

had while directing Balsamus. “I had my wife I want everyone to be able to identify with my char-Rosanna with me as my assistant. I slept won-acters, because if they were unreal, that would show derfully the night before, and on my first day on on screen… . It is not a coincidence [that both stories the set I completed 28 shots, urging the crew, are similar] because it interests me a lot to take a fam-

‘Come on, come on, come on!’ They asked me, ily which at the beginning is normal and perturb it,

‘Why, how many movies have you done?!?’”6
to create a Fantastic- themed tale from there. In peo-

32 1980: Macabro ple’s eyes, family is what they can and have that is often featured weak, ineffective male figures, most normal, logical and real.8
from the impotent dwarf in Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (970) to the dysfunctional all- male fam-Visually, the film retains the same ordinary ily in Le strelle nel fosso (979).9 The duality of quality, as the director shoots the story in a eros/thanatos and the theme of the amour fou matter- of-fact, unspectacular way: the fatal car that obsesses Jane are also developed with an accident near the beginning, for instance, con-eye on the grotesque akin to Avati’s films: see, sists of just two shots, the broken windshield for instance, the small altar in the woman’s bed-and Jane screaming. Bava worked with d.o.p room, which evokes Henry James’ story The Franco Delli Colli, a regular collaborator on Altar of the Dead and François Truffaut’s film Avati’s films, who used old lamps and projectors adapted from it, La chambre verte (978). Avati’s to obtain diffuse, intimate lighting: a very dif-contribution to the script extended also to the ferent atmosphere than the one normally asso-depiction of the dysfunctional Baker family, par-ciated with the genre.

ticularly with the relationship between Jane and Macabro plays cruelly with the voyeurism
her malevolent daughter Lucy (Veronica Zinny).

of the audience, who is presented a case of In one of the early scenes Lucy is seen drowning sexual obsession (a woman keeps the head of her little brother in the bathtub out of spite for the deceased lover in the freezer and uses it as her mother’s affair, and during the story she an erotic fetish) that can only be depicted proves she has the same vein of madness as Jane, through imagination. Soon viewers find them-even cooking a nasty meal for her and Robert selves in a similar position as the blind Robert in a memorable dinner scene which fuels the vi-Duval—unable to see what is going on, and olent ending. Lucy’s delusions for a “perfect”

gradually bound to imagine the worst. The char-family reunited (that is, her mother coming back acter of the blind man—a keen variation on the home with her dad, to an ideal but impossible blind helpless heroine as seen in such films as idyllic marriage), no matter what the cost, make Wait Until Dark (967, Terence Young) and her a disturbing little psycho, and a haunting ad-Blind Terror (97, Richard Fleischer)—brings dition to the gallery of neurotic children in Ital-to unsettling extremes the weak male figure, anian cinema of the period, well- played by the 3-other staple of Italian Gothic. Not only is year-old Zinny (Victoria’s daughter and Karl Duval—who repairs music instruments but can’t Zinny’s sister).

play them, a symbolic hint at his ineffective-Bava wisely keeps the gore down to a min-
ness—totally inadequate as a hero, literally grop-imum. As the director recalled, “the violence ing in the dark from beginning to end, but he is had been played down intentionally because utterly helpless and vulnerable. In the early Avati’s production hadn’t wanted to be excessive scenes we see his elderly mother take care of him in any way, otherwise the story might have de-like a child, giving him a bath—and, even more teriorated into bad taste eroticism, and so we set humiliating for him, under Jane’s distressed all our story by the tension and the slow, relent-look. The sight of a grown woman helping a less pace of the drama.”0 Macabro is a tale played man as if he was a boy, with its emasculating im-on ambiguity, which builds anxiety through ret-plications, recalls not only Mino Guerrini’s mor-icence. Is the subjective shot that traverses the bid Gothic yarn Il terzo occhio (966), but also house at night a supernatural presence evoked such grotesque classics such as Ferreri’s La by Jane (after all we are in New Orleans, perhaps Grande bouffe (973) and Luciano Salce’s under-America’s most “magical” city)? Or is it a product rated Alla mia cara mamma nel giorno del suo of the woman’s disturbed imagination? Such an compleanno (974), where the image of the ambiguity is protracted until the very end. For mother bathing her grown child was pushed to the whole movie, we are convinced that Jane is mocking, black- humored extremes. Later, it will just a crazy delusional woman, who performs re-be Jane who will meet Robert while taking a pulsive sex acts with a surrogate of her dead bath, in an even more humiliating reversal lover; but, as Robert discovers in the frightening which further underlines the man’s sexual frus-epilogue, things are not as simple as they seem, tration.

and the truth is even more harrowing and Lamberto Bava’s debut has indeed a notice-absurd. Bava claimed it was his idea to end the able grotesque quality to it, possibly an element film with a last- minute shock twist, and the sud-introduced in the script by Avati, whose films den leap into the fantastique is a truly memorable

1980: Macabro

33
moment, which spins the cards in the very last Argento) and an eerie stylized poster featuring shot. A payoff at the limit of self- sabotage, it goes a broken doll’s head from which a pool of blood in the opposite direction to the rational denoue-has come out (the red making a stark contrast ments of the pseudo- narrative puzzles of so on the black and white composition), Macabro much Gothic literature and cinema: rather, it re-received good press reviews. It proved also a calls in tone the mocking and grim endings in commercial success. As Bava recalled, “a week Mario Bava’s cinema.

after the film’s release, Minervini told me it A good part of Macabro’s weird fascination was the first Avati production that made any relies on its subdued use of locations. Except for money.”4
a few scenes in New Orleans, accomplished in The film was also screened at the Sitges
just four days (such as the exterior shots of the Film Festival in Catalunya in October 980, main location, Duval’s two- story house), most prior to its distribution in Spain, and at the 0th of the film was shot in Northern Italy, namely

“Festival international du film fantastique et de in Gardone Riviera, near Salò, on the Lake science- fiction” in Paris, to good response.

Garda, in the villa once owned by Mussolini’s When interviewed in L’Écran fantastique Bava lover Claretta Petacci. But the outstanding open-announced that his next film would be Gnomi, ing title image, set in a monumental, creepy cemetery dominated by a ziggurat- like mau-soleum which sets the tone for a story in which the living a re dominated by the dead, was shot in Crespi d’Adda, an industrial village near Bergamo built in the last quarter of the 9th century by the Crespi family, owners of textile factories, which has become a UNESCO site. Bava shot a brief sequence there with Bernice Stegers visiting a grave. “The sky was grey, a little fine rain was falling, which gave a formidable atmosphere,” the director recalled, “but I must say that Franco Delli Colli added his own personal touch, and tried something new with lots of filters, because I wanted a very dusky coloring.”2

The score, by Ubaldo Continiello (who had written the music for La Venere d’Ille), is also peculiar, and blends classical passages with jazzy saxophone and harmonica- driven parts, more rhythmic and aggressive, which are typical of the Louisiana setting.

Mario Bava had no input on the film.

When his son gave him the script to read, he refused to give him any suggestion: “It’s your movie, make it the way you want to!” He saw the rough cut in late January 980. “Now I can rest in peace,” he told Lamberto.3 Three months later he was gone.

Macabro was submitted to the rating board
in late March 980 to obtain a screening certificate. The Board invited the producers to

“lighten” (i.e., trim) the scene in which Jane kisses the dead man’s head on the bed. The cut (of 4.20 meters, that is about 8 seconds) was per-Macabro (1980), Lamberto Bava’s film debut, formed immediately, and the committee gave came out in Italy with the tagline “Il film che ha the film a V.M.4 rating. Released with an apt terrorizzato anche Dario Argento” (the film tagline (“il film che ha terrorizzato anche Dario which frightened even Dario Argento), hinting Argento,” the film which frightened even Dario at new heights in horror (courtesy Luca servini).

34 1980: Il medium a grotesque story set in a small building inside 3. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, a city (possibly Vienna or Trieste) where strange filming started on November 9, 979.

4. Alain Schlockoff and Robert Schlockoff, “Entretien events occur. Eventually the inhabitants find out avec Lamberto Bava,” L’Écran fantastique #6, January 98, that the top floor, apparently vacant, is inhabited

4–.

by gnomes. The building is gradually deterio-5. Ibid., .

rating, with humidity, moss and plants growing 6. Ibid.

everywhere, as the little creatures are recreating 7. See Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979, 4.

8. A. Schlockoff and R. Schlockoff, “Entretien avec their favorite microclimate, and are planning to Lamberto Bava,” 4.

turn the whole city into a forest. The gnomes 9. See Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979, are good to gentle and kind souls, while they kill 9–4, and 24–27.

those who are bad and selfish. In the end, only 10. Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares (Rome: M&P Edizioni, 996), 37.

few tenants survive the carnage, and must adapt 11. Bava had planned to shoot another project in Crespi to the gnomes’ way of life and rules. Bava had d’Adda: I ritornanti, the story of a group of teenagers who written the script with Roberto Gandus and undergo a series of extreme trials to prove their courage Alessandro Parenzo, and the movie was to be and defy death, getting close to a point of no return. One produced by Vides. But the project would cost day a girl goes too far and seemingly dies, only to return from death a little while later. But in fact, it is not she who too much, and Bava sent the script overseas to has returned from the other side, but someone (or some-several U.S. companies, including Steven Spiel-thing) else… . Bava wanted Crespi d’Adda to pass off as an berg’s Amblin, hoping to find an American co-American college: he had completed location scouting and producer, but to no avail. Gnomi was eventually was ready to shoot, but the project never took off.

12. A. Schlockoff and R. Schlockoff, “Entretien avec dropped, but in 984 Joe Dante’s Gremlins came Lamberto Bava,” .

out, which Bava claimed had many similarities 13. Lucas, Mario Bava. All the Colors of the Dark, 02.

with his script6 (although judging from the brief 14. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 38.

synopsis the director told L’Écran fantastique it 15. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen doesn’t seem so).

by 77,037 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding to about 46,9 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ Catalogo Eventually, despite the good critical and

ICAA/ Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 94).

commercial results of his film debut, Lamberto 16. “But, I assure you, I have been told a couple of years Bava had to stay at home without working for ago that Joe Dante had this Italian script in his hands, a whole year, due to family matters. It was translated into English, with drawings, how to make them

[gnomes]; lots of work had been done. Funny enough, Dario Argento who helped him recover his pro-there is not much difference between Gremlins and Gnomi.

fessional path by hiring him as his a.d. on Tene-However, nowadays I’m pleased, because it means that bre. Bava returned to directing with La casa con surely what we think, that we are not inferior to them, is la scala nel buio, scripted by Dardano Sacchetti true.” Alberto Morsiani, “Conversazione con Lamberto and Elisa Briganti and produced by Luciano Bava,” in Alberto Morsiani (ed.), Rosso italiano (1977/1987).

Sequenze #7, March 988, 7.

Martino, a violent giallo with some Gothic references—including an impressive opening sequence which reprised the same concept from Il medium (The Medium)

which Sacchetti’s own script for Quella villa ac-D: Silvio Amadio. S: Silvio Amadio; SC:

canto al cimitero was born—set in a modern-Claudio Fragasso, Tonino [Antonio] Cucca, Sil-day version of the Gothic haunted house: the vio Amadio; DOP: Maurizio Salvatori (East-story revolves around a young composer (An-mancolor, Telecolor); M: Roberto Pregadio (Ed.

drea Occhipinti) who rents an isolated villa to Nazionalmusic); E: Silvio Amadio; PD, CO: Elio write the score for a horror film, only to find Micheli; AD: Mauro Paravano; AE: Marina out that the elusive tenant before him (a mys-Candidi; SO: Alberto Salvatori; C: Giancarlo terious girl named Linda) might be the maniac Granatelli; AC: Renato Palmieri; MU: Angelo who slashes Bruno’s female neighbors in graph-Roncaioli; Hair: Galileo Mandini; W: Renata ically gory ways. Born as a made- for-TV proj-Renzi; SS: Romana Pietrostefani. Cast: Vincent ect, it eventually found theatrical distribution Mannari Jr. [Guido Mannari] (Paul Robbins), due to its graphic violence.

Sherry Buchanan (Laura), Stefano Mastrogirolamo (Alan), Martine Brochard (Daniela), Nico-Notes
letta Amadio (Anita, the Psychic), Achille 1. Manlio Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” in Brunini [Brugnini] (Vanni, the Doctor), Vin-Genealogia del delitto. Il cinema di Mario e Lamberto Bava.

Nocturno Dossier #24, July 2004, 37.

cenzo Ferro (Benedetti, Daniela’s husband), 2. Gomarasca and Pulici, “I testimoni,” 49.

Mirko Ellis [Mirko Korcinsky] (Anita’s Hus-

1980: Il medium 3
band), Andrea Aureli (Berto, the Gardener), on Friday nights, after dinner, at your place,”

Paolo De Manincor (Bersani), Loris Zanchi Amadio wrote. The participants—Fidani and

(Prof. Albitzen), Salvatore Martino, Philippe his partner Mila Valenza Vitelli, Amadio and his Leroy (Prof. Power). PROD: Ars Nova Cooper-wife Gabriella, Roman lawyer Roberto Castaldi, ativa S.r.l. (Rome); PM: Augusto Silvestrini; PS: Fidani’s brother Arturo and Mila’s son Paolo—

Marco Kustermann; PSe: Nicola Princigalli.

used to record the séances with tape recorders Country: Italy. Filmed at Palatino Studios and microphones. They closed doors and win-

(Rome). Running time: 89 minutes (m. 244).

dows and sat in the dark, waiting for their guide Visa n. 7442 (2.7.979); Rating: V.M.4. Release spirits to manifest. “We know it is not possible date: 3.0.980 (Italy); Distribution: Regional.

for us to understand some concepts, at least until Domestic gross: approx.,000,000 lire.

we will remain in a material state,” the director Note: painting by Agostino De Romanis.

added, recalling the “crass laughs of our friends American composer Paul Robbins moves to
whenever we discussed and mentioned the Rome with his ten- year-old son Alan to work on earthly concepts of time and space.” Among the his new dodecaphonic opera. Robbins, a widower, otherworldly visitors that manifested during the hires the young Laura to look after Alan, but soon séances, as Amadio recalled, once there was the boy starts acting in a weird way, and mentions even Pope John XXIII.

an imaginary playmate whom only he can see, a There is little doubt that Il medium was
black- haired woman dressed in white. Weird conceived as a sincere homage to Fidani, on events take place: Robbins is attacked by a fero-whom Prof. Power, the titular savant played by cious dog, a mysterious female voice is recorded Philippe Leroy, seems to have been patterned.

on his tapes, and he is perturbed by a painting In a scene, the psychic lectures about the given to him by Daniela, the wife of the art direc-survival of the spirit after death (“The spiritual tor with whom he is working for his new opera.

world belongs to a distinct dimension from our Things turn even worse, as Alan seems to be pos-time and space”) and the permanence of evil in sessed by a malevolent entity. Upon advice of a the afterlife, linked with the least evolved spirits doctor friend, Robbins summons a noted psychic, (“We cannot and mustn’t approach the spiritual Professor Power, who solves the mystery. It turns world without a deep moral preparation”), with out that Daniela, a powerful psychic, is seeking words very similar to those later used by Fidani revenge against Robbins, who years earlier had in his book.

provoked her sister Eleonora’s death. The two psy-The film’s genesis benefited from the direc-chics confront each other during two séances that tor’s adherence to the subject matter. As take places simultaneously at Robbins and scriptwriter Claudio Fragasso told Fangoria, Daniela’s house, and the outcome will be surpris-

“Silvio Amadio came to me with an actual ing…

medium and told me that the dead had told Released marginally in early 980 and im-them I should write the script [laughs]! And so mediately disappearing into oblivion, Il medium I began to write this story with the direct inspi-represented the culmination of Silvio Amadio’s ration of the dead.”2 According to Fragasso, this interest in the occult, which the director had dewas the first script he wrote, even before Pronto veloped thanks to his friendship with art ad uccidere (a.k.a. Meet Him and Die, 976, director- turned-filmmaker Demofilo Fidani, the Franco Prosperi), and in fact a scenario with the mind behind many low- budget Italian Westerns.

same title is registered at Rome’s SIAE offices Compared to his work as a film director, in and dated October 4, 97, although it is cred-fact, Fidani’s activity as a medium proved much ited to Massimo Franciosa and Luisa Montag-more successful. Through his “Circolo di spiri-nana. However, it took a few years before the tualisti” (Circle of Spiritualists) he became a movie went into production: shooting started well- respected figure in the world of esoterism on May 7, 979.3 But it was too late for such a and wrote some books on the topic, including story to find an audience.

Il medium esce dal mistero, published in 986

Often labeled as a horror film, Il medium
and graced by a testimony by Amadio himself.

is in fact a supernatural drama, a ghost story of

“We had started gathering as a permanent group sorts which deals with some Gothic staples such interested in the phenomena of Spiritism around as the return of the past, the perturbing portrait, you, a psychic with most unique powers, in the the seemingly haunted house. The story has early 970s; we met on a rigorous weekly basis, some points in common with the domestic

36 1980: Mia apocalypse of Bava’s Shock—here as well a kid 3. According to the Public Cinematographic Register.

turns against a parent, by way of a supernatural 4. Stefano Ippoliti and Matteo Norcini, “Una favola chiamata cinema. Intervista a Martine Brochard,” Cine70
presence looking for revenge—and the idea of e dintorni #6, 2004, 36.

it revolving around a dodecaphonic composer is a singular variation on the theme of artistic sen-Mia moglie è una strega (My Wife Is a sibility, which makes Gothic heroes more recep-Witch)

tive to the manifestations of the supernatural.

D: Castellano & Pipolo [Franco Castellano, The musician’s open- minded approach to com-Giuseppe Moccia]. S: Laura Toscano, Franco position—the twelve- tone technique overcomes Marotta; SC: Castellano & Pipolo, Laura the limits of writing in a key—might be com-Toscano, Franco Marotta; DOP: Alfio Contini pared to a psychic’s approach to reality, that is, (Technospes); M: Detto Mariano (Ed. Slalom); going beyond the limits of everyday reality and E: Antonio Siciliano; PD: Bruno Amalfitano; experience.

CO: Luca Sabatelli; AD: Alessandro Metz; MU: But the odd interesting detail (the com-Nilo Iacoponi, Walter Cossu; Hair: Paolo poser working on his music, which allows for a Franceschi, Corrado Cristofori; SS: Vittoria Vig-weird electronic score by Roberto Pregadio) fail orelli; PDA: Gualtiero Caprara; C: Sandro Tam-to make up for poor characterization and bad borra; AC: Sandro Grossi; 2ndAC: Francesco dialogue, not to mention a banally moral punch-Damiani; SO: Benito Alchimede; B: Marco De line (“Evil always backfires against those who Biase; SE: Antonio Corridori; AE: Giancarlo do it”). The direction is flat, and the story moves Morelli, Andrea Caterini; KG: Giancarlo Roc-at an excruciatingly slow pace. The horrific bits chetti; ChEl: Antonio Leurini; PROP: Vittorio are limited to a mild dog attack which is poles Troiani; W: Maura Zuccherofino, Clara Fratar-apart from a similar scene in Suspiria, and the cangeli; Mix: Romano Checcacci; Chor: Renato few supposedly eerie moments fail to generate Greco; SP: Giuseppe Botteghi. Cast: Renato much interest: laughter arises from a burning Pozzetto (Cardinal Emilio Altieri, Pope Clement painting, a mysterious voice is inexplicably X; Emilio Altieri) Eleonora Giorgi (Finnicella), recorded on the musician’s tapes, and Prof.

Helmut Berger (Asmodeus), Lia Tanzi (Tania Power shows up unexpectedly at the protago-Grisanti), Enrico Papa (Roberto), Renzo Rinaldi nist’s house—we will soon discover that it is a (Emilio’s collaborator), Stefano Varriale, Sandro phenomenon of bilocation, as the psychic has Ghiani (Emilio’s collaborator), Anna Cucinotta the ability of being in two different places at the (Witch), Dino Fassio (Police Commissioner), same time—and saves him from a deadly trap Raimondo Penne, Ferdinando Paone (Engineer), concocted by his son.

Rita Caldana (Emilio’s secretary), John Stacy The cast is wasted. Martine Brochard

(Hotel concierge in Paris), Sonia Otero (Apol-drinks her J&B and tries to look malevolent, and lonia), Sveva Altieri (Witch), Gianni Olivieri, Philippe Leroy sleepwalks through his guest star Geoffrey Copleston (Man who picks up invita-role with stoic resignation. Mannari (seen in tion cards), Fulvio Mingozzi (Emilio’s collabo-Brass’ Caligula) hides, so to speak, behind a rator), Vittorio De Bisogno (Shareholder), transparent pseudonym. Brochard had little or Guadalupe Barrera (Balsarina); uncredited: no recollection of the film: “I only remember Jimmy il Fenomeno [Luigi Origene Soffrano]

that it all seemed very homemade, and I had a (Waiter at Disco), Serena Grandi (Witch), Shôko very cold relationship with Amadio. I did my Nakahara (Magañana), Nazzareno Natale (Cab stuff and ‘Thanks and goodbye.’”4
driver), Franca Scagnetti (Housemaid). PROD: Amadio’s next, and last, film was the soapy Mario Cecchi Gori and Vittorio Cecchi Gori for melodrama Il carabiniere (98), starring Fabio Capital Films. GM: Luciano Luna; UM: Francesco Testi and Massimo Ranieri, loosely based on a Giorgi; PS: Gianni Stellitano; PSe: Paolo Giorgi; popular Neapolitan sceneggiata.

PSeA: Luigi Lagrasta; ADM: Mario Lupi, Giulio Cestari; Press attache: Lucherini—Ghergo.

N

Country: Italy. Filmed at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Stu-otes
dios (Rome). Running time: 88 minutes (m.

1. “Lettera del regista Silvio Amadio,” in Demofilo Fi-2438). Visa n. 7767 (0.23.980); Rating: all au-dani, Il medium esce dal mistero (Trento: Luigi Reverdito diences. Release date: 2..980 (Italy); Distribu-Editore, 986), 80.

2. Howard Berger, “Claudio Fragasso’s Gore Wars,” Fan-tion: Cineriz. Domestic gross: ,83,662,000 lire.

goria #63, June 997, 6.

Also known as: Mi mujer es una bruja (Spain),

1980: Mia 37

Geliebte Hexe (West Germany), Meine Frau ist output in the 980s was decidedly uneven and eine Hexe (West Germany—home video).

far more conventional, in tune with the growing Notes: The song “Magic” is sung by Eleonora tendency of Italian comedy.

Giorgi; Helmut Berger is dubbed by Sergio Di Shot in the late Spring of 980, Mia moglie Stefano.

è una strega, the actor’s fourth starring role of In 1656, in Rome, a witch named Finnicella the year, was a far cry from Sono fotogenico (also is condemned to the stake by Cardinal Altieri,

980), Dino Risi’s biting satire on the movie soon to become Pope Clement X. Her demon lover business, where Pozzetto had given one of his Asmodeus makes her return to life three hundred best performances as a naive man who dreams years later, in 1980, so that she can get revenge of becoming a film star, only to discover the on Emilio Altieri, a distant descendant of her tor-squalid world of the movie industry. The story turer. At first Finnicella tries to make Emilio fall for Mia moglie è una strega was basically a re-in love with her and then punish him when he make of René Clair’s classic 942 comedy I Mar-least expects it. But when Emilio finally leaves his ried a Witch, starring Veronica Lake and Fredric fiancée Tania and vows love to her, Finnicella re-March. The similarities were already evident alizes she loves him too, and abandons her re-during filming, despite directors Franco Castel-venge. But during the couple’s honeymoon in lano and Giuseppe Moccia (a.k.a. Castellano & Paris, Asmodeus, disguised as a waiter, enters Pipolo) claiming otherwise: “René Clair’s film Emilio’s room and shoots Finnicella, framing him has nothing to do with ours … it is not a remake, for murder. The man is arrested, but Finnicella, a rip- off or a retelling. Let’s say that René Clair with a ploy, manages to trap Asmodeus, forcing is a reference point, one that served as inspira-him to bring her back to life and save Emilio.

tion. Our film rather tries to revive an American In the merry euphoria of the early 980s,
trend of the fantastique, which goes from Mary while the other genres languished, it was Poppins to The Love Bug.”2 The newspaper La comedy which kept the Italian movie industry Stampa even published a one- page article on the afloat. The top grossing movies were those star-shooting with pictures of Giorgi, Veronica Lake ring Paolo Villaggio, Renato Pozzetto, Adriano and Kim Novak, which even referenced another Celentano, Enrico Montesano, Johnny Dorelli, supernatural comedy as a direct influence, Bell and the plots were safer, tamer versions of the Book and Candle.3 Still, the credits pay no ref-erotic farces of the Seventies: the gradual toning erence to either film. Taking inspiration from down of nudity and salaciousness was the con-classic Hollywood fare without acknowledging sequence of the need to secure an “all audiences”

it was not an uncommon occurrence for Italian rating and capture a wider public.

comedies of the period: a couple of successful The Gothic and its tropes became one of

Paolo Villaggio vehicles, Fracchia la belva the favorite sources for scriptwriters to build umana (98) and Sogni mostruosamente proibiti their sketchy plots around the comedians’ gags.

(982), were respectively uncredited remakes of After the Paolo Villaggio vehicle Dottor Jekyll e The Whole Town’s Talking (93, John Ford) and gentile signora (979, Steno), it was Renato The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (947, Norman Pozzetto’s turn to star in a comedy with mild Z. McLeod), adapted to Villaggio’s screen per-Fantastic overtones. Since his beginnings in the sona. Similarly, Mia moglie è una strega featured mid–960s in an on- stage comedy duo with Au-several verbal gags which echoed Pozzetto’s relio “Cochi” Ponzoni, aptly named Cochi & Re-repertoire. As Pipolo revealed years later, “Renato, Pozzetto had specialized in an absurdist nato was very skeptical about that film. He did kind of humor, replete with nonsense mono-it because he had a contract and so he had to do logues with a surreal feel. Following Cochi & it, moreover … he hadn’t chosen us, so he found Renato’s TV appearances of the early 970s, himself a bit stuck in it.”4

Pozzetto’s staring, dazed looks and naive char-The film pairs Pozzetto with the then 27-
acterizations had turned him into one of the year-old Eleonora Giorgi, at the top of her pop-most popular Italian comedians of the decade.

ularity in Italy: the previous year the ravishing Whereas in the previous years he had often blonde actress had married publisher Angelo starred in nonconformist works—such as Rizzoli, the head of distribution company Sturmtruppen (976, Salvatore Samperi), based Cineriz, which had a key role in her rise to the on the comic strip of the same name, or his own top of the box- office (the couple would split in directorial debut Saxophone (978)—Pozzetto’s

984, after Rizzoli’s involvement in the infamous

38 1980: Mia Italian lobby card for Mia moglie è una strega (1980, Castellano & Pipolo), featuring Helmut Berger (left) as the devil Asmodeus, eleonora Giorgi (center) and Renato Pozzetto. the film was basically an uncredited remake of René Clair’s classic 1942 comedy I Married a Witch.

P2 scandal). As the titular witch Finnicella, ensues, with Finnicella the witch being flogged Giorgi (who also sings a disco tune named by an inquisitor, but La maschera del demonio Magic, featured during the end credits) vows rethis ain’t, and the expected face to face between venge on the inquisitor who betrayed her trust Finnicella (scantily dressed but not nearly as and sent her at the stake: she returns to life 333
provoking as her screen predecessors of the past years, 33 months and 33 days later, after her two decades) and Cardinal Altieri (Pozzetto, ashes have been discovered during the excava-donning a long curly wig and musketeer mustions for the Rome underground (a nice touch tache) is a by- the-numbers moment played for that links the film to such works as Fellini’s a cheap punchline: “If you confess I’ll be Roma and the Gothic TV series Il segno del co-clement,” he promises, and after Finnicella has mando). Predictably, she falls for the descendant confessed he immediately orders her to be burnt of her enemy, Emilio, a meek and not- too-bright at the stake. “But you promised you’d be stockbroker who is about to get married with clement,” she protests. “In fact, tomorrow I’ll be another woman, and proceeds to ruin his life elected pope, with the name Clement the Tenth,”

(à la Bringing Up Baby) with her constant se-is the reply. Apart from the odd historian in the duction attempts.

venue, it is unlikely that the wordplay elicited The opening scene, with several witches
many laughs amid the audience. The filmmakers (including an uncredited Serena Grandi) per-were clearly more at ease with the contemporary forming a Sabbath amid a cemeterial set part of the story, but the sloppiness of the mise-complete with owls, bats and hanging dolls, is en-scène gives an idea of the careless way these exemplary in the way it recycles the Gothic para-products were cranked out. Overall, the movie phernalia into material worthy of a Saturday is slapdash and haphazardly shot, with the lack night TV ballet. The result is not that different of care typical of many commercial films of the from the infamous opening of Pier Carpi’s period, including below- par special effects and Un’ombra nell’ombra (979). A dungeon scene indifferent camerawork. Product placement is,

1980: Ombre 39
as always, conspicuous, with Pozzetto repeatedly Mia moglie è una strega—which according
displaying to the camera a packet of Muratti to the directors cost about 800 million lire7—

Ambassador cigarettes.

was a huge box- office hit, ending up 7th among Throughout the story, the fantastique be-the season’s top- grossing films (Kubrick’s The comes fodder for gags à la Bewitched, with Shining was at 0th place), in a list dominated Finnicella working up all kinds of magic tricks by Italian comedies. The directors refused to to seduce Emilio, until the inevitable happy end-make a sequel,8 and their next film, Asso (98), ing. “We tell fairytales, clean stories, funny, and starring Adriano Celentano and Edwige Fenech, good for everyone—young, old, children, sol-was another comedy with supernatural ele-diers,” the directors claimed, the reference to ments—this time borrowed from A Guy Named
soldiers being significant as they were among Joe (943), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (94) and its the most assiduous audience of adults- only (or remake Heaven Can Wait (978)—about a

V.M.8) films. Even Pozzetto was careful to dis-master card cheater who returns as a ghost to tance Mia moglie è una strega from the erotic help his widow find a new husband.

comedies arena: “It is funny and relaxing without resorting to vulgarity, profanity or Notes
risqué situations.”6 In fact, there is no trace of 1. According to the Public Cinematographic Register nudity and the occasional satiric punchlines are shooting started on May 9th.

mild, with the predictable reference to the fem-2. Paolo Cervone, “Una ‘strega’ innamorata nella fiaba inist movement and their slogan “Tremate! Tre-degli anni ’80,” Corriere della Sera, July 4, 980.

mate! Le streghe son tornate!” (Shake! Shake! The 3. Lamberto Antonelli, “Terzo matrimonio per la Witches are back!). Feminists must not have strega,” Stampa Sera, August 26, 980.

4. Andrea Pergolari, La fabbrica del riso (Rome: Un-been pleased with Castellano & Pipolo’s story: mondoaparte, 2004), 32.

the moral of the tale is not only that richness 5. Antonelli, “Terzo matrimonio per la strega.”

equals happiness (with Emilio becoming a mil-6. Ibid.

lionaire after selling his shares in a disastrous 7. Franca Faldini and Goffredo Fofi (eds.), Il cinema italiano d’oggi, 1970–1984 raccontato dai suoi protagonisti oil company), but that a quiet family life is just (Milan: Mondadori, 984), 36.

what a wild and independent woman needs to 8. Ibid., 322.

be fully realized. In the epilogue, Emilio shares his wife’s magical powers, getting home from work atop an electric broom, and the whole fam-Ombre (Shadows)

ily—husband, wife and three children—sit at the D: Giorgio Cavedon. S and SC: Giorgio table while Finnicella’s fellow witches, who have Cavedon; DOP: Erico Menczer (Eastmancolor, become their maids and housekeepers, clean the LV- Luciano Vittori); M: Maurizio Sangineto house and serve them dinner.

(Ed. Melodi); E: Maria Grazia Dell’Ara; ArtD: Some gags are mildly funny, mainly because Giorgio Luppi; AD: Massimo Guglielmi; C: Luigi of Pozzetto’s whimsical delivery and taste for the Bernardini; AC: Ercole Visconti; SS: Nora Mon-surreal, such as the actor atop a car that drives sellato; SO: Ivo Morbidelli; B: Luciano Locatelli; by itself, or him watching a rerun of Casablanca AsstArtD: Anna Maria Zerri; MU: Giuliana De on TV with Finnicella popping up in the place Carli; Hair: Roberto Magnani; KG: Giovanni of Ingrid Bergman. Others, like a disco scene Carbonera; ChEl: Domenico Cavaliere; Mix: where the actor launches into a frantic dance, Danilo Moroni; SOE: Italo Cameracanna; Cast: fare worse. A bored- looking Helmut Berger is Lou Castel [Ulv Quarzéll] (Renato), Monica the requisite guest star, as the haughty devil As-Guerritore (Monica), Laura Belli (Susanna modeus, who pops up every now and then in

Schumann), Carlo Bagno (Monica’s Father), Anthe film under various disguises (a cop, a waiter, tonio Guidi (Schumann, Susanna’s Father), Elis-an orchestra director) in a manner akin to Ed-abetta Odino (Monica, the Child), Mita Medici mund Purdom in Paolo Lombardo’s trashy sex-

[Patrizia Vistarini] (Patrizia), Auretta Gay (Elena), horror flick L’amante del demonio (972)—not Ugo Bologna (Professor at Hospital), Roberto that anyone noticed, anyway—and finally gets Tiraboschi (Hippie), Lorenzo Logli (Monica’s his comeuppance via a guillotine after being Stepfather), Riccardo Gavagna, Elena Borgo, Luca tricked by Finnicella. Before he is decapitated Torraca (Doctor); uncredited: Edy Angelillo (Girl (offscreen) he comments: “Women know always in Disco). PROD: CTP Cineteleproduzioni better than the devil.”

(Milan); PM: Pierluigi Ottina; PS: Gaetano Carot-

40 1980: Ombre tini; PSe: Riccardo Pintus; ADM: Maria Cannoni.

wrote the script for the movie adaptation di-Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Milan and rected by Bruno Corbucci, Isabella duchessa dei at Icet- De Paolis Studios (Milan). Running time: diavoli (a.k.a. Ms. Stiletto, 969). With their com-96 minutes (m. 260). Visa n. 7223 (.30.980); pany Erregi, later Ediperiodici, Barbieri and Rating: all audiences. Release date: 6.26.980

Cavedon created many successful erotic pocket (Italy); Distribution: Eurocopfilms. Domestic comics, such as Jacula, Lucrezia, Messalina, Lu-gross: ,69,000 lire.

cifera, Jungla, Hessa, De Sade, before parting Notes: Paintings by Carlo Jacono; the song ways in 972, when Barbieri created Edifumetto,

“Black Out” is sung by Heather Parisi.

which became Ediperiodici’s biggest competitor Milan. Renato, a painter, wanders gloomily in the adults- only comics market throughout around the city and recalls his doomed love story the decade.

with Monica. The girl had moved from the coun-Despite his successful activity with Ediperi-try to the city, and rented an attic previously oc-odici, Cavedon did not give up his passion, and cupied by an old painter who had been found by the late Seventies he returned behind the dead there. Renato, estranged from his pregnant camera on what would represent his only feature and rich wife Susanna, had fallen for her, but film as director. Shooting took place entirely in Monica was very sick. Before she died, she gave Milan; it started on July 9, 979, with the work-Renato a painting, a portrait of the old painter, ing titles Autoritratto (Self-Portrait)2 and who was actually Monica’s grandfather. An evil Ritratto di un fantasma (Portrait of a Ghost),3
soul obsessed with occultism and tarots, he had and lasted through the months of July and Au-used the girl as a medium to paint his own gust; by the time filming was near completion, portrait from the beyond. After Monica’s death, however, the title had already been changed into Renato had moved to the decrepit attic, and be-the definitive one, Ombre (Shadows).4 As the di-came obsessed with the painting. Susanna con-rector specified, it referred to the shadows “of vinced him to sell it for a large sum, but Renato the world of a young artist in the district of found himself unable to paint any longer. Renato Brera, a world populated with hopes and disil-desperately tries to turn himself into a medium lusions; the ones in which a girl doomed to die for Monica from the afterlife. He locks himself in struggles; and the ones which upset the human the attic, until one day Susanna’s father comes to mind in the illusory search for a truth that no tell him that his daughter has given birth to a longer exists.”
baby…

Cavedon was understandably vague about

Giorgio Cavedon (930–200) was an eclec-
the true nature of his film, which newspapers tic personality who crossed the various threads described as a melodrama in the vein of Love of Italian popular culture for several decades, Story (970).6 In fact, it is an eerie ghost story dabbling in literature, music, comics, and cin-which unrolls in flashbacks, blending present ema. His name is commonly linked to the and past events. It reprises elements in vogue in adults- only comics he wrote with Renzo Barbi-the 970s, such as the interest in parapsychology, eri, starting with Isabella, which in 966 repre-and its bleak plot recalls one of the many adult sented Italy’s first openly erotic fumetto. An ac-comics Cavedon scripted—devoid of nudity and complished jazz musician and a member of the gore, that is. Ombre is surprisingly understated, Milan College Jazz Society, Cavedon had also at a time where extreme violence and sex were ambitions to be a filmmaker. In 93 he shot his the norm: Cavedon was attempting to make an first 6mm documentary, and the following year old- style horror story, leaving aside shocks and he screened the experimental short film Arturo scares and aiming for subtlety, and focusing on at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the years such themes as the need for artistic creation and Cavedon resurfaced sporadically in the movie the ultimate inescapability of fate.

business: he was Renato Dall’Ara’s assistant on The director’s own script plays with
the interesting Scano Boa (960), and in 96 he Gothic’s traditional imagery: the doomed artist, directed an episode of the comedy anthology I the evil portrait, a menace from the past, the soldi, starring Enrico Maria Salerno and Cather-thin boundaries between this world and the af-ine Spaak.

terlife, a circular conception of life where past Published from April 966 to October 976, events are doomed to repeat themselves over for a total of 263 issues, Isabella convinced Cave-and over. Despite the many literary references, don to stick to the comics business, although he from M.R. James to Poe (a cat seems to be a

1980: Ombre 4
medium between the dead artist and the one walls, as if on opposite sides of an aquarium) who will take his place), what sets apart Ombre and ample use of comic book- style shots, such from many Gothic tales with similar plots is preas freeze frames and details of faces, hands and cisely the contemporary Milanese setting, which objects. Cavedon even pays homage to L’Année gives the supernatural angle a realistic backdrop.

dernière à Marienbad in the scene at the SemAs Giulio Questi did in Arcana (972), Cavedon pione park, where the camera tracks laterally and manages to convey the feel of obscure forces discovers the two lovers standing motionless working subtly in an everyday reality, just be-while kissing by a tree, and here and there he neath the surface: even children’s chalk drawings comes up with suitably eerie images, such as the on the asphalt take on a sinister meaning.

little girl playing hopscotch in the courtyard. He In the opening sequences we see Monica
is immensely aided by Erico Menczer’s top-take a tramway to the outskirts of the city, to the notch cinematography, characterized by the Navigli district and its canals, and move to one ample use of flou and striking transitions from of those big condos that housed hundreds of light to darkness, and by Maurizio Sangineto’s families, mostly immigrants, depicted in such score, which mixes “eerie synthesizer droolings films as Rocco e i suoi fratelli (960, Luchino Vis-and splintering guitar chords.”8
conti). The squalid, claustrophobic attic where For all its qualities, though, Ombre is badly she and then Renato move to is a prosaic but no flawed. The insistent use of voice- over soon be-less perturbing variation of the dilapidated comes tiresome and heavy- handed (“I have re-Gothic castles which feed on their inhabitants’

mained alone on this useless life’s stage,” Renato primal fears and retain the malevolent presence mutters, while wandering on … an empty stage), of their previous occupants. Perhaps the director the story feels stretched despite the intriguing had in mind the building where the doomed
flashback structure, and the characters are so Trelkovsky goes to live in Roman Polanski’s sketchy and perfunctory that it is hard to care stunning adaptation of Roland Topor’s novel, Le about them. In addition to that, despite a pair locataire, a.k.a. The Tenant (976). On top of of capable leads such as Lou Castel and Monica that, Cavedon has his lonely protagonist wander Guerritore, the performances are hardly con-around the city, juxtaposing his discouraged vincing. Monica’s melodramatic death scene meditations with sinister architectural glimpses seems lifted from some worthless tearjerker, and of Milan, from the imposing caryatids at the Castel—by then in a career- low stretch, with ti-Central railway station (built during the Fascist tles such as L’osceno desiderio (978) and Suor regime) to Giorgio De Chirico’s surreal 973
omicidi (979)—looks uninterested. His per-open- air fountain sculpture “I bagni misteriosi”

formance becomes downright embarrassing in (“The Mysterious Baths”),7 giving the impression the scene at a disco where Renato gets drunk of the big city as a vampire which deprives its in-after selling the portrait Monica had entrusted habitants of the will to live.

to him, and dances frantically to the sound of a In a way, Ombre could also be read as a

Heather Parisi song.

metaphorical meditation on the loss of the 968

Nevertheless, Ombre remains a rather in-
ideals. In a flashback we first meet Renato intent teresting oddity, not least because of the partic-on working on a huge mural painting, together ipation of personalities from the artistic world, with a group of hippie artists; in the scenes set such as Carlo Jacono (one of Italy’s most famous in the present, the mural looks dilapidated and illustrators, and the official cover artist of the Gi-ruined beyond repair. Likewise, Renato betrays alli Mondadori from 90 to 986), who provided his ideals of artistic purity and finds (ephemeral) the eerie portrait at the center of the story, and notoriety by selling someone else’s work and Roberto Tiraboschi (who subsequently became pretending it is his own. Cavedon carries the a renowned writer and scriptwriter), who plays story coherently to its grim yet logical denoue-a small role. Some sources credit Mario Caiano ment, with a punchline that plays like a variation as co- director, but the information is groundless: on the ending of Luigi Comencini’s black com-Caiano himself never mentioned his participa-edy Lo scopone scientifico (972), where rat poi-tion to the film, and Castel has been adamant son also played a key role.

that Cavedon was the film’s only director.9

The direction attempts to be stylish, with Despite a reasonable amount of publicity,
some impressive images (Renato and Monica

Ombre—advertised as “a young film for young meeting on opposite sides of a palace with glass people”—failed to attract any audience: report-

42 1980: Paura edly, it ended up with only 6 tickets sold Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City and closed after just a week. Critics were tepid, of the Living Dead, a.k.a. Gates of Hell)

too: “Cavedon’s direction … moves among the D: Lucio Fulci. S and SC: Lucio Fulci, Dar-story’s twists and certain inconsistencies in the dano Sacchetti; DOP: Sergio Salvati (LV-Lu-script with mixed results. If on one hand he ciano Vittori); M: Fabio Frizzi, conducted by goes for effect with naïve and elementary the author (Ed. Flipper); E: Vincenzo Tomassi; tricks … on the other he takes advantage, PD, CO: Antonello Geleng; MU: Franco Rufini; thanks also to Erico Menczer’s photography, AMU: Rosario Prestopino; Hair: Luciano Vito; of some rather unseen glimpses of old Milan,”0

AD: Roberto Giandalia [2ndAD: Michele Soavi, wrote the Corriere della Sera, blaming also the uncredited]; SD: Giacomo Calò Corducci; ASD: story’s excessively slow pacing. After such a Ovidio Taito; ACO: Luciana Morosetti; SO: commercial debacle, Cavedon never directed Ugo Celani, Marco Streccioni; B: Eros Giustini; another picture.

Mix: Bruno Moreal; SE: Gino De Rossi; C: Roberto Forges Davanzati; AC: Maurizio Luc-NOteS
chini; AE: Armando Pace, Pietro Tomassi; 1. “Primo ciak del film Autoritratto a Milano,” L’Unità, ChEl: Roberto Belli; KG: Giancarlo Serravalli; July 0, 979. The start date is confirmed by Rome’s Public SP: Giorgio Garibaldi Schwarze; STC: Naz-Cinematographic Register as well.

zareno Cardinali; Stunts: Don Ruffin; SS: Rita 2. “Opera prima con ‘star’ a Brera,” La Stampa, August Agostini, Donatella Botti. Cast: Christopher 8, 979.

George (Peter Bell), Katherine [Catriona] Mac-3. Sandro Liberali, “Io tanti flirt? Prego, solo amori,”

Corriere dell’informazione, July 8, 979 (interview with Coll (Mary Woodhouse), Carlo De Mejo

Mita Medici); Franca Morotti, “La mia vita? Tanta rabbia (Gerry), Antonella Interlenghi (Emily Robe voglia di pattinare,” Corriere dell’informazione, July 30, bins), Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Bob),

979.

Daniela Doria [Daniela Cormio] (Rosie

4. See Anonymous, “Un’altra troupe ‘gira’ in autobus Kelvin), Fabrizio Jovine (Father William con fantasmi e gatto parapsicologo,” Corriere della Sera, August 8, 979.

Thomas), Luca Paisner [Luca Venantini]

5. Rossella Dallò, “Comincia con la fine di un amore (John-John Robbins), Michele Soavi (Tommy
la carriera di un giovane regista,” L’Unità, August 3, 979.

Fisher), Venantino Venantini (Mr. Ross), Enzo 6. Ibid.

D’Ausilio (Sheriff Russell’s Deputy), Adelaide 7. Placed in the Sempione park in 973 as part of the

“Art-City Contact” project for Milan’s XV Triennale, “I Aste (Theresa), Luciano Rossi (Policeman in bagni misteriosi” is considered by many to be Giorgio De apartment), Robert Sampson (Sheriff Russell), Chirico’s greatest sculpture. Made from Vicenza stone, the Janet Agren (Sandra); uncredited: Omero Ca-installation is composed of eight elements placed in a large panna (Burning zombie), Lucio Fulci (Dr. John sinuous pool: two torsos, a dark- haired man and a blond Thompson), Michael Gaunt (Gravedigger), one; a Swan whose outline recalls a floating boat at the amusement park; a multicolored fish and a colored beach Perry Pirkanen (Blond Gravedigger), James ball; a trampoline; a real cabin for swimmers with wind Sampson (James McLuhan, Séance member),
flags; and a fountainhead. Part of the floor of the pool, in Martin Sorrentino (Sgt. Clay), Robert E.

yellow ochre, is decorated with a parquet motif that recalls Werner (Policeman outside apartment build-the movement of waves. As the artist explained, “the idea for the “Mysterious baths” fountain came to me while I ing). PROD: Dania Film, Medusa Distribuzione, was in a house whose floor had been polished with wax. I National Cinematografica (Rome); GM: Gio-saw a man walking ahead of me whose legs were reflected vanni Masini; EP: Renato Jaboni (in the U.S.: on the floor. I had the impression that he could have sunk, Robert Warner); UM: Gianfranco Coduti; PSe: like in a pool. That he could move and swim. So, I Franco Galizi; PSeA: Alfredo Fornacini. Coun-imagined strange pools with men immersed in that sort of water parquet, who moved and played and sometimes try: Italy. Filmed on location in Savannah even stopped to converse with other men who were outside (Georgia), New York City and at De Paolis of the pavement pool.” The representation of enigmatic In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 93 min-characters immersed in water is a theme that was dear to utes (m. 2497). Visa n. 7480 (8.7.980); Rating: the Surrealist artist and one that he would come back to repeatedly during his career.

V.M.8. Release dates: 8..980 (Italy), 9..980

8. Mark [Thompson] Ashworth, “Ombre,” Delirium (West Germany), 2.0.980 (France), .2.980

#3, 99, p. 37.

(Spain), .7.982 (UK), 4.8.983 (USA). Distri-9. Lou Castel, interviewed by Pierpaolo De Sanctis.

bution: Medusa Distribuzione. Domestic gross: De Sanctis is the author of an excellent documentary on 98,238,798 lire. Also known as: Frayeurs the actor, A pugni chiusi (206).

10. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “Mansarda popolata di (France), Miedo en la ciudad de los muertos ombre,” Corriere della Sera, June 29, 980.

vivientes (Spain), Ein Zombie hing am Glock-

1980: Paura

43
enseil; Ein Toter hing am Glockenseil; Eine Leiche hing am Glockenseil (West Germany).

In the small town of Dunwich, Reverend William Thomas commits suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the local cemetery. Meanwhile, during a séance in New York, a psychic named Mary Woodhouse has a vision of Thomas’s suicide and of its terrifying consequences. Then Mary falls apparently dead, and the police au-thorize the burial. But the woman is still alive, and it is only for the providential intervention of a journalist, Peter Bell, who heard her scream in the coffin, that she escapes a horrible end. In Dunwich the dead come out of their graves and kill the inhabitants. Mary realizes that her vision predicts the events described in the book of Enoch, and the suicide of Father Thomas marks the beginning of the invasion of the Earth by the dead.

The prophecy will come true on the night of Hal-lowmas. She and Peter leave for Dunwich, where they meet a young psychoanalyst, Gerry. Together, they set out to find Father Thomas’s grave and destroy it, which is the only way to stop the dead.

They penetrate the cemetery crypt, but find themselves in a dungeon populated with living corpses…

The commercial success of his first horror film, Zombi 2—a project he had been entrusted with after Enzo G. Castellari had backed out, which grossed over a billion and a half lire at the Italian box- office—revived Lucio Fulci’s career and injected him with much- needed enthusiasm Italian locandina for Paura nella città dei morti after the difficult phase of the late 970s, char-viventi (1980), Lucio Fulci’s first Gothic film of acterized by professional and personal issues.

the 1980s.

The director was determined to seize the moment, sticking to the horror genre, and soon he cept the risk. Horror had never been (and would started working on a new script with Dardano never be) a genre much loved by Italian produc-Sacchetti. “After Zombi 2 turned out a big box-ers. Eventually Fulci managed to convince his office hit, Fulci called me and said, ‘A Sacché, friend Renato Jaboni of Medusa Distribuzione, you’ll see, they’ll stand in line at our door… !’

who accepted rather reluctantly and got on But for six months nothing happened, and board Luciano Martino and Mino Loy’s com-we had our story ready in the drawer,” the pany Dania and National Cinematografica (with scriptwriter recalled. If Zombi 2, a script Fulci a 40 percent and 2 percent quote, respectively).

hadn’t anything to do with, tried to insert some The project was greenlit while Fulci was
elements of the Gothic tradition into the story—
still shooting his grim action movie Luca il con-most notably, the ghost ship entering New York trabbandiere (980), and he went to work on the city à la Nosferatu, and the character of the mad film—tentatively titled La paura—right away, doctor played by Richard Johnson—the new leaving his a.d. Roberto Giandalia in Naples to story would delve deep into the genre.

put the finishing touches to Luca il contrab-Involving a producer was not an easy task.

bandiere.2 The tentative cast—which featured Fulci didn’t want to work with Zombi 2’s Fabrizio Tisa Farrow as Mary, Fiamma Maglione as SanDe Angelis, whom he called “The Cobra” (in the dra, Monica Scattini as Rose, Aldo Barberito as meantime, De Angelis was busy concocting an-Father Thomas and Robert Kerman as Ross—
other zombie movie, Zombi Holocaust, directed was mostly dropped in favor of more commer-by Marino Girolami), but nobody wanted to ac-cially palatable names, such as the American

44 1980: Paura Christopher George and the French Janet Agren.

The movie was eventually released in Au-

George’s performance as the nosy cigar- chomping gust 980 as Paura nella città dei morti viventi reporter Peter Bell had the acid- tongued director to cash in on the zombie cycle. Yet, even though nickname him “the dog with the cigar” on set,3
it dealt again with zombies, the story moved in and the relationship between the two was always quite a different direction from other films of turbulent during filming. Giovanni Lombardo the period, such as Zombi Holocaust and Bruno Radice was cast at the expense of Michele Soavi Mattei and Claudio Fragasso’s Virus. Girolami’s as Bob, a role he was initially supposed to play film—released in the States in 983 in a re- edited with a fake hump. Soavi, who hanged around on version as Doctor Butcher, M.D., with additional the set, in production designer Massimo An-footage from an unfinished anthology film titled tonello Geleng’s words, as “half-actor, half-Tales to Rip Your Heart Out—was a slapdash under assistant,”4 was finally cast as Tommy. The reread of Zombi 2, with added elements from female lead was a 26-year-old British actress, the controversial cannibal subgenre, proving the Catriona MacColl, a former dancer who had had makers’ attempt to have it both ways. On its part, her first important role in Jacques Demy’s film Virus (known overseas as Hell of the Living version of Lady Oscar (979); she would become Dead) kept pedantically close to the Romero Fulci’s own version of Hitchcock’s trademark blueprint, to the point of featuring a quartet of

“blonde in peril” character for this and two sub-gun- crazy SWAT members and recycling ex-
sequent horror films, …E tu vivrai nel terrore!

cerpts from Goblin’s score. While also bowing L’aldilà and Quella villa accanto al cimitero. The to the cannibal subgenre—via stock footage director himself appeared in one of his trade-from the Japanese documentary Zankoku hitokui mark cameos, as a coroner in one of the early tairiku, released in Italy in 974 as Nuova Guinea, scenes. Weird- looking character actor Luciano l’isola dei cannibali—Mattei and Fragasso even Rossi can be seen in the same scene, in one of squeezed in a clumsy political message between his last screen appearances, as a cop.

a gory scene and the next: Fragasso’s story en-Shooting started in April 980 and went on visioned a secret operation to solve overpopu-for eight weeks, with six weeks of exteriors filmed lation in Third World countries by having on location in Savannah, Georgia, and two weeks people prey on each other via a lethal chemical in Rome at the De Paolis studios for the special (a nod to Romero’s The Crazies) which turns effects scenes. The choice of Savannah—a quiet, them into cannibal zombies. The plan goes hor-happy- looking and decidedly un–Gothic town—
ribly wrong after a leak contaminates the staff was dictated by economic reasons (there would of workers in a secret chemical research facility, be no issues with unions regarding shooting with turning them into flesh- hungry living dead, and foreign cast and crew members). But Fulci and the plague quickly spreads throughout the world.

d.o.p. Sergio Salvati turned the place into a ghost Both Zombi Holocaust and Virus are utterly town of sorts, with plenty of eerie lights and dry devoid of supernatural elements, and seemingly ice as well as many scenes shot at night. The De uninterested in exploring the zombie angle other Paolis shooting involved the infamous sequence than for its shock value. Fulci and Sacchetti, on in which the protagonists are attacked by a the other hand, aim at a visionary, apocalyptic swarm of maggots, filmed with two wind ma-fresco rooted in the Gothic tradition, which fo-chines and 0 kilograms of living fly larvae. The cuses on the theme of the “return of the past”

scene caused a notorious incident on the set: and centers on the character of an evil revenant, someone from the crew, exasperated by the a Catholic priest called Father Thomas. The film smell, played a nasty joke on Fulci, putting a even includes references to the Gothic literary handful of maggots in his sack of pipe tobacco.

and film tradition, including the work of Edgar Unaware of this, the director charged his pipe Allan Poe, reprising the theme of premature and only after several puffs did he realize what burial which was already at the core of Sette note he was smoking, which led to a tantrum on the in nero (977), and H.P. Lovecraft. Such is the set. In later years, Fulci even ironically hypoth-name of the town where the horrific events took esized that his subsequent illness might have place, Dunwich, a nod to Lovecraft’s celebrated been caused by this episode6: in late 98, he un-short story The Dunwich Horror. “Fulci had just derwent heart surgery after suffering a ventric-reread Lovecraft; he wanted to make a movie ular aneurysm, and contracted viral hepatitis with that very atmosphere. He was taking his which degenerated into cirrhosis of the liver.

first steps in the horror genre and felt more se-

1980: Paura 4
cure within the comfortable walls of classic lit-several important differences from the finished erature,”7 Sacchetti pointed out.

film, which hint at radical last- minute changes.

However, the name Dunwich does not ap-

For a film characterized by abundant blood pear in Sacchetti’s original 34-page story. La and graphic violence, Paura nella città dei morti paura8—incidentally, the same tentative title as viventi immediately strikes for its gloomy, oth-Mario Bava’s horror trilogy which eventually be-erworldly mood, another element which links came I tre volti della paura (a.k.a. Black Sabbath, it to the Gothic tradition. Fulci is at his best

963)—is set in a village called Salem and is sen-when he suggests the atmosphere of dread and sibly different from the finished film. The first decay that pervades the damned city of Dun-part includes the suicide of Father Thomas, the wich—incidentally, despite claims in the film séance, Mary Woodhouse’s apparent death and that Dunwich is located in the East Coast, the premature burial, and Mary and reporter Peter vegetation looks typically Southern. The choice Bell teaming up; but the story features a different of the setting marks a neat departure from the ending set in a cemetery and then in a church standard look and mood of Italian Gothic, char-where Father Thomas hanged himself. La paura acterized by the use of Italian villas and manors features some different characters as well: Gerry such as Castle Piccolomini in Balsorano, which the psychoanalyst teams up with a writer named resulted in a recurring, familiar microcosm. In Mike, who is nowhere to be found in the film fact, Fulci’s Gothic films aim at an international (where it is basically replaced by Sandra, a new look without coming off as awkward; in the character absent in the story); a homeless man meantime, they redesign the coordinates of the named Woody turns up only to be devoured by genre’s imagery.

cats and reappear later as a zombie. Moreover, This approach is immediately evident in

Sacchetti’s early concept explores more convinc-the opening scene, which depicts Father Thomas’

ingly the homicidal madness of the villagers: in (Fabrizio Jovine) blasphemous suicidal act with a scene, John- John’s parents kill each other with an uncommon visual force, as the camera a knife and an iron before their little son’s eyes, follows him wandering in the cemetery via a and later they will turn up as zombies. The orig-somewhat shaky, insecure long take which nevinal story also introduces the recurring presence ertheless conveys a powerful sense of disorien-of swarms of flies as an embodiment of evil in tation and dread. Then Fulci cuts to the New the places where evil manifests itself, another York séance, depicted in elegant camera move-bow to the Gothic tradition which in the film is ments that wrap around the participants from substituted by the “maggot rain” scene, in a nod behind semi- transparent curtains. The juxtapo-to Suspiria.

sition not only hints at a link between the two Some interesting ideas in La paura were ei-events, but immediately sabotages the notions ther dropped or just fleetingly mentioned in the of time and space by showing a deep and un-movie. Namely, the notion that Father Thomas fathomable connection between the living and was “the last descendant of one of the 9 women the dead.

put on trial for witchcraft in 692 in Salem,” and A damned soul who returns to take his re-the suggestion that the village where the story venge on the living, staring at his soon- to-be takes place may have been founded on the ruins victims and thus “passing” the curse onto them of old Salem, and therefore shall be punished (Fulci’s fixation with close- ups of eyes is in evi-for its sins. Likewise, mention of a “Book of dence here), the undead Father Thomas is one Enoch” (a non- canonical Jewish religious work of many revenant figures in Italian Gothic, but going back to 4000 BC) is passingly made in the significantly one of the few male ones: think of film in the post- séance scene but then forgotten, Iavutich in La maschera del demonio, Dr. Hauff whereas Sacchetti’s story came full circle with a in 5 tombe per un medium (96, Massimo final surprise twist which mentioned Enoch.

Pupillo), Uriah in Contronatura (969, Antonio These ideas appear to have already been dis-Margheriti). Moreover, he is a priest who hanged carded in the 223-page draft of the script de-himself: a nod to Judas Iscariot’s demise which posited at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cin-introduces a subtle anti–Catholic element, thus ematografia (CSC) on February , 980, and at departing radically from the voodoo- related the Public Cinematographic Register on Febru-mood of Zombi 2, and linking the film to Fulci’s ary 22, 980, credited solely to Sacchetti and still previous work, most notably Non si sevizia un titled La paura. However, this as well displays paperino (972), which also featured a priest as

46 1980: Paura a source of evil. The Catholic doctrine and im-and Tommy are dispatched while making out in agery becomes associated with damnation in-their car. Here, the link between “forbidden” sex stead of salvation: the opening scene features an and punishment becomes blatant, and the infa-inscription on a gravestone (“The soul that pines mous moment in which Rosie starts crying tears for eternity shall outspan death”) which in ret-of blood makes for yet another subtly blasphe-rospect sounds like a bitter parody of the Gospel’s mous image, possibly inspired by Messiah of Evil

“promise of eternity,” and Father Thomas smear-

(973) but with a more direct significance for ing Emily’s face with a disgusting substance filled Italian audiences, as it refers to the Catholic with living worms looks like a perverted rendi-

“miracles” of the bleeding Virgin Mary statues tion of the baptism ceremony.

(such as the Madonna Addolorata in Giampilieri, Sacchetti’s script hints at another key Gothic Sicily).

element, the return of the repressed: the under-But the story also has its share of flaws, ground crypt where the climax takes place, hidden which look more like the result of unconvincing behind Father Thomas’ gravestone, looks like a tampering with the original concept than an at-dark half, a parallel world nourished by the sins tempt at a dreamlike mood. Rather than as a co-of the living which lies in wait to rise to the surface herent whole, the action proceeds in fits and and take its revenge at the opportune moment starts, with bizarre non sequiturs such as the col-

(the memory of the hidden passage behind the umn of fire that appears in the New York apart-fireplace in La maschera del demonio comes to ment where the séance has taken place, perhaps mind). The film connects even deeper to the a remnant of the original concept of linking the Gothic tradition by way of another typical element living dead plague to the Salem witches. On the of the genre, the séance. As Mary, MacColl plays other hand, the gory and suspenseful set- pieces a psychic heroine with many traits in common to sometimes barely make sense themselves, as Sette note in nero’s Virginia Ducci, a damsel- in-with the case of the appearance of the elderly distress who remains basically powerless through-dead woman in Sandra’s house.

out the movie—a Cassandra of sorts who predicts Despite its budgetary shortcomings (which
terrible ruin but cannot do anything to stop it. Her called for several cost- cutting choices, such as fragility, which makes her a “dweller of the twilight the same night- time shots of Dunwich repeated void,” a link between two worlds, is best expressed throughout the movie) and a cast that is not up in the premature burial scene by the pictorial to the task (except for MacColl and Lombardo image of the flower petal which falls from the rose Radice, that is), Fulci develops suspense with a on Mary’s chest, after a feeble breath emanates commanding knowledge of the medium. This
from the young woman’s lungs, revealing that she leads to some show- stopping moments such as is, indeed, still alive. It is moments like this the scene in which Peter saves Mary from pre-

(already described in detail in the script, it must mature burial: here the thrills come not only be added, yet beautifully rendered on screen) from the race against time, but by the fact that which illustrate the measure of Fulci’s sensibility the savior might actually harm the woman he is and care toward the genre.

trying to rescue, as the reporter goes at the coffin Characterizations are kept to a mini-with a pickaxe whose edge penetrates inches mum—Emily (Antonella Interlenghi) is barely from Mary’s eye. It must be noted that Sacchetti’s introduced before she is mercilessly dispatched, script features only one pickaxe blow, while Fulci only to return later as a zombie—and often hint triplicates them, like a Russian roulette with at sexual repression. Gerry (Carlo De Mejo) is three bullets. As gratuitous and preposterous as a psychoanalyst (not Fulci’s favorite profession it may be, it remains a top- notch sequence, by far) who we assume is hopelessly in love with which not only reprises the likes of Dreyer’s the beautiful Sandra (Agren), who in turn is in-Vampyr, Corman’s The Tomb of Ligeia and troduced while discussing her incestuous desires Freda’s L’orribile segreto del dr. Hichcock in a re-toward her father. Bob the village idiot—intro-freshing way, but also plays with Fulci’s own duced via an impressive exterior shot outside oeuvre, from Sette note in nero to the splinter-his abode—keeps an inflatable sex doll in his in-the-pupil scene of Zombi 2.9 In turn it would shack and is said to be literally a son of a bitch become a classic, openly quoted by Quentin (being retarded, he is also among the first to ex-Tarantino in Kill Bill: Vol. 2.0
perience paranormal visions of the impending The director is immensely aided by Fabio
apocalyptic events), while Rosie (Daniela Doria) Frizzi’s score. The composer had already collab-

1980: Paura

47

Mary (Catriona McCall) is rescued from the coffin where she was buried alive in a French lobby card for Paura nella città dei morti viventi.

orated with Fulci on several films since the mid–
with gross moments of gore (with special make-Seventies, including Sette note in nero and Zombi up effects by Franco Rufini and Rosario 2, and his work in Paura della città dei morti Prestopino2) which seem only too preoccupied viventi ranks among his best: the unorthodox to shock and disgust the viewer. Interestingly, choice of instruments—such as the jangling, the film’s most celebrated graphic horror mo-arpeggioing acoustic guitars in the track appro-ments are not included in the original story nor priately titled Irrealtà di suoni (Unreality of in the CSC script. The scene with Rosie and Sounds), or the Mellotron in Apoteosi del mistero Tommy in the car is absent in the former, which (Apotheosis of Mystery)—enhances the film’s features the bit where Woody is devoured by cats dreamlike, irrational mood. Frizzi was particu-in a rubbish dump instead. It can be found in larly satisfied with the use of the Mellotron to the CSC draft, yet, it climaxes in a decidedly dif-convey a feeling of dread: “I was born musically ferent way. After witnessing the ghastly appear-at the time of the great success of The Beatles ance of the dead priest, the two teenagers try to and The Rolling Stones. I knew that they had drive away, but their car won’t start; maggots used the Mellotron (the harmonizing flutes in start falling from the sky like rain, covering the The Fool on the Hill, for instance, were a Mel-windshield and windows and obscuring their lotron). I inquired if I could find one in Rome, sight. The vehicle is surrounded by zombies and, rented it and learned how to play it. The best in a Romero- inspired image, “dozens of livid, zombie voices you can find on the planet.” Frizzi fleshless arms penetrate inside the car,” before would reuse Apoteosi del mistero with some vari-the script cuts abruptly to another scene. There ations in his scores for …E tu vivrai nel terrore!

is no trace whatsoever of the scene’s highlight, L’aldilà and Un gatto nel cervello (990).

the infamous intestine barfing bit, which seems These atmospheric scenes rub shoulders
to have been a last- minute addition.

48 1980: Paura Bob’s death, the film’s most infamous gory special effects guys turn up with a rather uncon-highlight, is also quite different from the original vincing replica of Doria’s face.

story and the CSC script draft. Here, after Bob As Fulci once claimed, “what I am really
is discovered by Ann’s father, he manages to es-scared of are TV news. My nightmares, or Ar-cape, but the man shoots him in the leg and gento’s, are imaginary. Whereas TV news show blows up his knee. The badly injured Bob is surreal nightmares lived daily by real people.”4 Not rounded by the villagers, who tie his leg to a car’s surprisingly, the film’s most infamous gory high-fender and drag him around. One of the boy’s light, Bob’s atrocious death, leaves any super-legs gets stuck, and the scene climaxes in the natural implication aside. Fulci described it as gruesome sight of Bob being graphically quar-

“a cry I wanted to launch against a certain type tered like in a medieval ordeal, before the eyes of fascism.” It is an astonishing portrayal of of his torturers. Incidentally, the same scene was human evil, as opposed to the ghostly curse that described in a very similar way in Sacchetti’s forms the movie’s core: an act of gratuitous, ex-original story: the only difference is that Bob is treme violence, symbolically directed to the not shot by Ann’s father, but stabbed in the leg same body part as the zombies’ attacks, the by a little girl. In its early conception, the se-brain—and therefore by extension to free, indi-quence was even closer in tone to the lynching vidual and independent thought. It implies not of the maciara (Florinda Bolkan) at the hands just unspeakable horrors that are far more ter-of the villagers in Non si sevizia un paperino. It rifying than any revenant in the film (namely, a was possibly dropped due to budgetary reasons father’s unspoken incestuous desires, a nod to and replaced by a simpler (although even more Fulci’s own version of Beatrice Cenci as well as shocking) version, in which the meek, retarded to Sandra’s early monologue in the film about Bob has his skull drilled from side to side by the incest), but also a grim meditation on the state jealous father (Venantino Venantini) of the girl of modern society, where savage fury and hatred he was hanging out with. According to Geleng are barely concealed under a façade of civilized this was Sacchetti’s idea.3
behavior, and are pushing to come loose at any Finally, in the CSC script the zombies don’t minute in the form of violent repression at the squash their victims’ skulls but simply bite them expense of the weak and the marginalized. The (offscreen, in Sandra’s case), and poor Peter Bell revolt of the undead takes in turn the form of a ends up with his throat ripped open by Sandra.

generational revenge: once she returns from the The living dead’s different modus operandi is one dead, Emily slaughters her parents, and the of the film’s most significant departures from the teenage zombies (Rosie, Bob, Tommy) assault subgenre’s canon: Fulci’s zombies are not driven the squalid bar where the middle- aged locals by a pathological hunger, but by a punishing spend their time idling, chatting and drinking.

rage, which doesn’t aim at the consumption of But all this is barely and incoherently sketched, the bodies, but at the destruction of the minds.

so much so that the living dead suddenly mate-This latter change further proves the direc-rialize out of nowhere and disappear likewise.

tor’s willingness to detach from the Romero-Fulci and Sacchetti’s following collaborations inspired mayhem and follow a different ap-would result in much tighter scripts.

proach to graphic violence. In his later horror Paura nella città dei morti viventi climaxes films, however, Fulci would perfect the mixture with an extended “good vs. evil” confrontation of subtle atmosphere and over- the-top gore with set in a huge underground catacomb riddled much more convincing results: here, the recur-with skeletons, an impressive set- piece built by ring images of zombies squeezing the brains out Geleng at the De Paolis studios. Fulci and Sac-of their unfortunate victims as if they were ripe chetti would reprise and improve upon the idea grapefruits are shoddy and unimpressive. Even of an underground hell, a parallel world of sorts, the much- discussed scene of Daniela Doria’s for …E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà. The result character barfing up her own intestines doesn’t is quite impressive, and the director was pre-live up to its fame, coming off as enthusiastic sumably very happy to get rid of his annoying but slapdash, and perhaps more in tune with leading man by having him dispatched by the some Hong Kong oddities as, say, Centipede zombies, thus promoting Carlo De Mejo’s Gerry horror (982, Keith Li), due to the actress’ will-as the savant hero. But Sacchetti’s early story ingness to actually barf baby veal intestines on envisioned quite a different denouement, with camera for the first part of the scene before the a sting in the tail. After dispatching Father

1980: Paura 49

Thomas and apparently delivering the place strong emotions aroused by the viewing could from evil, Mary and Gerry walk away in a snowy cause considerable damage to the entire vascular landscape. She explains to him that he was the system.”

only one who could stop evil, because the spirit Critics were ambivalent toward the film.

of Enoch is inside him. Then, suddenly, her The Corriere della Sera’s reviewer, Giovanna voice and feature change, “her eyes become evil, Grassi, wrote ironically that “lately Lucio Fulci and before Gerry can do anything she bites him seems to have been ensnared by some malevo-savagely on the throat. Red drops of blood fall lent living dead,”7 adding that “the passage from on the snow, while in Mary’s eyes a smile of giallo to horror, blow by blow, seems to harm black triumph appears.” Such a grim ending re-Fulci, who relies on truculent effects and orgies connected to the tradition of the Italian Gothic, of blood and gruesome murders in his attempt with the leading lady turning into a primary to relaunch Italian Fantastic cinema.” The re-force of evil (see La maschera del demonio, I viewer dismissed it as “incoherent and stretched Wurdalak, even Estratto dagli archivi segreti della beyond measure” and complained about its lack polizia di una capitale europea) and gave sense of atmosphere and bad acting, even though it to the references to the Book of Enoch which praised Lombardo Radice’s acting and Frizzi’s are lost on the screen.

score.

Whereas the CSC script draft for La paura

On the other hand, La Stampa hailed the
ends as follows. Just as Mary and Gerry return film as “a grand guignol with class” and gave it a to the surface, they meet John- John, the little surprisingly positive, if rather patronizing re-kid who is one of the few survivors of the zombie view:

plague. “The kid runs toward them and hugs them.” The End. But the film features an unex-Until now, Lucio Fulci’s 20-year-old film career had pected coda instead. Mary and Gerry’s relieved dissipated amid “popular” products, appreciated by the less demanding audiences and mistreated or neg-faces turn into weird grimaces and the image of lected by the critics. They were light efforts, either the kid running toward the camera suddenly starring Franchi & Ingrassia or belonging to the sexy slows down, freezes and cracks into a thousand thread (Una sull’altra) or the Italian thriller (Non si pieces, accompanied by Mary’s screams and the sevizia un paperino).

ominous sound of thunder. Black screen, end With Paura nella città dei morti viventi, Fulci credits. This abrupt closure—decided at the seemingly wants us to forgive his earlier slips into eleventh hour in post- production, upon the sug-bad taste, vulgarity and an often- inattentive routine.

gestion of the editor, Vincenzo Tomassi, who He has made a movie which, although not recom-noticed a sudden change of expression on De mended for easily impressionable viewers, is the sign Mejo and MacColl’s face near the end of the of a reached expressive maturity… . The story has an take—is both infuriating and chilling, as it ar-engrossing pace. It is a succession of events that pro-bitrarily denies any trace of a happy ending.

gressively create a nightmarish atmosphere, and Such a final act of annihilation and an anarchic Fulci, like a great puppeteer, pulls the strings, at times even allowing himself some figurative preciousness.

stab at conventions is perfectly in tune with His film ends up becoming a true grand guignol spec-Fulci’s approach to cinema, which he self-tacle, with the bloody and gruesome scenes typical described as being a “terrorist of genres… . I’m of the genre.8
working inside the genre, but every now and then I ignite a bomb that attempts to make the It was a sign the director was starting to earn crit-genre explode.”6 Which is exactly the case here.

ical recognition in his home country that went Paura nella città dei morti viventi was re-beyond the usual bias toward horror films. Soon leased in Italy with a predictable V.M.8 rating, the younger critics, such as Claudio Carabba, to somewhat disappointing box- office grosses would openly praise his work, giving way to a of slightly less than a billion lire, despite a mem-gradual critical reevaluation.

orable press campaign: the ads featured a laugh-The film was distributed theatrically all able gimmick worthy of William Castle, a warn-over Europe, including the Netherlands, Spain,9
ing by a “Prof. Sven Cuzak,” primary of the “III Portugal and West Germany. The German Cardiology Clinic at Houston University”: “…

edit was sensibly shorter, as the distribution and therefore I discourage the vision of the film company Alemannia/Arabella removed about

Paura nella città dei morti viventi to subjects suf-ten minutes of expository and dialogues scenes fering of cardiocirculatory imbalances: the to make the story faster, although the violent

0 1980: Paura scenes were left uncut. It was a huge box- office it featured several patently fake interviews hit. On the other hand, the U.K. theatrical ver-

(among the interviewees were 6-year-old kids sion, passed by the BBFC on December 0, 98, reciting lines they had obviously memorized, was cut by one minute by the distributor Eagle such as “If nobody is decapitated, a movie is Films, to remove the drill sequence.20 In Great boring”), interspersed with gory footage from Britain, the film (and its director) found one of horror films—including titles such as Mother’s its staunchest defenders, Starburst’s Alan Jones, Day (980, Charles Kaufman) and Mangiati who praised its “claustrophobic atmosphere full vivi!—commented by a teacher who warned her of menace” and called Fulci “a master of … ma-students’ parents of the impending danger rep-nipulation… . At this stage in the game his talent resented by horror videotapes. Some of the most cannot be called merely accidental.”2 Film and violent scenes in Fulci’s film were included.

Filming’s Julian Petley drew a favorable compar-Mama, Papa, Zombie triggered a wave of
ison, calling the film “reminiscent of Tourneur seizures against horror videos which marked a

… in its greater reliance on the power of sug-turn of the screw in the history of German film gestion, its crepuscular air and its conjuration censorship. In the early 980s, the German of a nightmarish Other World out of simple distributors had had a rather unusual freedom, everyday reality.”22 But most critics were not im-and such titles as L’aldilà, Maniac and Cannibal pressed, to put it mildly, even more so on the Ferox were released theatrically uncut, but after other side of the Atlantic.

Mama, Papa, Zombie all this ended abruptly.

Released in the United States in May 983, Fulci’s film was banned and prints of the 983

Fulci’s film was originally advertised as Twilight German Euro Video VHS Ein Zombie hing of the Dead but, following a cease and desist am Glockenseil (A Zombie Hung on the Bell
order on the part of United Film Distribution Rope)—running 80 minutes and 36 seconds—

Company, the U.S. theatrical distributor (Motion were confiscated by order of the District Court Picture Marketing) pulled poster and prints and of Munich dated July , 986. An abridged ver-released the movie with the title The Gates of sion, Ein Toter hing am Glockenseil (A Dead Hell. Reviews were generally scathing (“No one Body Hung on the Bell Rope), running 7 min-with any hope of being entertained should waste utes and 40 seconds, was released in 988 on the their time or money to see it”23) if not downright GM- Vilm label: it was missing complete dia-offensive:

logue sequences and most of the gore (the vomit scene was only hinted at, but part of the drilling When I want to see a badly dubbed idiotic Italian scene was still visible, namely the bit when the cheapie, I’ll take Steve Reeves, thanks. I will not—
drill comes out of the victim’s head). This too willingly—take something like The Gates of Hell, a was banned and confiscated by order of the Dis-badly dubbed, idiotic sleaze fest with nothing to offer trict Court of Munich dated May 26, 988. A but an abundance of filmed animal innards. The only third, slightly more trimmed version, Eine interesting aspect is watching the mostly European cast try to adjust their Continental cadences to di-Leiche hing am Glockenseil (A Corpse Hung on rector Lucio Fulci’s muddled vision of Middle Amer-the Bell Rope) also on the GM- Vilm label, came ica—sort of a heartland smothered in mozzarella.24
out in 99 and was banned by order of the District Court of Munich dated January , 200. A In West Germany, Paura nella città dei fourth, Ein Kadaver hing am Glockenseil, was fi-morti viventi became the target of a notorious nally released with an FSK-6 certificate.

press campaign after the broadcasting in June France, as it had happened with Riccardo

984 of the sensationalist TV reportage Mama, Freda and Mario Bava, was the country that em-Papa, Zombie—Horror für den Hausgebrauch on braced more enthusiastically Fulci as an auteur.

the channel ZDF. The 4-minute film, directed One of the key moments in his career was Paura by Claus Bienfait, denounced it as an exemplary nella città dei morti viventi’s screening at the 0th case of the ultra- violent movies available to mi-

“Festival international du film fantastique et de nors in the home video market: in fact, the Ger-science- fiction” in Paris (as Frayeurs),2 where it man motion picture rating system, FSK, only was given the “Grand Prix du Public” (the au-examined theatrical releases, whereas videos dience award). Fulci used to recall with great could be borrowed virtually by people of all ages.

pride an episode that happened after the screen-Rather than a documentary, Mama, Papa, Zoming: a girl in a wheelchair approached him from bie was closer in concept to a Mondo movie, as the audience and thanked him “for the horrors

1981: L’altro


that you made me experience during the film.

film in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, when Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) They made me feel free. Not like in the outside dies crying tears of blood.

11. Alessandro Tordini, Così nuda così violenta. Enci-world.”26 An anecdote which summarizes per-clopedia della musica nei mondi neri del cinema italiano fectly the director’s concept of the horror film (Rome: Arcana, 202), 20.

as a cathartic shock.

12. Unlike what some sources state, Gino and Giannetto The bi- monthly magazine L’Écran fantas-De Rossi and Maurizio Trani did not work on the special tique gave ample coverage to the film. A raving effects for the film, save for Giannetto De Rossi’s uncredited help (he took a cast of Giovanni Lombardo one- page review (with stills from Lombardo Radice’s head) for the skull- drilling scene.

Radice’s death scene) called it a “definitive film 13. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 27.

[on zombies] after which it will be useless to re-14. John Martin, “Lucio Fulci: L’Edgar Poe du 7ème art,”

visit the same subject matter, and which ranks L’Écran fantastique #49, May 996, 28–34.

15. Robert Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,”

Lucio Fulci among the best craftsmen of a L’Écran fantastique #6, January 98, 20.

certain branch of the fantastique.”27 On the same 16. Marcello Garofalo and Antonietta De Lillo, “Il cin-issue, the magazine’s editor- in-chief Robert ema del dubbio. Intervista a Lucio Fulci,” in Manlio Go-Schlockoff conducted a four- page interview marasca and Davide Pulici (eds.), L’opera al nero. Il cinema with the director, which consecrated him as “the di Lucio Fulci. Nocturno Dossier #3, September 2002, 8.

17. G.Gs. [Giovanna Grassi], “Con gli zombies nella new master of horror.” At over 0 years old, città sconvolta,” Corriere della Sera, August 2, 980.

Lucio Fulci had become Italy’s “poet of the 18. O.G., “Terribili morti resuscitano e uccidono nel macabre.”

grand guignol (con classe) di Fulci,” La Stampa, August 7,

980.

N

19. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen otes
by 8,6 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding 1. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

to 77,06 Euro (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/
com (http://www.davinotti.com/index. php?option=com_

Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 80).

content&task=view&id=70)

20. The same version was released on video before 984.

2. Paolo Albiero and Giacomo Cacciatore, Il terrorista Subsequently, when it was submitted to the BBFC for a dei generi. Tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci—Seconda edizione video certificate, further cuts were made to eliminate aggiornata (Palermo: Leima, 20), 2.

Daniela Doria’s intestinal vomit scene and the brain 3. Ibid., 24.

squashing bits, for a total of 2 minutes and 2 seconds. The 4. Ibid., 27.

film later passed uncut in 200.

5. According to the Public Cinematographic Register, 21. Alan Jones, Starburst #48, 982.

shooting started on March 24, but the date (reported to 22. Julian Petley, “City of the Living Dead,” Films and the register for bureaucratic purposes) shall likely be post-Filming #333, June 982.

poned by a few weeks.

23. Dick Fleming, The Daily Times, Salisbury, Maryland, 6. Michele Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone (Bologna: September , 983.

Granata Press, 992), 4.

24. Eleanor Ringel, The Atlanta Constitution, September 7. Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti. com.

9, 983.

8. The original story is summarized and discussed in 25. Other Italian films screened in competition the fes-Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “La paura tival were Apocalypse domani, Contamination, Macabro, dell’aldilà,” Nocturno Cinema #, March 202, 66–69.

and Ugo Tognazzi’s dystopian drama I viaggiatori della 9. The scene features porn actor Michael Gaunt (born sera. Fulci’s Sette note in nero was screened out of compe-Michael J. Dattorre) as one of the gravediggers. The other tition, together with Argento’s Profondo rosso.

one is the blond Perry Pirkanen, one of the leads in De-26. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 24.

odato’s Cannibal Holocaust and Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox.

27. Pierre Gires, “Frayeurs,” L’Écran fantastique #6, Jan-10. Besides the premature burial scene in Kill Bill: Vol.

uary 98, 7.

2, Tarantino included another passing reference to Fulci’s 1981

L’altro Inferno (The Other Hell, a.k.a. The C.E.M.S.A.); E: Liliana Serra; AD: Maurizio Tan-Guardian of Hell)

fani; MU: Giuseppe Ferranti; Hair: Maria Teresa D: Stefan Oblowsky [Bruno Mattei] [and

Carrera; ACO: Claudio Bissattini; APD: Francesco Claudio Fragasso, uncredited]. S: Bruno Mattei, Raffa; C: Sergio Melaranci; AC: Luca Odevaine; Claudio Fragasso; SC: Claudio Fragasso; DOP: W: Elda Chinellato; KG: Mario Boccanegra; Giuseppe Berardini (LV-Luciano Vittori); M: ChEl: Roberto Roberti; SP: Domenico Cat-Goblin (Ed. Grandi firme della canzone/Bixio tarinich; SO: Paolo Picchi; Mix: Danilo Moroni,

2 1981: L’altro Luigi Di Fiore. Cast: Franca Stoppi (Mother Vin-had to be a profit on the budget and I suggested cenza), Carlo De Mejo (Father Valerio), Francesca we invest it in a second movie, which would be Carmeno (Elisa), Susan Forget [Susanna Far-

00% ours. And so, we reinvested the profit on getta] (Sister Rosaria), Frank Garfeeld [Franco L’altro Inferno. We shot them both in parallel.

Garofalo] (Boris), Paola Montenero (Sister As-When you shoot two movies in one, the saving sunta), Sandy Samuel [Daniela Samueli] (Catais substantial.”
tonic Nun), Andrew Ray [Andrea Aureli]

La vera storia della monaca di Monza was

(Father Inardo); uncredited: Dolores Calò (Nun), an erotic retelling of the story of the Nun of Tom Felleghy (The Cardinal), Simone Mattioli Monza, included in Alessandro Manzoni’s 827

(Priest), Pupita Lea Scuderoni (Nun). PROD: novel I promessi sposi (a.k.a. The Betrothed), Arcangelo Picchi for Cinemec Produzione S.r.l.; along the lines of the so- called “nunsploitation”

PS: Silvio Colecchia; PSe: Giovanna Quadrini; thread which included such titles as Interno di ADM: Pierluigi Tarabusi. Country: Italy. Filmed un convento (978, Walerian Borowczyk) and Im-at Convento di Santa Priscilla (Rome), Cimitero magini di un convento (979, Joe D’Amato [Aris-delle Fontanelle (Naples) and Icet De Paolis stu-tide Massaccesi]). L’altro Inferno was instead con-dios (Milan). Running time: 94 minutes (m.

ceived and marketed as a rip- off of Inferno, to 282); theatrical version: 88 minutes. Visa n.

the point that the title font in the opening credits 7322 (7.23.980); Rating: V.M.8. Release dates: is roughly the same as Argento’s film.

.22.98 (Italy), 0.2.98 (France), 2.4.98

Shooting took place at a convent built in

(UK), .7.983 (Spain), 9.6.98 (USA). Distri-the 920s, above the ancient Roman catacombs bution: Accord Cinematografica. Domestic gross: of Santa Priscilla, with Fragasso acting as a de n.a. Also known as: Terror en el convento (Spain), facto second unit director, if not even more, ac-L’autre enfer; Le couvent infernal (France).

cording to his own words.

Note: the tracks Dottor Frankestein, Notte, Upstairs, Bruno was shooting La vera storia della Le cascate di Viridiana are taken from the monaca di Monza, which was the “A” movie, so to Goblin LPs “Roller” and “Il fantastico viaggio speak, whereas in the vaults I was shooting the “B”

del bagarozzo Mark.”

movie, L’altro Inferno… . In fact, there was a real in-Strange and frightening things are happening terchange because the actors were the same and so at a convent headed by the stern Mother Vincenza: they moved from one set to the other, going upstairs necromancy rituals take place in the vaults, and and downstairs depending on the film in which they mysterious deaths ensue. The Mother Superior were requested to act. In short, they were two movies calls an exorcist, Father Inardo, who in turn asks tangled together … you know, sometimes I had to the help of a younger priest, Father Valerio. As go upstairs where Bruno was shooting to “steal” cans the latter finds out, the convent is inhabited by of film! I needed it to finish my movie, and often I an elusive presence, a young woman who falls in borrowed other material secretly. I was given very little, he had everything.2
love with him. After witnessing more horrible murders, and escaping death himself, Father Va-If we take Fragasso’s words for granted, then, the lerio discovers that the young woman, Elisa, is process was the same as other movies the duo Mother Vincenza’s illegitimate daughter, and was made together, namely the W.I.P. diptych Vio-disfigured at an early age after being thrown into lenza in un carcere femminile (982) and Blade a hot cauldron by a nun. Elisa, who has strong Violent (983), and the Westerns Bianco Apache telekinetic powers, was exploited by Mother Vin-

(986) and Scalps (986). On the other hand, cenza, who used her to dispatch all those who Mattei always maintained that Fragasso was al-learned about her secret. Now that he knows the ways an assistant director on these, and nothing truth, Father Valerio too becomes the target of more.

Mother Vincenza’s fury…

That said, the analogies between L’altro In-Shot in six weeks, at the same time, on the ferno and its model are limited to the title and same location and with part of the same cast as some visuals or situations, which is understand-La vera storia della monaca di Monza (980), able. According to Rome’s Public Cinemato-L’altro Inferno offers a good example of Bruno graphic Register, filming started on October 23, Mattei’s approach to filmmaking and his working

979, and lasted through October and November, methods. He explained that “La Monaca was
when very little was known about Argento’s film outsourced by [distributor] Stefano Film. Prac-besides its title and some set stills. Most notably, tically, we were the executive producers. There Inferno’s alchemist’s lair is reprised, albeit in a

1981: L’altro

3

Italian lobby card for L’altro Inferno (1981). Note the use of a similar font as Argento’s film.

minor key, in the scenes set in the necromancer’s botched job. As Fragasso recalled, “we called lab (filmed, according to Mattei, inside Villa Goblin because they were very fashionable, and Mussolini, in an old shack all repainted in black asked them to write the music. But they asked and silver). The sight of a boiling cauldron befor a lot of money, and we got a deal being able comes also the link to the solution of the to obtain the possibility of using stock music mystery, evoked by a childish drawing à la Pro-with a few modifications done specifically for fondo rosso; the moment where Father Valerio the film.”3 Mattei’s explanation was simpler: “I (Carlo De Mejo) notices a crazy nun combing am very good friends with Carlo Bixio, who was her hair in front of a mirror recalls the scene of their music publisher, and he gave me all the the spell in Suspiria; Franco Garofalo’s repellent music I wanted… . ”4
caretaker Boris behaves toward animals with the Besides the odd Argento reference, the same cruelty as Kazanian, killing a cat for no story—concocted by Mattei and Fragasso, with reason (and decapitating a rooster, in one of the latter penning the script by himself—draws those lousy bits of animal cruelty not uncommon primarily from other sources, namely, as Mattei in Italian films of the period) and as a comeup-admitted, William Friedkin’s 973 classic The Expance he ends up with his throat ripped apart orcist (“It was a time when it still had an im-by his own dog like the pianist (Flavio Bucci) in pact”), Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Richard Suspiria. On top of that, here and there Mattei Franklin’s Patrick. The latter had been a surprise and Fragasso try to color the scene with schemes hit in Italy, thanks also to an aggressive distri-akin to those seen in Argento’s 977 film, as far bution campaign and the replacing of Brian as their scarce budget would allow. Finally, the May’s soundtrack with music by Goblin (like score features ample extracts from two Goblin Dario Argento had done with Romero’s Martin, albums, Roller (976) and Il fantastico viaggio released in Italy as Wampyr), and spawned an del bagarozzo Mark (978): the music scarcely explicit sequel/rip-off, Patrick vive ancora. Elisa, blends with the visuals, and often feels like a the disfigured girl with telekinetic powers who

4 1981: L’altro may well be the Devil’s daughter, is a mixture of Stoppi and Franco Garofalo bring a de-the characters in De Palma and Franklin’s films, mented intensity to their roles, whereas porn and her confrontation with her mother, played actress Sandy Samuel (a.k.a. Daniela Samueli) with crazed relish by Franca Stoppi, reprises pops up in a non- speaking part as a nun gone Carrie’s climax almost to the letter. Finally, not crazy, but she does not take her clothes off. Carlo to leave any stone unturned, a little zombie De Mejo looks rather uncomfortable as the al-movie touch was added toward the ending for coholic Father Vincenzo, who records his solil-good measure.

oquies on a video camera and comes across the The script blends the various borrowings
solution by way of some sort of “telepathic into a weird mystery plot, where one is never broadcast” not unlike the one experienced by sure whether the horrible events are the result the protagonists in John Carpenter’s Prince of of the devil at play or are conducted by a devilish Darkness (987), in one of the script’s most but human presence. In this sense, the film’s best bizarre twists. As for Paola Montenero, she scene is the one where the investigator, Father appears only in the pre- credit sequence set in Vincenzo, listens to the confession of an un-the convent’s vaults and delivers a monologue known woman (who we later learn is Elisa) who which reaches new heights in trash (“The geni-tells him she is in love with him, and barely es-tals are a door to evil! The vagina, the uterus, capes an attempt on his life, as a mysterious the womb … the labyrinth that leads to hell …

hand drives a knife through the confessional.

the devil’s tools… ”). The scene, barely related The priest runs out, only to find himself in the to the rest of the film, was performed by Mon-middle of the morning mass, with all the nuns tenero (who played a role in La vera storia della singing in a choir in church; he turns back to monaca di Monza but was not cast in L’altro In-the confessional, and sees the knife still vibrating ferno) as a personal favor to Mattei.7
in the wood—a moment rendered with an ele-

On top of that, the few gore scenes are gant change of focus which is one of the film’s cheap and crude: in the prologue, Montenero few attempts at stylish direction.

starts an anatomy lesson on a dead female body Making use of a Gothic staple as the by sticking a scalpel in the corpse’s crotch, and convent location (but with barely any nod to the then rips the ovaries from her womb with her literary tradition of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew bare hands. But the low budget severely under-Lewis, for that matter), Fragasso and Mattei draw mines the makers’ efforts: when Elisa’s disfigured heavily from Catholic- related themes such as sin face is finally revealed, Pino Ferrante’s make- up and sexual repression, and play with religion and is so poor that it looks like the actress has blasphemy in a way not unlike the popular serial smeared her mouth with peanut butter. Another novels of the late 800 and early 900 (with a nod embarrassing moment is the flashback where to Manzoni’s story as well). This prompted the the newborn Elisa is thrown into a boiling pot newspaper La Stampa to pair L’altro Inferno with by the Mother Superior, on paper a truly shock-William Peter Blatty’s directorial debut The Ninth ing moment that shows how far Italian cinema Configuration (980), released in Italy around the could venture in terms of sheer cinematic excess.

same time, labeling the two films as “fantatheo-It was Fragasso’s daughter, three months old at logical” in an article titled “Crisi mistica dell’hor-the time, who had the honor of playing the ror-cinema” (“Mystical crisis of horror cinema”).

Devil’s infant offspring: “The baby was quiet Curiously, in the interview with Franca Stoppi while she was in her mother’s arms, but as soon that accompanied the piece, and which described as Franca Stoppi picked her up she started cry-her as an ex- mannequin-turned actress, L’altro ing. So, I had to repeat the scene many times, Inferno was mistakenly mentioned as Stoppi’s until eventually she fell asleep and I could film debut—whereas she had debuted in 976, in her quietly. Luckily, I had already done a close-Dino Risi’s Telefoni bianchi, and had played one up of her blue eyes, like those of the character of the main roles in Buio omega (979). The ac-as an adult.”8 Of course, the child was replaced tress didn’t correct the interviewer. “‘Were you by a baby doll for the scene’s climax, as no viewer satisfied with making your film debut in the role will fail to notice.

of a nun, in a story which mixes parapsychology Predictably, the film was given a V.M.8 rat-and horror?’ ‘Every chance is good to make a ing, but the running time indicated in the official debut, provided that the character offers a min-papers differs from the version released in the-imum of opportunity to give one’s best.’”6
aters, amounting to about 94 minutes instead of

1981: Black



88. Mattei signed it as “Stefan Oblowsky,” the Black Cat (Gatto nero) (The Black Cat) same a.k.a. as in La vera storia della monaca di Monza, where the Eastern European sounding D: Lucio Fulci. S: Biagio Proietti, based on surname was supposed to recall such masters of the short story by Edgar Allan Poe; SC: Biagio erotic cinema as Borowczyk.9

Proietti, Lucio Fulci; DOP: Sergio Salvati (Tech-Even though the screening certificate dated novision—Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M: Pino July 980, L’altro Inferno was released in Italy Donaggio, conducted by Natale Massara (Ed.

only the following year to poor business, signal-Zita); E: Vincenzo Tomassi; PD: Francesco Cal-ing that the blatant filiation to Argento’s original abrese; ArtD: Massimo Antonello Geleng; CO: was not enough to guarantee commercial suc-Massimo Lentini; 2ndUD: Roberto Giandalia; cess, and that, most of all, unlike a decade earlier AD: Victor Tourjansky, David Del Bufalo; C: with the many gialli with animal- related titles, Franco Bruni, Roberto Forges Davanzati; AC: it was not possible to build a filone based on Ar-Maurizio Lucchini; MU: Franco Di Girolamo; gento’s Gothics. Times were changing, and au-AMU: Rosario Prestopino; Hair: Maria Pia Cra-diences were looking for a different type of hor-panzano; SP: Gianfranco Massa; SO: Ugo Celani; ror film, with more convincing special effects B: Eros Giustini; 1stAE: Rita Antonelli; 2ndAE: and better production values: L’altro Inferno was Pietro Tomassi; SE: Paolo Ricci; SOE: Fernando openly derided by the audience when screened Caso, Alvaro Gramigna; MA/STC: Nazzareno
at the Trieste Film Festival. However, it was sold Cardinali; ChEl: Alfredo Fedeli; KG: Ennio Briz-in Spain0 and France and over the years it be-zolari; W: Palmina Tacconi; SS: Daniela Tonti.

came something of a cult film. It even surfaced Cast: Patrick Magee (Prof. Robert Miles), Mimsy theatrically in the U.S., in the mid–980s, as The Farmer (Jill Trevers), David Warbeck (Inspector Guardian of Hell.

Gorley), Al Cliver [Pierluigi Conti] (Sgt. Wilson), Mattei and Fragasso’s next venture was the Dagmar Lassander (Lilian Grayson), Bruno gory zombie film Virus, released in Spain in No-Corazzari (Ferguson), Geoffrey Copleston (In-vember 980 and in Italy in August 98.

spector Flynn), Daniela Doria [Daniela Cormio]

(Maureen Grayson), Vito Passeri (Warehouse Watchman). PROD: Giulio Sbarigia for Selenia Notes

Cinematografica S.r.l. (Rome); PM: Ennio Onorati; GM: Renato Angiolini; UM: Antonio Da

. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “Intervista a Bruno Mattei,” in Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici Padova, Tommaso Pantano; ADM: Adalberto

(eds.), Il sopravvissuto. Guida al cinema di Bruno Mattei.

Spadoni. Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Nocturno Dossier #4, April 2006, 6.

England (West Wycombe, Hambledon) and at

2. Federico Caddeo and Laurent Lopéré, “Passion de-RPA—Elios, Cine International and De Paolis voreuse,” Mad Movies #7, May 200, p. 72.

3. Ibid.

In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 92 min-4. Gomarasca and Pulici, “Intervista a Bruno Mattei,”

utes (m. 23). Visa n. 7632 (3.9.98); Rating:

6.

V.M.4. Release dates: 4.4.98 (Italy), .7.982

. Lamberto Antonelli, “Crisi mistica dell’horror-cin-

(Netherlands), .4.982 (Norway), 3.9.983
ema,” La Stampa, January 9, 98.

(France), 2.0.984 (USA); Distribution: Italian 6. Lamberto Antonelli, “L’ex mannequin si fa suora,”

La Stampa, January 9, 98.

International Film (Italy); World Northal (USA).

7. Gomarasca and Pulici, “Intervista a Bruno Mattei,”

Domestic gross: 433,967,662 lire. Also known as:

6.

I kattens klør (Norway), Le chat noir (France), El 8. Caddeo and Lopéré, “Passion devoreuse.”

gato negro (Spain).

9. “Probably a pseudonym,” cautiously conceded the reviewer in Corriere della Sera before slaughtering the film, In a small village in the English countryside, noting that “in these Italian subproducts we have now solitary researcher Robert Miles spends his days reached the point, with a procedure akin to pornographic in the company of a black cat, recording the voices flicks, that the plot had been reduced to less than an ac-of the dead. One after the other, the villagers die cessory to a series—almost uninterupted and senseless—
of gory effects.” L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “L’orrore entra in in strange and gruesome ways: a young man loses convento,” Corriere della Sera, July 3, 98.

his life in a car accident; two young lovers, Mau-

0. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen reen and Stan, are asphyxiated in the railroad car by 6,398 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding where they had been looking for some intimacy; to 7,096 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/

Ferguson, the local drunkard, falls to his death Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 240382). It must be noted that the Icaa catalog dates the Spanish release to May 7, 983, from a scaffold, and Maureen’s mother Lilian dies and not July , 98 (as IMDb does).

in the fire that engulfs her house. Inspector Gorley

6 1981: Black of Scotland Yard realizes that all these deaths have I moved away from the original story … because it something in common and he begins to investigate.

wasn’t very cinematic. Since one of my interests was A young American photographer named Jill has the relationship with one’s sixth sense—even though found a cat’s footprints near many of the bodies I don’t believe in it, I’m fascinated by it from a nar-and starts suspecting that Miles has something to rative point of view—I invented this character with paranormal powers, who is in touch with the un-do with the crimes. When Gorley remains victim earthly world, and we inserted this Poe thing in it …

of a strange accident and news of his death spreads, the black cat was evil, the executor of his occult de-Jill decides to continue investigations alone…

sires; there was a split between good, that is, what

“I hate cats. They are ingratiating animals, he did consciously, and evil, which was his subcon-they think only about themselves and they are sly.”
scious.3

Lucio Fulcio didn’t hide his dislike for felines, and even titled one of his films Un gatto nel cervello Proietti’s interpretation is admittedly offbeat but (A Cat in the Brain) to depict his on- screen alter close to the original core. Poe’s The Black Cat is ego’s descent into madness. Moreover, he often a story about crime and punishment, as many employed animals as a subject or object of horror, of the Baltimore- based writer’s works; but unlike from the infamous dog vivisection scene and the Dostoyevsky, Poe’s tales had guilt and remorse bats attack in Una lucertola con la pelle di donna turn into paranoid, horrific elements which al-

(a.k.a. A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, 97) to the suf-lowed the writer to meditate on the inner nature focated cat in La casa nel tempo. That said, one of human evil, and Poe’s feline was a projection might think that Black Cat was born as a personal of the man’s darkest impulses, hidden and barely project, a way to dig into the director’s own ob-disguised, which eventually come to the fore and sessions and make a movie about men and give away his real nature. Sbarigia had Fulci in animals the way Mario Bava would have done (as mind as the director from the start, and the story in Reazione a catena, 97). Truth is, as Fulci him-was close to the filmmaker’s world.

self admitted, Black Cat was a work- for-hire as-What interested me in this tale was to comment on signment—or, to be more precise, a favor to a pro-the relationship between a man and a cat, with the ducer friend, Giulio Sbarigia.

latter being like the man’s inner house. The two char-Of course, Fulci loved Edgar Allan Poe. But acters are identical, even though the cat is to win: for he was also very well aware that the 843 short the cat may be cruel, but after all he is only the judge, story The Black Cat was quite difficult to adapt the conscience of this man. The man hates the cat, into a feature length film, being more apt for a but, like in the story, he can’t kill him, because how short or an anthology, as in Roger Corman’s could one kill his own sick and tortured soul? Impossible. We often try to kill off our bad conscience, Tales of Terror (962) or Dario Argento’s episode to no avail.4
in Due occhi diabolici (990). Previous adaptations had been very loose, and sometimes the The director liked Proietti’s script and sug-source wasn’t even mentioned, as in the Ernesto gested some changes and additions (such as the Gastaldi- scripted thriller Il tuo vizio è una fire scene, possibly a homage to Corman), and stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave (972, Ser-Fulvio Lucisano’s distribution company I.I.F.

gio Martino). Usually, they retained only the granted a substantial advance. At first, according basic elements of the story and the final twist, to Variety, the film was to be an Italian/British in which the narrator finds out, much to his hor-co- production, with Sbarigia teaming up with ror, that he has buried alive his hated cat none other than Harry Alan Towers, and shoot-together with the body of the woman he has asing was to take place in Canada. Towers even sassinated. But sometimes all that was left of the claimed that he and Sbarigia were going to co-original was the title, and a black cat wandering produce a series of Poe adaptations “with a around in some scenes, as in Edgar G. Ulmer’s Northern American look and with Italian visual outstanding 934 film of the same name.

quality.” But eventually Towers backed out and Fulci got to work on a pre- existing script, Sbarigia carried out the project alone.

penned by Biagio Proietti. After his work on the According to Rome’s Public Cinemato-TV mini- series I racconti fantastici di Edgar graphic Register, filming started on July 28, Allan Poe (979, Daniele D’Anza),2 Proietti had

9806 with the working title Il gatto nero di Park been summoned by Sbarigia to write a movie Lane and lasted eight weeks, mostly in England based on Poe’s work. As the scriptwriter ex-

(Miles’ house was located in the suburbs of Lon-plained,
don), with only one scene filmed in Rome, the

1981: Black

7
man falling to his death on a bed of spikes, shot in an abandoned furnace. A couple of
years earlier, on Alien (979), Ridley Scott and his crew had gone to a great deal of trouble to shoot the scenes featuring Jonesy, the crew’s cat, and had to employ four felines during filming. Fulci claimed that he opted for a more practical solution: an animatronic cat was built for the scenes that required specific movements, while a second unit headed by Roberto Giandalia and cameraman

Roberto Forges Davanzati shot 7,000 meters of film, studying every possible movement of a real feline.7 According to Sergio Salvati, however, five cats were employed, and each had a specific ability. It was Giandalia who shot the impressive credit sequence.

The casting of Patrick Magee came after
a series of refusals. Fulci’s first choice for Professor Miles was Peter Cushing: the British actor was sent the script in May 980, and, as film scholar David Miller notes, “he meticulously annotated it with costume require-ments and instructions to himself on his performance (‘Play Miles oddly. Slightly mad to start with’).”8 But his observations—such as the necessity of a vet to be “standing by”

when filming scenes involving the cat, so as to avoid any cruelty to animals—also provide a likely reason why he eventually backed out.

the stylized American poster for Lucio Fulci’s Black Fulci’s reputation as a director specialized in Cat (1981).

gory horror films must have played a part in the decision as well … unless Cushing was still even claimed to have beaten his lead, after haunted by the memory of the laughably bad Magee had sexually harassed the script girl.

The Uncanny, another horror movie about feline Black Cat was one of Magee’s last movie roles.

revenge he shot in 977. The Variety article men-Around the same time, he appeared in another tioned Donald Pleasence as the lead, who al-offbeat Gothic adaptation, Walerian Borowczyk’s legedly demanded too much money,9 then Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (98), before his un-Richard Johnson (in what would have been his timely death in August 982, at only 60.

second teaming with the director after Zombi 2) The trio of leads was completed by Mimsy
was briefly considered too. Eventually Fulci set-Farmer and David Warbeck (in his first Fulci tled for Magee, whom he had admired on stage film), and the cast included also the director’s in London, playing Faust.

regular Al Cliver (in a secondary role as a bum-The British actor, whose notorious bad bling country cop), Bruno Corazzari, Fulci’s temper had become aggravated by his drinking favorite victim Daniela Doria, and ex- sexy problem, proved very difficult to work with, as starlet Dagmar Lassander. Cliver recalled the di-the director admitted. Fulci’s d.o.p. Sergio Salvati rector’s mocking attitude towards the latter: “I was adamant that Magee was constantly drunk remember that at a certain point we had to shoot on set: he was still effective for the role, but a scene where Lassander had to get off a motor-somewhat slow to work with, and Fulci—who
boat and walk away quickly… . Dagmar started spoke little English, and was notoriously cruel wiggling exuberantly, and Fulci yelled on the to actors he didn’t like—had a field day teasing megaphone: ‘Ms. Lassander, this is a horror him with a whole array of nasty Italian expres-movie, not an erotic flick!’”2 For her part, the sions.0 As for the director, in an interview he actress called Fulci

8 1981: Black a very difficult director to work with. He demanded The scripts for those films were very poor and often absurd things from the actors. In Black Cat there was things didn’t add up, and since I took care of the di-a scene with a fire, and he wanted me to run through alogue I had to fix them … the dialogue writer the flames and come out a door. I pointed out to him doesn’t meet the scriptwriter. He starts working af-that if the door didn’t open, I’d be trapped amid the terwards, when the film is finished, and when things flames. In reply, he started yelling like mad. We shot don’t add up, a scene or a detail are missing, he must the scene and what I had foreseen duly happened.

find a solution and ask the editor, “Do you have a bit Not only the door didn’t open, but it fell on me… .

when, say, he runs and goes to the phone?” If Tomassi Anyway, it wasn’t Lucio’s fault. The problem was that had it, we were good, or else I’d call Fulci, who often he asked actors to do things that were dangerous would still be on the set: “Lucio, I need you to shoot even for an expert stuntman.3
a bit where we see this and that.” And he, invariably, replied: “Don’t break my balls, what d’ya need that The theme of communicating with the befor? What are ya goin’ to do with it?” But then he shot yond through scientific devices recalls partly it, we developed it and edited it… . Sometimes, when Richard Matheson’s 97 novel Hell House and we were screening [the rough cut] Lucio didn’t know pushes the film toward territories akin to Pupi why a certain thing was happening. He asked, Avati’s Zeder, with a scientist obsessed with the

“What’s going on? Why does that guy go over there?”

afterlife and the possibility of explaining its mys-

… This, because many parts of the scripts were unteries by way of technical measurements. But believable, moreover when filming he often took de-tours from it.
the presence of the British thesp adds an odd note, as it recalls Samuel Beckett’s one- act play Colizzi refers to the scene where the young Krapp’s Last Tape, which had been written spe-Maureen (Daniela Doria) and her boyfriend cifically for him in 97. In Beckett’s play, Magee sneak into a refrigerating cell by the lake (which played the 69-year-old titular character, who had been turned into a bachelor flat by the local records his daily life events, thoughts and moods boat caretaker!) to make love, only to find them-on tape, and meditates on the meaning (or lack selves locked inside and die asphyxiated, which thereof) of his existence. In Fulci’s film, he looks fails to make much sense even after the dialogue like an embittered and imbibed version of changes in post- production. But other things Krapp, clinging to his tape recorder and im-are left unexplained: who and how made Jill’s mersed in the voices he hears, isolated and photos disappear? What is the function of the emarginated from the living and morbidly at-scene in which her house is invaded by spirits tached to the world of the dead.

and her bed levitates, besides aping The Exorcist?

Had Fulci and Proietti played their riff on Fulci himself was dismissive about the latter Poe’s tale as a one- character story about a man’s scene when interviewed in the Italian newspaper vengeance against humanity, the result would L’Unità about the special effects industry in Italy: have been much more convincing. Instead, the

“It did not fit in with the style of the film, I know, bland mystery plot, which includes a predictable but it was imposed by the producer. He said that series of violent deaths, is too repetitive to be in-

‘it fitted in well.’”6
volving. Moreover, the contrast between Miles Perhaps even more than Fulci’s other works and Jill (the latter, being a photographer, is thereof the period, Black Cat is a display of technique, fore attached to a vision of life where only visible with the camera dollying and tracking around facts and events matter) is mechanical and sup-Professor Miles’ house, and the director in-ported by throwaway dialogue, thus failing to dulging in his trademark close- ups of eyes—
convey the necessary tension and dread. On top here both human and feline—aided by Sergio of that, as noted by some critics, “the essence of Salvati’s excellent scope cinematography. As Poe’s story, the relationship between the man and Proietti noted, “What Lucio did really well were the animal—exclusive, obsessive and belonging the things I was most worried about, that is the to the realm of the Fantastic—fades; and the actual things the cat did in the film. The mur-priceless ambiguity between real events and the ders: he opened doors, ran, attacked, jumped, projection of the subconscious, which was the scratched… . Lucio exasperated them, in a pos-true matrix of terror, disappears.”4
itive sense. When scripting the movie, I had Dubbing director Pino Colizzi, who also
skipped these parts because I was afraid they took care of the Italian dialogue, recalled that wouldn’t be able to shoot them in a convincing often during post- production he had to fix plot way.”7 Fulci even filmed subjective shots at holes together with editor Vincenzo Tomassi: ground level from the cat’s point of view, as Ar-

1981: Black

9
gento would later do in Due occhi diabolici, an horrors risen from the grave to devour the liv-effect achieved by building a rudimentary ing.”9 In his in- depth review of the film in the Steadicam surrogate as the production couldn’t same issue, future film director Christophe Gans afford hiring one: a sort of a wooden suitcase praised it with much more conviction than he with the camera placed inside it.

reserved to L’aldilà. Calling Black Cat a “very de-Black Cat recalls Fulci’s previous works in vious and camouflaged” remake of Paura nella many ways. The cemetery scenes and the overall città dei morti viventi, Gans described it as “an description of the village suggest the grim mood exercise in style, revealing of the director’s fa-of Paura nella città dei morti viventi, while the vorite techniques. The pleasure we can take in sequence in which Jill is attacked by bats echoes this spectacle, a true visual feast, is therefore all Una lucertola con la pelle di donna, and the one on the surface as the director’s proceedings are in which Ferguson (Bruno Corazzari) falls to his exacerbated by the reference to Edgar A. Poe.”

death onto some construction spikes recalls In discussing Fulci’s visual choices, the French Gabriele Ferzetti’s deadly fall in the church scene critic pointed out the use of crane shots, noting in Sette note in nero. Fulci had already paid hom-how “fear grasps the characters with the speed age to one of Poe’s most perturbing themes—
of a soaring camera, a Damocles’ sword suddenly imprisonment and premature burial—in the brandished on their heads. Whereas American

977 film; and he had also offered a stunning directors insist on making the crane movement variation on the theme in one of Paura nella città the coarse representation of a release and, even dei morti viventi’s most memorable scenes. The more, of a “happy end,” Fulci infuses this mania climax, with Gorley destroying the wall behind with a malevolent dimension.”20
which Jill has been buried alive with a pickaxe, Years later, however, Fulci himself disis a combination of both earlier films, with the missed the result as “a weak film, except for camera zooming alternatively on the pickaxe Donaggio’s music, even though it’s got very good and on Miles’ face.

actors… . We all failed with The Black Cat, even This time, however, the director didn’t re-Argento.”2 His next directorial job would see sort to delirious over- the-top gore. According the director teaming again with Fabrizio De An-to Proietti, “he understood that if he put offal in gelis’ Fulvia Film with the outstanding …E tu the movie he would ruin it,” but perhaps it was vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà.

also Sbarigia who wanted to avoid a V.M.8 rating. In fact, Black Cat (Gatto nero)—the full Ital-Notes
ian title included “the title’s contextual and faithful translation into Italian,” as requested by the 1. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 2.

law—was passed with a V.M.4 rating after a 2. For an analysis of D’Anza’s mini- series, see Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979, 224–22.

small cut (3,80 meters) in the scene where the 3. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 26.

dead lovers’ rotten bodies are found covered 4. Robert Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,”

with rats in the refrigerating cell, and premiered L’Écran fantastique #22, January 982, .

in Italy on August 4th, in a venue in Jesolo 5. Variety, June 4, 980, quoted in Stephen Thrower, Beyond Terror. The Films of Lucio Fulci (Godalming, (Venice). The critics were rather kind with it, Surrey: FAB Press, [999] 206), 22.

perhaps more because of the lack of gory ex-6. Albiero and Cacciatore report different dates, from cesses than for the Poe connection,8 but Italian August  to early October 980 (Albiero and Cacciatore, box- office grosses were below expectations, Il terrorista dei generi, 267), while Stephen Thrower reports barely over 430 million lire. Foreign sales were the starting date as August 4 (Thrower, Beyond Terror, 220). The film was reported as finished by Variety on Oc-satisfying, though, resulting in theatrical releases tober , 980.

in several European countries (Netherlands, 7. Schlokoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci” (982), 0.

Norway, France, England) and overseas.

8. David Miller, The Complete Peter Cushing (Rich-Black Cat was screened in competition at
mond, Surrey: Reynolds & Hearn, 200), 6.

9. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 267.

the th “Festival international du film fantas-Other sources suggest a schedule conflict with David Hem-tique et de science- fiction” in Paris, together mings’ The Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr (98).

with Quella villa accanto al cimitero, and gained 10. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 444.

ample coverage in L’Écran fantastique. In the fes-11. Garofalo and De Lillo, “Il cinema del dubbio. Intervista a Lucio Fulci,” 8.

tival chronicles, Pierre Gires labeled it “a mel-12. Manlio Gomarasca. “Saprofito. Intervista con Al lower Fulci which has favorably surprised those Cliver,” Nocturno Cinema #3, June 997, 8.

who saw him only as the painter of innominable 13. Igor Molino Padovan, Giorgio Navarro and Luca

60 1981: Bollenti Rea, “Dagmar Lassander, il rosso segno della bellezza,”

De Laurentiis, Enzo Nigro; PSe: Roberto Cartocci; Amarcord #3, May- June 998, 2.

PSeA: Pietro Proietti; ADM: Maurizio Nobili.

14. Kezich, Il nuovissimo millefilm, 60.

Country: Italy. Filmed at the Castle Piccolomini 15. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 268.

16. Michele Anselmi, “Mostri con l’anima,” L’Unità, May in Balsorano, and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios

, 982.

(Rome). Running time: 92 minutes (m. 2634).

17. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 269.

Visa n. 77444 (2.23.98); Rating: all audiences.

18. “Even though it abuses Poe’s name and tells a rather Release date: 2.30.98 (Italy); Distribution: D.L.F.

different story from the title, the film is not devoid of suggestion. Well- shot, set, photographed and edited with care.”

Domestic gross: approx.76,000,000 lire. Also a.v. [Aldo Viganò], “Gatto nero e scienziato folle known as: Qui c’est ce mec? (France), He, Geister!

nell’horror di Fulci da Poe,” La Stampa, June , 98.

(West Germany), The Ghost Who Loves Sex 19. Pierre Gires, “Onzième anniversaire du Festival de (Philippines), Forróvérű kísértet (Hungary).

Paris,” L’Écran fantastique #22, January 982, 4.

Count Giovanni degli Uberti, a nobleman 20. Christophe Gans, “Les deux nouveaux films de Lucio Fulci,” L’Écran fantastique #2, November 98, 9.

close to financial collapse, inherits a magnificent 21. Garofalo and De Lillo, “Il cinema del dubbio. Inter-castle from his uncle Ubezio. A Swiss company is vista a Lucio Fulci,” 8.

ready to buy the manor from him for two billion lire and turn it into a luxury hotel, but there is a Bollenti spiriti (Hot Spirits)

problem: Giovanni is not the only heir, but he shares D: Giorgio Capitani. S and SC: Franco the property with a young nurse named Marta, who Marotta, Laura Toscano; DOP: Silvano Ippoliti has been bequeathed 10 percent of it. With the aid (Technovision, LV- Luciano Vittori); M: Piero of his lawyer, Vittorio concocts a scheme to have Umiliani (Ed. Ameuropa International Negritella), Marta sell him her share thus enabling the sale of E: Sergio Montanari; ArtD, CO: Ezio Altieri; AD: the castle. But he finds out that the family manor Marzio Casa; SS: Lucilla Clementelli; C: Enrico is inhabited by the ghost of his ancestor Guiscardo, Sasso; AC: Andrea Sabatello; 2ndAC: Luigi Con-who died a virgin 300 years earlier, and that Guis-versi; SP: Roberto Nicosia Vinci; Press attache: cardo’s soul cannot find peace unless he finally Naria Rühle; ACO: Tiziana Mancini; APD: Mas-makes love to a woman. A series of misunderstand-simo Spano; MU: Giulio Mastrantonio, Pier Aning ensue, because Guiscardo is a dead ringer for tonio Mecacci; Hair: Maria Teresa Corridoni, Pa-Giovanni, and the two are often mistaken for one trizia Corridoni; AE: Carlo Bartolucci; 2ndAE: another. The plot thickens when Giovanni finds out Carlo D’Alessandro; SO: Claudio Maielli; B: that his lover, Nicole, is the wife of the Swiss entre-Stefano Zito; W: Marisa Vivarelli Cherubini, preneur he is about to meet during a party at the Bertilla Silvestrini; KG: Renato Cinti, Sergio Profili; castle. What is more, when he meets the beautiful ChEl: Marcello Cardarelli; Mix: Danilo Moroni.

Marta, Giovanni falls in love with her…

Cast: Johnny Dorelli [Giorgio Guidi] (Count Gio-After the commercial success of the amiable vanni degli Uberti/Guiscardo), Gloria Guida sophisticated comedies Aragosta a colazione (Marta Sartori), Alessandro Haber (Dr. Vittorio (979) and Odio le bionde (980) both starring Cavalletti Spada LL.D.), Lia Tanzi (Nicole Steiner), Enrico Montesano, producer Silvio Clementelli Adriana Russo (Chambermaid), Lory Del Santo asked scriptwriters Laura Toscano and Franco (Lilli, the Call Girl), Francesca Romana Coluzzi Marotta to write another comedy script for di-

(Station Attendant), Geoffrey Copleston (Dr. Eric rector Giorgio Capitani. Born in 927, Capitani Steiner), Roberto Della Casa (Antonio, the had started directing in the 90s: after a handful Waiter), Giorgio Gobbi (Postman), Corrado Olmi of tear- jerking melodramas, he soon turned to (Doctor); uncredited: Bruno Alias (Guest), comedies, with appreciable results, even though Erminio Bianchi Fasani (Guest), Angelo Boscariol his best film was perhaps the grim Western Og-

(Worker), Rossana Canghiari (Guest), Eolo nuno per sé (a.k.a. The Ruthless Four, 968), writ-Capritti (Donor), Carlo Cartier (Electrician), Enten by Fernando di Leo and starring Van Heflin, rico Cesaretti (Guest), Raffaele Di Mario (Guest), Gilbert Roland, Klaus Kinski, and George Lionello Pio Di Savoia (Giovanni), Tom Felleghy Hilton. But it was with Aragosta a colazione that (Donor), Giulio Massimini (Waiter), Vittorio Ri-the director had shown his skills in the French-pamonti (Guest), Maria Tedeschi (Amelia Bor-style pochade based on misunderstandings and don), Pietro Zardini (Old Station Attendant).

slapstick gags, with a rather different structure PROD: Silvio Clementelli, Anna Maria Alementelli than most Italian comedies of the period, less for Clesi Cinematografica, Italian International vulgar and relying on pitch- perfect comic timing Film (Rome); PM: Marcello Crescenzi; PS: Guido rather than verbal jokes.

1981: Bollenti 6

A vehicle for the popular singer- turned-
great director. He was not what I would call a actor Johnny Dorelli, Bollenti spiriti relies on a model, but surely his work as a filmmaker in-mild supernatural- tinged plot, like other come-fluenced our choices in the script.”2
dies of the period. The story, which revolves As for Capitani’s direction, it is very precise around a haunted castle inherited by a bankrupt and always at the service of the performers and nobleman, draws from the typical genre clichés the gags, with an admirable levity throughout.

and owes a lot to René Clair’s The Ghost Goes The Corriere della Sera film critic Giovanni West (93). It is also similar to both C’è un fan-Grazzini praised the director and suggested tasma nel mio letto (98) and La casa stregata an illustrious comparison term: “Choosing as (982), for it features a ghost with strong sexual model the American Stanley Donen, Capitani needs, who is condemned by a secular curse to pursues honorably his project of helming Italian wander in the family castle until he mates with comedies that, for their svelte rhythm and grace-a living partner. But Guiscardo (Dorelli, in an ful touch, make paradox pleasant and give levity amusing wig) is a stuttering, nerdy wimp who to farce.”3
doesn’t know how to seduce a woman (and, The director is also aided by Johnny being dead for 300 years, doesn’t even know Dorelli’s comedy skills. An accomplished singer, what panties are).

Dorelli had evolved from his early TV appear-The theme of the Doppelgänger is also ances to the movies, first with spoofs such as Ar-played for laughs, as Guiscardo continuously rriva Dorellik! (967, Steno), before moving on takes his descendant Giovanni’s place with hu-to more committed roles, most notably in Pane morous results: the sexual innuendoes—such as e cioccolata (974, Franco Brusati), alongside when Giovanni mistakes the other heir Marta Nino Manfredi—where he played an Italian (Guida) for a hooker he has called in order to businessman in Switzerland who goes bankrupt release his ancestor from his pains—are spiced and commits suicide—and as the ruthless re-with a moderate number of double- entendres, porter who investigates a serial killer, only to and Gloria Guida doesn’t have any nude scenes, find out a most shocking truth, in Luigi Zampa’s unlike the sexy Lory Del Santo. The latter, as the underrated Il mostro (977). Bollenti spirit was hooker, spends much of her brief screen time the first movie that paired Dorelli with Gloria wearing only her panties (which she tells Guis-Guida, who would soon become his wife: the cardo she will take off in exchange for “dough”

two actors had met on the stage comedy Accen-

… resulting in yet another misunderstanding).

diamo la lampada (979), and their union would It all climaxes in a lengthy party scene (which result in Guida giving up acting after their next basically reprises those seen in Capitani’s previ-film together, Sesso e volentieri (982, Dino Risi).

ous comedies scripted by Marotta and Toscano) The chemistry between the two leads is all too where all kinds of slapstick ensue before the ex-evident, and the gorgeous actress has at least one pected happy ending.

memorable scene when, at a gas station, she is The result is déjà-vu but nonetheless
given to replay the iconic moment in The Seven amusing. The breezy script keeps the movie Year Itch (9) when Marilyn Monroe’s skirt afloat with misunderstandings galore, and the is blown upwards. As usual in productions of typical Gothic setting and elements, complete the era, product placement is massive and ag-with trapdoors and secret passages, are em-gressive: Dorelli smokes Merit cigarettes and ployed for laughter with pleasant results. As drinks Amaro Ramazzotti (which he advertised Toscano explained, “the misunderstandings on television during that period).

were brought to their extreme consequences, Bollenti spiriti was a decent box- office for the ghost, his appearances and disappear-success, although perhaps not as much as its ances gave an infinity of possibilities to the makers expected. It ended up at the 42nd place story. But in all our stories there is always a re-among the season’s top- grossers. Capitani’s next alistic starting point. That is, the protagonist is film was a bizarre comedy about terrorism, Teste forced by necessity to move along in the story.

di quoio (also 98), starring Christian De Sica, It’s never gratuitous. And I think this gives George Hilton and Philippe Leroy, among oth-strength to the script, even though the plot is ers, which was a flop. By the end of the decade, rather thin.” Toscano openly acknowledged the after a handful more nondescript works, Capitani René Clair influence: “That’s the type of comedy started working steadily for the small screen.

I love so much. Clair in my opinion is such a

62 1981: C’è un fantasma Notes
the old Baron of Black Castle, an unrepentant womanizer in life. Assisted by his loyal servant 1. Pergolari, La fabbrica del riso, 376.

2. Ibid., 377.

Angus, by way of potions, sleeping pills and var-3. G. Gr. [Giovanni Grazzini], “Johnny Dorelli beffato ious tricks, the Baron replaces the naive Camillo dal fantasma galante,” Corriere della Sera, January 23, 982.

in bed and has his way with the unsuspecting bride, until in turn he is duped by Angus and re-C’è un fantasma nel mio letto (There Is located to the gallery of portraits of his ancestors.

a Ghost in My Bed)

A late addiction to the erotic farces in D: Claudio De Molinis [Claudio Giorgiutti].

vogue in the mid- to-late 970s, C’è un fantasma S: Claudio Simonelli; SC: Luis María Delgado, nel mio letto was produced with an eye to the Jesús Rodriguez Folgar; DOP: Raúl Pérez Cubero Spanish market, where the demand for eroticism (Fujicolor, Staco Film); M: Piero Umiliani (Ed.

was constantly growing after the death of Fran-Nazionalmusic); E: Giorgio [Jorge] Serralonga; cisco Franco, in the so- called destape period.

PD: Gonzalo García Flaño; SD: Vittorio Ferrero; The film employs a basic variation of the CO: Susanna Micozzi; MU: Marisa Marconi; SO: haunted house routine, which must have come Pietro Spadoni; SE: Mario Bernardo; Stunts: out straight from some cheap adults- only comic Franco Maria Salamon; C: Emilio Loffredo, book. When interviewed during shooting, di-Giuseppe Tinelli; AC: Giovanni Mozzillo, Adriano rector Claudio De Molinis mentioned René Mancori; SP: Enzo Savino; AE: Roberto Savoca; Clair’s The Ghost Goes West—which provided SS: Paola Colonna. Cast: Lilli Carati [Ileana Car-the inspiration for Bollenti spiriti as well—as an avati] (Adelaide Ferretti), Renzo Montagnani influence: “Recently, with Mia moglie è una (Baron Sir Archibald Trenton), Vincenzo

Crocitti (Camillo Fumagalli), Vanessa Hi-
dalgo (The Countess), Guerrino Crivello

(Angus), Alejandra Grepi (Maryanne, the

Innkeeper’s wife), Giacomo Assandri

(Terence, the Innkeeper), Luciana Turina

(Josephina, the Cook). PROD: Telecinema

80 (Rome), Victory Film (Madrid); PM:

Mauro Ruspantini; PS: Fabio Calderoni;

PSe: Maria Ludovica Bologna. Country:

Italy/Spain. Filmed at Castle Piccolomini
in Balsorano (L’Aquila) and at De Paolis

In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time:

94 minutes (m. 264). Visa n. 76446

(3.28.98); Rating: V.M.8. Release dates: 4.3.98 (Italy); .28.98 (Spain), 2.2.982

(Portugal), 3.2.983 (France); Distribu-
tion: Cinedaf. Domestic gross: n.a. Also
known as: Hay un fantasma en mi cama

(Spain), Y a- t-il un fantome dans mon lit?

(France), Um Fantasma na Minha Cama

(Portugal).

Note: in the Spanish version, the
characters played by Crocitti and Carati
are renamed respectively Malcolm and

Ruth.

Two Italian newlyweds on their
honeymoon in Scotland, Camillo and

Adelaide, cannot find an accommodation
for the night. Because of the fog, they end up lost in the countryside near an ancient Italian poster for C’è un fantasma nel mio letto (1981), a castle. They spend the night in the manor, bland erotic farce with fantasy elements starring Lilli but the place is haunted by the spirit of

Carati and Renzo Montagnani.

1981: C’è un fantasma 63
strega, our producers drew from another film by affair soon becomes insufferable, It all climaxes the great French director, I Married a Witch, and in a (again) speeded- up threesome accompanied achieved considerable commercial results. We by the final overture of Rossini’s opera Guglielmo did a very similar operation, modernizing the Tell, with Crocitti’s character yelling like Tarzan story so as to make it more in tune with the au-in the midst of the erotic frenzy. A Clockwork dience’s mentality and our actors’ characteris-Orange this is not, unfortunately.

tics.”

The movie relies mostly on the lead actress’

Truth be told, however, there is very little nude scenes to keep the viewer interested, and of Clair’s film in the script (credited to Luis María Carati amply displays her body to the camera.

Delgado and Jesús R. Folgar for quota purposes After ending up second at the 974 “Miss Italy”

but possibly the work solely of Giovanni Si-beauty contest, the gorgeous actress seemed on monelli). On the other hand, the opening pretext her way to a bright film career, and soon became is virtually the same as The Rocky Horror Picture one of the most popular starlets of the period, Show, but, instead of an oversexed alien, the two thanks to such titles as Stelvio Massi’s action innocent newlyweds (looking forward to con-flick Poliziotto sprint (977, starring Maurizio summating their marriage after a five- year pla-Merli), Fernando di Leo’s controversial Avere tonic betrothal) end up in the hands of a lubri-vent’anni (978, co- starring Gloria Guida), cious ghost. Which gives way to the expected Pasquale Festa Campanile’s Il corpo della ragassa plethora of misunderstandings, sight gags and (979) and Qua la mano, the latter alongside double- entendres, and characters moving around Adriano Celentano.

frantically in the familiar Piccolomini Castle in In the early 980s, however, Carati’s career Balsorano, posing as a Scottish one.

was already on the verge of decline, due to her As expected the film did good business in
heroin and cocaine abuse—an open secret in the Spain,2 whereas in Italy it passed almost unno-film business, which resulted in her being mar-ticed, despite its popular leads. Montagnani and ginalized. During the promotional tour for C’è Crocitti were two regulars of Italian erotic farce, un fantasma nel mio letto the actress infamously and Crocitti also co- starred in another Spanish appeared on Rai Uno’s popular Sunday talk show sex comedy of the period, José Larraz’s Polvos TG L’una in an overtly altered state, giving con-mágicos (979), alongside Carmen Villani. As fused answers to her interviewer; the other guest the Countess, the charming Vanessa Hidalgo is was, of all people, Karl Heinz Stockhausen. Soon underused, compared to her starring turn in after, she suffered a serious car crash which re-Larraz’s over- the-top erotic horror Los ritos sex-sulted in a long absence from the screen. Carati uales del diablo (a.k.a. Black Candles, 982), would return to the movies only three years made shortly after this. As for De Molinis (real later, appearing in Luciano Odorisio’s comedy name Claudio Giorgiutti), this was his sixth and Magic Moments (984), and between 98 and final film as a director, in a body of work that

986 she starred in four erotic flicks directed by also comprised the cheap crime story L’unica Aristide Massaccesi before giving in to hardcore legge in cui credo (976) and the grim drama porn, the quickest way to obtain the money she Candido erotico (978, also starring Lilli Carati).

needed to finance her drug addiction.

Despite the occasional cultured reference—

Carati starred in five porn movies shot be-Montagnani’s character quoting 4th century tween 987 and 988, which marked the end of poet Francesco Petrarca and Giuseppe Verdi’s her film career. In May 988 she was arrested for opera Don Carlos—the script is hopelessly poor possession of heroin, and attempted suicide for and repetitive, littered with paper- thin characters the first time; she would try to kill herself again (the ugly and naive groom, the sexy bride, the the following year, during a bout of depression jealous innkeeper and his buxom wife, the sex-in the midst of a rehab program. Eventually, crazed cook) mumbling such lines as “That is though, Lilli re- emerged from the abyss, as she not an ass, that is pure gold!” Montagnani and herself recalled in the 994 documentary Lilli, Crocitti ham it up as if there was no tomorrow, una vita da eroina (Lilli, a Heroin[e]’s Life). She but the material they are given to work with is died in 204, of brain cancer.

so threadbare, and De Molinis’s direction is so ham- fisted and haphazard, with plenty of silent Notes
movie- style speeded- up sequences pitifully try-1. “Cronache dal piccolo e grande schermo—Fantasma ing to make up for the lack of fun, that the whole a letto,” Stampa Sera, 22 December 980.

64 1981: …E tu vivrai 2. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen mob who suspects him of witchcraft. Meanwhile by 278,98 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding a local girl, Emily, reads a mysterious book and to 266,88 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/
finds out that the hotel is built atop one of the Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 0680).

doors to Hell. 1981. Liza Merrill takes possession of the dilapidated hotel and sets out to renovate

…e tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (The it with the help of Martha and her husband Beyond, a.k.a. 7 Doors of Death)

Arthur, but a series of gruesome accidents result D: Lucio Fulci. S: Dardano Sacchetti; SC:

in the death of a worker and of the plumber, Joe.

Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Lucio Moreover, a decomposed body is found in the Fulci; DOP: Sergio Salvati (Technicolor); M: hotel basement. At the hospital, Dr. John McCabe Fabio Frizzi (Ed. Deaf) [U.S. version: Walter E.

and his colleague Harris study the mysterious Sear]; E: Vincenzo Tomassi; PD, CO: Massimo corpse, but more horrible events ensue, as Joe’s Lentini; SPFX: Giannetto De Rossi; MU: Gian-wife dies mysteriously in the anatomy room. Liza netto De Rossi, Maurizio Trani; SE: Germano makes acquaintance with a blind girl, Emily, who Natali; Hair: Luciana Palombi; AD: Roberto tells her the story of the cursed hotel. Liza’s friend Giandalia; C: Franco Bruni; AC: Maurizio Luc-Martin, who supervises the works on the hotel, chini; AE: Armando Pace, Pietro Tomassi; SP: goes to the library to study its planimetry, but Alberto Corchi; KG: Lamberto Del Bene; ChEl: meets a grisly fate. Martha and Emily too are hor-Alfredo Fedeli; SD: Alfredo D’Angelo; PrM: ribly murdered. Liza and McCabe take refuge at Rodolfo Ruzza; PrMAsst: Franco Rinaldi; SO: the hospital, but the place has been invaded by Ugo Celani; SOE: Enzo Diliberto; B: Eros Gius-zombies. They manage to escape but end up in-tini; Mix: Bruno Moreal; STC: Nazzareno Car-explicably in the hotel basement, and find them-dinali; SS: Rita Agostini. Cast: Katherine [Catri-selves in the beyond, a deserted land populated ona] MacColl (Liza Merrill), David Warbeck by the dead…

(Dr. John McCabe), Sarah Keller [Cinzia Mon-When Fabrizio De Angelis came up with
reale] (Emily), Antoine Saint- John (Zweick), the title L’aldilà (The Beyond) for Lucio Fulci’s Veronica Lazar (Martha), Al Cliver [Pierluigi next film, he knew he had a winner on his Conti] (Prof. Harris), Michele Mirabella (Martin hands. He managed to obtain a pre- financing Avery), Giampaolo Saccarola (Arthur), Laura on the part of foreign investors based on the title De Marchi (Mary Ann); uncredited: Calogero alone—which in fact was the only thing he had, Azzaretto (Zombie at Hospital), Lucio Fulci (Li-since there was not even a script to begin with.

brarian), Tonino Pulci (Joe), Anthony Flees But cranking out a screenplay wouldn’t be a (Larry), Maria Pia Marsala (Jill), Giovanni De problem for Dardano Sacchetti, who duly Nava (Zweick—zombie), Roberto Dell’Acqua
obliged within the usual 0/ days. Shooting (Glass-smashing Zombie), Gilberto Galimberti started in October 980 and lasted for eight (Zombie), Amedeo Salamon (Zombie at Hospi-weeks. As with his previous horror films, the tal), Sergio Salvati (Mob Member). PROD: Fab-crew moved overseas, this time to Louisiana. In rizio De Angelis for Fulvia Film (Rome). UM: a 984 interview, Fulci claimed that the budget Tullio Lullo; AsstUM: Fabrizio De Martino.

was 80 million lire,2 half as much as what De Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Louisiana Angelis declared. For the second time, the di-and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Run-rector cast Catriona MacColl (although his first ning time: 87 minutes (m. 23). Visa n. 76406
choice for the role would have been Tisa Farrow, (3.20.98); Rating: V.M.8. Release dates: 4.22.98
as he told Robert Schockloff in L’Écran fantas-

(West Germany), 4.29.98 (Italy), 7..98 (Hong tique3) and David Warbeck, with whom he had Kong), 8.27.98 (UK), 0.4.98 (France), got along very well on Black Cat. Originally the

0.4.98 (Spain), 3..983 (USA). Distribution: cast was to include Venantino Venantini (as Joe Medusa Distribuzione. Domestic gross: 747,6,662
the plumber) and Ivan Rassimov (Prof. Harris), lire. Also known as: L’au-delà (France); El mas allá but the roles went respectively to Fulci’s friend (Spain; Argentina; Uruguay); Über dem Jenseits; Tonino Pulci, a stage director who would turn Die Geisterstadt der Zombies (Germany); Las siete up again in a small role in Manhattan Baby, and puertas del infierno (Mexico); Woodoo—raed-Pierluigi Conti, a.k.a. Al Cliver, better known to slernes hotel (Denmark).

Fulci as “Tufus.” Stefania Casini was originally Louisiana, 1927. A painter, Zweick, who lives to play Emily, but refused, not least because she in the “Seven Doors” Hotel, is lynched by an angry would have to wear painful contact lenses in all

1981: …E tu vivrai 6
her scenes. The painter, Zweick, was played by of inspiration, the work of French dramatist Anthe French Antoine Saint- John, who was re-tonin Artaud, the inventor of the so- called “the-placed during shooting by Giovanni De Nava ater of cruelty,” based on signs, screams and (as Zweick’s “zombified” version).

body language instead of words.

Sacchetti claimed that his main source of
inspiration was Henry James’ novel The Turn of To me, it’s an absolute Artaudian film. I personally met Antonin Artaud, he looked at me with his crazy the Screw, but the Henry James connection ap-eyes, 30 years ago. My idea was to make an absolute plies much more convincingly to his next film film, with all the horrors of the world. It’s a film with-with Fulci, Quella villa accanto al cimitero. A out a story: a house, some people and the dead re-clearer influence was again given by Lovecraft’s turning from the beyond, there is no logic inside the myths, filtered through the work of Clark movie, which is just a series of images… . I had stud-Ashton Smith, who mentioned the “Book of ied Artaud a lot before he became trendy again in Eibon” in his stories—Eibon being a fictional Italy: L’aldilà, like most of those I made, is a homage sorcerer first mentioned in the short story The to Artaud’s concept, besides, horror becomes such Door to Saturn. Even more than in Paura nella when one is aware of it, which justifies the presence città dei morti viventi, the story draws from a of atrocious scenes in my film. The viewer is always typical Gothic theme—the haunted house—and aware of the horror of these images, this to reply to revisits it in a personal way, with a complex lay-those people who speak of gratuitousness regarding my movies. There is always a value judgement in my ering of references and borrowings. In this films about such horror, since the viewer is always sense, the main cinematic references are blatant: terrified, thus always in reaction against the very ex-Michael Winner’s The Sentinel, Argento’s Sus-istence of these crimes.6
piria and Inferno, Kubrick’s The Shining (the latter quoted almost literally with the bell for room Fulci’s passing mention of Artaud’s work being 36 ringing out of the blue).4

“trendy again in Italy” must not pass unnoticed: When speaking to his biographer Michele
in June 98 the Ateneo theater in Rome had Romagnoli, Fulci claimed that he “regularly no-hosted “Progetto Artaud,” a retrospective on the ticed afterwards” the “borrowings” from other author on the 33th anniversary of his death, films in Sacchetti’s scripts. But in the case of which featured stage plays, exhibitions and L’aldilà this can be ruled out. In the past, the di-screening of the films in which Artaud had rector had had an argument with Dario Argento played acting roles, including Carl Theodor regarding Zombi 2, which the latter labeled as a Dreyer’s La passion de Joanne d’Arc (928) to Dawn of the Dead rip- off: Fulci reportedly wrote Fritz Lang’s Liliom (934). Fulci’s reference to his colleague a letter in which he listed twelve Artaud was most likely an attempt on his part zombie films made in the 930s and 940s, even to assert the authorial quality of his work by before Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zom-leaning on a respected yet unorthodox cultural bie. On L’aldilà he was well aware of the similar-model. The foundations of such a claim were ities with Argento’s work, with which his own shaky, since the notion of cruelty in Artaud (in-had in common not just the presence of actress tended as “catharsis”) was very different from Veronica Lazar. According to script supervisor the one displayed in Fulci’s horror films, and it Rita Agostini, “while shooting, Lucio made refis unlikely to say the least that the director ever erences to Inferno, and he didn’t have anything met him, although he was familiar with his work good to say about it … undoubtedly L’aldilà (one of Artaud’s plays, Les Cenci, dealt with the started from an idea similar to Inferno, but he story of Beatrice Cenci, which Fulci had filmed wanted to make a much better film.”
in 969). But it didn’t matter: as a famous line But in interviews of the period Fulci from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance says, referred to other and more illustrious models.

“When the fact becomes legend, print the leg-When speaking with L’Écran fantastique’s Robert end.” To Fulci, name- dropping Artaud was not Schlockoff, he mentioned Jean- Paul Sartre’s just a smart way to reply to those who still con-famous 944 existential play Huis clos (a.k.a.

sidered him as a middle- aged hack who ripped No Exit), which depicts the afterlife as a hotel off Argento. It was also an intellectual joke at room, with three characters punished by being the expense of those critics who barely knew locked into it together for eternity. But the who Artaud was, and wouldn’t—or rather, Italian director name- dropped another, no less couldn’t—object anything to such a prestigious prestigious and certainly more surprising source and specific reference.

66 1981: …E tu vivrai The core of L’aldilà is the notion of the celluloid, and yet it conveys a surreal fascina-

“haunted house”—or rather, of the “terrible tion.

house” as labeled by Robin Wood.7 The “Seven But the most impressive set piece has to be Doors” hotel is a living, rotting organism whose the opening scene, which depicts another of viscera hide unspeakable secrets and forgotten Fulci’s harrowing looks at the dark core of hu-horrors. In its last screen appearance, ghastly manity, the torture, crucifixion and disfigurement silhouettes show up behind its windows as the of Zweick.8 As with Florinda Bolkan’s maciara, only two humans left alive flee from it, certifying the painter—emaciated, feverishly working on the victory of the dead over the living—an iconic his painting, with Fulci’s camera isolating his eyes Gothic image, and one that certifies Fulci’s visual shining in the dark in close- up—is a Christ- like command over the movie, regardless of the low victim, who undergoes a similar ordeal: the peas-budget. His camera prowls, spies and dollies all ants hit him with heavy chains on the face, shoul-over the place restlessly, never stopping for a der and chest, ripping his flesh open. Then, in a moment, a curious and possibly unearthly pres-barbaric mockery of the crucifixion, they drive ence itself. But whereas Argento’s palaces of long nails through his wrists before the final act horrors are magnificent and multicolored Art of cruelty—disfiguring him with lime (with a sub-déco buildings, Fulci’s “terrible house” is a deca-jective shot of the corrosive material thrown dident and decaying construction, and if Inferno’s rectly at the camera). For a movie about the hor-underwater chamber is a fascinating, spellbind-rors of the beyond, L’aldilà puts immediately clear ing place where the heroine can swim as an that human ones are no less atrocious.

explorer in a lost cave beneath the sea, L’aldilà’s Far from being a pedestrian rendition of
is a half- flooded, filthy dark basement which the sadistic nastiness that characterized the sex-plumbers try in vain to repair. Overall, the com-horror comics of the period, Fulci’s visions of parison works symbolically as the difference be-death have a terrible yet poetic quality to them, tween “A” and “B” cinema, high and low budget, which makes them even more incisive (albeit a auteur and exploitation. Moreover, Inferno’s couple of scenes, namely the spider attack and palaces are located in the center of the Western Al Cliver’s demise, look less than perfect due to world, whereas Fulci’s hotel is in the swamps of below- par special effects). Zweick’s disfigure-Louisiana, a sweaty, humid place which looks ment by lime, with the living flesh melting like the American counterpart of the Southern before the unflinching camera’s eye, is not just Italy landscapes seen in Non si sevizia un pa-a chilling reminder of human cruelty, but also a perino and hosts a similarly intolerant and vio-reflection on the expiration of all things human, lent population.

destined to corrosion, decay, destruction. For a The Argento connection is also evident in
director who repeatedly expressed his horror to-a couple of death scenes, namely those of the ward time, there is nothing more horrific than blind Emily devoured by her dog—a blatant to graphically portray the passing of time via its replica of Flavio Bucci’s killing in Suspiria (ani-destructive, implacable action. In Fulci’s world mals become agents of evil, in the spider se-view, time equals horror, and in L’aldilà the equa-quence as well)—and Al Cliver’s unfortunate tion is even more surprising than in other works character receiving a deadly rain of glass frag-where it is more explicit (as in La casa nel tempo).

ments all over his face, a scaled- down reworking Eyes, the recipient of horror in Fulci’s uni-of Suspiria’s opening murder. But the death se-verse, here are blinded, eaten or gouged out, an quences in L’aldilà go far beyond the cold sym-act of cruelty which paradoxically becomes an phonies of horror orchestrated by Argento, act of supernatural mercy in the finale, when which have a geometrical, ballet- like quality.

Liza and McCabe are spared the sight of the Fulci goes for the jugular, with a savagery that never- ending extradimensional barren land they outdoes anything seen in horror cinema in that are doomed to inhabit for eternity. Rather than period, including the almost pornographic ex-being punished for daring too much, they are cesses of Gabriele Crisanti- produced gorefests saved from one last, inconceivable horror, whose such as Giallo a Venezia (979) and Patrick vive essence can be glimpsed only via the filter of art.

ancora. The infamous sight of the little girl’s Whereas Argento’s Varelli is an architect, a cre-skull cracked open by a gunshot—an act of bar-ator of ordinate shapes and figures who at-baric cruelty if ever there was one—is among tempted to enclose evil inside a rational- looking, the most extreme acts of violence committed to geometrical prison (only to become a prisoner

1981: …E tu vivrai

67
the frightening sight of the decomposed body of the painter Zweick (Giovanni De Nava) in a West German lobby card for Lucio Fulci’s …e tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà (1981).

of his own creation, that is), L’aldilà’s Zweick is covers something strange about the second a painter, a visionary artist whose works are the body, but a fire destroys the hospital’s anatomy only way to approach the unspeakable darkness room, halting her investigation. Meanwhile, of the universe. Likewise, Fulci’s film rejects Michael discovers a secret locked room in the geometry in favor of a free- form approach attic, filled with strange old books, including the which, if on one hand mimics Inferno’s rejection Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon. He finds of a standard narrative structure, on the other out that the mysterious tenant was capable of distances itself from Argento’s cold, almost calling up the dead and opening the doors of the mathematical world of horror.

beyond, in order to gain immortality. Michael The genesis and evolution of L’aldilà, from and Liza try to escape to the town, but the place the first draft to the finished film, is fascinating, has been taken over by the dead.

and offers more than a few surprises. In fact, Besides the interesting differences regard-Sacchetti’s original story was quite different ing the protagonists, this summary shows how from the script deposited at Rome’s CSC and Sacchetti’s story was closer to classical Gothic dated August 2, 980,9 about a month and a half stereotypes—the family mansion, the mysterious before shooting began. Originally, in fact, L’aldilà presence, the secret room—and apparently more was about a man named Arthur McCabe who
canonically structured. The finished script in-returns to his family home with his wife Mary, troduced new characters, such as the painter his 2-year-old son Billy and a nephew, Michael, Zweick, liberally changed the protagonists (Liza who is a talented young painter. Rumors abound becomes the owner of the hotel, McCabe is the that the house is haunted by a mysterious, local doctor), and radically redesigned the open-ghastly tenant. A plumber called to fix a water ing and the ending.0
leak disappears in the basement; then his body Fulci’s first Italian biography, L’occhio del is found together with the rotting corpse of a testimone, published in 992, included several young man. A female doctor, Liza Merrill, dis-dismissive quotes on the director’s part toward

68 1981: …E tu vivrai the scriptwriter. While discussing L’aldilà, Fulci 36. Before that, Emily had told her about the claimed: “Let’s forget Sacchetti’s story and part events that took place 60 years earlier, when all of the script, which were just a few pages long the people at the hotel disappeared mysteriously, and all ripped off from other films.” Such a possibly murdered by Sweick. When she enters harsh statement, however, was very likely driven the room, Liza finds it in a state of ruin, with by the director’s tense relationship with his ex-moldy walls, insects and larvae. Her vision of collaborator, characterized by many arguments Sweick is impressively different: “The man is over the years. In the case of L’aldilà, Sacchetti’s nailed with open arms and legs to the bathroom script deposited at Rome’s CSC is 62 pages long, wall. One of his hands detaches from the nail so the claim is unsubstantiated. But again, a that pierced it and with a cry he sticks a long summary of the script shows that it differs con-knife into his own heart.” When McCabe shows siderably from the film, too.

up and explores the room, it is sensibly different As in Paura nella città dei morti viventi, the from what it first was: Sweick’s body is missing, setting is New England, in the imaginary town as in the film, and so is the Book of Eibon which of Fullwich (note the affinity with Dunwich).

Liza glimpsed. It is McCabe who goes to the li-The prologue is set on October 3, 92, at the brary to look for it, but to no avail; after he’s

“Seven Doors” hotel: the bell of room 36 rings, gone, the female librarian, Tracy, climbs a stair-a young girl named Millie goes upstairs to check case to pick up the Book of Eibon from the high-and is horribly murdered by the mysterious ten-est shelf, and suffers the same fate as Martin ant, Sweick [sic], who gouges her eyes out with Avery (a character absent from the CSC script) his hand, “dry and clawlike, red like bare flesh.”

in the film: death by spiders. Martha’s murder (The theme of zombies gouging out the eyes is in room 36 is also virtually identical to the one a leitmotif throughout the script) There is no in the film (but the woman has her eyes gouged trace of the astonishing act of gratuitous violence out by Joe, instead of being pierced against a that opens the film, the torture and murder of long nail on the wall).

the painter Zweick by a horde of peasants, added It is Emily who gives McCabe the book of
later to the story by Fulci.

Eibon. The doctor takes it to the hospital, where The CSC script then cuts to October 30,
he is joined by Dr. Harris. The latter’s wife Anne

980. The early scenes are more or less similar receives a visit from the late Father Francis, now to the ones in the film—Liza Merrill renovating a living dead: she tries to escape by jumping the hotel with the help of Martha and Arthur, from the window, but the zombie grabs her in the murder of Joe the plumber (who has his arm mid- air by the hair. Meanwhile, nurse Katia ripped off in addition to his eyes gouged out), grabs Anne by the legs from below, and pulls.

the discovery of a decomposed corpse in the In a grotesquely spectacular death, the poor basement, Liza meeting Emily along the road woman, torn between two opposite forces, is lit-and the introduction of Dr. McCabe and Harris, erally scalped alive.

studying the corpse’s brainwaves. However, sev-While McCabe finds out in the Book of
eral differences stand out, starting with the set-Eibon a cryptic sentence about “how to open the ting (according to production designer Massimo door on the night of All Saints,” Liza is alone in Lentini, the choice of Louisiana was dictated by the hotel, which suddenly comes alive. “A suf-practical needs). The blind Emily is not an am-focated cry is heard, then a throttled shout. A biguous, ghostlike presence but a real woman, crackly music, as if from a nickelodeon, covers Harris is much older than McCabe, and the vil-all the previous noises. Candles light in candle-lagers are hostile toward Liza. On top of that, a sticks and electric lights turn off.”

couple of murder scenes that take place at the Following Emily’s death scene, identical as hospital involve two characters absent from the in the film, John arrives at the hotel to pick up film, a nurse named Katia and a priest, Father Liza. He explains: “The man in room 36 had dis-Francis, who are killed in the anatomy room by covered that the door was in the hotel. He tried the mysterious body (the nurse suffers from ex-to open it, but they prevented him from doing tended bleeding from her nose, ears, and mouth, it. They erased all traces. Then, 60 years later, a nod to a notorious scene in Paura nella città without knowing it, Joe opened a breach… . Liza, dei morti viventi).

we must close it.” “But what? I don’t understand!”

The Book of Eibon appears only on page

Liza objects. “The door! The door that unites 7 of the CSC script, when Liza finds it in room the world of the living and that of the dead.”

1981: …E tu vivrai 69

The passage underlines the more conven-
he gets to see his image reflected in a mirror and tional tone of Sacchetti’s script, which attempts touches its ”cold and unyielding surface of polto give an articulate explanation to the story’s ished glass”) and possibly to Ray Bradbury’s gruesome events—namely, Joe opening a breach Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was ef-while trying to fix the water leak, thus opening fective, but evidently too expensive to work on a passage between this world and the beyond.

the budget the director had to make do with. It Moreover, McCabe behaves as a standard hero, also shares light on the vexed question of the with his intention to close the door to the be-zombie climax, often labeled as a last- minute yond. In the film, not only Liza and McCabe are addition to please the German distributor Ale-clueless, but Joe’s responsibility in disclosing the mannia/Arabella, who had had a huge commer-door to the beyond is never developed.

cial success with Paura nella città dei morti McCabe and Liza go down in the basement
viventi and therefore granted an advance on and eventually arrive at the breach. “McCabe Fulci’s next zombie film. The director himself, rests both his hands on the wall. The hands in an interview published in the January 98
touch the wall. A flash. A blinding flash bedaz-issue of L’Écran fantastique, seemed to deny the zles McCabe and Liza. The wall breaks open presence of proper zombies in the film: “L’aldilà with a deafening rumble. Then, silence. And is a tale of mystery where the dead are at the core darkness.” A skeletal figure appears: Peter Sweick.

of the story, but they are not “aggressive” dead They are now in the beyond. “A spectral light.

as in Zombi 2. They do some things, but totally A dry, dusty land.” The dead come back to life…

dependent from the story, whose theme is very The two protagonists run upstairs, only to metaphysical but with some horror in it.”3 Ac-find all the other zombie characters (Emil, cording to Sacchetti, in fact, “originally the Arthur, Jo, Martha) in the hotel lodge. They movie had a different ending, without the zom-manage to escape and reach the hospital, but the bies (it’s not true that the Germans wanted it, first person they find, Dr. Harris, has also turned that ending was inserted by Fulci and the pro-into a living dead. Other zombies show up and ducer as a guarantee to sell the film in certain surround them. With a gun “borrowed” from a markets) and the real ending was in a strange gun shop nearby, McCabe blows several zombies place, a sort of dead zone, all white, similar to to smithereens, and he and Liza drive away in the one, all red, hypothesized by David Lynch the night. On the road they notice an apparently in Twin Peaks.”4 But this could only refer to a empty amusement park, its lights shining in the primeval draft, prior to both the aforementioned night, and stop by. But the place is not empty at storyline and the CSC script, which both feature all: the eerie image of a wagon coming out of the the living dead taking over; the latter includes tunnel of love, with zombies on it, stands out.

plenty of graphic gore in the manner of George Soon the park is filled with zombies. McCabe A. Romero.

and Liza run away, “and they run, and run, and Overall, the polishing done by Fulci and
run. But all the directions are blocked. Then, Giorgio Mariuzzo enhanced the ambiguous el-suddenly, they find themselves in front of a huge ements of the story and discarded the most con-mirror, and only then we get to see their images.

ventional ones. The choice of making Emily a They are the images of two dead people. Liza ghostly presence who traverses decades to warn screams. Her scream echoes, long and endless.”

the protagonist of horrible events to come, gives In the final image, the amusement park lights her early appearance on the bridge—a startling turn off, and darkness engulfs everything. A moment where the Louisiana location dramat-final line on the screen says “…e iniziò il regno ically enhances the film—an otherworldly feel.

dell’aldilà” (…and thus began the realm of the This can also be said about the beautiful scene beyond).

in which Emily leaves the hotel in a hurry, and The CSC script’s ending, close to Sacchetti’s Liza realizes she hasn’t heard her steps, a moment original story, is characterized by an explicitly rendered by the director with the repeated slow-symbolic content, with the amusement park rep-motion sight of the blind girl running away in resenting life in the scriptwriter’s own words,2
utter silence. As in Quella villa accanto al and has a similar tone to the definitive one, plus cimitero, this leads to inconsistencies (if Emily an explicit nod to Lovecraft’s celebrated short is a ghost, how could she be slaughtered by her story The Outsider (in which the narrator finally dog?) which only add to the story’s fascination.

becomes aware of being a dead revenant when But the director’s strongest choice was the new

70 1981: …E tu vivrai opening sequence, which brings to the story a own self facing him, he leans against a wall, on savage drive.

a cobweb- covered painting which portrays the Regarding the narrative structure of L’aldilà, villa … only to find himself trapped in a huge Fulci had claimed that he wanted to “make a web, outside the villa (…or inside the painting?).

movie about all the horrors of the world,” while Here, Liza and John find themselves in an ap-Sacchetti commented that it “was somewhat thin-parently three- dimensional space which defies ner, without frills in the plot, and deliberately so the ordinary notions of tridimensionality: when because it wanted to be a nightmare of emotions.”
they turn back, they see the very same landscape In fact, the rhapsodic storyline isn’t particularly that was in front of them, limitless and im-thin compared to Paura nella città dei morti mutable, with no spatial coordinates to rely viventi. But what is interesting is the abrupt jux-upon. It is one final act of horror that pushes taposition of the ultraviolent set pieces with mun-L’aldilà into the realm of pure abstract fantas-dane scenes that go nowhere, plot- wise. Take, for tique, leaving aside the zombies, the gore, the instance, the transition between the morgue scene gruesome murder scenes and the obscure events with the death of Joe’s wife and Liza and McCabe that preceded it. The final line—“E ora affron-chatting and flirting in the bar, to the sound of a terai il mare delle tenebre, e ciò che in esso vi è di jazz combo, sharing their uninteresting life stories esplorabile” (And you will face the sea of dark-while sipping drinks, another moment not to be ness, and all therein that may be explored)—and found in Sacchetti’s script and one of the film’s the eruption of Fabio Frizzi’s score (featuring very best scenes. On the one hand, we have the the participation of Goblin members Agostino savage eruptions of violence; on the other, the un-Marangolo and Maurizio Guarini), with its Latin bearable lightness of existence, where time passes chants, rolling drums and its operatic almost, by immutable and implacable.

almost ecclesiastical intensity, makes it a truly Whereas the CSC script takes place within
unforgettable moment.

the course of a couple of days and climaxes on As MacColl commented,
the night of All Saints, the film has a more re-I love the final scene in which we arrive in the world laxed approach. But L’aldilà is no less daring than of the dead, which was very poetic. I remember it the Gothic horror films of the 960s, such as was the last scene we shot, and as usual Fabrizio [De Danza macabra (964) or Operazione paura Angelis] was standing there, looking at his watch. It (966), which liberally played with the notion was a few days before Christmas… . I don’t know why of time. The perception of space is misleading they saved that scene for last, perhaps the set piece as well: as Martin Avery discovers, the actual was a bit difficult to build… . I just wanted to finish planimetry of the hotel is different from the offi-the movie and run home for the holidays, and I was cial one, while Liza and Bob have very different very worried about the contact lenses. They were perceptions of Emily’s house (which to McCabe made specifically for us, and nowadays they’d be to-appears as a dilapidated ruin, whereas the tally different, but then they were hard and painful woman sees it as a cozy colonial house). And to wear… . I later found out that the bodies in that the climax plays with space and dimension with scene were not professional extras, but mostly homeless men who did the scene in exchange for a bottle the same puzzling results as an Escher drawing.

of wine or something.6

In Inferno the final passage to another dimension is a mirror from which Death emerges, The final, nihilistic coup de thêatre ce-triumphant, into our reality, which it (or rather, mented Fulci’s cult status abroad and won the she) dominates. In Fulci, the transition happens hearts of the younger Italian film critics, such as in the opposite direction (between this world Claudio Carabba, of the newspaper Il Giornale.7
and the beyond) and takes place abruptly and Carabba’s appreciation for Fulci caused a sort of arbitrarily. John and Liza, escaping from the chain reaction: veteran film critic Tullio Kezich, morgue, find themselves in the basement of the in turn, in an otherwise condescending review

“Seven Doors” hotel, and from there within the which underlined the film’s “banal content and surrealistic beyond depicted in Zweick’s gory bad taste,” noted its “effective and even el-painting. It’s a passage almost as daring as the egant filmic style.”8 When he was reported the celebrated sequence in Operazione paura in news that Positif and other French magazines which Giacomo Rossi Stuart’s character follows had started praising the director, renowned mil-his own double through a series of rooms which itant critic Lino Miccichè allegedly blurted: “For all look the same. Unsettled by the sight of his goodness’ sake, now let’s not start revaluating

1981: …E tu vivrai 7

Fulci too!”9 Such a stance was comprehensible, position before twitching under the pressure of boil-at a time when the gap between different gen-ing blood.22
erations of critics was bringing new attention to the works of filmmakers who had been previ-Gans had his share of reservations on the result, ously overlooked, if not ignored, such as Ric-however, noting that “this complete rejection of cardo Freda and Raffaello Matarazzo. In France explanations, although likeable, prevents a re-the situation was similar, with the young critics newal of the much- overused zombie theme… .

of the specialized press (such as L’Écran fantas-This gratuitousness is also not relieved by the tique) treating the film with far more attention swiftness of the narrative, which is less paced than the ones writing for highbrow magazines.

and structured than Paura nella città dei morti La Revue du cinéma was particularly scathing, viventi and doesn’t always hold its bad inclina-calling L’aldilà an example of “vomitive cinema,”

tions toward ghost train- like staging… . In short, blaming the “non-existent scenario … male act-excess is preferred to that minimum of cohesion ing at the limit of nullity and frightfully pompous which was the true quality of Paura… . ” Gans music,” and adding: “Nevertheless, the worst ultimately judged the director’s new effort a far thing seems to be the director’s blatant lack of less convincing effort than Paura nella città dei imagination, as he simply picks up ideas here and morti viventi (which he called “a remarkable film there from his fellow directors.”20
teeming with many aesthetic ideas very subtly L’Écran fantastique devoted ample space to linked”), and concluded: “Fulci tries to keep its the film, but this time the response was rather theme by sticking blindly to the recipes and in-less favorable than earlier. In a five- page article gredients of his earlier films and forgets to ex-dedicated to L’aldilà and Black Cat, Christophe plain them.”23

Gans launched in a comparison that might not Released in Italy with a V.M.8 rating under have pleased Fulci: “In the way Inferno pro-the somewhat pompous title …E tu vivrai nel longed and gave a new dimension to Suspiria, terrore! L’aldilà (without suspension points in the Fulci’s latest is presented as the second part of screening certificate), the film opened on April a horrific saga which will comprise no less than 29, 98. It did OK business, grossing about 70
seven, according to the number of the doors to million lire, considerably less than Fulci’s hell scattered over the surface of Earth and in previous zombie films, but it was well- distributed the director’s imagination.” Gans hypothesized all over the world, including Hong Kong, Mexico that the upcoming Quella villa accanto al and the principal European countries, perform-cimitero would stand as the third entry in the ing notably well at the Spanish box- office.24 It was series and concluded that “given Fulci’s rate of released in the U.S. in 983 through Aquarius Re-filming, his cycle will no doubt be finished long leasing, under the title 7 Doors of Death, with before Dario Argento’s revelation of Mater heavy cuts to tone down the murder scenes and Lacrymarum.”2
a new score by Walter E. Sear. The film received After praising the director’s work on the vi-a limited theatrical release in its uncut form in suals, Gans analyzed Fulci’s approach to Grand-the States only after Fulci’s death, by Grindhouse Guignol, pointing out how he didn’t hesitate in Releasing. In the U.K. it was originally passed by the BBFC with an X rating and with several cuts systematizing his methods as a horror filmmaker to for cinema release; it was included in the DPP
the point of conferring his new film the appearance list of “Video Nasties” made public in 983, in of an eloquent catalog of monstrous deaths—prodi-Section 2, among non- prosecuted films. After a giously bloody outbursts that not even the Americans

987 video release (with approximately 2 minutes would dare to consider today under a censorship all cut) it was finally released uncut to home video too generous in libelous “X ratings. And while the in 200.

U.S. filmmakers overcome this problem by stretching Over the years, news of a sequel to L’aldilà the hide- and-seek parts (The Burning) and the su-came to the surface. In 993, issue #4 of the pernatural paraphernalia (Fear No Evil), Fulci British fanzine Book of the Dead even included purifies the fantastic manifestations and all the other slownesses to the point of bypassing them abruptly.

the title Beyond II, a.k.a. Beyond the Beyond What is, then, that danger glimpsed by the widow in (“announced but never released”) in an Italian the morgue? We will never know, for what matters zombie filmography. But neither Sacchetti nor is only the result, in this case a face slowly gnawed Fulci ever worked on such a project. In 20, by acid, which goes through all the colors of decom-however, the scriptwriter penned a reboot of

72 1981: …E tu vivrai Italian lobby card for …e tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà featuring Cinzia Monreale (left) and Maria Pia Marsala.

sorts set in Scotland, Beyond Evolution, which the Italian prints, was retained in color for the German re-remains unfilmed to this date.2
lease.

9. A script of L’aldilà (both in Italian and English language, as The Beyond) is deposited at SIAE and registered Notes
on July 4, 980.

10. Interestingly, the original summary (first distributed 1. October 6, according to Rome’s Public Cinemato-by De Angelis at Milan’s MIFED in order to gain graphic Register. Albiero and Cacciatore report October financings) turned up again in promotional flyers con-20 as starting date.

cocted by the English distribution company. Apparently, 2. Giuseppe Salza, “Le retour de Lucio Fulci,” L’Écran nobody realized that the synopsis didn’t correspond to the fantastique #44, April 984.

movie.

3. Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci” (98), 2.

11. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 7

4. Sacchetti declared he wrote the script in 0 days, at 12. Gomarasca and Pulici, “La paura dell’aldilà,” 69.

De Angelis’ request, with the help of “three or four packets 13. Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci” (98), 20.

of cigarettes a day, and one or two bottles of vodka. I 14. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed.

worked overnight, and often two or three days in a row, 15. Ibid.

without stopping.” Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei 16. Manlio Gomarasca, “Intervista a Catrona MacColl,”

generi, 277. On another occasion, however, Sacchetti con-November 7, 207, www. nocturno. it (http://www.noc-tradicted himself, claiming that he had written the script turno.it/intervista-a-catriona-maccoll/).

in 979, long before watching The Shining (which came out 17. “I think it was near the end of Winter 98. I saw in the U.S. in May 980, and in Italy in late December of L’aldilà in a theater in Milan, at the midnight show. There that year, when shooting for L’aldilà had already begun).

were few people in the audience, the right climate to ap-Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti. com preciate the indiscreet charm of fear. And in fact, that’s (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option=com_con-what happened: and so, I fell in love with that movie …

tent&task=view&id=7&Itemid=79).

and with Lucio Fulci, master craftsman of Cinecittà, with 5. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 276.

a long and varied career.” Claudio Carabba, “Memorial 6. Schlockoff, “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,” (982), 2.

Fulci,” in Mystfest ’84. 5° festival internazionale del giallo e 7. Robin Wood, Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan …

del mistero (Cattolica: Edizioni del Mystfest, 984).

and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 18. Kezich, Il nuovissimo Millefilm, 48.

4.

19. Reported in Il Patalogo Quattro. Annuario 1982 dello 8. The prologue, black- and white and sepia- tinted in spettacolo cinema e televisione (Milan: Ubulibri, 982), 20.

1981: Fantasma 73

20. Philippe Ross, “L’au-dela,” La Revue du cinéma #367, meets on the bus a woman he loved in his youth, December 98, 48.

Anna Brigatti, now aging and ugly. The meeting 21. Gans, “Les deux nouveaux films de Lucio Fulci,” 6.

takes place in conjunction with a heinous crime, 22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., 7.

as a concierge is murdered near the place where 24. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen Anna appeared. Nino learns from a doctor friend by 329,3 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding that the woman died of cancer three years ago, to 342,406 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/
after marrying Count Zighi and moving to Son-Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 6224).

25. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, “Al di là del-drio. Nino goes to Sondrio to meet the count and l’aldilà,” Nocturno #, March 202, 70.

comes across Anna, now looking still attractive as she was in her prime. They settle for an appoint-Fantasma d’amore (Ghost of Love)

ment on the banks of the Ticino River, in the D: Dino Risi. S: based on the novel Fan-places of their youthful love, but Anna falls from tasma d’amore by Mino Milani; SC: Dino Risi, the boat and drowns. Sometime later Nino meets Bernardino Zapponi; DOP: Tonino Delli Colli Anna again, old and ugly, in Pavia, but she dis-

(Technicolor); M: Riz Ortolani (Ed. C.A.M.); E: appears in the river once more. Nino becomes con-Alberto Gallitti; PD, SD: Giuseppe Mangano; vinced that he has met a ghost and gets hospitalized ArtD: Gianni Giovagnoni; CO: Annalisa Nasalli-in a nursing home where Anna reappears in the Rocca; MU: Giulio Natalucci, Michel Deruelle; guise of a young nurse…

Hair: Corrado Cristofori; AD: Claudio Risi; Four years after Anima persa (977), Dino

APD: Gianni Giovagnoni; C: Carlo Tafani; AC: Risi returned to the Gothic genre with Fantasma Sandro Battaglia; KG: Augusto Michisanti; ChEl: d’amore, a crepuscular ghost story set in Northern Giuliano Michisanti; SP: Paul Roland Pellet; SO: Italy, amid the shadows and fogs of the Lombard Vittorio Massi; B: Giulio Viggiani; SOE: Italo town of Pavia, based on the novel published in Cameracanna; Mix: Gianni d’Amico; AE: Lidia

977 by Mino Milani and adapted by Risi and Pascolini; SS: Carla Giaré. Cast: Romy Schneider Bernardino Zapponi.

(Anna Brigatti Zighi), Marcello Mastroianni As in Anima persa, the story focuses on the (Nino Monti), Eva Maria Meineke (Teresa mid- life crisis of its protagonist, Nino, played Monti), Wolfgang Preiss (Count Zighi), Michael by Marcello Mastroianni. Again, then, Risi in-Kroecher (Don Gaspare), Paolo Baroni (Ressi), vestigates the dread of growing old: whereas in Victoria Zinny (Loredana), Giampiero Becherelli Anima persa the Dorian Gray syndrome resulted (Prof. Arnaldi), Ester Carloni (Count Zighi’s in the Engineer’s (Vittorio Gassman) crazy alter Housekeeper), Riccardo Parisio Perrotti (The ego sporting a childish behavior, in an obsessive Magistrate), Raf Baldassarre (Luciano), Maria and desperate infantile regression, here the ap-Simona Peruzzi, Liliana Pacinotti, Adriana Giuf-parent acceptance of fleeting time is eroded by fré. PROD: Pio Angeletti, Adriano De Micheli the tide of memories which submerge Nino

[and Luggi Waldleitner, uncredited] for Dean when he finds himself in front of Anna, the Film, A.M.L.F. (Paris), Roxy- Film (Munich); PM: woman he loved years earlier. She now appears Mario D’Alessio; PS: Alberto Passone, Rossella first as an old faded lady, and later in her past Angeletti; ADM: Roberto Mezzaroma, Marcello splendor, bringing back in him the burning Nusca. Country: Italy/West Germany/France.

awareness of happiness gone forever, and of a Filmed on location in Pavia and at Cine Inter-quiet but loveless marriage.

national Studios (Rome). Running time: 96 min-Compared with the eerie Venetian setting
utes (m. 264). Visa n. 76387 (3.3.98); Rating: of Anima persa, Risi and Zapponi immerse their all audiences. Release dates: 4.3.98 (Italy), Gothic tale in an everyday, almost trivial reality, 4.29.98 (France), 2.2.98 (Spain), .2.982
amid bus rides, bourgeois parties and reunions (West Germany), 0.982 (USA; Chicago Inter-between old friends. Hence, the moments that national Film Festival); Distribution: Ceiad. Do-openly deal with the Fantastic—and, as with the mestic gross: 42,000,000 lire. Also known as: Fan-sequence of the murder of the concierge, with tôme d’amour (France), Fantasma de amor horror—stand out even more. In addition to the (Spain), Die zwei Gesichter einer Frau (West Ger-stylized and evocative flashbacks (see, for in-many), Fantasma de Amor (Portugal).

stance, Nino and Anna’s bike trip), the director Note: In the Italian version Romy Schneider often finds a convincing balance between ro-is dubbed by Vittoria Febbi.

manticism and dread: the kiss between Nino Pavia. Nino Monti, a well- to-do accountant, and his beloved, now reduced to an old woman

74 1981: Fantasma with rotten teeth and (presumably) a putrid Fantasma d’amore was shot on location in
breath, with the man immediately cleaning his the Lombard town of Pavia, in Fall 980: accord-mouth in disgust afterwards, looks like a nod to ing to Rome’s Public Cinematographic Register, the Tolstoy story which Mario Bava adapted for filming started on October 26. A strikingly cinI Wurdalak.

ematic town, Pavia had been used several times Although with a sometimes- finicky ap-over the years by filmmakers, most notably by proach, bedraggled by product placements and Alberto Lattuada (Il cappotto, 92), Renato narrative hesitations, and denoting a modesty Castellani (I sogni nel cassetto, 97), Dario Ar-that borders on shyness in its approach to the gento (Le cinque giornate), and Eriprando Vis-supernatural (see the rather botched subplot conti (La orca, 976, and its sequel Oedipus about the defrocked occultist priest, played by Orca). As Milani recalled, “Pavia was, and had Michael Kroecher), Fantasma d’amore reaches always been, a city of long autumns and thick the same conclusions as so many Italian Gothic fogs, and that kind of rain that moistens without horror films of the past. The dead return for re-wetting… . In the film, then, some scenes were venge, but especially for love, and time and its patently grey and veiled; but the weather did not effects are mostly an illusion that the living have cooperate, and Risi had to resort to a fog ma-built as a barrier (“You really believe time exists chine. So, in the authentically old streets, and

… time which makes us age, which consumes
on the banks of the authentically poignant Ti-us, that indeed exists. But inside of me, I’m not cino, Schneider and Mastroianni met amid aged at all,” Anna says), and the boundaries be-floating, very costly artificial smokescreens.” In tween life and death are fragile and pervious.

addition to a top- notch cast and crew, Risi man-

“You see, my dear sir, what they say about the aged to enroll another prestigious name: the beyond, about this life, those are all nonsense then 72-year-old Benny Goodman, who played

… because we are still ourselves, we are dead, the solo clarinet in Riz Ortolani’s moody orches-and we are alive at the same time… ” says Nino tral score.2
in the end.

Risi’s film was released in several European Hungarian lobby card for Fantasma d’amore (1981, Dino Risi), starring Romy schneider and Marcello Mastroianni.

1981: Murder 7
countries and was screened at the 982 Chicago John Richardson (Oliver), Anita Strindberg International Film Festival. Italian box- office re-

(Glenda Stanford), Silvia Dionisio (Deborah Jor-sults were disappointing given the two stars in-dan); uncredited: Fabrizio Moroni (Michael as a volved, and critics were perplexed too. Fantasma child), Riccardo Freda (Elderly man on the set).

d’amore is indeed a disjointed work, which partly PROD: Enzo Boetani, Giuseppe Collura, Simon suffers from a subpar literary source. But it fea-Mizrahi for Dionysio Cinematografica (Rome), tures an intense, poignant female character, Societé Nouvelle Cinévog (Paris); PS: Antonio beautifully played by Romy Schneider. Anna is Boetani. PSe: Salvatore Carrara. Country: Italy/
not a vampire seductress but a victim of society France. Filmed at Palazzo Borghese, Artena and men alike, who can celebrate her victory (Rome) and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome).

only as a ghost, and yet is still radiantly superior Running time: 97 minutes (m. 2660). Visa n.

to the male: her appearance to Nino, atop the 7784 (0.3.980); Rating: V.M.8. Release date: villa stairs, strikingly recalls those of other 2.24.98. Distribution: Regional. Domestic gross: Gothic heroines. Above all, Anna’s love makes n.a. Also known as: The Wailing; Unconscious; her able to live beyond death, like Elisabeth Murder Syndrome (USA—home video), Angoisse Blackwood in Antonio Margheriti’s Danza (France), Obsessão Assassina (Portugal), Satan’s macabra. “I am a woman, Nino, and women do Altar (Greece), Himomurhaaja (Finland).

not destroy anything, but they cultivate and pre-Note: On the poster for the foreign English serve… ” she says.

language release titled Unconscious, Freda is On the other hand, Nino—weak, submis-credited as “Robert Hampton.”

sive, petty, a “man without qualities”—suits him-Following a violent raptus on the set that al-self to the situation. He soothes and suffers in most led him to strangle his co- star Beryl, actor silence, and when things go wrong he simply Michael Stanford returns to the family home in closes his eyes to the truth, dreaming that his Surrey after a fifteen- year absence, for a period beloved is still in his arms. In short, he clings to of rest. He explains to his girlfriend Deborah, who an illusion he calls happiness.

accompanies him, that as a child he murdered his own father to protect his mother, and the event Notes
left him traumatized. His still young- looking mother, Glenda, takes a dislike to Deborah, whom 1. Mino Milani, “Romy Schneider? Bellissima sotto il Michael has introduced as his secretary. A few trucco da ‘fantasma,’” Corriere della Sera, June 2, 2002.

2. Salvatore G. Biamonte, “‘Re dello swing chiude col days later a director friend, Hans Schwartz, shows jazz’: Torno alla musica classica,” Corriere della Sera, Feb-up with his assistant Shirley and Beryl. The three ruary 20, 98.

are poorly tolerated by Oliver, the enigmatic butler.

Meanwhile, strange events occur: someone tries Murder Obsession (Follia omicida)

to drown Beryl in the bathtub, and Deborah ex-

(Murder Obsession, a.k.a. Fear)

periences an upsetting nightmare in which she is D: Riccardo Freda. S: Antonio Cesare
subjected to a black magic ritual. The next day, Corti, Fabio Piccioni; SC: Antonio Cesare Corti, during a walk in the woods, Michael and Beryl Fabio Piccioni, Riccardo Freda; Dialogue adap-find an isolated spot and have sex: when Michael tation: Simon Mizrahi; DOP: Cristiano Pogany wakes up he finds Beryl’s dead body next to him.

(Telecolor); M: Franco Mannino; E: Riccardo Schwartz, who witnessed and photographed the Freda [uncredited]; PD, CO: Giorgio Desideri; murder, is brutally dispatched with an axe, and AD: Antonio Cesare Corti, Bernard Cohn [and Shirley is decapitated with a chainsaw. All evi-Jacqueline Freda, uncredited]; C: Roberto Lom-dence points to Michael, to whom Glenda con-bardi Dallamano, Guglielmo Vincioni; AC: Ste-fesses that she was Oliver’s lover: when Michael’s fano Guidi; ACO: Alberto Tosto; AE: Anne Bar-father discovered them in the act of having sex, rault; MU: Lamberto Marini, Sergio Angeloni; he killed the man and blamed the child for it. But Hair: Agnese Panarotto; SO: Davide Magara; SE: Michael finds out that Oliver has committed sui-Angelo Mattei, Sergio Stivaletti; SP: Debora cide, leaving a taped confession where he reveals Beer; KG: Gianni Savini; ChEl: Alberico Novelli; that it had actually been Glenda who murdered SS: Maria Luce Faccenna. Cast: Stefano Patrizi her husband, and she is also the one responsible (Michael Stanford), Martine Brochard (Shirley for the gruesome killings. The woman, a practi-Dawson), Henri Garcin (Hans Schwartz), Laura tioner of black magic, is morbidly jealous of her Gemser (Betty; English language: Beryl Fisher), own son whom she believes is her husband rein-

76 1981: Murder carnated, and will stop at nothing to keep him from Piccioni’s story (and the Oltretomba comic).

with her…

The rest, of course, was all Dario Argento’s in-Eight years after Estratto dagli archivi segreti vention. Still, it is no surprise that Argento chose della polizia di una capitale europea (972), Ric-not to follow the outrageous final twist, where cardo Freda finally returned behind the camera the murderer is not only revealed to be Ludwig’s to direct a low- budget horror film. Its genesis is mother, but the elderly woman turns out to be as tortuous as it is emblematic of the subterranean a man in disguise, his father’s longtime lover.

threads that ran across Italian cinema of the pe-Piccioni recycled several elements from Il riod, connecting and tangling up people, ideas grido del Capricorno once more, a few years later, and stories like in a spider’s web.

for a story with a contemporary setting. The re-A former assistant director to Lucio Fulci, sulting script—concocted with the participation Edoardo Mulargia and Giuliano Carnimeo, in of Antonio Cesare Corti and Freda—was titled the early 970s Fabio Piccioni had penned a Murder Obsession. It is the story of a young dis-short story titled Il grido del Capricorno, which turbed actor, Michael, who—after almost mur-he adapted into an adult comic book in the dering an actress during the filming of a horror Oltretomba series (Oltretomba Gigante #9, Feb-movie—returns to his secluded mother’s house ruary 974, with drawings by José María Bel-for a brief vacation, together with the film’s di-lalta). Set in 894, Il grido del capricorno was the rector, the latter’s assistant, the aforementioned story of a young musician, Ludwig von Mayer, actress, and his fiancée. Michael is obsessed who lives in the shadow of his late father, a com-by the memory of his late father, an orchestra poser and orchestra conductor, and is oppressed director, and has a domineering, overly posses-by a domineering mother who wants him to fol-sive mother. Unsettling, horrific events ensue: low in his father’s footsteps and become as fa-Michael’s girlfriend experiences an eerie nightmous as him. Meanwhile, a black- gloved killer mare, supernatural forces seem to materialize, starts dispatching the young man’s lovers and and most characters meet gruesome deaths. The friends in gruesome ways (and with ample dis-horrible truth behind Michael’s shady past is replay of nudity and sadism, as was customary vealed: a flashback hints at the child apparently with adults- only comics). The police and a crim-murdering his father, with the key image of the inologist start suspecting Ludwig, who is re-boy holding a bloody knife in his hand, as if hyp-vealed to have killed his own father as a child notized by the red stains on the blade. But the but bears no memory of the event. Then, after murderer turns out to be someone else…

Ludwig’s wife- to-be Helga is horribly murdered Some sources list the script’s original title too, a shocking truth is revealed.

as L’ossessione che uccide, whereas the script in-Being in severe shortage of cash, Piccioni cluded in the Simon Mizrahi fund at the BiFi approached Salvatore Argento—with whom he

(Bibliothèque du film) in Paris is titled Deliria, was on good terms and whose office was just in signed by Corti (as “Tony Blond”) and Piccioni, front of his house in Rome—and sold him Il and dated 976. The 4-page synopsis retained at grido del capricorno for 00,000 lire. The deal Rome’s CSC is already titled Murder Obsession.

had an ironic side which perhaps came unno-Marked January 8, 980, it dates the project ticed to both parts, given that a couple of scenes slightly after Qualcosa penetra in noi (Le notti in the comic were blatantly stolen from L’uccello di Satana), a erotic horror film scripted by Piero dalle piume di cristallo (970), namely the killer Regnoli which Freda was supposed to direct terrorizing a woman in bed and ripping off her in 979 (taking over from Roberto Bianchi panties, and the maniac attempting to penetrate Montero, who was originally attached to it) but Helga’s house, by jimmying the door with a knife, which never took off.2 The CSC synopsis for as the woman watches in terror.

Murder Obsession is basically identical to the Very little of Il grido del capricorno ulti-finished film, save for the characters’ different mately migrated into what became Profondo names: Michael’s fiancée is named Frances, the rosso, but it was vital to the film’s plot: the rela-director’s name becomes Ken and Michael’s de-tionship between Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) and his ceased father was a Wilhelm von Holbach.

oppressive mother (Clara Calamai) derives from According to Jacqueline Freda, her father’s it, as does the brief opening flashback in which aim when taking on the project was merely to a child is seen picking up the knife that just resurface on the market in order to arouse the killed his father, an image taken almost verbatim interest (and raise the money) for his biopic on

1981: Murder

77

World War I ace aviator Francesco Baracca, Lovelock (who even recalled having been pre-which he had been trying to mount since the pared for the role and having made a screen-early 970s.3 A low- budget horror film seemed test) was replaced at the last minute by Stefano the easiest and fastest way. The director managed Patrizi for the role of Michael.

to involve producer Enzo Boetani, with his com-Born in Milan in 90, the blond and hand-
pany Dionysio Cinematografica. Freda had be-some Patrizi had arrived in Rome in 97, and come acquainted with Boetani since the late took his first steps in the movie business thanks

90s, when the latter collaborated as executive to his fiancée Barbara Mastroianni (Marcello’s producer with Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, but the daughter), first as assistant editor (for Ruggero two had never had the chance to work together, Mastroianni, on Visconti’s Ludwig and Francesco although they had tried to mount various proj-Rosi’s Lucky Luciano), and then as an actor, on ects. Such a one was a horror movie to be co-Visconti’s Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (a.k.a.

produced with a French company, whose title Conversation Piece, 974), followed by a number Boetani does not recall, whereas another was of often prestigious titles, including George Pan Superhuman, announced in the January 979

Cosmatos’ The Cassandra Crossing (976), the issue of the Foreign Sales Italian Movie Trade grim crime film Liberi, armati, pericolosi (a.k.a.

magazine. According to the producer, it was in Young, Violent, Dangerous, 976, directed by Rothe vein of the superhero- cum-wrestler films molo Guerrieri and written by Fernando di Leo) that were all the rage in South America, and was aimed specifically at that market, with Freda attached to direct it, but it all came to nothing because of problems with the South American buyer.4

As Boetani recalls “It was Riccardo who
came to me with the script for Murder Obsession and suggested an Italian/French co- production.

The relationship between me and Freda was of mutual esteem, and honestly I must say I agreed to make the film for Riccardo—to make him and the crew work, since it was a difficult period for many of us—rather than because of the script’s inner qualities.” The film would be an Italian/

French coproduction, and the French financer would be Freda’s longtime friend, film critic Simon Mizrahi. “It was a low- budget movie, I think around 20 or 30 million lire, and we had to follow a tight shooting schedule,” Boetani explained. “However, with Simon the situation was not so idyllic in the end, as there were problems with the French financiers.”

Filming went on for three weeks, in April

980, mostly in Borghese Palace in Artena—one of the staple locations of Italian Gothic since Renato Polselli’s L’amante del vampiro—and at Parco della Mola, in Oriolo Romano, where Laura Gemser’s murder was filmed. Jacqueline Freda worked on the film as her father’s uncredited assistant. Boetani cast three actors who had just finished working in a film he produced, Franco Molè’s Prima della lunga notte (L’ebreo fascista) (980): Ray Lovelock, Silvia Dionisio and Molè’s wife Martine Brochard. Dionisio was cast as the fiancée, now called Deborah, a part the Italian poster for Murder Obsession (1981), originally to be played by Janet Agren, whereas Riccardo Freda’s final film.

78 1981: Murder and the controversial Lion of the Desert (980, waits and the estrangement from the working Moustapha Akkad), starring Anthony Quinn
reality on set were undermining. I had decided and Oliver Reed.

to quit that job, and sincerely I really did not Michael’s mother, Glenda, was played by
consider myself up to it … after six months in Anita Strindberg, an oft- seen presence in 970s Africa shooting Lion of the Desert I was spent, gialli, such as Fulci’s Una lucertola con la pelle and had decided to move away from Rome, with di donna and La coda dello scorpione (a.k.a. The the aim of settling in Milan and starting over Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, 97, Sergio Martino); with something that would give me a more solid John Richardson (La maschera del demonio) was future and a full involvement… . ” Patrizi can-cast as the enigmatic butler, Oliver. The bare-didly admitted to this writer that he has no rec-bones cast also featured Laura Gemser (the star ollection whatsoever of Murder Obsession: “I of the Black Emanuelle series) as Beryl and vaguely recall Freda as a harsh man, of a few Henri Garcin as the director, Hans Schwartz.

words and not very affable.”9

Filming was not a pleasant experience for

Boetani—who maintains that Freda always
most of the people involved. “Mamma mia what behaved deliciously with him, and even intro-a nightmare!” Laura Gemser recalled. “I remem-duced the producer to his future wife, script girl ber that I had to shoot a scene with Anita Strind-Maria Luce Faccenna, the daughter of producer berg who had to grab a real knife and pretend Angelo Faccenna—adds a significant anecdote.

to stab me. I shouted at Freda: ‘You’re crazy?

“Once I came on the set and watched him direct What if she really hits me?!’ He said: ‘What are a scene. He set up the camera, yelled ‘Action’ …

ya gonna do?’ They would have done anything and turned his back on the actors! (laughs) ‘But to save money on these sets. On top of that, I Riccardo, why are you doing that?’ ‘Well, you was naked, just for a change, and I was lying on know, I can’t make them act to save their life!

the bank of a lake and it was freezing!”6

Even if I don’t watch them, that’s the same—if Martine Brochard’s recollections were not
it’s good for the camera, then it’s good for me happy either: “I remember I did not have much too!’ (laughs) You know, he was joking, but I fun doing it, especially a scene where there was think he really meant that… . ”0 Overall, the feel-a glass which had been cut expressly so that I ing between the director and the cast was mu-could put my head over it, and the camera was tual: “He hated them,” Jacqueline maintains. “He over a chainsaw that came closer and closer, thought they were just terrible.”
and there I must confess I was really scared.”7

The film opens with a quote allegedly from Brochard was not kind about Freda too: “He was a 7th century philosopher named Hieronimus a very tough type, of a wickedness I did not ex-A. Steinback. “For centuries, theologians, philosopect and which upset me, so much so that on phers, and poets have delved into the universe in the very first day I answered him back, but then search of proof of the existence of the devil. It I took him aside, talked to him and he softened would have sufficed to look into the depths of a bit. There were two French actors in the film their own souls.” In the glorious tradition of Ital-and he treated them so badly that there was this ian Gothic, the line is totally made up, and the actor, who worked on stage and was an impor-name “Hieronimus A. Steinback” is a fabrication tant name in France [Author’s note: Henri on the part of the scriptwriters. Still, besides Garcin], who was desperate, and I used to trans-functioning as a commentary on what we will late everything to him because on that set no-witness in the following 97 minutes, it ideally body translated anything.”8 Silvia Dionisio had reconnects to a line uttered by a parish priest recently separated from her husband Ruggero (Umberto Raho) in Lo spettro (963): “The Devil Deodato, and according to Brochard she just is more real a person than our modern world looked forward to finishing the movie; it was would have it.”

her last film role, followed in 982 by Daniele Murder Obsession begins with a little bit of D’Anza’s TV mini- series La sconosciuta, before self- referential, film- within-a-film oddity. A her early retirement.

beautiful girl (Gemser) returns to her flat, en-Stefano Patrizi was on the verge of retire-gulfed in darkness. She goes to the window to ment as well: Murder Obsession was his last film, open it, and, revealed by a sudden lighting in a and then he moved to Milan to work in an ad-quasi- Expressionist shot, a male silhouette ap-vertising agency: “I did not like being an actor pears behind the curtain. The man (Patrizi) and was bored to death by such a job: the endless grabs the girl by the neck, rips off her clothes

1981: Murder 79
and starts choking her. His face is splashed with tempted drowning in the bathtub, the close- ups a bright, unexplained red light, almost like in a of the murderer’s gloved hands, Schwartz and Bava film—or rather, in Freda’s earlier Gothics, Shirley’s killings, a negative film capturing the such as L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock or Lo murderer’s identity as in Blow-up (966)—feel spettro. But it all turns out to be part of a low-tacked on to a Gothic- oriented storyline, and budget horror movie. As the camera recoils with not the other way around. Take the central role an exquisitely fluid tracking movement, reveal-played by the mansion where the characters ing the tiny set on which the film is being made, move, eat, sleep, make love, dream and die: with we can glimpse an elderly man on the right cor-its tight stairs, eerie basements and old- style ner, leaning on an armchair and wearing a plaid half- lighted rooms, it acts as a character of its cap. It is Riccardo Freda. As the scene continues, own, and seems to control the protagonists’ feel-his unmistakable voice is heard in the back-ings and actions with its intermittent lights that ground, commenting: “It was not quite a brilliant go out every now and then, forcing them in the idea… . ” One wonders whether this bit reflected dark. This haunted house feeds on old memories the director’s own reservations about the uneasy and secrets and does not let anyone come out pairing of stylish mise-en-scène and cheap ma-alive: when the massacre is seemingly over, its terial, old- style lighting and sound effects and doors close by themselves, arbitrarily shutting gratuitous nudity.

the survivors inside. Such a huis clos seems to Even though Murder Obsession falls in the
belong to an indefinite era, and the odd contem-realm of the splatter film, Freda despised such porary details—such as Oliver’s blue jeans and practices, and his attitude is patent in the way tennis shoes—are as disruptive as the sudden he deals with the gory murder scenes, namely bursts of gore, adding to the film’s overall sense an axe to the head and a decapitation via chain-of unease. The theme of the double, a Gothic saw, courtesy of Angelo Mattei’s workshop, with trope, here becomes a further instrument to disa very young and still inexperienced Sergio Sti-rupt the difference between past and present, valetti in his debut.2 The results are as crude which, as in Bava’s Lisa e il diavolo, ultimately and unpleasant as the killings in L’iguana dalla get confused and indistinguishable: not only lingua di fuoco (97) and the central massacre does Michael look exactly like his father (Freda in Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di did not even try and have Patrizi made up in a una capitale europea. According to Boetani, different way, but simply relied on different Martine Brochard’s decapitation scene was con-clothes for the flashbacks), but in the end he be-cocted by the director himself: “He shot it right comes one and the same with him in the eyes of in my office,” the producer recalled. “He em-his crazed mother.

ployed a trick with mirrors. It was amazing, one The distance from the giallo can also be de-of the brilliant things I saw him do. He was a getected in the pacing and plot construction. It nius in this respect! And he shot it all with just takes almost an hour before the first killing oc-a cameraman, the actress, and three mirrors… . ”3
curs (and offscreen, too: we get to see only the Nevertheless, Murder Obsession contains at least aftermath of Beryl’s demise), and the following one remarkable gory scene, when Michael wakes murder sequences are carried out in a rather up next to the naked Beryl, and slowly starts ca-idiosyncratic way, with the director avoiding the ressing her leg, contemplating her nudity—as use of POV shots of the killer—the giallo’s trade-the audience does—until the camera pans on mark—and relying on abrupt bursts of violence.

the woman’s torso, revealing a gruesome gash The resolution is also tortuous, and the final rev-on it. Only then he realizes (as we do) that she elation of the murderer’s identity and its motives is dead. Desire becomes disgust, the perspective comes off as rather disregarding of the surprise is reversed. Despite a somewhat imperfect framin itself: Oliver’s taped confession, which Michael ing that gives away the macabre twist a bit too listens to, unrolls as one of those digressions that early, it is a remarkable reflection over the forms were typical of the director’s beloved popular of horror and desire in cinema, and one that ex-novels.

udes an almost pornographic visual power.

Freda places mood over pacing. He lingers

Murder Obsession is usually labeled as a gi-on the interiors of Borghese Palace and sets up allo, and indeed it features a black- gloved killer slow and elegant camera movements, leaving who employs such gruesome tools as an axe and aside the direction of his clueless cast. He also a chainsaw. But the giallo elements—Beryl’s at-avoids the gialli’s visual frenzy, and often comes

80 1981: Murder up with stylized frame compositions that even in nights with no moon.”7 Magic had been a re-recall the silent era, as in Michael’s flashback of curring presence throughout his career, too. In his father’s alleged death. Despite not being sat-

946, when Freda could not find anyone inter-isfied with the actors, the director got along very ested in financing his next film, his elderly maid well with the young d.o.p. Cristiano Pogany, the performed a ritual to chase away the “evil eye”

son of the great Gábor, Freda’s longtime collab-from him: that very day he got in touch with orator4: “My father adored him,” Jacqueline producer Nino Angioletti, who would finance Freda recalls. “Cristiano was one of the few peo-his first box- office hit, the swashbuckler Aquila ple he really cared about and treated well on the Nera; in 948 he and Gianna Maria Canale wit-set—and believe me, on the set my father was a nessed a macumba ritual in Brazil which wild beast! In his private life he was extremely resulted in the actress falling ill; in 90 he di-good- natured, but when it came to his job he rected the short Magia a prezzi modici (Low-was frightful—with me as well! Whereas with price Magic), which played with the clichés of Cristiano he was incredibly sweet… . ”
superstition and the occult in a tongue- in-cheek Indeed, the cinematography is quite good
manner.

despite the painful budgetary shortcomings.

The story and dialogue are literally packed Freda claimed that he thought of Bava while with esoteric references, and each character making the film,6 and some photographic tricks seems to have a connection with magical prac-

(such as the jellies in the “astral body” scene) tices, which manifests itself through a physical recall the work of the Sanremese director. The object (often a jewel) they have on them. Beryl use of miniatures and maquettes, on the other mentions the voodoo rites she witnessed and hand, is typical of both filmmakers, but several took part in, in her home country of Martinique; moments hark back unmistakably to Freda’s Shirley owns a bracelet depicting an ouroboros, past, for better or worse. The crude night views the serpent eating its own tail (in the dialogue, of Michael’s house—incidentally, the same cam-though, it is referred to as a “winged serpent”), era angle as that of Hitchcock’s mansion in L’or-a symbol of eternal return and an alchemical ribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock—were obtained seal; Glenda is revealed to wear a necklace with via a photo of the palace placed before the cam-occult symbols, including a vampire bat, era: they recall I vampiri (97) and Caltiki il whereas Deborah is spared because she is wear-mostro immortale, but also the awkward “exte-ing the Seal of Solomon. But there is more: “The rior” shots in the spy story Coplan ouvre le feu camera is my third eye,” Hans Schwartz quips, à Mexico (967). What is more, the nightmarish and later Oliver covers his face so as not to be bit when Silvia Dionisio’s character is running photographed by him (displaying the same an-across a wood of malevolent branches echoes noyance as the natives in Caltiki when their Barbara Steele’s mad run in the villa’s garden in dance ritual was disturbed by the explorers).

L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock; later, in the Beryl hypothesizes that this is because he is scene of Deborah fleeing from the haunted scared that the camera might capture his soul.

house at night during a thunderstorm, the ob-As in Paul Muller’s final monologue in Es-
vious blueprint is the extraordinary opening se-tratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia di una quence in Beatrice Cenci (96). Freda was likely capitale europea, there is much talk of an “astral drawing from his cinematic memory and career body.” We even find out that Oliver can detach to reshape a half- baked script into something as himself from his physical body and wander close as he could to his own cinematic vision.

through the house at night, in a scene rendered Murder Obsession shows an in- depth in-in a rather crude yet endearing manner through volvement with the supernatural and the occult subjective shots distorted by a jelly and the stop-which was always part of Freda’s character.

motion appearance of muddy footprints on the Rather surprisingly for such a disenchanted and staircase, in a perhaps fortuitous homage to rationalistic figure, the director repeatedly pro-Bava’s La frusta e il corpo. Of all the characters fessed his interest for superstitious beliefs and summoned at Michael’s house, Hans Schwartz—
magical practices. “I have always been fascinated not just a film director but one resembling with esoteric and magic problems, and instead Freda: notice the glasses and cap he wears and of Little Red Riding Hood I used to read Eliphas the cigar he smokes—seems to be the most Lévi’s manuals. My adolescence was dotted with aware of the role of magic in the universe. “It’s Seals of Solomon and elderberry twigs plucked the only way to solve the mystery of life …

1981: Murder 8
magic,” he observes, and when we see him in Luigi Batzella’s Nuda per Satana (a.k.a. Nude leafing through an occult book in plain sight in for Satan, 974)—or, again, an adults- only comic the lounge, one senses that he is not simply try-book like Ediperiodici’s Lucifera, which in one ing to waste time during an insomniac bout.

issue featured a panel depicting a woman being Hans Schwartz’s monologue on the astral
raped by a giant spider—the sequence is not de-body and on the necessity to analyze the void of interest. On the technical side, it is char-moment when the soul separates from the body acterized by fluid long takes, whereas themati-

(“But to do this, we must be capable of killing cally it carries out several of the plot’s key themes with our own hands so that no breath of life es-and further underlines the director’s fascination capes us”) strangely predates the theme of Mar-with the subject matter.

tyrs (2008, Pascal Laugier) and its obsession Scattered with magic symbols, Deborah’s
with the afterlife. Schwartz also points out that dream becomes the key to penetrate the true na-he believes in reincarnation as “the only way to ture of the mystery. Note, for instance, the pres-explain the moral and material unhappiness of ence of the spider. In Estratto dagli archivi segreti mankind because of its bestial, degrading past della polizia di una capitale europea, a stone spi-life”—a line that is 00 percent Freda. His dia-der figure could be glimpsed on the fireplace logue with Glenda, carried out like a subter-during the occult ceremony at the Alexander ranean seduction scene, is a fascinating and mansion, and since Freda sometimes took care often overlooked moment that provides Murder of sculpting props for his films, that could have Obsession its core. It is also one of several scenes been the case as well (after all, he even bothered absent in the version originally released to home to write the words for the bad song heard video in the United States as The Wailing, which throughout the movie). Here the arachnid figure also attempted to make the film pass off as a returns, with an overly symbolic significance.

standard giallo by way of adding a trivial synth First Deborah runs into its web; then, during score to flesh out (and replace in parts) Franco the rite, the spider reappears and takes a semi-Mannino’s haunting piano rendering of classical human form, its paws eerily turning into furry, music by Bach and Liszt, itself another element vaguely human hands which lusciously caress that pronounced Freda’s distance from the con-the girl’s legs. The spider is an ancient symbol temporary ways of horror cinema. On the other of mystery, power and growth: in India it is as-hand, at least one cut is welcomed, as the English sociated with the term “Maya,” meaning the il-language version did not feature one of the film’s lusory nature of appearances, whereas in Egypt most awkward lines: in the scene following it is paired with the process of creation and Shirley’s chainsaw murder, Oliver is serving din-recreation, and other civilizations saw it as a ner, when out of the blue he passingly mentions spinner of fate. Christian cultures have linked it to Glenda that the chainsaw is missing.

with duplicitous meanings, but mostly as an evil Another interesting example of the film’s
force that sucks blood. As we will find out in the emphasis on the occult is Deborah’s night-end, Michael himself has been trapped into a mare—one of Murder Obsession’s most derided web of deception, and his own mother is revealed sequences, and understandably so, given the to be the spider- like spinner of the events that—
ridiculous appearance of patently fake bats flap-in typical Freda fashion—lead to a circular ending, ping about on wires and a giant rubber spider an eternal return that mirrors the ineluctability of which the girl runs across at one point. Deborah fate.

is chased in the mansion’s crypt by a pair of On Murder Obsession the director returned
hooded, monstrous- looking figures, finds a way to the primordial core of his conception of out into the garden, experiences horrid visions Gothic: a family melodrama, excessive and mor-

(such as skulls hanging from a tree like ripe bid, soaked with psychoanalytic undertones, in fruits and dripping blood from their empty eye which the horror blossoms and feeds on the dy-sockets), is tied to a St. Andrew’s cross and sub-namics of parental relationships. As portrayed jected to an incomprehensible ritual. At first by the ravishing 43-year-old Anita Strindberg, glance, the scene seems pointless, a shock seg-Glenda is Freda’s last and perhaps ultimate ment whose only function is to provide cheap monster, the true point of no return after the in-thrills to an undemanding audience. And yet, cestuous father of Beatrice Cenci, the beauty-despite its sloppy effects work, which elicits obsessed nubile old lady of I vampiri, the comparison with a similarly awkward moment necrophile husband of L’orribile segreto del Dr.

82 1981: Murder Italian lobby card for Murder Obsession, featuring silvia Dionisio (left) and Anita strindberg. the tagline promises “100 minuti di terrore” (100 minutes of terror).

Hichcock, and the scheming wife of Lo spettro.

is a vital part of human nature, and as such it She is a young- looking, sexy, desirable mother, will always win.

who meets her son in bed while dressed in a The director’s reversal of the ancient Greek transparent nightgown, and whose feelings for myth is sneering: not only is it Jocasta who lusts her offspring leave no room for doubt. She is after her son, but she ends up killing the object also a vampire of sorts, feeding off other men’s of her desire in order to forever keep him with lust for her, and using them like puppets.

her. Freda ends the film with a final and blas-

“The story nevertheless interested me.

phemous act of annihilation, with one of the What can happen in our tragic childhood? What most powerful—perhaps at least in part because are the consequences when guilt and murder unexpected—endings in his oeuvre, one that mingle?”8 the director observed, while offering openly recalls those of Il conte Ugolino (949) a psychoanalytic reading to his film. The weight and Lo spettro and which truly lives up to of the past is connected to a horrific primary Jacques Lourcelles’ definition of the director as scene that is repeated twice—half-Rashomon,

“one of the great aesthetes in cinema history.”9
half-Marnie—to bring to the surface, and to The scene recreates one of the most awe-human form, the torments of the unconscious inspiring icons of classical art, Michelangelo’s which previously took the shape of grotesque Pietà (Pity), in a way that is as elegant as it nightmarish creatures. Freda’s ultimate mockery is cruelly mocking. The image of the Virgin is to load his unhappy Oedipus with a burden Mary cuddling Jesus on her womb after cruci-of guilt that is not his own; here the sins of the fixion becomes the sight of a murderous mother mother are literally passed on to the son, who who cries over the dying son whom she has must cope for the better part of his existence just killed; a “hellish composition” in which with the fabricated notion of having murdered

“through the harmony of Renaissance art, dear his father. The process of discovering the truth—
as always to Freda as a painter and sculptor, and that is, his own innocence—leads him to ruin within the most reassuring image, the mother all the same. To Freda, as it has ever been, evil with her son … earthly monstrosities thrive.”20

1981: Murder 83

As Jacqueline Freda recalls, “we spent one day so far as labeling it “shit.” When the interviewer on that scene. It was the only one in the movie asked him why such a severe judgment, Freda which took a whole day to shoot—and one day, curtly answered, “It’s not a good film. The actors to my father, was like a whole week on a normal were poor and so was the budget. I’d rather not set! But he really cared about it. I think it was talk about it.”24 He was less trenchant, but probably the only thing he really cared about in equally critical toward Murder Obsession, when the movie… . ”2
discussing it with fellow film director Giuseppe Once again, as in Lo spettro, the camera’s Tornatore:

eye takes on a moral function. But the film’s Unfortunately it didn’t turn out as I had wanted, also memorable final image can be read in many because there just weren’t the necessary means, be-ways. Perhaps, to Freda, it was an ideal way to cause it’s strange how people are convinced that hor-connect to his own past, to his early days as a ror films are easy to make, even though they’re some sculptor in Adolfo Wildt’s shop, where he tried of the most difficult because you’re always trying to his hand at reproducing the Pietà; in a way, it balance, like a tightrope walker, right? It just takes was yet another circular ending, like the ones he one wrong footing and you fall, you can’t save loved most. Moreover, it even works as a biting yourself by doing another sequence like in other metaphor on the state of the Italian film industry, films… . Here, there’s nothing you can do, either you murdered by the maternal hands of the State by fall into the ridiculous, or it gets boring, or you way of absurd and useless laws, its remains ex-achieve the desired effect.2
posed for us to mourn. Therefore, the door that On the other hand, over the years the film closes by itself, peremptorily, subtracting the has been overrated and championed by some as mother, the son and the heroine to the world and the director’s testament and a culmination of his to our view, and delivering them to oblivion, ac-whole body of work, with a blind eye to its many quires a further, powerful symbolic meaning. It flaws, both in style and substance, starting with is Freda’s hand that closes that door, sealing—
the blatant budgetary limits and the compro-with this premature yet late burial—his own film mises on the part of Freda in order to adapt to career, and a whole season of Italian cinema.

a market that demanded conspicuous bouts of Murder Obsession was submitted to the rat-nudity and violence. Most reviewers would ing board on October , 980, and given a rather focus on the overall mood which con-screening certificate on October 3; yet it took veyed the feeling of the end of an era—the same several months before it came out to theaters.

that exuded from the pages of Freda’s own au-Even though it was initially announced to have tobiography.

been selected in competition at the 980 Sitges Far from being a summation of his own

Film Festival,22 eventually it was replaced by an-work, Murder Obsession was supposed to be a other Italian film, Antonio Margheriti’s Apoca-shortcut for the director to return to the lime-lypse domani. Released in Italy in June 98, after light. Immediately after finishing it, in fact, being screened at that year’s Mystfest, it did Freda was attempting to put together new and mediocre business: Boetani blames the distrib-more ambitious projects. Such a one was an utor, who also failed to pay back the expected adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ Ascanio, on sum. Reviewers were also rather tepid, praising which the director worked in late 980, whereas the cinematography and the narrative tension the other, co- written with the French critic but blaming the poor script and bad acting.23

Jacques Lourcelles, was La Dernière momie d’E-Nevertheless, the film was met with enthusiasm gypte (The Last Mummy of Egypt), a story of love by a small group of fierce supporters, including and reincarnation that should have been pro-the eminent film critic and historian Goffredo duced by Tarak Ben Ammar. Neither ever mate-Fofi (who helped Freda put together his memoir, rialized.

Divoratori di celluloide, released in 98 as well, Several months after the making of Murder
and mostly derived from the interviews the di-Obsession, Boetani and Freda traveled to New rector had given during the previous decades in York to discuss the possibility of making more France) and critic/scriptwriter Patrizia Pistag-low- budget horror movies with American pro-nesi.

ducers. The director was trying to cash in on his Over the years, Freda’s swan song under-by- now established fame as the father of the Ital-went a peculiar fate. On the one hand it was ian horror film, but the timing and circum-harshly dismissed by its author, who once went stances proved unfavorable. “Since Riccardo was

84 1981: Quella not in good economic conditions in that period, 8. Ibid.

I agreed to go with him and help him find a 9. Stefano Patrizi, phone interview with the author, February 206. Patrizi did one more acting appearance in deal,” the producer recalls. “We went and stayed 2006, in the movie Quale amore, whereas he denies having there for a couple of weeks, but without really worked on 2008’s Chi nasce tondo … which nevertheless coming up to anything concrete, because we re-is listed in his IMDb filmography.

alized that those potential financiers were not 10. Boetani, interview with the author.

so brilliant and, so to speak, reliable.”26

11. J. Freda, interview with the author.

12. “‘Is it true that your first film was Murder Obsession In the 980s and 990s, Freda’s work met a (98) by Riccardo Freda?’ ‘Yes, I have been attributed this renewed interest on the part of critics, film fes-paternity [sic], but it is not a film that I can say I signed. I tivals and young cinephiles. His status of “master collaborated with Angelo Mattei who did the effects, I was of horror” was also celebrated in a three- part in his workshop, but I only did a few things, working on some tricks. Nothing special.’” Pierpaolo De Sanctis, “In-TV program called Il cinema della paura, di-tervista a Sergio Stivaletti,” www. nocturno. it, May 3, 20.

rected by his former assistant Marcello Avallone 13. Boetani, interview with the author.

and Patrizia Pistagnesi, and broadcast in No-14. Cristiano Pogany was married to actress Pamela Vil-vember 986 on Rai Tre. The elderly director ap-loresi, whom he had met in 978, and they had three chil-peared in the first installment: sitting on an arm-dren. He died of cancer in February 999, at only .

15. J. Freda, interview with the author.

chair by a fireplace, in a studio set made to look 16. Riccardo Freda, Divoratori di celluloide (Milan: Edi-like a castle hall, complete with thunder and zioni del Mystfest, Il Formichiere, 98), 80. In Poindron’s lightning, he played with gusto the part of the interview book, however, he claimed differently: “I never world- weary lord of the castle, explaining for thought of Bava. It is a gory and perverse story like those he loved, but when I made it, I did not think of anyone. I the umpteenth time his conception of fear and tried to put myself in the criminal’s skin… . ” Éric Poindron, of the horror film in general with his usual elo-Riccardo Freda. Un pirate à la camera (Lyon-Arles: Institute quence and property of language. Despite his Lumière/Actes Sud, 994), 30.

age, he was as sharp and intellectually brilliant 17. Ibid., 88.

as ever, but the many sincere homages only 18. Poindron, Riccardo Freda, 349.

19. Jacques Lourcelles, Dictionnaire du cinéma. Les films served to underline his belonging to a past age (Paris: Robert Laffont, 992), 440.

that would never come back.

20. Patrizia Pistagnesi, “Omaggio a Riccardo Freda,” in Freda would never make another movie be-Freda, Divoratori di celluloide, xiv.

fore his death in 999. La Fille de d’Artagnan 21. J. Freda, interview with the author.

22. “Un festival del terrore in Spagna,” La Stampa, June (994), a project concocted with the help of his

9, 980.

friend Bertrand Tavernier, turned up a bitter dis-23. See a.v. [Aldo Viganò], “Il regista Freda è tornato appointment. Freda walked off the set and was con l’horror di un delitto,” La Stampa, July 3, 98.

replaced by Tavernier himself. It was one last, de-24. Gian Luca Castoldi, “Riccardo Freda o del decaden-tismo dell’orrore,” Amarcord #8–9, May–August 997, 09.

finitive sign that cinema—now a very different 25. Giuseppe Tornatore, Il quarto moschettiere. Quattro creature from the one he had learned to know chiacchiere con Riccardo Freda (Taormina: TaorminaFilm-and master since his early years in Egypt—did Fest, 2007), 24–2.

not need Riccardo Freda anymore.

26. Boetani, interview with the author.

Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The Notes

House by the Cemetery)

1. “It is a basic scheme, in which, from time to time, D: Lucio Fulci. S: Elisa Livia Briganti; SC: you can put everything,” Piccioni commented. See Davide Lucio Fulci, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Dardano Sac-Pulici, “Il grido del capricorno,” Nocturno Cinema #47, chetti; DOP: Sergio Salvati (Kodak, LV- Luciano January 20, 9.

2. For more details on the project, see Curti, Italian Vittori); M: Walter Rizzati [and Alessandro Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979, 68.

Blonksteiner]; M: Vincenzo Tomassi; PD, CO: 3. Jacqueline Freda, interview with the author, May Massimo Lentini; MU: Maurizio Trani; SE: Gino 20.

De Rossi; AMU: Antonio Maltempo; Hair: 4. Enzo Boetani, interview with the author, August 206. As of this writing, Superhuman is still listed as com-Maria Pia Crapanzano; AD: Roberto Giandalia; pleted in Freda’s filmography on the IMDb.

C: Franco Bruni; AC: Maurizio Lucchini; AE: 5. Ibid.

Pietro Tomassi; SD: Mariangela Capuano; PrM: 6. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, Io Emanuelle.

Rodolfo Ruzza; SO: Ugo Celani; B: Eros Giustini; Le passioni, gli amori e il cinema di Laura Gemser (Milan: Mix: Gianni D’Amico; STC: Nazzareno Cardi-Media Word Publications 997).

7. Ippoliti and Norcini, “Una favola chiamata cinema.

nali; SP: Antonio Benetti; ChEl: Alfredo Fedeli; Intervista a Martine Brochard,” 36.

KG: Giacomo Tomaselli; ACO: Claudia D’Obici;

1981: Quella

8

W: Bertilla Silvestrini; SS: Daniela Puccini, was already at work on a new film. The title, Daniela Tonti; DubD: Pino Colizzi. Cast: Kather-Quella villa accanto al cimitero, echoed the ine [Catriona] MacColl (Lucy Boyle), Paolo Italian one for Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive Malco (Dr. Norman Boyle), Ania Pieroni (Ann), (976)—released in 977 as Quel motel vicino alla Giovanni Frezza (Bob Boyle), Silvia Collatina palude (That Motel Near the Swamp)—and did (Mae Freudstein), Dagmar Lassander (Laura Gita wonderful job at summarizing the story’s tleson), Giovanni De Nava (Dr. Freudstein), Gothic and pulp elements. Shooting lasted eight Daniela Doria [Daniela Cormio] (First Female weeks, from March 6 to May 98, on a budget Victim), Giampaolo Saccarola (Daniel Douglas), of about 600 million lire and with two weeks’

Carlo De Mejo (Mr. Wheatley), John Olson exteriors on location in Concord (near Boston)

[Kenneth A. Olsen] (Harold), Elmer Johnsson and New York before the crew moved back to (Cemetery Caretaker), Ranieri Ferrara (Victim), Rome for the interior shoots at the De Paolis Teresa Rossi Passante (Mary Freudstein); un-studios.

credited: Lucio Fulci (Prof. Muller). PROD: Fab-Compared with the director’s previous hor-
rizio De Angelis for Fulvia Film (Rome); UM: ror films, the story had a more traditional Paolo Gargano, Fabrizio De Martino; PSe: Gothic feel. Fulci claimed that once again he had Guglielmo Smeraldi; ADM: Otello Tomassini.

paid homage to Lovecraft, adding that “after Country: Italy. Filmed on location in New York, L’aldilà and Black Cat, I wanted to make a film Boston and Concord, Mass. And at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 86 minutes (m. 2362). Visa n. 7693 (8.4.98); Rating: V.M.8. Release dates: 8.4.98 (Italy), .3.982

(Spain), 3.24.982 (France), 8.23.982 (Denmark), 0..982 (UK), .26.982 (West Germany), .6.983 (Netherlands), 3..984 (USA; New York); Distribution: Medusa (Italy); Almi Pictures; Levy Films (USA). Domestic gross:

,407,98,297 lire. Also known as: La maison près du cimetière (France), Aquella casa al lado del cementerio (Spain); Slagtehuset ved kirkegården (Denmark), Das Haus an der Friedhofsmauer

(West Germany).

Professor Norman Boyle, a New York histo-
rian, is entrusted with the work of a dead colleague, Prof. Eric Petersen, who has murdered his fiancée and hanged himself. Boyle leaves with his wife Lucy and his little son Bob for the small New England town of New Whitby, where Petersen was conducting his research. Bob is warned of an upcoming danger by a strange girl, Mae, whom only he can see. In New Whitby, the Boyles settle in Oak Mansion, the gloomy house where Petersen lived. Soon they experience strange phenomena, and an unknown presence lurks in the basement.

The real estate agent is horribly murdered, and so is Ann, a local girl hired as babysitter. Through Petersen’s recorded diary, Boyle finds out that in the 18th century Oak Mansion was inhabited by a Dr. Freudstein, a mad doctor who conducted gruesome experiments centered on regenerating the Italian poster for Quella villa accanto al his own flesh. But the undead Freudstein is still cimitero (art by enzo sciotti). the menacing, hiding in Oak Mansion, thirsty for new victims.

knife-wielding figure turned up again in other Boyle’s family is in grave danger…

posters by sciotti, namely Assassinio al cimitero During post- production for L’aldilà, Fulci etrusco (1982, sergio Martino).

86 1981: Quella that would embrace all the ravings of the Prov-tries to break through the door with an axe, idence writer, without necessarily being based which replays one of The Shining’s most famous on one of his stories.”2 Scriptwriter Dardano Sac-moments while also reprising the “premature chetti claimed that the inspiration came from burial” scene in Paura nella città dei morti Henry James’ 898 ghost novella The Turn of the viventi, with a savior who could actually harm Screw, from which the film reprises the central the defenseless person he is trying to rescue.

role of two kids and the setting in a villa which For all its derivativeness, Quella villa ac-retains a malevolent presence. But Sacchetti canto al cimitero is surprisingly effective, and spiced the tale with some autobiographical ele-full of intriguing themes and nuances. In James’

ments:

novella the story is told by an unnamed female narrator, a governess who takes care of two The theme of the claustrophobic house in Quella villa children, Flora and Miles, and who begins to accanto al cimitero is linked to my childhood. I was suspect that her predecessor Miss Jessel and an-born in a big country house, with a huge dark base-other employee named Peter Quint had an affair.

ment, full of ambushes… . There was no running Both Jessel and Quint are dead, but the governess water, no electricity, no toilets. It was the other side becomes convinced that their ghosts have a bad of life, a true adventure… . At the age of 9, in that tiny village in Molise, I had to prove my courage by cross-influence on the children. However, in the end ing the cemetery at night … much of what I have the governess turns out to be an unreliable and written comes from these experiences, but indirectly.3
possibly crazed narrator, and most likely she causes Miles’ death. That the reader is never sure In his 992 biography L’occhio del testimone the di-whether the ghosts are real or a product of a rector was harsh toward Sacchetti (see entry for woman’s imagination, is a testament to James’ ex-L’aldilà), and when discussing Quella villa accanto traordinary book. Fulci’s film apparently does al cimitero he claimed that the script was “spiced away with such ambiguity right from the opening in this case as well with sequences stolen from sequence, in which a couple of young lovers are other films, particularly La residencia by Juan [Au-slaughtered by the evil inhabitant of the “house thor’s note: the name is actually Narciso] Ibáñez by the cemetery,” but then it reintroduces several Serrador.”4 The nods to Serrador’s 970 film—
ambiguous elements which baffle the viewer and known also as The House That Screamed and The give the story a disturbing nightmarish quality.

Finishing School, and starring Lilli Palmer and For instance, who is really Ann (Ania John Moulder Brown—are basically those regard-Pieroni), the elusive green- eyed babysitter who ing Dr. Freudstein’s habit of collecting the body says she was hired by the local real estate agency parts of his victim to regenerate his own body, to care for Bob? She appears to be a menacing whereas in La residencia, Brown’s character kills character, especially for the family’s unity: see and mutilates the girls at the finishing school led the game of looks she and Norman exchange, by his overprotective mother (Palmer), in order hinting at a possible affair, in a scene which re-to build an “ideal woman” with assorted body calls the one between Joe the plumber and parts.

Martha in L’aldilà. But, in fact, she is doomed to But the main sources of inspiration were
death, as Bob (and we) have already seen a de-recent American horror films, namely The Ami-capitated mannequin with her features in a shop tyville Horror and, once again, The Shining. The window, in a scene where Fulci plays with the references to Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen dichotomy between animate and inanimate that King’s novel are multiple: Norman Boyle trav-was at the core of Bava’s vision of the fantastique.

eling by car with his wife and kid to the place of And what about Norman Boyle, whom other
his new job; Bob’s “invisible friend” warning him characters keep saying has already been there at not to go; the looming shadow of Boyle’s pred-Oak Mansion, even though he claims the con-ecessor who committed a massacre; Boyle be-trary? Is he a liar, a man with a double life which coming increasingly detached from his family he keeps concealed to his family, or is he expe-and obsessed with his colleague’s death; the riencing something that has already happened image of a pool of blood emerging from Freud-in the past? In a way, like Jack Torrance, who stein’s gravestone; Bob playing with his toy car has always been the caretaker at the Overlook around the house; and, last but not least, the se-Hotel, Boyle has always been at Oak Mansion, quence where Freudstein pushes Bob against the and therefore he is destined to die again and basement door while on the other side his father again, like his predecessors.

1981: Quella 87

Then, there is Mae, the little girl who be-Freudstein keeps himself “alive” (as a comes friends with Bob. We first see her behind maggot- infested body driven by a ruthless sura window which turns out to be part of an en-vival instinct) by regenerating his own self with larged picture of Oak Mansion: like a Bava char-the bodies of the living, and especially children.

acter (or like Bob and Liza in L’aldilà) she is for-In this sense he is a literal, putrefied version of ever trapped in another dimension, which here such ogres as the predatory preacher Harry takes the form of a photograph (echoes of Blow-Powell in The Night of the Hunter (9, Charles up) that seemingly changes from time to time, Laughton) and as such it embodies all kinds of a modern- day version of the paintings in Gothic symbolic references. The name itself, Freudstein, tradition, and possibly a nod to a renowned is a blatant crasis of two modern Prometheuses, M.R. James story, The Mezzotint (as well as to a real- life and a literary one: Sigmund Freud and the celebrated ending of Kubrick’s masterpiece).

Victor Frankenstein. The former explored the But Freudstein himself is an elusive presence dark corners of the mind and the latter tested whose very nature is ambiguous. His voice is the limits of the body. Both saw themselves as that of a newborn baby who keeps crying all the creators, even Gods; here, they are the monster.

time—a chilling contrast with his monstrous ap-As Sacchetti explained, the name was invented pearance, and in the scenes where we only see by Fulci “on the basis of some assonance which his arms and hands, the right one is rotting but at the moment I don’t recall, but which back the left one is obviously a woman’s (actually, a then was supposed to bring good luck, because girl’s: Silvia Collatina explained that she was the it recalled something good.”8 It elicited irony on stand- in for Freudstein in the murder scenes as the part of the reviewers of the period, whereas well as in the door/axe scene).

Fulci scholars tend to overestimate its signifi-The multiple Gothic elements of Quella
cance, without taking into account the director’s villa accanto al cimitero concur to form an orig-irony and disdain toward psychoanalysis in gen-inal and faceted take on the genre. As with Paura eral, and Freud in particular. However, through nella città dei morti viventi and L’aldilà, Fulci a psychoanalytic reading, Quella villa accanto al draws from elements of American folklore. The cimitero can also be seen as a horrific depiction setting is an imaginary New England town of the disintegration of a family, and of human called New Whitby, and Oak Mansion is a relations as a whole.

typical New England abode, aesthetically and Is Freudstein—Fulci’s most explicit version architecturally integrated with the American of the boogeyman so far—just an embodiment tradition. To quote Robin Wood’s famous defi-of a much earthlier monster, the product of a nition, it can well be labeled as a “terrible house,”

young boy’s fantasy as a way of turning real hor-that is, “one of the most important and enduring ror into something more acceptable to his schemata of American culture, whose line of de-mind—a dark fairytale where the rules and the scent can be traced from Poe (The Fall of the roles of good and evil are always to be followed?

House of Usher) to Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Freudstein is a baby in a decrepit man’s body: Massacre).”6 The “terrible house,” even more his is a baby’s voice, as the monster retains the than the haunted houses in the classical English characters of the victims that have become part Gothic novels, represents “an extension or ob-of him, and even Freudstein’s own procedure of jectification of the personalities of the inhabi-sawing together body parts of the ones he has tants” and signifies “the dead weight of the past killed is more akin to a child putting together crushing the life of the younger generation.”7 A parts of his favorite toys like a puzzle, rather disturbing concept in American culture, where than to Frankenstein’s dream of creating life it goes against the celebration of the past (the through death.

Founding Fathers, the revolution against the The utter monstrosity of Oak Mansion and

British, the manifest destiny and the frontier its evil inhabitant is juxtaposed with the ordi-myth), in the hands of an Italian filmmaker it nary, grey humanity that populates the film. Just acquires unexpected nuances. Moreover, Freud-as in L’aldilà we were treated to the banal chatter stein’s appearance, wearing a costume that looks of Bob and Liza at the bar, here most dialogue very much like a Confederate uniform, hints at scenes revolve around superficial topics, and a dark historical past which is literally locked characters appear disinterested, elusive, almost and forgotten underneath the surface, where it worried to end the conversation as soon as pos-lurks and awaits.

sible in order to return to their train of thoughts.

88 1981: Quella See, for instance, the opening dialogue between world and another dimension, in the scenes Boyle and Prof. Muller (an uncredited Fulci, where he sees or plays with Mae, who cannot be with his inseparable pipe), with the latter trying seen by any other person. At the end he com-to cut the discussion short and take a taxi; or the pletes the transition, emerging from Freudstein’s scenes between the Boyle family and Laura’s as-gravestone into another dimension, where he sistant at the real estate agency, and between and his little friend will remain forever, in a per-Norman and the clumsy library assistant (Gi-petual but—judging from the stern look of the ampaolo Saccarola). It’s a world of uninteresting, woman who will look after them—unhappy superficial, insecure people (such as the fragile childhood. The ending, as in L’aldilà, is a clever and neurotic Lucy Boyle) who seem to be vege-coup de thêatre which Robert Schlockoff, while tating while waiting for their hour to come. As interviewing the director in L’Écran fantastique, Kazanian said in Inferno, “The only true mystery suggested being a reference to the ending of is that our very lives are governed by dead peo-Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (99). Fulci ple,” and the tombstone in the living room in amiably conceded it, just as in the same interview Oak Mansion (Fulci’s version of the “elephant he had claimed to have met Antonin Artaud in the room,” that is, death) is a memento of that.

(“He looked at me with those crazy eyes, 30

Not by chance, in the film’s third act the char-years ago”). The epilogue plays with the limits acters are repeatedly attracted to the under-of time and space and soothes the terrible notion ground lair where they will all lose their life, and at the heart of the story, that is Freudstein’s un-they keep descending that set of stairs which stoppable need of fresher and younger bodies.

leads only to horror and death.

In Fulci’s cinema, children often die in terrible The story’s central character is the kid, Bob.

ways, but not in Quella villa accanto al cimitero, Throughout the film, he oscillates between this and this is yet another indication of the film’s French lobby card for Quella villa accanto al cimitero, featuring the titular house—oak Mansion in the film—which hides a horrible secret...

1981: Quella 89
core, which despite its overall gruesomeness is contrast between the ground and top floor on filled with a gripping melancholy, underlined by the one hand and the basement on the other—
the closing line that appears on screen: “No one through dollies and tracking shots, and builds will ever know whether the children are mon-an unnerving mood through a crescendo which sters, or the monsters are children.” In a move confines most of the gore to the last part, unlike typical of the glorious tradition of Italian Gothic Paura nella città dei morti viventi and L’aldilà.

horror cinema, the quote—attributed to Henry Some of the gory sequences are played for their James—was in fact made up by Fulci and/or Sac-nerve- wracking value, like the one where Boyle chetti.

is attacked by a bloodthirsty bat (a nod to Sus-One of the main differences between Quella piria’s bat scene but done better). Others are an villa accanto al cimitero and Fulci’s previous exercise in the macabre, like the one where Gothic films is that it is centered on a couple of Boyle listens to a tape with Petersen’s comments kids, marking at the same time a return to the about Freudstein’s experiments, with Fulci’s themes of Non si sevizia un paperino as well as prowling camera wandering in the basement
anticipation of some of his future works in the amid severed body parts and disemboweled genre, focused on horror as seen through the bodies, thus hinting at the doctor’s macabre ex-eyes of children, namely Manhattan Baby (982), periments.

La dolce casa degli orrori (989) and Voci dal pro-Despite the credits indicating the special fondo (990). With her red hair and pale com-make- up effects as the work of Giannetto De plexion, Silvia Collatina somewhat recalls Nico-Rossi and Maurizio Trani, only the latter did in letta Elmi, and is quite convincing as Freudstein’s fact work on the film, creating Freudstein’s de-ghastly child, who acts as a link between the composed face as well as the other effects. Gino world of the living and the afterlife; she would De Rossi took care of the special effects. Fulci appear again, uncredited, in Murderock—Uccide liked to work with the same team of collabora-a passo di danza (984). On the other hand, the tors, as in the old days of genre cinema, but blond Giovanni Frezza would turn up again in Quella villa accanto al cimitero marked at least next year’s Manhattan Baby. Reportedly, the di-one important difference from the previous rector maintained a detached attitude toward films, with the music score being composed by the kids, “like a schoolteacher who demanded Walter Rizzati: the result differs notably from things from us and wanted them exactly as he the director’s other films of the period, and has said,”9 as Collatina recalled.

a remarkable melancholic quality, starting with The rest of the cast comprised familiar its impressive Bach- inspired main theme.

faces in Fulci’s cinema, such as Catriona MacAs with L’aldilà, Quella villa accanto al Coll, Carlo De Mejo, Dagmar Lassander and
cimitero underwent remarkable changes from renowned voice actor Giampaolo Saccarola. The Elisa Briganti’s original story and Dardano lead, Paolo Malco, was a capable stage and TV

Sacchetti’s script—originally titled La notte del-actor who had starred in such diverse works as l’inferno (The Night of Hell), which became La Antonio Bido’s giallo, Il gatto dagli occhi di giada casa di Freudstein, then Quella casa accanto al (977) and Franco Brogi Taviani’s Masoch (980), cimitero—to the screen. Sacchetti’s script—writ-a biography of Leopold von Sacher- Masoch; he ten as usual on a tight schedule—was then re-would turn up again in Lo squartatore di New vised by Fulci and Giorgio Mariuzzo. As for his York (982). As for Ania Pieroni, her stunning contribution, without going into detail, Mariuzzo looks were not enough to make up for her lim-claimed to have acted as script doctor, changing ited acting (something she was not asked to do here and there to make the screenplays work: in Inferno), and reportedly the director was very Sacchetti’s scripts, he said, were often too short, harsh toward her.

in accordance with Fulci’s claims, and even But the main star of Quella villa accanto al Fulci’s script supervisor Rita Agostini agreed cimitero is Fulci’s direction, which is more con-with this. Sacchetti’s version is as follows: “Mar-trolled and subdued than in the past. With the iuzzo always intervened afterwards, either be-help of Massimo Lentini’s inventive set pieces cause I had to leave to work on another film or (most notably the narrow metal staircase which refused to make those changes that Lucio de-leads to the bottom of Freudstein’s gravestone, manded. That was the reason for our arguments.

like a theatrical stage trap), the director enhances I accused Fulci of looking for shortcuts, and triv-the spatial qualities of the titular house—and its ializing things. He wanted simpler, more tradi-

90 1981: Quella tional stories. He hadn’t identified himself yet but Fulci was not satisfied and eventually dropped with the role of master of horror.”0
it in favor of the make- up we get to see at the A look at the script deposited at the CSC—
film’s climax. Another key detail missing from titled Quella casa accanto al cimitero, with the the CSC script is Freudstein emitting baby cries, original La casa di Freudstein erased in pen, and while on the other hand, in an inane dialogue credited to Elisa Briganti (story) and Dardano exchange, Boyle describes Freudstein as “a Sacchetti (screenplay)—can help get an idea on Barnard before its time,” referring to the noted who wrote what. It is dated February 0, 98, heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard, to which one month before shooting began, and it is likely Lucy replies: “Or a Baron Frankenstein, if you the last version before the rewritings. At 223
prefer.” Fulci could indeed turn hollow dialogue pages, it looks considerably long, but many into an asset, as with the scene of McCabe and pages consist of extremely brief scenes of a cou-Liza flirting in the bar in L’aldilà; but he was well ple of lines, often describing just one shot (i.e., aware of the border between the disposable and the exterior of the house) and making it seem the ridiculous.

much longer than it really is. The script displays The CSC script is totally devoid of the am-interesting differences with the finished film, re-biguous, ghost story elements that we find in the vealing the extent of Fulci and Mariuzzo’s con-film. There is no Mae Freudstein, but an 8-year-tribution, which is considerable.

old kid, Mark Hauser, who is very much alive, The CSC script opens with a lengthy intro-and whom we first meet listening to the grisly ductory sequence (33 pages long) which differs stories on Freudstein told by his grandmother.

sensibly from the one in the film. Two lovers are Mark becomes Bob’s friend and turns up in the exploring Freudstein’s house (not called Oak final scene as the savant. Missing are also the Mansion here), when suddenly the man stabs backstory of Boyle’s predecessor, the scene be-the girl in the head (the knife protruding from tween Boyle and Muller in New York, the meet-her mouth is the only detail kept in the film) and ing with the real estate agent Laura (a character drags the body in the basement—apparently, he absent from Sacchetti’s script), and the references brought her to the villa to get rid of her. But he to Boyle having been there in the past. Ann the remains locked downstairs in the dark too and babysitter is just a normal girl (no sign of the meets a grisly end in turn. “By the light of the ominous shop window sequence), the Boyles are flame the most terrifying image that the human a happy couple, and most of the elements bor-mind can conceive appears before his eyes, an rowed from The Shining are absent. The only image originated from infernal darkness”: the connection might be seen in the fact that Nor-fleshless, rotten face of a living cadaver. Leaving man Boyle here is a historian, who moves to aside the grotesque build- up (the man gives the Freudstein’s house for a couple of months to girl a ring box which turns out to contain a mag-complete his book on the Civil war. Incidentally, got instead of a ring), this rather senseless mur-the references to the American Civil War are der scene gives away Freudstein’s appearance much more relevant than in the film: Freudstein’s immediately, and the horrible doctor will turn backstory deals with him performing transplants up repeatedly during the course of the story, a on the unfortunate soldiers he operates—and in choice that Fulci wisely discarded.

one of the final scenes he is explicitly described Speaking of Freudstein, the script describes as wearing “an old and dirty army uniform” (p.

it as follows: “Then the incredible monstrous 209)—until the doctor was lynched by an angry being gets up and shows itself: an unequal body, mob (an idea recycled from the prologue of with two right arms, an enormous head, disproL’aldilà) when they found out he was also using portionate, on a very thin torso” (p. 06); “He is children for his experiments. The mob killed very tall, very skinny, completely bald, the face Freudstein’s wife Mary and buried her outside reduced almost to a grinning skull, covered with the villa—hence the gravestone in the garden horrible putrefied flesh … he looks like he is that features prominently in the script.

composed of body parts from several men” (p.

Boyle’s research is more conventionally de-209). Trani had indeed devised an alternate veloped in Sacchetti’s story. He finds out that make- up for Freudstein similar to the one de-pages from a history journal regarding the mys-scribed in the script, as a skinned man with flesh terious Freudstein are missing. The CSC script and tendons in sight, predating the sight of the introduces a character absent in the film, a li-dead Frank (Oliver Smith) in Hellraiser (987), brarian named Howard Grimm, who turns up

1981: Quella 9
at Boyle’s house in his absence to hand him the tions. Moreover, the Henry James connection, missing pages and becomes one of Freudstein’s which is very feeble on paper, comes to the fore victims, as would happen to Dagmar Lassander’s in the film thanks to the addition of the character character in the film. Other horror scenes, such of Mae Freudstein and her mother as well as of as the bat attack and Ann’s murder, are almost the final literary epigraph (a recurring element identical on paper, but in the movie Freudstein in the director’s later work, as shown by the kills by way of ordinary weapons, such as a knife quotes from Balzac and Hawthorne that open and a poker, while in the script he uses his bare his diptych in the TV series “Le case maledette”).

hands, gouging victims’ eyes out and so on Despite Sacchetti’s remarks about Fulci’s

(something too similar to what the zombies did indecisiveness toward his status as “master of in L’aldilà, evidently).

horror,” Quella villa accanto al cimitero comes The CSC script features some odd details
off as one of the director’s strongest films. It may that Fulci discarded. For instance, Lucy Boyle lack L’aldilà’s visionary qualities, but it is taut discovers dozens of human teeth in a drawer, in and scary as few other Italian horror films and a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s story Berenice. An-stands up to repeated viewings. Fulci considered other sequence has Lucy discover a hole in the it one of his best works, going so far as claiming closet wall, from which a swarm of moths—
it as an influence on subsequent and far more

“black, horrible, disgusting”—come out, cover-celebrated titles—a retribution of sorts for a film ing her face in a moment obviously patterned born as a patchwork of other, more famous on the infamous maggot rain in Paura nella città works. In a 990 interview he raised the suspi-dei morti viventi. In the hole, Boyle will find a cion that Spielberg might have taken inspiration box with documents on Freudstein’s dismissal from his film for Poltergeist (impossible, as film-from the army because of his experiments (a ing for Poltergeist took place from May to much less suggestive idea than the tape recording August 98); in one of his last interviews he from his predecessor that he listens to in the even accused Paul Verhoeven of having ripped film). The marble gravestone in Freudstein’s off the scene where MacColl is dragged down a house (which in the script is placed in the set of stairs in Robocop (but with the titular robot kitchen) doesn’t lead to the basement, but, once in the woman’s place).2 An attitude which recalls Boyle opens it, it reveals a grave “four feet deep, that of some Fulci scholars who obtusely—and a rottenness in which maggots, limbs, bones, without even checking whether it might actually skulls and feet teem.”

be possible—try to pinpoint influences of Fulci’s If Fulci decided to tone down Sacchetti’s
work in that of American filmmakers, as if this fondness for all things putrefied, it was not only would make it more valuable.3
to limit the similarities with his previous zombie Quella villa accanto al cimitero had some
films, but also to enhance the ghost story side marginal issues with the rating board, who re-of the tale. This is all too evident in the script’s quested a brief cut (3.20 meters, about 6 seconds) climax, which is disappointingly conventional in the sequence of the killing of Dagmar Las-compared to what we see in the film. Here Fulci sander’s character Laura Gittleson before granting and Mariuzzo added a self- reference to enhance a screening certificate with the expected V.M.8
the tension (Freudstein pushing Bob against the rating. This can be noticed in the shots showing door while Boyle is breaking the door with an the aftermath of the killing, as Laura appears to axe), and completely revised the ending. In the have had her left eye gouged out (most likely with CSC script, Freudstein kills Norman and Lucy the poker used to puncture her chest and (whom we see disappear in the dark of the base-throat). It opened in Turin on August 4, 98, ment, dragged away by the monster), but Mark while the director was leaving to the U.S. to shows up at the last minute with a bucket full of shoot his next horror film with Fulvia Film, a petrol, which he throws against Freudstein be-hyperviolent giallo with erotic undertones titled fore setting him on fire with a match. The end.

Lo squartatore di New York. With over .4 billion No wonder Fulci disliked such a banal and sim-lire grossed at the Italian box- office, Quella villa plistic ending, more suited to some Hollywood accanto al cimitero did better than Fulci’s previ-PG scary flick.

ous horror films of the decade, despite negative Overall, the noticeable improvements from
reviews. The Corriere della Sera called it mock-Sacchetti’s earlier script bring out the measure ingly “the Italian Shining” and the reviewer of Fulci’s attempt to go beyond genre conven-summed it up as “a condensation of rip- offs,

92 1981: Quella commonplaces and badly repeated horror con-irreconcilable with the Italian director’s marked ventions.”4 La Stampa complained about the points of view,” Gans added. “Except for two or presence of kids: “to see children involved in three welcome details … the suspense “for such a gruesome and oppressive horror story laughter,” so appreciated by American filmmak-will perhaps cause disconcert and discomfort, ers, here becomes particularly tedious.” The re-rather than pity, in many spectators.”
viewer blamed the paper- thin characterizations, The film was also released theatrically pointing out: “The failure of the film’s first part overseas (as The House by the Cemetery) and in relies on this systematic sabotage of any psycho-the major European countries such as West Ger-logical credibility. With ample use of intempes-many, Spain (where it was a notable box- office tive zooms, Fulci tries in vain to dramatize the success6) and France (as La Maison près du insufficiently played sequences. He doesn’t suc-cimetière). Panning the movie in La Revue du ceed better in filling the gaps of the script with cinéma with a ferociousness even harsher than caricatural sophistication… . In this film, Fulci his Italian colleagues, Philippe Ross concluded: hasn’t resolved to give up to his pseudo-

“It is high time, however, that this Stakhanov of Lovecraftian cycle, but the failure of L’aldilà, a horror cinema, who must benefit from advan-shaky copy of Paura…, obliged him to sidestep tageous prices on hemoglobin, finally learns the issue.”9
how to handle a camera and shows us something Gans’ praise of the film’s visual virtues, other than these endless scenes of butchery who namely its “melancholic, wintery photography”

truly become more and more painful and sopand its final vision of the beyond as a “benevolent orific.”7
afterlife,” didn’t cancel his reservations: Prior to its official French theatrical release, Major innovation: would there be place for a possible the film was screened at the th “Festival inter-paradise in Fulci’s cinema? The distinction and the national du film fantastique et de science-undoubted success of the scenes with the ghosts …

fiction” in Paris together with Black Cat, and it only emphasize the director’s lack of distance with was accompanied by a retrospective screening respect to the gore effects… . Fulci henceforth comes of Una lucertola con la pelle di donna. The pub-and goes between the defused outbidding (L’aldilà) lic’s response wasn’t enthusiastic, though, and and the risky slowness… . This indecision goes hand Quella villa accanto al cimitero ended up at the in hand with a progressive destruction of the char-seventh place in the audience ranking (Black Cat acters’ importance, as they move around only to ended up ninth).

serve the horror despite good sense… . But in this The January 982 issue of L’Écran fantas-repertoire of gimmicks repeated or borrowed from tique dedicated Quella villa accanto al cimitero Argento, our greatest regret is the absence of madness in the explanation of the monster, yelled a two- page review penned by Christophe Gans, amid the din of a stretched suspense.20
followed by another lengthy interview with Fulci conducted by Robert Schlockoff. The latter was Quella villa accanto al cimitero faced lots nothing short of celebrating: “Lucio Fulci of censorship issues in the United Kingdom. The realizes that there exists an audience for his cinema version, distributed by Eagle Films, was films, his audience: ready to enter full foot in passed with cuts by the BBFC on December 29, worlds of nightmares, to be fascinated by visions

98: the sequences of Ann and Laura’s murders so terrible that they become surrealist, to ap-were heavily trimmed, for a total of about one plaud the artistic brilliance of each of his movies, minutes and a half, and the copy ran 84 minutes to appreciate his language which refuses to refer and 49 seconds. The same print was released to the usual codes of horror cinema.”8
on video. Nevertheless, it ended up in the video On the other hand, Gans’ review was once
nasties list after the 984 Video Recordings Act.

again less than favorable. “Aware of having re-It resurfaced to home video only in 988, in a duced his latest film to an inventory of atrocities, print pre- edited by 34 seconds (removing the Lucio Fulci wanted to win back some of the au-cinema cuts) and then with additional cuts dience, disappointed or frankly shocked by amounting to 4 minutes and  seconds, which L’aldilà,” he noted. But he pointed out: “Shaken meant the hacking of all the violent sequences, up by gore, the theme of the haunted house loses including the bat attack and the infamous sub-its Anglo- saxon pedantry while maintaining its jective shot in the basement amid body parts. It most conclusive flaw. Playing with the audience’s was re- released in 200 with 33 seconds cut and frustration as a way to be subtle is fundamentally finally in its uncut form in 2009.

1982: Amityville 93

Notes

13. Example? Albiero and Cacciatore hypothesize that the sequence of Boyle listening to Peterson’s tape, with 1. According to Rome’s Public Cinematographic Reg-the camera showing the horrors of Freudstein’s basement, ister.

influenced Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead … without consid-2. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 8.

ering that Raimi’s film was shot between November 979

3. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 296.

and January 980. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei 4. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 8.

generi, 304.

5. According to Fulci, the titular house was a school 14. G. Gs. [Giovanna Grassi], “‘Shining’ italiano,” Cor-for disabled kids owned by a hippie couple. See Schlockoff, riere della Sera, September 8, 98.

“Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,” (982), 2.

15. a.v. [Aldo Viganò], “Nella horror story anche i bam-6. Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan … and bini,” La Stampa, August 8, 98.

Beyond, 4.

16. According to the official Spanish ministerial data, 7. Ibid., 82.

it was seen by 3,23 spectators and grossed an amount 8. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 298.

corresponding to 84,67 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/

9. Ibid.

CatalogoICAA/ Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 622) 10. Ibid., 296.

17. Philippe Ross, “La maison près du cimetière,” La 11. Bruno Maccaron and Patrick Nadjar, “Lucio Fulci: Revue du cinema #368, January 982, 3.

‘Je suis un monstre!’ Le grand retour du maître Italien de 18. Schlockoff, “entretien avec Lucio Fulci” (982), 0.

l’horreur” L’Écran fantastique #6, October 990.

19. Christophe Gans, “La maison pres du cimetière,”

12. Garofalo and De Lillo, “Il cinema del dubbio. InterL’Écran fantastique #22, January 982, 8.

vista a Lucio Fulci,” 9.

20. Ibid., 9.

1982

Amityville II: the Possession

Leonardo Cimino (Chancellor), Danny Aiello D: Damiano Damiani. S: based on the

III (Removal Man ), Gilbert Stafford (Removal novel Murder in Amityville by Hans Holzer; SC: Man 2), Petra Lea (Mrs. Greer), Alan Dellay Tommy Lee Wallace [and Dardano Sacchetti,

(Judge), Martin Donegan (Detective Cortez), uncredited]; DOP: Franco Di Giacomo (Tech-John Ring (Police Chief), Peter Radon (Assistant nicolor); M: Lalo Schifrin; E: Sam O’Steen; PD: Chancellor), Lawrence Bolen (Funeral Director), Pier Luigi Basile; AD: David Ticotin, Aaron Tony Boschetti (Elderly Man in Church), John Basky; C: Daniele Nannuzzi; AC: Stefano Coletta; Clohessey (Police Officer ), Hollis Granville (Po-2ndAC: Crescenzo G.P. Notarile, Francesco lice Officer 2), Frank Patton (Police Officer 3), Damiani; ArtD: Ray Recht; SD: George DeTitta Kim Ornitz (Police Officer 4), Lindsay Hill (Po-Jr.; SPFX: John Caglione, Jr.; AsstSPFX: Stephen lice Officer ), Rudy Jones (Gardener), Todd Dupuis, Ed French, Joe Cuervo; SE: Glen Robin-Jamie (Guest at Birthday Party), Ken Smith son; AsstSE: Gari Zeller; AE: Nicholas Smith, (Prison Doctor). PROD: Ira N. Smith and Lori Bloustein; CO: William Kellard; STC: Vic Stephen R. Greenwald for Dino De Laurentiis Magnotta; PrM: Richard Adee, Wally Adee; KG: Corporation—Giada International (USA); EP: Dennis Gamiello; Dolly grip: John Mazzoni; Con-Bernard Williams; PS: Michael Dryhust; AP: José struction grip: Arne Olsen; Scenic chargeman: López Rodero for Media Technology (Mexico); Richard Hughes; ChEl: Michael Burke; SE: Glen PM: G. MacBrown; GM: Martha Schumacher Robinson; Transportation: Mike Houriman; Hair:

[Martha De Laurentiis], Wendy G. Glickstein, Warner Sherer; W: Rose Triamarco; SO: Neil Fal-Sherri Taffel Brown; PM: G. MacBrown; Location lon; B: Kevin Meehan; SOE: Stan Bochner; Mix: manager: Jeffrey Silver. Country: USA/Mexico.

Kim Ornitz; Casting: Navarro Bertoni; SS: Sheila Filmed in Mexico City. Running time: 02 min-Page. Italian version: Cesare Noia; Dial: Francesca utes (m. 279). Italian visa n. 786 (3.30.983); Marciano; DubD: Mario Maldesi; AsstDub: Maura Rating: V.M.8. Release dates: 9.24.982 (USA), Vespini. Cast: James Olson (Father Adamsky),

..983 (France), 4.8.983 (Italy), .2.983 (Aus-Burt Young (Anthony Montelli), Rutanya Alda tralia), 2.0.984 (West Germany); Distribution: (Dolores Montelli), Jack Magner (Sonny Mon-Orion Pictures (USA), Gaumont (Italy). Domes-telli), Diane Franklin (Patricia Montelli), Antic gross: $ 2,34,87 (USA); Also known as: drew Prine (Father Tom), Moses Gunn (Detec-Amityville Possession (Italy), Amityville II—Der tive Turner), Ted Ross (Mr. Booth), Brent Katz Besessene (West Germany), Amityville II: le pos-

(Mark Montelli), Erica Katz (Jan Montelli), sédé (France).

94 1982: Amityville Note: Ed & Lorraine Warren are credited as ian producer, Dino De Laurentiis, who had re-

“demonology advisors.” Father Thomas Berming-located to the States in the previous decade. In ham is “religious consultant.”

the past, De Laurentiis had tried to involve The Montelli family—father, mother and Italian directors in his productions, most notably four sons—moves to a house in Amityville, in Mario Bava, whom he wanted to direct his 976
the state of New York. The place turns out to be remake of King Kong: Bava notoriously refused, haunted by demonic entities, and soon eerie things not least because of his previous unhappy expe-start happening, such as blasphemous writings on rience with the producer on Diabolik (968).

the wall of the children’s bedroom which prompt The script by Tommy Lee Wallace was an
them to kill their parents. Through the Walkman’s evolution from a pre- existing story by Dardano headphones, the devil talks to the elder son, Sonny.

Sacchetti, L’orco, which Sacchetti had developed A priest, Father Adamsky, suspects the truth, but into a script co- written with Colin Wilson, The can’t do anything to save the family. Incited by Ogre, for De Laurentiis. Damiani’s name was at-Satan, Sonny seduces his sister Patricia and then tached to it as early as 980. “One morning Dino slaughters the whole family. After his arrest, Father told me that the director would be Damiano,”

Adamsky persuades detective Turner to allow him Sacchetti recalled.2 A couple of years earlier the to take Sonny back to the house and perform an scriptwriter and Damiani had worked on a story exorcism on the young man. The demon leaves called Il re della mafia which was left in the Sonny’s body and takes possession of the priest.

drawer, and they were in good terms. When The house is up for sale again…

Damiani showed up in New York for The Ogre, Amityville II: The Possession came
as a surprise to those who were familiar
with Damiano Damiani’s oeuvre, as the
director’s body of work consisted mainly
of socially and politically committed
films which dealt with such themes as

Mafia, terrorism and corruption, often
developed within crime plots which nev-
ertheless were far removed from the typ-
ical genre trappings of the poliziottesco.

Still, in the early 980s Damiani was finding it harder and harder to make
the films he wanted: after the harsh L’avvertimento (980), starring Giuliano

Gemma and Martin Balsam, he made a

2-part TV movie on terrorism, Parole e
sangue, but had to give up to a project
on the hardcore porn film industry, to
be shot in the States and produced by

Dino De Laurentiis. “It was the story of
a porn actress, even though I didn’t want
to shoot any hardcore scene, because I’d
ruin the film completely,” Damiani re-
called. “I met many porn actresses… . I
even paid a visit to the one who did Deep

Throat, Linda Lovelace, and when I was
introduced to the director, Gerard

Damiano, they told me, ‘Mr. Damiano’

and I said, ‘But I’m Damiano, too!’ and
we had a laugh.”

Even though it is an American
production, Amityville II: The Posses-
sion has an Italian core to it, and not

Belgian poster for Amityville II: the Possession (1982, Dami-just because it was financed by an Ital-
ano Damiani).

1982: Amityville 9
he was adamant with Sacchetti that his heart beats her too if she raises her voice to protect wasn’t in it. The two spent lots of time in New their offspring. Such an unhealthy family envi-York doing research for Damiani’s film on the ronment nurtures monsters, and their moving porn industry instead, hoping to convince De to the house in Amityville only brings to the sur-Laurentiis, but eventually the project was shelved, face long- buried issues and awareness.

and the director came back to Italy. He returned Damiani depicts the crescendo that leads
to the States in 982 to shoot The Ogre, which in to the slaughter with enviable lucidity. One the meantime, after several more drafts, had could say that, even if there weren’t any demons turned into Amityville II: The Possession, sold as speaking to Sonny from his headphones, it a prequel to Stuart Rosenberg’s 979 film, The would be only a matter of time before he’d pick Amityville Horror (the Montelli family of Dami-up a gun—that is to say, the tissue of family itself ani’s film standing for the De Feos in the previous is the foundation for evil. In this sense, Damiani’s one). The result, if superficially akin to possession film recalls such predecessors as Bava’s I Wurdalak films and closer to American Gothic, nevertheless and Giorgio Ferroni’s La notte dei diavoli (972), has a personality of its own.

both portrayals of hidebound patriarchal fami-Damiani’s only out- and-out horror film,
lies where repression and violence spawned Amityville II: The Possession dealt with themes tragedy. Here the unresolved issues take the the director had already touched during his ca-form of sibling incest before murder ensues, reer. He had already made a very interesting which gives the result a halo of morbidity akin Gothic in the 960s, La strega in amore, and had to Italian Gothic. Religion is powerless against dealt with the Devil in his 974 film, Il sorriso del it, because Father Adamsky (James Olson) rep-grande tentatore, a thought- provoking allegory resents that very system of Catholic values which set in a convent and starring Glenda Jackson and must prosper to spawn more monsters in its re-Claudio Cassinelli. Still, Damiani—never a self-cesses. It is indeed quite a different environment eulogic filmmaker—hastily dismissed Amityville than the problematic, but ultimately healthy one II: The Possession in interviews. “I followed a of Rosenberg’s film.

script that already existed. It’s a movie that doesn’t The third act is much more conventional
say anything, it just wants to scare people. You and predictable, and the script even throws in might say it’s a silly movie, and certainly I had no an image which combines The Sentinel and The urgency to make it, but it’s not badly made… . Ex-Shining—the deformed damned souls emerging orcism, appearances, diabolical things, it’s stuff I from the extradimensional threshold inside the was never much interested in. When man cannot house, announced by a river of blood on the explain the world by himself, then he invents floor. As the Monthly Film Bulletin reviewer ma-these stupefying things, which become almost a liciously put it, “unable to decide how to finish, consolation.”3

Damiani and Wallace leave all four possible end-However, the director retouched the script ings intact: the uplifting (Sonny, freed, rises up here and there, adding some interesting ele-in a blaze of light), the “it isn’t over: the creature ments. Firstly, the family which falls under the walks among us” (Father Adamsky with undu-curse of the Amityville house and its evil entities lating rubber arms and throat), the ironic (a final is not very happy to start with. As we learn from pull back to the “For Sale” sign), and the apoc-the very opening sequence, the father of the alyptic (a ball of fire engulfs the house). The fact family Anthony Montelli (played by the ever-that they are mutually exclusive doesn’t appear slimy Burt Young, of Rocky fame) is a violent, to have bothered anyone.”4
domineering type who makes life a living hell However, despite the script’s many short-for his wife and four sons. Montelli is the kind comings, the direction is never banal, and some-of patriarchal monster to be found in many ret-times refreshingly inventive. Damiani got to rograde families, the kind Damiani had depicted work with a mainly American crew and cast, but in his grim Sicilian Mafia drama La moglie più some of his key collaborators were Italian, most bella (970): he beats his children with his notably d.o.p. Franco Di Giacomo. “I see this trouser belt, harasses his 8-year-old first- born film in continuous movement,” Damiani told son Sonny (Jack Magner) as if he were a disobe-him. “You know, I’m not familiar with these dient kid whenever he has the chance to, keeps American actors. The moving camera helps me his poor spouse submitted like a slave, forcing a lot to tell the story.” The film does not feature her to have sex with him whenever he likes, and the Steadicam, but the director and Di Giacomo

96 1982: Assassinio employed mainly hand- held camera and dolly bition than to traumatize particularly impres-shots, preferring to capture the disturbing at-sionable viewers.”8
mosphere in long takes and with special effects In the meantime, Damiani had returned to
performed on camera (such as in the chilling se-his favorite themes, and by this time he under-quence shot of an unseen presence that wanders stood the small screen would be the only way at night through the haunted house, or a candle he could develop them the way he wanted. His that won’t extinguish in Sonny’s birthday scene).

TV mini- series on the Mafia, La piovra (984), They devised some remarkable shots, such as was a commercial triumph, with an audience of the one where the camera follows Sonny from be-over  million viewers. It would mark the his-hind, climbs over him and frames him from tory of Italian television indelibly, as well as the ahead, upside- down, before making a 80-degree collective imagination and everyday language.

rotation on its axis and ending on a frontal close-up of the actor—an amazing visual stunt achieved Notes
through a complex combination of a dolly and a 1. Alberto Pezzotta, Regia Damiano Damiani (Udine: revolving device designed by Damiani himself.

Centro Espressioni Cinematografiche—Cinemazero, Di Giacomo recalled that the scene was very dif-2004), 02.

ficult to shoot, and it took at least three takes to 2. Ibid., 30.

achieve the desired effect. It is a testament to a 3. Ibid., 04.

period where bravura shots were the result of 4. Nick Roddick, “Amityville II: The Possession,”

Monthly Film Bulletin #86, November 982.

an attempt to overcome the limitations of tech-5. Pezzotta, Regia Damiano Damiani, 308.

nique: nowadays such a scene would be very 6. Ernesto Baldo, “Ma quel bugiardo di Fellini in Amer-easy to accomplish, thanks to light video ica non c’è mai stato,” La Stampa, January 28, 982.

cameras and post- production digital effects, but 7. M. Po. [Maurizio Porro], “È il Diavolo stereo che rov-ina le famiglie,” Corriere della Sera, April 9, 983. The Polit wouldn’t have the same significance. Here, tergeist connection can be ruled out, however, since Ami-Damiani manages to wonderfully evoke the tyville II: The Possession was shot before Hooper’s film physical weight and consistence of evil. It’s a mo-came out.

ment worthy of Bava, in an otherwise underrated 8. a.v. [Aldo Viganò], “Il posseduto da Satana duella film.

con l’esorcista,” La Stampa, May 24, 983.

Shot mainly in Mexico City for economic
reasons, starting in February 982,6 Amityville Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (The Scor-II: The Possession was released theatrically in pion with Two Tails)

September of that year in the U.S., and reached D: Christian Plummer [Sergio Martino]. S:

Italy only the following year: it was given a Ernesto Gastaldi, Dardano Sacchetti; SC: Ernesto V.M.8 rating “due to the particularly gruesome Gastaldi, Maria Chianetta, Jacques Leitienne; scenes and the theme which might influence DOP: Giancarlo Ferrando (Eastmancolor, LV-negatively adolescent viewers.” Released as Ami-Luciano Vittori); M: Fabio Frizzi (Ed. Clitumno); tyville Possession, it gathered moderately positive E: Eugenio Alabiso, Daniele Alabiso; PD, CO: An-reviews, despite the critics’ bias toward the tonello Geleng; AD: Massimo Manasse, Alain Sens genre. The Corriere della Sera wrote: “Retracing Cazenave; SS: Donatella Botti; C: Fabio Conversi; themes from The Exorcist, but also The Shining AC: Bruno Cascio; SO: Roberto Petrozzi; B: Raf-

(the cascade of blood), Poltergeist (the house was faele De Luca; ACO: Rossana Romanini; W: Stella illicitly built on an Indian cemetery) and Entity, Battista; SP: Giorgio Garibaldi Schwarze; MU: without losing dignity compared with his Amer-Franco Rufini, Giovanni Rufini; Hair: Sergio Gen-ican colleagues, and cunningly mixing sex and nari; PrM: Adriano Tiberi; SE: Paolo Ricci; SPFX: blood… . Damiani manages to accomplish a Sergio Stivaletti; ChEl: Armando Moreschini; KG: spectacular result, even with a stale subject mat-Matteo Giordano; Generator Operator: Egidio ter.”7 La Stampa, even though pointing out that Stiffi; AE: Teresa Negozio; 2nAE: Monica Sabatini,

“one could expect something more from Dami-Silvana Di Legge; Mix: Bruno Moreal. Cast: Elvire ani, a filmmaker of strong civic commitment,”

Audray (Joan Barnard), Paolo Malco (Mike judged the director’s “American vacation” favor-Grant), Claudio Cassinelli (Paolo Dameli), Marilù able, and concluded that the film was “shot skill-Tolo (Countess Maria Volumna), Wandisa Guida fully, well- served by the special effects, well set (Heather Hull), Gianfranco Barra (Police Com-

… played by physically fit actors, it does not fail missioner), John Saxon (Arthur Barnard), Van to grip, although it doesn’t display any other am-Johnson (Mulligan), Mario Cecchi, Franco

1982: Assassinio 97

Garofalo (Gianni Andrucci), Maurizio Mattioli with the help of archaeologist Paolo Dameli, and (Masaccio), Carlo Monni (Giorgio Senaldi), realizes that the murderer is trying to locate a leg-Anita Sagnotti Laurenzi (Prof. Sorensen), endary Etruscan treasure…

Jacques Stany (Nick Forte), Luigi Rossi (Old Sergio Martino’s return to the thriller genre flute player), Nazzareno Cardinali (Maria’s took form as an 8-part TV series, originally Bodyguard), Angela Doria (Hilda), Antonio titled Il mistero degli Etruschi (or Lo scorpione a Maimone (Boss in New York), Fulvio Mingozzi due code) written by Ernesto Gastaldi from a (Customs Officer), Lucia Monaco (Julie), Mario story concocted with Dardano Sacchetti, to be Novelli (Maria’s Bodyguard), Bruno Rosa; un-produced for Turin’s Quartarete TV. It would credited: Bruno Alias (Townsman), Giuseppe be Martino’s first work for the small screen, co-Marrocco (Airplane Passenger), Ettore Martini produced by his brother Luciano’s Dania Film (Archeology Worker), Gennarino Pappagalli and Medusa, who secured also the distribution (Archaeologist), Anna Maria Perego (Elder rights for a theatrical version, put together Woman). PROD: Luciano Martino for Dania
by drastically abridging the 8 parts, each 0

Film (Rome), Medusa Distribuzione (Rome),
minute- long.

Imp.Ex.Ci.Sa. (Niece), Les Films Jacques Leiti-Such a project shows how television was
enne (Paris). PM: Sergio Borelli, Maurizio Pas-gradually taking center stage in the market. As trovich; PS: Francesco Fantacci; PSe: Antonio Martino himself recalled in his memoirs,

Saragò, Alberto Paluzzi, Colette Guedon; ADM: Danilo Martelli, Anna De Pedis. Country: until a few years earlier cinema, especially commer-Italy/France. Filmed on location at Volterra, cial one, didn’t have any outlet on TV, and the few Cerveteri, Formello, New York and at R.P.A.-
movies that were broadcast on State television were Elios Studios (Rome). Running time: 98 minutes either great masterpieces or works of cultural interest. After their theatrical run, movies became (m. 2663); 80 minutes (TV version). Visa n.

like yesterday’s newspaper, that is, wastepaper: no-78090 (9.0.982); Rating: all audiences. Release body thought they would have a future life, nor did dates: 9.7.982 (Italy), .24.982 (Spain), anyone foresee the future of commercial cinema on 8.9.983 (Portugal), 8.24.983 (France); Distri-television. Only a few forward- looking individuals bution: Medusa. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known had imagined a possibility in this sense.2
as: Crime au cimetière étrusque (France), El asesino del cementerio etrusco (Spain), O Escorpião One of these individuals was Silvio Berlusconi, de duas caudas (Portugal), O Mistério etrusco who with his company Fininvest had quickly be-

(Brazil), El asesino etrusco (Mexico).

come the leader of the commercial network mar-Joan Barnard, a young American woman
ket. Berlusconi had secured the TV rights to hun-with parapsychological powers, has recurring dreds of films, thus marking a dramatic change dreams of herself as an Etruscan priestess. Mean-of perspective: from the late 970s onward, people while, her estranged husband, archaeologist were becoming more and more addicted to tele-Arthur Barnard, discovers an Etruscan tomb in vision, not the least because they could comfort-Tuscany, but soon after he is murdered in the ably watch all kinds of movies in their own living same way as the Etruscans killed their sacrificial room, instead of having to take the car, go to a victims, with his neck broken and his head twisted theater, pay a ticket and sit in uncomfortable, backwards. Joan flies to Italy to find out what smelly venues. This meant the beginning of the happened, accompanied by her friend Mike end for second and third- run theaters.

Grant. But the killings continue, and two more Martino assembled a good cast which fea-victims are found with their necks broken. Joan tured Paolo Malco, Claudio Cassinelli, the still and Mike are joined by her father, Mr. Mulligan, ravishing Marilù Tolo, Luciano Martino’s ex-who finances Barnard’s research but is running a wife and former peplum starlet Wandisa Guida drug smuggling ring under the cover of his archae-

(in her last film role), plus a couple of American ology business. Joan locates a secret tomb where has- beens (John Saxon, Van Johnson) in quick Arthur had hidden a crate full of heroin destined

“special participations” and a supporting cast to Joan’s father, but the drug has disappeared. A which included the sleazy- looking Franco Garo-shootout between two rival gangs in the tombs falo as well as Tuscan comedian Carlo Monni ends with most drug traffickers dead, including (who had started as Roberto Benigni’s straight Mulligan. More killings ensue, and Mike is later man in their early appearances as a double act).

found dead in the necropolis. Joan investigates The presence of a French co- producer, Jacques

98 1982: Assassinio Leitienne (who also got a credit, purely for tivity and their capability to see beyond everyday bureaucratic reasons, as co- scriptwriter3) led reality. She is immediately introduced as a to Martino casting a French protagonist, the psychic, and her dreams and visions (starting blonde Elvire Audray, in her first starring role.

with the opening credit sequence, which depicts Audray, who bore a passing resemblance to Ed-a sacrificial rite in an Etruscan tomb) reveal her wige Fenech, would star in several Italian films as the reincarnation of an Etruscan queen and over the next few years, including the hit high priestess (a so- called luchmon). In one of comedy Vado a vivere da solo (982, Marco Risi).

Gothic cinema’s favorite twists, she has the same Shooting went on for four months, on 6mm
features as a woman portrayed in an Etruscan (later blown up to 3mm for the theatrical re-mural painting, who also wears the same neck-lease), on location in Tuscany and partly in the lace (depicting a scorpion with two tails, hence U.S. The director decided to sign the film as the title) which has miraculously saved her life

“Christian Plummer” (the first time he used an in a shootout. Far from being simply a red her-English pseudonym) in order to make the result ring, the supernatural becomes an integral part more commercially viable: the name “Sergio of the story, also by way of a mysterious old man Martino” was by then associated with comedy (Luigi Rossi, best known as the amiable lawyer after the series of amusing farces he had directed who addresses the audience and tell anecdotes since the mid–970s.

about the main characters in Fellini’s Amarcord) The fate of Assassinio al cimitero etrusco who plays the “aulos” (the typical ancient wind was quite different from the one Martino had instrument similar to the flute) and acts as the envisioned while making it. Quartarete TV was link between the past and the present.

attempting to enter the private television market Gastaldi’s script has a field day milking the as a competitor to Fininvest, but eventually its supernatural angle for all it’s worth, and the owners gave up, and the TV series, although scenes set in the Etruscan necropolis, recreated ready for broadcast, was shelved. The theatrical by Antonello Geleng at R.P.A.-Elios studios, have version was distributed earlier than expected, to an endearing fantasy- like quality that evokes the modest box- office (incidentally, the poster by Conan the Barbarian rip- offs made around the Enzo Sciotti recycled the same menacing long-same time (as well as Duccio Tessari’s Tex e il sig-haired, knife- wielding figure from Quella villa nore degli abissi, 98) but they also highlight one accanto al cimitero). In the late 980s the series of the film’s main issues, the attempt of covering was purchased by Reteitalia and reduced to a too many disparate bases in an effort to please

80-minute, two- part version, Lo scorpione a due the mass audience.

code, to be broadcast on Canale . This abridged Despite some good camerawork, the direc-version, reedited by Claudio Lattanzi, was never tion is mostly uninspired, and the story drags aired on Berlusconi’s network and turned up on along confusingly, with a continuing series of local networks over the years. The original neg-plot twists and new characters introduced, in a atives, according to Martino, were damaged.

manner not unlike old- time serials. The fact that If the idea of a mystery related to Etruscan the theatrical version is severely abridged doesn’t tombs recalls Armando Crispino’s giallo, L’etrusco help. At 98 minutes, it drops some subplots com-uccide ancora (972), Sacchetti and Gastaldi’s pletely, such as Joan’s little brother being kid-story blends giallo and supernatural elements in napped by an American drug kingpin, who a way that echoes the Gothic made- for-TV mini-blackmails Joan into recovering the drugs for series of the 970s, such as Il segno del comando him, or Joan and Mike taking a trip to the Ni-and Ritratto di donna velata (the latter also shot agara Falls. The theatrical cut also discards sev-in Volterra).4 The victims are killed with their eral atmospheric sequences, such as photogra-neck snapped and head twisted according to an pher/graverobber Gianni Andrucci (Garofalo) ancient Etruscan curse, but, as one of the char-penetrating a tomb and experiencing aural and acters underlines at one point, nobody remotely visual hallucinations in front of the mural paint-believes in the supernatural explanation, and a ings, and Joan discovering the body of another subplot about heroin smuggling keeps the story graverobber, Senaldi (Monni). On top of that, on a mundane level.

some actors, such as Bruno Di Luia, appear only On the other hand, Joan Barnard has much
in the TV version. In addition to the many cuts, in common with Gothic’s heroines in peril, who the theatrical version featured some differences end up in danger because of their overt sensi-in the dubbing as well: for instance, in the TV

1982: La casa

99

French lobby card for Assassinio al cimitero etrusco, featuring Claudio Cassinelli (center) and elvire Audray (right).

version Claudio Cassinelli dubs himself, whereas gots pop up from the photograph of an Etruscan in the film he is dubbed by Pino Colizzi.

site) fail to inject much- needed frissons. Even Despite the convoluted plot, the mystery
the reliable Fabio Frizzi’s score seems on auto-angle is by- the-numbers, with the villain intro-pilot, to the point that it recycles themes from duced one hour into the film, and turning out Paura nella città dei morti viventi. No wonder to be (in one of Gastaldi’s favorite plot twists: Martino himself regretted having had anything see La morte accarezza a mezzanotte, 972) a po-to do with it, since “it didn’t add anything to my tential love interest for the heroine. On top of career, not even from an economic standpoint.”
that, the climactic revelation is disastrously staged, with the worst case of a dead- man-Notes
apparently-returning-from-the-grave-to-un-

1. There are two original stories signed by Sacchetti and mask-the-murderer ever committed in a giallo.

Gastaldi and deposited at the SIAE archives, Il mistero degli Etruschi (dated January , 982) and Lo scorpione a due The final explanatory monologue includes yet code (dated April 23, 982)

another photographic blow- up that reveals the 2. Sergio Martino, Mille peccati … nessuna virtù?

murderer’s identity (a detail which adds nothing (Milan: Bloodbuster, 207), 78.

to the mystery) and a ludicrous clarification 3. The credits also list Gastaldi’s wife Maria Chianetta as co- scriptwriter, presumably for similar reasons.

about the true nature of one key character (a 4. For an analysis of Ritratto di donna velata, see Curti, covert agent who studied Etruscan archaeology Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970–1979, 222.

to infiltrate a gang of smugglers!).

5. Martino, Mille peccati … nessuna virtù?, 79.

Martino eschews explicit gore, but the few make- up effects (by a young Sergio Stivaletti, La casa stregata (The Haunted House) uncredited) leave a lot to be desired, while the D: Bruno Corbucci. S: Mario Amendola,
odd macabre touches (such as Joan seeing mag-Bruno Corbucci, Mario Cecchi Gori; SC: Mario

00 1982: La casa Amendola, Bruno Corbucci, Enrico Oldoini;
of the full moon. Therefore, Giorgio and Candida’s DOP: Ennio Guarnieri (Technospes); M: Detto attempts to make love are systematically frus-Mariano (Ed. Slalom); E: Daniele Alabiso; PD: trated, often by the intervention of the mysterious Giantito Burchiellaro; ArtD: Bruno Amalfitano; Omar, who is actually the ghost of the two lovers’

CO: Giulia Mafai; AD: Roberto Tatti; SS: Cinzia servant. This results in poor Giorgio suffering Alchimede; C: Renato Ranieri; AC: Maurizio many absurdist accidents. To make matters worse, Fiorentini; 2ndAC: Francesco Damiani; SO: Giorgio’s colleagues are suspicious about the luxu-Benito Alchimede; SP: Giuseppe Botteghi; MA: rious house he lives in, and believe he is in cahoots Rocco Lerro; MU: Alfredo Tiberi, Pierantonio with the criminals who often rob the bank…

Mecacci, Gianfranco Mecacci; APD: Antonia

Renato Pozzetto’s second Gothic spoof

Mirella Rubeo; AE: Brigida Mastrolillo, Marcello after Mia moglie è una strega is a ghost story that Cannone; PROP: Vittorio Troiani; KG: Ennio dealt with the theme of reincarnation and a sec-Picconi; ChEl: Amilcare Cuccoli; Mix: Romano ular curse, declined in an amiably funny way: Pampaloni; SE: Antonio Corridori; W: Clara

“Metempsychosis? Isn’t it some sort of a pneu-Fratarcangeli; Publicist: Francesca De Guida monia?” asks Giorgio (Pozzetto), the unaware Canori. Cast: Renato Pozzetto (Giorgio Allegri), reincarnation of a Saracen warrior turned by his Gloria Guida (Candida Melengo), Lia Zoppelli witch mother- in-law into a pillar of salt together (Anastasia), Yorgo Voyagis (Oscar), Marilda with his beloved and cursed by a thousand- year-Donà (Lucia), Angelo Pellegrino (Elpidio Tom-old spell. The bulk of the movie centers on Gior-masini), Rita Forzano (Allegri’s colleague), Leo gio’s vain attempts to have sex with his virgin fi-Gavero (Bank manager), Angelo Nicotra (Alle-ancée Candida, while the ghost of the warrior’s gri’s colleague), Aldo Ralli (Allegri’s colleague), servant prevents him with all sort of magic Giulia Valli, Fernando Cerulli (Real estate tricks, as the spell will be broken only if she loses agent), Vittorio Ripamonti (Don Alvino), Nicola her virginity on the exact expiration of the thou-Morelli (Albani), Franco Diogene (Dilapidated sand years’ span, on a night of full moon, finally house owner), Tony Scarf [Antonio Scarfone]

releasing the two unfortunate spirits.

(Robber); uncredited: Bruno Corbucci (Veteri-Pozzetto teams up with the gorgeous Gloria narian), Antonio Conte (Bus driver), Mario Do-Guida, in one of her last film appearances before natone (Hotel Concierge), Mimmo Poli (Client retiring from the movie business (that same year at the bank). PROD: Mario Cecchi Gori, Vittorio she starred alongside her husband Johnny Cecchi Gori for Intercapital Films. AP: Achille Dorelli in Dino Risi’s Sesso e volentieri), whereas Manzotti; GM: Mino Barbera; PM: Giandomenico Yorgo Voyagis plays a similar guest star role as Stellitano; PS: Mino Barbera; PSe: Tommaso Pan-Helmut Berger in Mia moglie è una strega. Cor-tano; ADM: Mario Lupi, Danilo Martelli. Country: bucci (who concocted the script with his usual Italy. Filmed on location in Milan, Rome, at Villa collaborator Mario Amendola, and with future Giovanelli- Fogaccia (Rome) and at De Paolis film director Enrico Oldoini) crams the thin plot In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 9 minutes with all the required elements, revisited in a far-

(m. 2630). Visa n. 77630 (3.4.982); Rating: all au-cical way: a Middle- age prologue (set in the eerie diences. Release date: 3.4.982; Distribution:

6th century park of Bomarzo, seen in Il castello Cineriz. Domestic gross: ,483,89,000 lire. Also dei morti vivi), assorted poltergeist manifesta-known as: Das verhexte Haus (East Germany).

tions, flying objects galore, and even a talking Giorgio Allegri, a bank accountant in Milan, Great Dane (who speaks in a Neapolitan accent).

moves to Rome. There, he starts looking for a All this is merged with Pozzetto’s surreal one-house where to move along with his beautiful fi-liners as well as with satirical stabs at contem-ancée Candida (with whom he has not made love porary Italy. A recurring gag has Giorgio and yet), her mother Anastasia, and his Great Dane his colleagues quietly discussing their personal dog Gaetano. He eventually settles in a beautiful affairs while lying on the floor with criminals huge villa outside the city, on the Via Appia, for pointing gun at them, in the middle of some a ridiculous sum. As Giorgio soon finds out, the bank robbery to which they are now totally house is haunted: a thousand years earlier, an accustomed, hinting at the crime wave of the Arab warrior and his lover were caught by the period. On the other hand, Giorgio’s misadven-woman’s mother, who cast a spell on them, tures in search of an apartment where to move turning them into pillars of salt. To break the spell, in Rome, where all houses seem to be either im-Candida must remain a virgin until the first night possibly expensive and/or dilapidated (a funny

1982: Manhattan

0
scene has the landlord showing him a half-grossed almost 900 million lire, ending up at the destroyed flat while magnifying its virtues as if twentieth spot among the top- grossing films of it was a royal palace), recall the basic plot of an the season. That year, two more Pozzetto films, old Totò classic comedy, Totò cerca casa (949, Culo e camicia (98, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Mario Monicelli and Steno).
co- starring Enrico Montesano) and Nessuno è The gags range from the old- hat banana
perfetto (98, Pasquale Festa Campanile, co-peel to absurdist segments: during a bank rob-starring Ornella Muti) ended up respectively at bery, Giorgio gets angry and turns into the In-the fourth and sixth spot, making him Italy’s credible Hulk, in a nod to the TV series starring most popular comedian after Adriano Celen-Lou Ferrigno, then very popular in Italy: the tano.

transformation and Giorgio/Hulk’s feats (such as eradicating a security door from the wall) are Notes
filmed in slow- motion, and exactly mimic the 1. In turn, Totò cerca casa (partly inspired by the comic series. However, the funniest bit has Giorgio and strip La famiglia Sfollatini) featured a side- splittingly funny Candida recreate a typical stag movie situation segment in which Totò and his family move to a new house to fool the ghost and finally have sex: he dresses next to a cemetery where he must be the caretaker, which up as a rude plumber (complete with a Ron Je-resulted in an amusing spoof of horror clichés.

2. A.V. [Aldo Viganò], “La coppia Pozzetto- Guida remy mustache and phony Roman accent) and
perseguitata da un fantasma,” La Stampa, 3 March 982.

she plays the nympho housewife. Too bad the 3. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “Pozzetto e Gloria Guida trick doesn’t work…

con il cane parlante,” Corriere della Sera, 8 March 982.

Critics pointed out the similarities between La casa stregata and Giorgio Capitani’s Bollenti Manhattan Baby (Manhattan Baby, a.k.a.

spiriti, released the previous year, and criticized Eye of the Evil Dead)

Corbucci’s listless direction.2 However, compared D: Lucio Fulci. S and SC: Elisa Livia Brig-with Mia moglie è una strega, Corbucci at least anti, Dardano Sacchetti; DOP: Guglielmo Man-knows how to handle the genre’s visual elements: cori (Eastmancolor, Telecolor); M: Fabio Frizzi an example is the scene where Candida’s severe (Ed. Deaf); E: Vincenzo Tomassi; PD, CO: Mas-mother Anastasia (Lia Zoppelli) is mysteriously simo Lentini; SPFX: Giannetto De Rossi; SPFX: awakened from her sleep and follows a ball of Maurizio Trani; MU: Antonio Maltempo; Hair: wool which eerily rolls across her flat (shown by Luciano Vito; AD: Roberto Giandalia; C: Franco Corbucci through Anastasia’s POV) … only to Bruni; AC: Aldo Marchiori, Adriano Mancori; discover her daughter and her fiancé about to APD: Mariangela Capuano; PrM: Rodolfo Ruzza; make love. Not only the Gothic elements, un-AE: Pietro Tomassi, Rita Antonelli; SP: Franco Bel-changed, are systematically turned to parody, but lomo; ChEl: Franco Brescini; KG: Ennio Brizzolari; even the uncanny combination of time and space W: Maria Spigarelli; Set Technicians: Fabio Traver-lends itself to be reinvented into a gag. In a scene, sari, Roberto Pace; SO: Eros Giustini; B: Guglielmo Giorgio and Candida flee the title’s haunted man-Smeraldi; Mix: Bruno Moreal; SS: Rita Agostini; sion and take refuge in a hotel on the coast; but DubD: Pino Colizzi. Cast: Christopher Connelly upon entering their room they find themselves (Prof. George Hacker), Martha Taylor [Laura again inside the villa, in a spatial short circuit Lenzi] (Emily Hacker), Brigitta Boccoli (Susie that recalls those to which the main characters Hacker), Giovanni Frezza (Tommy Hacker), of Operazione paura and Danza macabra fall vic-Cinzia de Ponti (Jamie Lee), Laurence Welles tim.

[Cosimo Cinieri] (Adrian Marcato), Andrea Bosic The movie underwent minor tampering in

(Eye doctor), Carlo De Mejo (Luke), Enzo Marino order to receive an “all audiences” rating: pro-Bellanich (Wiler), Mario Moretti (Tennant), Lucio ducer Vittorio Cecchi Gori agreed to eliminate Fulci (Dr. Forrester), Tonino Pulci (Orderly); un-a few lines of dialogue featuring four- letter credited: Martin Sorrentino (Caretaker). PROD: words, for an amount of six seconds—further Fabrizio De Angelis for Fulvia Film (Rome). PM: evidence of the ongoing taming of comedies in Palmira De Negri; PS: Paolo Gargano; PSe: Luca order for them to be accessible to younger au-Santolini; ADM: Otello Tomassini. Country: Italy.

diences and be more commercially viable to the Filmed on location in Egypt, New York and at De general public. Nevertheless, some critics com-Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: plained about Pozzetto’s foul language, “repeti-89 minutes (m. 244). Visa n. 7808 (8.0.982); tive to the point of boredom.”3 La casa stregata Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: 8.2.982 (Italy),

02 1982: Manhattan

..982 (Spain), 7.2.983 (Australia), 7.27.984

984). But this time the director had a new (USA); Distribution: Fulvia Films (Italy), 2st

“blonde in peril,” Laura Lenzi (billed as “Martha Century Corporation (USA). Domestic gross: Taylor”) replacing Catriona MacColl. As with 409,424,67 lire. Also known as: The Possessed Quella villa accanto al cimitero, the story featured (UK), La malédiction du pharaon (France), a couple of kids, played by Giovanni Frezza, in Amulett des Bösen (West Germany), L’ensorcelée his second and last Fulci film, and Brigitta Boc-

(Canada).

coli (who became a noted showgirl together with Cairo, Egypt. The young Susie Hacker, daugh-her sister Benedicta) in a role originally devised ter of archaeologist George Hacker, is given a mys-for Silvia Collatina. Fulci never got along with terious medallion by a blind old woman. Meanwhile Brigitta and her domineering mother, who fol-George explores a tomb of an Egyptian evil deity lowed her on the set, and with his usual mor-called Abnubenor, which results in the death of dacity he nicknamed the girl “la nana” (the his assistant and in him being blinded by a ray of midget).

blue light. Back in New York, while George slowly The script retained at Rome’s CSC, titled
recovers his sight, Susie and her younger brother L’occhio del male and dated February , 982, is Tommy experience strange phenomena and a series very similar to the finished film but with several of gruesome deaths ensue, which involve their build-interesting differences, most notably the absence ing’s caretaker, a journalist friend named Luke, the of the blind sorceress who gives Susie the medal-kids’ babysitter Jamie Lee, and Hacker’s colleague lion (we see Emily losing sight of her daughter Wiler. George and his wife Emily ask for the help of in the crowded Cairo market, then finding her antique dealer/occultist Adrian Marcato, who tells again with the girl already donning the pendant), them that Susie’s medallion is a powerful talisman and a different ending: in the script, George re-which unleashes the forces of evil. Marcato exorcises turns to the pyramid to defeat the millennial evil Emily, but in turn he falls victim to the curse of Ab-entity.

nubenor. At the end, the blind old woman passes on The Egyptian framework, however, was not
the medallion to another girl…

in Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti’s original The last movie Fulci shot for Fabrizio De
story, about a girl who has the gift of ubiquity Angelis’ Fulvia Film marked a departure from and is able to travel into different dimensions the ultra- gory style of his previous works and during her sleep, pushing her astral body into was an attempt at a more subdued and ambitious the beyond; her travels become more and more Gothic horror story. Manhattan Baby was ini-physical, as the girl brings back objects from the tially conceived as the most expensive film of otherworld; in doing so, she turns into an in-the lot, with many special electronic effects: in strument for obscure entities to reach our own a way, it was an effort on the part of De Angelis reality. In a way, Sacchetti was referencing to win a more mainstream audience. But the L’aldilà, while at the same time exploring the project underwent drastic budget cuts (from 800

Henry James–like quality of Quella villa accanto million lire to about 400, according to Dardano al cimitero (something which the finished film Sacchetti), and the downsizing weighed heavily somehow retains, starting with the two children on the result. Shooting took place between at its core). It was De Angelis who insisted on March 8 and the end of April 982, partly on lo-adding the Egyptian framework, and the theme cation in and around Cairo, then in New York of the ancient curse (by way of the evil god Aband finally at the familiar De Paolis studios, for nubenor) because, according to the scriptwriter, the interior scenes. During the New York shoot-

“he didn’t know what an astral body was, and ing, De Angelis had also another crew filming was afraid that the audience wouldn’t understand second unit work for Enzo Castellari’s 1990—I it either.”2 After the producer’s intervention, the guerrieri del Bronx, a project the producer likely starting point (an archaeologist’s daughter pos-cared more about, and whose success would sessed by an Egyptian spirit) recalls Mike pave the way for another successful filone.

Newell’s The Awakening (980), based on Bram The cast comprised a few recurring Fulci

Stoker’s story Jewel of the Seven Stars, released actors, such as Carlo De Mejo and Cosimo in Italy in February 98, which had been a mod-Cinieri: the latter, already seen in Lo squartatore est success in the country thanks to the presence di New York, would turn up again in I guerrieri of Charlton Heston (Fulci even cast a Heston dell’anno 2072 and, as Lieutenant Borges, in lookalike of sorts, Christopher Connelly, for the Murderock—Uccide a passo di danza (both role of the archaeologist).

1982: Manhattan

03

Manhattan Baby opens with a quote attrib-
death” in Damien: Omen II (978, Don Taylor), uted to H.P. Lovecraft, “Il mistero non è attorno to the point of making the victim a black man.

alle cose, ma dentro le cose stesse.” (Mystery is The opening in the Egyptian tomb with its dan-not around things, but within things them-gerous devices and traps vaguely recalls Raiders selves.) That said, there is little of the world of of the Lost Ark (and Connelly would later star the Providence writer in Manhattan Baby be-as an Indiana Jones–type in a couple Italian rip-sides the notion of a powerful evil harking from offs of Spielberg’s film, namely Ruggero De-centuries back and ready to be unleashed in odato’s I predatori di Atlantide and Antonio today’s world. The opening sequences set in Margheriti’s La leggenda del rubino malese, re-Egypt sweep away the Lovecraftian and Chris-leased respectively in 983 and 98), but the tian references of the previous films and replace death of the archaeologist’s guide evokes also them with nods to Oriental religions, including the director’s own Black Cat. On the other hand, the use of the “Eye of Horus” (a symbol of pro-Fulci’s film does not, as some have surmised,4
tection, royal power and good health) as the cat-draw from Poltergeist, as the latter was only re-alyst of evil through the medallion which is the leased in the U.S. the following November.

starting point for a series of horrific events.

As in L’aldilà, the film makes ample use of On the other hand, Kim Newman points
animals (scorpions, snakes, birds) as agents of out a couple of additional interesting literary horror. The scene where sorcerer Adrian Mar-references, as the film “retreats into childhood cato—a name which nods to Polanski’s Rose-fantasies derived from C.S. Lewis and Ray Brad-mary’s Baby, also referenced by the Italian title bury (The Veldt) as the nursery becomes a and vaguely hinted at through the medallion children- only limbo into which adults venture given to the protagonist, which recalls the tannis at the risk of their lives.”3 Whether Sacchetti was root necklace Minnie Castevet gives Rose-aware of this or not, the Bradbury reference pro-mary—is attacked and killed by his stuffed birds vides a stronger nod to literary Gothic. His 90
was a last- minute addition to the script (origi-story The Veldt—adapted for the screen as part nally, Marcato had his skull transfixed against of The Illustrated Man (969) and inspiring the an iron bar, while escaping from a wolf that had Mr. Tiger episode in the 973 Amicus horror materialized in the room).

anthology Tales that Witness Madness—is an The most obvious antecedent to the scene
example of Bradbury’s employment of Gothic is The Birds, but Fulci dismissed the reference tropes within a sci- fi setting, to unsettling (“It’s not Hitchcock, the birds here are stuffed”) results. In addition, Newman acutely underlines and claimed that he liked the idea that the char-one of Manhattan Baby’s central motifs, the in-acter would be “killed by the animals that he sistence on the horrors of childhood and their forced to stay around him.” The use of editing detachment from the world of the adults. In one and suspense also draws from L’aldilà (the spider of the most unnerving scenes (and a key one in scene), but another less- explored, surprising order to grasp the story), Hacker and his wife analogy, quite possibly unbeknownst to the di-are at their little girl’s bedside while Susie is ap-rector himself, can be found in a similar se-parently experiencing some terrible nightmare, quence in Jess Franco’s Count Dracula (970), screaming and trembling; in the next bed her where the stuffed animals in the house rented brother Tommy—indifferent to the situation by Dracula near the clinic come to life and attack and calmly reading a comic book version of Jaws Harker and Quincey Morris (a scene conceived (97), in one of Fulci’s typical ironic touches—
by Franco during shooting). Fulci claimed that says there’s nothing to worry about, as “Susie al-Marcato’s death was his favorite bit in the movie, ways screams when she goes on a voyage” and and “among the best sequences I have ever adds, “it’s part of the rules. The game she in-filmed,”6 despite the all- too-obvious sight of vented.”

wires guiding the birds in some shots (the In addition to this, the film assembles the special effects crew used fishing rods and nets usual array of references to other movies, in an to make the birds “fly”).

even more complex and cannibalistic layering Even though Manhattan Baby has its share
than Fulci’s previous works. Take, for instance, of gruesome effects, the gore is not nearly as co-the nod to The Exorcist, which climaxes in the pious as in Fulci’s previous horror films. The di-medical examination scenes, or the elevator se-rector prefers to create a constantly unnerving quence modeled upon an infamous “creative
mood, and his obsession with eyes here reaches

04 1982: Manhattan American lobby card for Lucio Fulci’s Manhattan Baby (1982), released in the U.s. as eye of the evil Dead, featuring a moment of the climactic bird attack on occultist Adrian Marcato (Cosimo Cinieri).

a peak: a good part of the story is characterized Susie’s fingers in one of the opening scenes, in by extreme close- ups on corneas and pupils the film’s most iconic image. Quite often, the (sometimes opaque and blind, like those of viewer is lost among unexplained events and Emily in L’aldilà), and the “Eye of Horus” also gropes in the dark just like Christopher Con-acts as a red thread throughout the film. Even nelly’s character. How can it be, for instance, that circular elements that recall the eyes take center no one asks what happened to the character stage, as the pulsating lights in the elevator se-played by Carlo De Mejo, who disappears with quence. The Scope format is thus compressed no trace from the children’s bedroom and turns and saturated to the point of imploding with up dead among the sands of a desert which re-such details, and the camera almost becomes a calls the desolate lands of L’aldilà? The potential speculum, trying to zoom into the impenetrable.

of Sacchetti’s elliptical ideas is evident, but at the Formally, Fulci masters his use of space, jumping same time one has the feeling of a botched script from long shots to extreme close- ups with sug-that, possibly due to the last- minute rewrites and gestive results, especially in the Egyptian se-patch- ups, ultimately goes nowhere. Fabio quences; moreover, the use of fade- to-whites Frizzi’s score (again featuring Goblin members creates an intriguing atmosphere of dread, re-Agostino Marangolo, Fabio Pignatelli and Mau-lated to dazzling light (which illuminates things rizio Guarini) recycles themes from Paura nella but can also make one blind).

città dei morti viventi and L’aldilà, enhancing Still, the result just doesn’t quite gel. Overall, the feeling of sloppiness. As the composer ex-Manhattan Baby is a somewhat undecipherable plained, the director rejected one of the tracks film, with a story that often eludes the viewer’s (Baby sequenza 1, which can be found in the comprehension like the sand escaping between original soundtrack) as he thought it was too

1982: Notturno

0

“flirtatious,” “and so, in order not to make me Argento had failed, and the producer was mov-waste more time, we used the best from L’aldilà’s ing on to new territories and trends, like a surfer score.”7 Fulci, who was always dismissive toward looking for the following wave to catch: the First the film, claimed he liked the melancholic sax-Blood rip-offs would be next, and De Angelis ophone theme which accompanies the scenes of himself made his debut behind the camera with New York at dawn: “The sax solo music is more Thunder (983). As for Fulci, his association with or less the one you can really listen to day and Di Clemente resulted in Conquest (983), an am-night through the streets of New York, played bitious Conan the Barbarian-inspired fantasy by wanderers and bums.”8
yarn with plenty of horrific elements which was Despite his care for atmosphere, Fulci an embarrassing box- office bomb, grossing less failed to give the film an incisive pacing. Even than 00 million lire. The decline had started, though it is mainly focused on visual analogies and the director’s following films of the early to and symbols, and would- be iconic images nicely mid–Eighties would be as many efforts to get on rendered by Guglielmo Mancori’s photography, the bandwagon of such diverse genres as the Manhattan Baby drags along to a less- then-post- apocalyptic (I guerrieri dell’anno 2072), the satisfying circular ending, a sign that this time giallo, spiced with references to the dance movie the director didn’t care enough for the material.

thread spawned by Flashdance (Murderock—Uc-Fulci claimed that he shot Manhattan Baby to cide a passo di danza), and the morbid erotic

“get him [De Angelis] out of my balls,”9 but he drama (Il miele del diavolo, 986).

was paid 40 million for the film, the highest Manhattan Baby was picked up for distri-salary that De Angelis ever gave him: Sacchetti bution overseas in 984 by 2st Century Distri-recalled that during filming the director took a bution, as Eye of the Evil Dead, but it was trip to Cannes, where producer Giovanni Di released theatrically only in 986 to little success.

Clemente—who behaved like a tycoon, unlike In the U.K. it was released directly on video in the thrifty De Angelis—hired him to make Con-

983, as Possessed.

quest, offering him 90 million lire, and upon his return Fulci’s mind was somewhere else.0

Notes

Manhattan Baby came out on August 2,

1. Reported in Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei

982, in a venue in Rivabella, on the Romagna generi, 34. Thrower reports March 22 as starting date coast, marking the seventh Fulci film released (Thrower, Beyond Terror, 20).

theatrically in Italy in two years (Luca il contra-2. Davide Pulici, “Manhattan Baby,” www. nocturno. it (http://www.nocturno.it/manhattan-baby/).

bbandiere being released on August 8, 980).

3. Newman, Nightmare Movies, 29.

Italian critics pointed out the similarities with 4. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 3.

The Exorcist and called the story “unconvincing 5. Garofalo and De Lillo, “Il cinema del dubbio. Inter-and rather predictable,” although some noted vista a Lucio Fulci,” 9.

the director’s “usual—and even more refined—

6. Salza, “Le retour de Lucio Fulci.”

7. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 27.

technical skills.” But most reviewers still dis-8. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 49.

missed Fulci as a hack. In the Corriere della Sera, 9. Garofalo and De Lillo, “Il cinema del dubbio. Inter-Leonardo Autera launched a scathing comparvista a Lucio Fulci,” 9.

ison: “They say that Lucio Fulci, the director, is 10. Pulici, “Manhattan Baby.”

11. A.V. [Aldo Viganò], “Terrore in casa dell’archeologo,”

the most gifted heir in the “Italian horror” genre, La Stampa, August 26, 982.

of the late Mario Bava. But there is a substantial 12. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “Quella pietra blu combina difference: Bava knew how to follow Poe’s lesson disastri,” Corriere della Sera, August 23, 982.

that even the absurd must have an inner logic; Fulci, instead, navigates in the most absolute ar-Notturno con grida (Nocturne with Screams) bitrariness, the kind not even the old- time D: Vittorio Salerno, Ernesto Gastaldi. S and

“Grand-guignol” would have dared.”2

SC: Ernesto Gastaldi, Vittorio Salerno; DOP: The film was distributed by Fulvia Film it-Benito Frattari, Marco Frattari (Eastmancolor, self, which possibly influenced its negative com-Telecolor); M: Severino Gazzelloni, conducted mercial impact in Italy. With a little more than by Luciano Michelini (Ed. Eter); E: Dario Spac-400 million lire grossed, it was a box- office dis-capeli; ArtD, CO: Amarilli Gastaldi; SO: Luciano appointment, and marked the end of the direc-Muratori; Mix: Adriano Taloni; El: Mario Loris tor’s stint with De Angelis. The attempt at estab-Zamariola; SS: Giuseppina Gastaldi; PA: Nino lishing Fulci as the box- office rival of Dario Vendetti. Cast: Mara Maryl [Maria Chianetta]

06 1982: Notturno (Brigitte Benoit), Gerardo Amato (Gerard), Alan part looked like the scaly back of a prehistoric Collins [Luciano Pigozzi] (Paul Benoit), Gioia beast, set his imagination on fire. “What if that Maria Scola [Gioia Maria Tibiletti] (Sheena), gigantic stone coming from a distant past had Franco Molè (Christian Coreau), Martine some form of mysterious life, I thought, some Brochard (Eileen). PROD: Welcome Films and magic, occult power?”2 That night Salerno stood Television Coop. (Rome). PM: Armando Govoni.

up thinking about that “petrified beast” and Country: Italy. Filmed on location in and around came up with a story about five characters who Soriano nel Cimino (Viterbo). Running time: 94
hate each other and get lost in the woods. They minutes (m. 280). Visa n. 789 (9.29.982); are attracted by the mysterious rock, which beRating: V.M.4. Release date: 0.2.982; Distri-comes “the amplifier of their bad desires, their bution: Samanda Film. Domestic gross: approx.

projects of mutual duplicity … and mysteriously, 200,000 lire. Also known as: La fuerza del de-no one will get out of the woods alive.”3
monio (Spain).

Salerno discussed the idea with his friend A medium, Brigitte, her husband Paul and

Ernesto Gastaldi, who suggested they provide their friends Gerard, his fiancée Eileen and their the protagonists with a background; hence the young acquaintance Sheena organize a séance.

idea of reusing the same characters from their They evoke the spirit of Christian—who was debut giallo, Libido (96), and turn the project killed ten years earlier in the same room and into a sequel of sorts to that film. To gather the whose body disappeared—to find out who is the necessary financing, they resorted to article 28
murderer. In a couple of days Christian will be of the 96 “Corona law” (Law 23, 4 November declared officially dead and all his fortune will be

96), which allowed the State to finance up to inherited by his ex- wife Eileen. The next morning 30 percent of the budget of films with cultural the party of five takes a trip in the nearby beech-or artistic aspirations in which the cast and crew wood, which Eileen and Gerard plan to cut down participated in the cost of the production.

to build an exclusive residential center. Soon, Article 28 had been scarcely used in the 960s however, they fall prey to strange events. Mean-and 970s, but after the economic crisis became while, we learn the characters’ secrets: Sheena and more severe with the new decade, more and Gerard are lovers and plan to kill Eileen after the more filmmakers started using it as a shortcut wedding to gain her wealth, while Paul (an ex-to put together their films, and it became a staple seminarian) and Brigitte also have unspeakable in Italian film production in the Eighties. It was skeletons in their past. One by one they fall victim originally intended as a loan, but very rarely did to supernatural forces, and Gerard becomes con-any of the films financed with it turn a profit.

vinced that Brigitte is a witch…

Over the years, article 28 lost its initial purpose

“It was 980 and I hadn’t shot a single foot (that is, being a special resource for debuting of film in five years. I went hunting woodcocks filmmakers who were developing artistic inno-on the Cimini mountains near Viterbo,” Vitto-vative work) and became the main source of fi-rio Salerno recalled about the genesis of Not-nance for Italian cinema, along with television.

turno con grida. “At about noon I came back to In order to have access to the 60 million
my car … and took a walk in the beechwood
lire granted by the Ministry of Spectacle, Gastaldi with my dog.” The ninety- feet tall, imposing and Salerno came up with an ingenious trick: beeches had been there for centuries, and they submitted the project to the Ministry under covered an area of over 6 hectares. Salerno the title La coscienza, pretending it to be some strolled around the woods and came upon the sort of avant- garde psychological drama. After so- called “trembling stone.” It is an enormous obtaining the financing, they founded a coop-millenarian oval stone of volcanic origin, of 90
erative together with the actors, and established cubic meters, 8 meters long, 7 meters wide and their fees as quotas on the distribution grosses.

3 meters thick, weighing 20 tons and balanced The cast included Gastaldi’s wife Maria Chion a very narrow base. It can be made to vibrate anetta under her a.k.a. Mara Maryl, their friend by prying under it with stick used as a lever.

Luciano Pigozzi, who had already starred in Li-Because of this peculiarity, Pliny the Old de-bido, plus only three more actors: the French fined it “naturae miraculum” (natural wonder) Martine Brochard, Michele Placido’s brother Gerin his book Naturalis historia.

ardo Amato (with whom Salerno had worked the Salerno was dumbfounded. The sight of
previous summer on a stage adaptation of Gio-that imposing and sinister rock, whose upper vanni Verga’s novelette La lupa directed by his

1982: Notturno

07
brother, Enrico Maria), and the young and rav-bodiment of the protagonists’ dirty conscience ishingly beautiful Gioia Maria Scola.

(Salerno’s interpretation is that in the end he is Notturno con grida was shot in three weeks possessed by the Devil).

and a half in April 982, on 6mm and with The supernatural element, which is pre-direct sound, under the working title La forza dominant in the film from the very opening del male (The Force of Evil). The two directors séance sequence, makes Notturno con grida a worked with a bare- bones crew, comprising only late addition to the Gothic thread, presented in the five actors and four technicians: d.o.p. and a minimalistic way and with very sparse special cameraman Benito Frattari (who had shot Ja-effects. Some reviewers have noticed similarities copetti’s Africa addio and Gastaldi’s own La with The Blair Witch Project (999, Daniel Myrick, lunga spiaggia fredda), his nephew Marco as as-Eduardo Sánchez) and not just because of the sistant cameraman, a sound technician and a eerie subjective shots in the woods (surprisingly boom man, plus a handyman (provided for free akin to those in Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, which by the mayor of Soriano nel Cimino) who however was released in Italy only in 984). Like helped the 60-year-old d.o.p. carry the heavy in the 999 film, the characters get lost in the crate with the camera and the accessories. To woods and cannot find their way out, and space cut costs, Gastaldi and Salerno took care of all and time coordinates seem to lose significance—
the other technical duties. As for lighting, the a recurrent theme in Italian Gothic. Paul’s watch filmmakers used mostly natural lights, taking stops, a wound in his hand reopens, the protago-advantage of the peculiar illumination of the nist’s car disappears from its parking place, an area. Only a flash was used for close- ups. The apple appears out of nowhere next to Brigitte as experience of working with two directors at once if thrown by an invisible hand, a book of Latin ex-was not particularly satisfying for Brochard, orcisms is found.

who complained: “One day you shoot with one Gastaldi and Salerno incorporate sepia-director and he tells you one thing, the next day toned footage from Libido in the story, liberally the other tells you the opposite… . ”4
altering the previous film’s plot: for instance, the Given the tiny budget, it’s no wonder that characters of Paul and Eileen, who were mur-Notturno con grida relies so heavily on dialogue dered in the first film, here are revived via that it almost looks like a play of sorts, recalling clumsy expository dialogue. Paul, who in Libido in this some of Gastaldi’s earlier works as a fell from a cliff to his death, here explains that scriptwriter. His trademark snappy dialogue the apparently deadly fall resulted only in his here is filled with grim jokes and one- liners, legs being broken, a decidedly hard- to-swallow which in the case of Maryl’s typical airhead per-plot contrivance. Some scenes from the 96
formance often sound grating, such as when she film were interpolated with footage shot in 982
quips, “But what was Pliny the Old’s name when and toned sepia, featuring Maryl and Pigozzi, he was young?” The overall mood conveys a
the former carefully lit to conceal the age differ-pessimistic vision of humanity, with five despi-ence. Gastaldi and Salerno also added similicable characters doomed to self- destruction, tudes with the first film: in the climax, Maryl is who are deservedly punished for their sins.

tied spread- eagle to a rock just as in Libido she Brigitte herself, a psychic whom the others was tied to a bed.

believe to be a witch, is a typical character in For a film whose literal title (Nocturne with Gastaldi’s scripts, a mixture of naiveté and nas-Screams) hints at Chopin’s solo piano pieces tiness, childishness and greed, while Paul and (Nocturnes), it was no wonder the directors de-Gerard are weak male figures who end up decided to invest the 3 million lire they had been feated by their own schemes and fears. “Do you left with after post- production in the music believe in life after death?” someone asks, and score. The choice fell on Severino Gazzelloni, the reply is: “The darkness before is the same as the world’s best- known flautist: in Salerno’s the darkness that follows. Before we are born idea, a flute- driven score would suggest the god and after we die, it’s the same.” Yet someone Pan and enhance the film’s peculiar eerie mood.

returns from the afterlife: Christian (a special Gazzelloni accepted: he composed the main participation by playwright Franco Molè, theme and improvised the rest on the spot, while Brochard’s husband, in the role played by Gian-watching the film. He completed his work in six carlo Giannini in Libido), a supernatural avenger hours, coming up with about one hour of im-from the grave who may or may not be an emprovised, dodecaphonic music. The soundtrack

08 1982: La villa includes also a couple of themes taken from Lu-villa, two men and a woman kill each other in an ciano Michelini’s score for Morte sospetta di una unexplained murderous frenzy. 22 years later, at-minorenne (97).

torney Ugo Ressia and his associate Casati sum-The profits Salerno and Gastaldi hoped to
mon the heirs for the reading of the will. The three see never materialized. Notturno con grida was heirs are affiliated with each other but are located barely distributed, at a time most second and outside Turin. Elisa is in Paris, her cousin Bruno third run theaters were being replaced by red lives in Rome with his wife Sonia and Bruno’s light cinemas, and was screened virtually only brother Tony resides in Istanbul. Upon reading in Soriano nel Cimino, the village near its main the will, Elisa, Bruno and Tony find out that they filming location, with a total gross of only have inherited the huge family villa located in the 200,000 lire. It soon found its way to home hills, but on one condition: they must live together video, on the General Video label, but it was sold in the property and are not allowed to sell it. As in Spain as well, where it came out on VHS as soon as they move to their new home, a series of La fuerza del demonio.

chilling events begin to overwhelm the family: the two brothers have arguments, Elisa receives warn-Notes
ing messages from her dead mother, Sonia is killed 1. Davide Comotti and Vittorio Salerno, Professione regin a car accident, and Bruno sets his eyes on Elisa.

ista e scrittore (Salerno: Booksprint, 202), 8.

Ressia’s secretary Martha, a student of black 2. Ibid.

magic, suspects that Casati might be involved in 3. Ibid.

the events. She alerts Ressia, but the man is mys-4. Ippoliti and Norcini, “Una favola chiamata cinema.

Intervista a Martine Brochard,” 37.

teriously killed. Eventually it turns out that the 5. Comotti and Salerno, Professione regista e scrittore, sinister elderly caretaker is the key to the mys-62.

tery…

Born in Messina in 938, Carlo Ausino left La villa delle anime maledette—the

Sicily in 960 and moved to Turin with a pro-Damned (House of the Damned, a.k.a.

jectionist license in his pocket and the dream of Don’t Look in the Attic)

making movies in his head. “Take the story of D: Carlo Ausino. S and SC: Carlo Ausino;

Cinema Paradiso, set it in Turin and here’s the DOP: Carlo Ausino (Staco Film); M: Stelvio story of my life. For me, cinema was everything.

Cipriani (Ed. CAM); E: Giuliano Mattioli; Even nowadays, if I don’t watch at least two films C: Giuseppe Lino; MU: Lucia La Porta; Hair: a week, I’m not well,” he explained. “As a kid I Giusy- Pietro Pennisi; SS: Vera Marchivi; W: used to sell the milk bottles which I’d stolen Claudia Amione; KG: Salvatore Schiavo: PM: from my mother to get the money to go to the Gregorio Cardone, Corrado Colecchia; ChEl: movies. I collected the frames that projectionists Lello Roppolo; SO: Claudio Chiossi; Mix: Ro-threw in the trash, turned them into slides and mano Checcacci. Cast: Beba Loncar [Desanka projected them to my five sisters, my very first Lončar] (Martha), Jean- Pierre Aumont (Ugo audience. According to what I had found I in-Ressia), Annarita Grapputo (Elisa Bruino/Elisa’s vented the story, of which I was of course the mother), Giorgio Ardisson (Casati), Paul The-main character.”
isheid [Teitcheid] (Caretaker), Tony [Tonino]

In Turin Ausino saw his dream come true.

Campa (Tony Ferraro), Fausto Lombardi (Bruno He was an uncredited assistant on the set of Ferraro), Ileana Fraia (Sonia), Remo Vercellin, Mario Monicelli’s masterpiece I compagni (963) Benedetto Mocellin, Victor Bally, Mimmo Mor-and eventually he became a director himself. In leo, Attilio Cagnoni, Sandro Zambito, Mario De

969 he made his feature film debut, the black-Gregorio, Michele Malla, Amelia Vercellino, En-and-white World War II drama L’ora della pietà, rico Slataper, Renzo Gobello, Enzo Zamunner.

shot in 6mm and starring Emanuel Cannarsa, PROD: Michele Peyretti and Carlo Ausino for who would be one of his recurring actors. As Antonelliana Cinematografica (Turin); PM: Nun-with his following works, Ausino was the direc-zia Ausino. Country: Italy. Filmed on location in tor of photography as well. During that period, Turin and at Icet- De Paolis (Milan). Running time: he also worked as a cameraman for RAI’s news-84 minutes (m. 2243). Visa n. 77660 (4..982); reels and reportedly brought a more dynamic Rating: V.M.4. Release date: .4.982; Distribution: style to his reports.

Cinevinci (regional). Domestic gross: n.a.

Ausino’s body of work is an example of re-

Turin, 1955. On a stormy night, in a hillside gional cinema, conceived and produced far from

1982: La villa

09

Italy’s main production center, Rome: all his Paul Theicheid, was cast in the key role of the films were set and shot within the boundaries villa’s elderly caretaker.

of the director’s adoptive city. After failing to Shooting started on June 9, 980, under
complete Improvvisamente, un giorno, a love the working title La stirpe dei dannati (The story starring Vittorio De Sica and Marisa Soli-Damned)4 and went on for four weeks, widely nas and set “in the last days of humanity, before publicized in the Turin- based newspaper La an atomic conflagration … to underline the in-Stampa. The film had its premiere screening in dividuals’ solitude in a hostile society,”2 Ausino Turin only over one year later, on September 30, helmed the similarly- themed La città dell’ultima

98, under the title La villa delle anime dannate
paura, starring Cannarsa and Solinas, a sci- fi (in the meantime, another Ausino movie had drama about a speleologist who survives a nu-come out, the ambitious film noir Tony l’altra clear apocalypse that destroys human life in faccia della Torino violenta, released in Turin in Turin, inspired by the I Am Legend adaptation The Omega Man (97, Boris Sagal). The director claimed that the scenes in the deserted city (shot early in the morning without permits, blocking traffic temporarily) exuded a genuine sense of dread, but we have to rely on his word: shot over the course of two years, La città dell’ultima paura won the second prize at the 97 Trieste Science Fiction Film Festival but was not distributed theatrically. The same fate occurred to the elusive Prima che il sole tramonti (976), another sci- fi themed work about an alien invader, again starring Cannarsa and Solinas, which was never even submitted to the rating board. The director’s following work, the crime flick Torino violenta (a.k.a. Double Game, 977)—shot with a low budget of 60
million lire to cash in on the poliziottesco fever of the period and finally find a regular distribution—was an unexpected hit in Italy and was rumored to be head of Fiat Gianni

Agnelli’s favorite film.

Ausino’s first horror movie, La villa delle anime maledette, was born almost by chance, as he struck a deal with a French distributor, Felix Film, which would allow him to use
some moderately famous actors for a limited period, in the early Summer of 980. The director cranked out the script in a couple of weeks3 and the project took form: he could count on the French Jean- Pierre Aumont, the Yugoslav beauty Beba Loncar, and former Eu-rospy star Giorgio Ardisson. Despite being billed fourth in the credits, the true lead was ex- model Annarita Grapputo, who had
debuted in Carlo Lizzani’s Storie di vita e malavita (a.k.a. The Teenage Prostitution Racket, 97) and had been the female lead in Torino violenta. For both Loncar and Grapputo, it would be the last movie role.

Italian locandina for La villa delle anime maledette Another recurrent presence in Ausino’s films, (1982, Carlo Ausino).

0 1982: La villa May 98). However, proper distribution was to be believed, with such exchanges as: “Why do postponed until May 982.

you always have to turn up so silently?” “I kept Ausino’s script draws from the standard
the light step of when I dedicated myself to hunt-Gothic tropes: the mysterious curse passed from ing.” The score, compiled from Cipriani’s back generation to generation, the séance, the doomed catalogue, reprises themes from Pier Carpi’s oc-family, the psychic heroine, plus the morbid el-cultist devil movie Un’ombra nell’ombra (979).

ement of incest, with the insane attraction of Overall, the best thing about the film may well Bruno (Fausto Lombardi) for his cousin Elisa be Ausino’s photography, which retains an old-

(Grapputo), as the man becomes convinced that style elegance and gives it a watchable look.

she must give him a son to defeat the curse that Rather surprisingly, La villa delle anime plagues their dynasty. The theme of the double maledette got a V.M.4 rating “for the distressing is employed not only by having Grapputo play atmosphere that pervades the whole film and the a dual role (Elisa and her mother), but it also murders committed in a particularly gruesome has a vital part in the rather incoherent final way,” which makes one wonder whether the twist, when it turns out that one key character board members actually watched it, as graphic has the capacity of mutating his appearance at violence is virtually non- existent. Distribution in will. The ending is virtually lifted from The Sen-Italy was scarce, and reviews were predictably tinel, as the heroine secludes herself in the villa, scathing: the Corriere della Sera called the story and thus, by remaining the last of her bloodline,

“extremely deranged, developing despite any she puts an end to the curse.

logic,” and labeled script, direction and photog-Despite the impressive cast and the setting raphy as slapdash, giving moderate praise only to in a villa just outside Turin, La villa delle anime Grapputo’s performance, which in the reviewer’s maledette leaves a lot to be desired overall. The opinion made the result “a step forward from prologue tries hard to set an ominous tone, with Torino violenta, one of the most disgraceful prod-two men fighting to the death during a thunder-ucts in this spectator’s memory.”6
storm, driven by a mysterious homicidal frenzy, After quickly disappearing into oblivion, the while a woman (also played by Grapputo) des-movie found a second life in the home video mar-perately tries to separate them. One of the men ket, both in Italy (released by the popular GVR
stabs the other, and the woman in turn stabs him.

label) and abroad, in its English language export She then runs away in the villa’s garden, which version House of the Damned (misspelled House conveniently hosts a private cemetery, only to be of the Danned in the titles). It surfaced overseas dragged underground by a hand protruding from on tape as Don’t Look in the Attic, and it even the ground. The use of lighting draws back to earned some perplexing good reviews in special-classical Gothic, with plenty of silhouettes and ized magazines and studies of the horror film. The light/shadow games, but one cannot help noticing illustrious Aurum Film Encyclopedia praised it as the performers’ poor acting, the cheap special ef-follows: “Ausino makes ample and effective use of fects (with the demonic entity portrayed via a dolly shots to create and sustain his parapsycho-pulsating red flashing light and a chair being logical spells, and at times manages to evoke the dragged forward by an invisible force) and the flamboyantly funereal romanticism of the Italian recycled Stelvio Cipriani score.

master Mario Bava.”7 Again, one wonders whether Still, the pre- credit sequence is easily the the reviewer actually saw it, as there are less than film’s most exciting moment. The story drags a handful of dolly shots in the whole movie.

along interminably, with no tension or detectable Overall, La villa delle anime maledette suspense, and looks more like a warped family stands as a testifier that re- proposing a by- now drama than a horror movie. Moreover, the low fallen archetype, the standard Gothic yarn, was budget shows at every turn: for instance, the Paris a lost cause. Even more so, it proves the impos-scenes are introduced via a cheap b&w still of the sibility of survival for that type of low- budget Eiffel Tower. Aumont and Loncar are wasted in genre cinema that could cut itself a small slice thankless secondary roles, and the special effects of market in the second and third- run circuit are poor throughout: in a scene, while Grapputo via regional distribution. In fact, Ausino’s fol-is taking a shower in the hotel, a supernatural en-lowing work was mostly destined to oblivion.

tity appears in the form of some dry ice entering Senza scrupoli 2 (990) a sequel of sorts to the bathroom … and leaves a message written on Tonino Valerii’s Senza scrupoli (986), was his the mirror’s surface. The dialogue must be heard last film with a proper theatrical and home video

1983: La bimba


distribution, and the director himself asked for effettonotteonline.com/enol/archivi/articoli/interviste/2002
it to be seized because of the arbitrary inclusion

0/20020in00.htm).

2. “Marisa farà perdere le testa a De Sica,” L’Unità, April of hardcore sequences on the part of the pro-27, 972.

ducers. Nebuneff, an occultist horror set in 3. a. per., “Horror sulla collina,” Stampa Sera, June 9, Turin, London and Cairo, shot over a period of

980
years between 988 and 99,8 remained unre-4. a. vald., “Ardisson ritorna al cinema e ruba confidenze leased due to legal issues. Ausino’s last film to a Brazzi,” Stampa Sera, June 9, 980.

5. [not signed], “Ecco la villa delle anime dannate,”

date is 2006’s Killer’s Playlist, a thriller starring Stampa Sera, September 30, 98.

George Hilton, which was briefly screened in 6. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “Quella villa maledetta,”

Turin and then disappeared from sight.

Corriere della Sera, June 9, 982.

7. Phil Hardy (ed.), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia. HorN
ror (London: Aurum Press, 996), 390.

otes

8. Stefano Della Casa, “Torino set,” La Stampa, June 6, 1. Fulvio Montano, “Carlo Ausino e l’esperienza di

99.

Torino violenta,” www. effettonotteonline. com (http://www.

1983

La bimba di Satana (Satan’s Baby Doll, whose body lies in the crypt, waiting to be em-a.k.a. A Girl for Satan)

balmed. Despite the family doctor, Suarez, ruling D: Alan W. Cools [Mario Bianchi]. S: Maria’s death as a heart attack, her husband Gabriele Crisanti; SC: Piero Regnoli; DOP: un-Antonio had a hand in it. Maria was the lover credited [Franco Villa and Angelo Iannutti]

of Antonio’s brother Ignazio, now bound to a (Telecolor); M: Nino Catanese (Ed. Overplay); wheelchair after a stroke, but she also seduced E: Cesare Bianchini; PD: Salvatore Siciliano; AD: Suarez, and was carrying on a lesbian affair with Spartaco Antonucci; C: Franco Campanile; Sol, the novice nun who takes care of Ignazio. The AC: Maurizio Fiorentini; SO: Silvio Spingi; SS: family butler, Isidro, evokes otherworldly forces, Paola Villa; CO: Itala Giardina; MU: Rosario and the Countess’ spirit possesses her teenage Prestopino; AE: Gabriella Marsetti. Cast: Jacque-daughter Miria, who becomes the instrument of line Doupré (Miria), Mariangela Giordano (Sol), her revenge. One by one, the members of the Marina Hedman (Maria), Aldo Sambrell [Aldo Aguilar family are dispatched by the vengeful Sanchez Brell] (Antonio Aguilar), Alfonso Gaita spirit…

(Ignazio Aguilar), Joe Davers [Giuseppe Car-

“Remaking Malabimba was a stupid move.

bone] (Isidro), Giancarlo Del Duca (Dr. Juan I didn’t want to do the sex scenes. I felt used, Suarez). PROD: Gabriele Cristanti for Filmarte; abused and exploited,” Mariangela Giordano PM: Gabriele Crisanti; PS: Marcello Spingi; PSe: commented about her last film with her then-Gianfranco Fornari, Giancarlo Straniero, Mirella partner, producer Gabriele Crisanti, which Cavalloro. Country: Italy. Filmed on location at marked not only the end of their artistic collab-the Castle Piccolomini, Balsorano, Palazzo oration, but of their personal relationship as Braschi (Rome) and at Icet- De Paolis Studios well. Between 979 and 98, Crisanti had in-

(Milan). Running time: 74 minutes (m. 2024; volved the actress in a handful of flicks that softcore version); 88 minutes (hardcore version).

stand out among the most extreme products of Visa n. 77904 (6..982); Rating: V.M.8. Release the era, because of their sheer amount of sex and dates: 2.2.983 (Spain, softcore version), violence: Mario Landi’s Giallo a Venezia and 7.29.983 (Italy); Distribution: Film 2. Domestic Patrick vive ancora, and Andrea Bianchi’s Mal-gross: n.a. Also known as: Orgasmo di Satana abimba and Le notti del terrore.

(Italy; hardcore version); La hija de Satanás In a shameless recycling move, Crisanti and (Spain), Dr. Porno und sein Satanszombie (Ger-screenwriter Piero Regnoli opted for a retelling many; hardcore version); Sexorgien im Satan-of Malabimba with minimal changes, even re-schloß (Germany; softcore version).

casting Giordano in the same role as the unfor-In a remote Spanish castle, the Aguilar tunate nun who becomes the spirit’s last victim.

family is mourning the passing of Countess Maria, The malevolent spirit who possesses the teenage

2 1983: La bimba girl is that of the mysteriously deceased Countess normal powers who would be in a trance in sev-Maria (we will later find out that she has been eral scenes.4 The project never took off.

murdered). She proceeds to kill her heroin-Apart from the sex scenes, Hedman’s acting addicted widower, his wheelchair- bound brother-consists mostly in lying still over a grave in the in-law, the family doctor, a novice named Sol—
nude, pretending to be dead. Giordano, for her all of them her previous lovers—and a scary-part, takes off her clothes with admirable abne-looking butler who is also an expert on the sugation, and a scene where her character washes pernatural, and who concocted an arcane ritual Ignazio’s pubic area with a damp cloth testifies to bring her back to life. In the end, the infamous to the actress’ willingness to do anything for lesbian seduction- cum-fisting scene of the 979

Crisanti. As for the elusive Jacqueline Doupré, film is replaced by a Sapphic interlude atop a who reprises Katell Laennec’s role in Malabimba tomb between Maria and Sol which ends, as in and, despite amply showing her body, does not Venus d’Ille, with the novice being crushed to perform any explicit sex scene, she mustn’t be death between her lover’s arms, possibly evidence confused with the French porn actress of Regnoli’s literary erudition rather than an un-Catherine Doupré. Bianchi recalled: “Jacqueline likely homage to the late Mario Bava.

Doupré was a stage name, because she was a gal Unlike most of Crisanti’s earlier sex-horror hybrids, the target for La bimba di Satana was the hardcore porn market, which by then was in full bloom. The casting of Marina Hedman Bellis, then Italy’s most famous porn star (better known to the public as Marina Frajese, or Marina Lothar), was telling, as was the presence of Alfonso Gaita, a regular of early Italian hardcore. Director Mario Bianchi (Roberto Montero’s son, and only a namesake of Malabimba’s director Andrea Bianchi) cast his friend Aldo Sambrell, a recurring presence in the director’s early Westerns, as the repug-nant, drug- addicted Antonio Aguilar: “When there was need of this kind of father figure, or a king like in Biancaneve & co., I called him, and he came over, for two farthings, and sometimes he did not even get to have those!”2

Bianchi was probably relying on Sam-
brell to sell the product in the latter’s home country (hence the Spanish setting). The actor was even involved in one of the non-simulated sex scenes with Marina Hedman,
which he later recalled as follows: “We had to shoot a love scene, Marina and I… Well, I was lying on the bed, waiting for her, and when she showed up we started making out;
after a while I realized that she was doing it for real and I had to stop her and call Crisanti, the producer, because I could not work that way.”3 Sambrell was replaced by

Gaita for the explicit close- ups. As for the weird- looking character actor Giuseppe

“Pino” Carbone (credited as “Joe Davers”), he was a self- appointed clairvoyant: a couple of years earlier the press reported that Carbone was about to direct a feature- length film the Italian poster for La bimba di Satana (1983), titled La fattura, starring people with para-inspired by Boris Vallejo’s 1979 painting Vampire’s Kiss.

1983:La bimba

3
who lived in Ostia, but I can’t remember the real the Public Cinematographic Register filming name, and however I think the poor girl only started on August 77), La bimba di Satana was did this movie.” One can understand why, since submitted to the rating board in June 982, in a Doupré pales in front of her model, and in fact softcore version which ran slightly over 73 min-she is actually given little to do in the film.

utes and got away with a V.M.8 certificate after Compared with the already threadbare
a cut (for about 2 seconds) in the sex scene be-narrative of Malabimba, La bimba di Satana tween Hedman and Sambrell, in “the part where gives new meaning to the word “minimalistic.”

the woman’s mouth slides over her husband’s The cast comprises only seven people (plus a lower belly.” The board justified the rating not rotten- looking zombie mummy that pops up
only because of the abundant sex and nudity, just in time to dispatch the butler), who for most but also because of the rooster sequence as well of the running time wander in the empty castle,6
as the bit in which Sambrell’s character shoots its crypts and dilapidated surrounding, in long, heroin, which “lingers on the technique to inject dialogue- less sequences accompanied by Nino drugs.” It was released only the following year, Catanese’s score, which combines Goblin- esque, in late July 983.

keyboard- driven parts, eerie chants and dis-Crisanti likely attempted to have it both torted guitars. The ghost story elements are ways, with an erotic horror movie that could be barely sketched too: in a lengthy sequence Isidro safely distributed in regular theaters as well as an the butler falls into an epileptic trance in the out- and-out porn version. However, the latter, ti-crypt while evoking the spirits of the dead, with tled Orgasmo di Satana, likely fell into oblivion, the camera following his grimaces and convul-and over the years Bianchi and Crisanti repeatedly sions in close- up, and a subjective POV shot denied its existence, despite the scant running traverses the empty halls and corridors, accom-time of the existing prints would suggest other-panied by heavy breathing on the soundtrack, wise.8 It finally resurfaced in 2007 on German to Miria’s bedroom. It climaxes with Isidro DVD.9
biting the neck off a rooster like a sideshow The hardcore version credits Bianchi with
geek.

his own name and includes five sequences not When the actors open their mouth, it gets
included in the softcore prints (where the direc-worse. Isidro’s monologues are a hodgepodge of tor is credited as “Alan W. Cools”). First is the lowbrow mysticism, and when Sambrell’s char-two- minute pre- credit (simulated) lesbian se-acter becomes verbally abusive toward Sol, he quence between Mariangela Giordano and Ma-comes up with such laughable lines as “Even rina Hedman. It is shot from below and has the though you’re not a nun yet, desecrating a temple hand- camera slowly circling around the two has always been my dream!”

women: Marina is kneeling as in adoration be-Admittedly, Bianchi tries to inject some style fore the other woman, who is standing atop a in the proceeding. He makes use of tracking table like a living statue and wears only white shots, and even films a scene in a long take, stockings, and the shots of the two lovers are in-when Antonio takes his wheelchair- bound terspersed with images of the frescoes on the brother Ignazio to the crypt to let him die of place’s walls and ceiling. The other four se-starvation (Ignazio will meet another grisly fate, quences are Giordano’s lengthy masturbation not before being orally pleasured by Maria’s scene, which features next- to-hardcore details; ghost). The camera, placed on the wheelchair a hardcore scene (about six minutes long) in-between Gaita’s feet, accompanies the two actors volving the Swedish actress and Gaita, which in a low- angle shot across the rooms of the restages the infamous fellatio scene of Mal-castle, as Sambrell hams it up, exposing his abimba, for what can well be the movie’s pièce deadly plan while pushing the wheelchair and de resistance; the aforementioned four- minute Gaita impassively listening to him (the character hardcore sequence between Hedman and Samis supposed to be a vegetable after a stroke) brell, with the latter replaced by Gaita in the while using only his eyes to simulate concern—
hardcore close- ups; and, finally, a brief Sapphic a moment which at least shows an attempt at scene between Giordano and Doupré.

mise-en-scène, in a movie which otherwise lacks Despite the director’s assurance that the film any semblance of rhythm, suspense, and narra-

“performed very well worldwide,”0 La bimba di tive progression.

Satana was released theatrically only in Spain, Shot in the Summer of 98 (according to
in 983, several months earlier than in its home

4 1983: Zeder country, in a softcore version titled La hija de Belletti (Don Emidio), Paolo Bacchi (Mr. Big’s Satanás.

Secretary), Giuseppina Borione (Helena, First Victim), Imelde Marani (Nurse), Gianluigi Gas-Notes
pari, Carlo Schincaglia (Don Luigi Costa), Lu-1. Alan Jones and Mark Ashworth, “Diva Divina. The ciano Bianchi, Pino Tosca, Giovanni Bussadori, Mariangela Giordano Story,” in Stefan Jaworzyn (ed.), Sergio Lama, Giuseppe Lentini, Giancarlo Ban-Shock Xpress #2 (London: Titan Books, 994), 72.

dini; uncredited: Ghilka Muzzi Matteuzzi (Ms.

2. Stefano Ippoliti and Matteo Norcini, “Mario Hubert). PROD: Gianni Minervini and Antonio Bianchi. Il mio cinema pizza e fichi,” in Cine 70 e dintorni

#, Summer 2004, 28.

Avati for A.M.A. Film (Rome), with the collab-3. Gian Luca Castoldi, “Aldo Sambrell. L’uomo che oration of Enea Ferrario for RAI- Radio Televi-morì 000 volte,” Amarcord #6, January/February 999, sione Italiana; PM: Francesco Guerrieri; PS: 84.

Luca Bitterlin; PSe: Rosa Mercurio; ADM: Raf-4. Reported in Cinema d’oggi, September 2, 979.

faello Forti; Cash: Francesca Moneta. Country: 5. Ippoliti and Norcini, “Mario Bianchi. Il mio cinema pizza e fichi,” 28.

Italy. Filmed on location in Bologna, Milano 6. The castle seen in exterior shots is Castle Piccolo-Marittima and Cesenatico, Chartres (France) mini in Balsorano, whereas the indoor scenes were filmed and at R.P.A. Elios Studios (Rome). Running at Palazzo Braschi, in Rome.

time: 00 minutes (m. 27). Visa n. 7886

7. Filming was also reported in Cinema d’oggi, September 22, 98. The script deposited at Rome’s CSC is (2.9.983); Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: dated July 98.

8.0.983 (Italy), .8.984 (USA); Distribution: 8. The Italian softcore version released to VHS on the Gaumont (Italy), Motion Picture Marketing Video Arcadia label ran only 64 minutes.

(USA). Domestic gross: 334,000,000 lire. Also 9. The U.S. DVD release, on the Severin label (as known as: Revenge of the Dead (USA), Zeder—

Satan’s Baby Doll), includes the softcore cut, whereas the German one, on the X- Rated label and with the title Dr.

Denn Tote kehren wieder (West Germany)

Porno und sein Satanszombie, is the hardcore version.

Chartres, France, 1956. In an isolated villa, 10. Ippoliti and Norcini, “Mario Bianchi. Il mio cinema Dr. Meyer conducts an experiment with the assis-pizza e fichi,” 28.

tance of a young girl with psychic powers, Gabriella 11. According to the official ministerial data, it was seen by 20,230 spectators and grossed an amount corresponding Goodman, to find the grave of the mysterious Paolo to about 30,200 euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/ CatalogoICAA/

Zeder. Gabriella is attacked and mutilated by a Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 76).

monstrous being, and human remains are found in the villa’s basement, which Meyer identifies as Zeder (Revenge of the Dead)

Zeder. Bologna, 1982. A young novelist, Stefano, is D: Pupi Avati. S: Pupi Avati; SC: Pupi Avati, given by his wife Alessandra an old typewriter as Maurizio Costanzo, Antonio Avati; DOP: Franco a present. Stefano notices on the old ribbon a mys-Delli Colli (Technovision-Telecolor, Kodak); M: terious message about the so- called “K-Zones,”

Riz Ortolani (Ed. New Point); E: Amedeo Salfa; areas where death ceases to exist and bodies can PD: Giancarlo Basili, Leonardo Scarpa; CO: Steno return from the afterlife, which had been researched Tonelli; MU: Alfonso Cioffi; AD: Cesare Bastelli; in the early 1900 by a scientist named Paolo Zeder.

APD: Laura Casalini; C: Antonio Schiavo Lena; Intrigued, Stefano starts investigating, and becomes AC: Andrea Barbieri; AE: Piera Gabutti; 2ndAE: increasingly obsessed with the mystery around Loretta Mattioli; SO: Raffaele De Luca; B: Paolo Zeder and the K- Zones. His investigation leads him Cottignola; Mix: Romano Checcacci; SOE: Lu-to a secluded area near Rimini, where a team of ciano Anzellotti, Massimo Anzellotti; SP: Pier-scientists from the Vatican, led by Dr. Meyer and maria Formento; SS: Fiorella Lugli; W: Luisa Ms. Goodman, are conducting secret experiments Cavazza, Clara Masina Berti; PrM: Faliero Reg-with surveillance cameras and monitors. The prop-giani. Cast: Gabriele Lavia (Stefano), Anne erty is sited on a K- Zone, and the object of the ex-Canovas (Alessandra), Paola Tanziani (Gabriella periments is a dead defrocked priest, Don Luigi Goodman), Cesare Barbetti (Dr. Meyer), Bob Costa. Stefano, who has rented a room in a nearby Tonelli (Mr. Big), Ferdinando Orlandi (Giovine), motel, witnesses Costa’s return from the dead as a Enea Ferrario (Mirko), John Stacy (Prof. Chiesi), flesh- eating zombie, which results in the massacre Alessandro Partexano (Lt. Guido Silvestri), Mar-of Meyer and his men. But Stefano finds out that cello Tusco (Dr. Melis), Aldo Sassi (Don Mario), his wife has been kidnapped and murdered by the Veronica Moriconi (Young Gabriella), Enrico conspirators. Desperate, he buries Alessandra in Ardizzone (Benni), Maria Teresa Toffano (Anna), the abandoned property, so that she will come back Andrea Montuschi (Inspector Bouffet), Adolfo to life…

1983: Zeder



In the Summer of 982, three years after the project, but Avati managed to reprise some no-release of Le strelle nel fosso, Pupi Avati started tions about Fulcanelli in his script. The epony-shooting another fantastic- themed film, his sec-mous character of Paolo Zeder is a mysterious ond out- and-out horror after La casa dalle stateless person—that is, someone not consid-finestre che ridono (976). During those three ered as a national by any state under the opera-years Avati had established himself as a critically-tion of its law—whose condition makes him a respected auteur thanks to his successful TV
symbolic modern- day variation on the Wandermini- series Cinema!!! (broadcast in November ing Jew, condemned to wander over the Earth

979 and starring Lino Capolicchio, Gianni Cavas punishment, without the hope of rest in death ina and Carlo Delle Piane) and Dancing Paradise till the second coming of Christ. Zeder never (broadcast in June 982 and starring Cavina and appears in the film, if not in the form of a pile Delle Piane). Dancing Paradise showed that Avati of bones found inside a coffin, but his shadow hadn’t abandoned his predilection for the fan-looms over the story, and his studies about the tastique and the unusual: it was a musical fairy

“K-Zones” are the object of an enduring obses-tale about the son (Cavina) of a legendary drum-sion in the film. He was modeled upon the fas-mer who goes in search of his father and is cinating and elusive alchemist and esoteric helped in his quest by a benevolent ghost (Delle writer, who had inspired Argento for Inferno, Piane). Avati’s only theatrical feature film after and whose real identity was never found. The Le strelle nel fosso had been Aiutami a sognare director told L’Écran fantastique:

(98), starring Anthony Franciosa and Mariangela Melato, a romantic love story between a It seems that the first thing American secret services widow and an American pilot during World War did, just after entering Paris during the liberation [in II: although a box- office flop, it had been a suc-August 944], was to try and locate Fulcanelli. But they couldn’t find him. He had disappeared, and even cess on TV where—as was customary in that pe-today we don’t know whether he is alive or dead.

riod—it was broadcast in a longer, three- part When I decided to make a new genre film, I used this version. To many, then, the news that Avati was character. Later, in order to be freer, I changed his working on a new project about “a stateless per-name to Zeder and I also had him make investiga-son who conducted bizarre research on the af-tions on the afterlife, the world of the dead, the K-terlife,” as the upcoming movie was briefly de-Zones, the oracles and the sanctuaries.4
scribed in the press, came as unexpected as it was puzzling. As the director later explained, “I re-Avati drew also from the works of Peter Kolosimo turned to the Fantastic for strategic and com-

(real name Pietro Domenico Colosimo, 922–
mercial needs … going back to the big screen

984), an Italian journalist and a pioneer re-with a genre film seemed the easiest choice.”2
searcher of fringe archaeology akin to Robert Moreover, the horror genre gave Avati the

Charroux and Erich von Däniken; in the early chance to explore some of his longtime passions,

970s Kolosimo launched the magazine “Pi namely esotericism and occultism, and draw Kappa” (the name comes from his initials) de-from his own readings and research. Some years voted to his favorite themes, and there is a chance earlier, the director had been studying the life the term “K-Zone” (spelled in Italian as “terreni and works of French alchemist Fulcanelli, the kappa”) was a subtle reference to Kolosimo.

author of Le Mystère des Cathedrales (The Mys-The idea for the story gradually took form tery of the Cathedrals, 926) and Les Demeures from assorted suggestions, from the chilling idea Philosophales (Dwellings of the Philosophers, of a camera inside a coffin which monitors a

929), for a “serious” project which he described dead body uninterruptedly to the notion of the as “a very ambitious story on the origins of the

“K-Zones,” burial areas where the dead will res-Gothic and the Templar Knights and on their re-urrect. The latter concept was linked to a tale search under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon Avati had heard of a dog buried in a swamp area during their eight years’ stay in Jerusalem.”3 The and later sighted in the countryside, proving that film would delve also into the legendary Ark of the director’s stories were always rooted in pop-the Covenant, which the Templars had allegedly ular folklore (as with the story of the exhumed brought back with them on their return to Eu-priest that had provided the inspiration for the rope.

shocking twist ending in La casa dalle finestre The release of Raiders of the Lost Ark (98, che ridono). Avati linked the concept of “K-Steven Spielberg) marked the early end of the Zones” to the ancient Etruscan rites and ceme-

6 1983: Zeder terial sites—a recurring theme in Italian Gothic a cryptic message engraved on it—and would be-and giallo from L’etrusco uccide ancora (972) come obsessed with it. The thirst for knowledge to Ritratto di donna velata and Assassinio al and creativity would ultimately lead him to perdi-cimitero etrusco—thus drawing a red thread tion.

from Italy’s ancient pre–Christian times to the Backed by his company A.M.A., with partic-modern age, not unlike he would do in the ex-ipation from Rai Due (who had the right to broad-traordinary TV mini- series Voci notturne (99).

cast the film 8 months after its theatrical release), All this, transported to the typical regional back-and a budget of about 00 million lire, Avati as-ground of Avati’s cinema, the Emilia Romagna sembled a varied cast. Some of his regular players area.

(Ferdinando Orlandi, Bob Tonelli) were joined by But the spark that ignited the film was re-renowned dubbing artists Marcello Fusco and Celated to the act of narrating itself. The director sare Barbetti (the Italian voice of Robert Redford, had bought an electric typewriter from comand soon to become another member of Avati’s poser Amedeo Tommasi, and after a while he

“repertoire company”), plus some odd presences.

had to replace the ribbon: while changing it, he One such was the Australian- born John Stacy, noticed that the words written by the previous who had relocated to Italy at a young age and owner could still be read on the used ribbon.

was an oft- seen face in Italian cinema since the The discovery had a morbid voyeuristic feel to early 90s, in such varied works as Antonio it: it was like spying on someone else’s life and Margheriti’s Il pianeta degli uomini spenti (96), becoming aware of its most intimate secrets. It Mario Bava’s La ragazza che sapeva troppo (963), was just what Avati needed: the protagonist of Fellini’s 8½ (963) and Carlo Lizzani’s Mussolini his film would be a down- on-his luck novelist ultimo atto (974). This was his penultimate film.

who cannot find an idea for his next book. He For the role of Stefano, Avati cast Gabriele would be involved in the story by reading the Lavia. Already one of Italy’s most noted stage mysterious words impressed on a typewriter’s rib-actors, every now and then Lavia took a break bon—a modern day version of the manuscript from his theatrical commitments to act in a found in a bottle, or the ancient gravestone with movie (his latest turn had been in Inferno), but Pupi Avati (center) on the set of Zeder (1983) with actors Paolo Bacchi (left) and Bob tonelli (courtesy Luca servini).

1983: Zeder

7
this would be his first film as protagonist; he and lauded and rediscovered in France,”7 the director Avati knew and liked each other, and Lavia was claimed upon the film’s release, possibly referring a profitable name to attach to a horror movie, to Fulci.

given his previous works with Argento as well In Avati’s cinema, horror is closely linked to as his participation in Chi sei? (a.k.a. Beyond religious and superstitious beliefs, which often the Door, 974). Alongside him, Avati cast the become blurred. The exhumation of Zeder’s French Anne Canovas, whom he had seen in Gi-physical remains looks like the discovery of the acomo Battiato’s TV movie Colomba (982), relics of a saint or a prophet, met with jubilation based on Prosper Mérimée’s story, even though by Dr. Meyer, and the Vatican hierarchy’s secret his initial choice was Lavia’s partner Monica inquiry on the mysterious resurrections recalls Guerritore.

the Church investigating miraculous events such Filming lasted ten weeks, from July to early as weeping statues or inexplicable healings, which September 982, and took place in Chartres (for spread false beliefs among the masses. Here, the a few exteriors) and mostly in Emilia- Romagna, dead returning from the afterlife—a recurrent between Bologna and the coastal towns of Ri-theme in Avati’s vision of the fantastique: see also mini and Milano Marittima. There, Avati found Le strelle nel fosso, Voci notturne, and L’arcano in-the perfect setting for the film’s most horrific cantatore (a.k.a. The Arcane Enchanter, 996)—
scenes, set in the abandoned children’s colony are perverse variations of Lazarus’ story in the where a team of researchers conduct experi-Bible. Even though these zombies bite and tear ments on the dead: the Provincia Varese colony chunks of flesh just like in Romero’s films, the in Milano Marittima. As was customary, the di-focus here is not as much on their violent rector used almost exclusively real locations and behavior against the living but on the metaphys-left some room for improvisation. But the atical horror of their experience. They grin, they mosphere on the set was tense, and at a certain whimper, and they laugh out loud, as if they had point near the end of the shoot there was an ar-seen and learned something that is unknown to gument between the director and the crew, us, an exhilarating atrocious prank which we can-which resulted in a number of technicians leav-not understand. The joke is on us, and it’s not ing the set and going back to Rome.
funny. It’s frightening.

In interviews of the period, Avati talked

Many key characters in Avati’s cinema—
about the movie in a detached way, underlining the unlikely magician in Balsamus l’uomo di Sa-that the choice of making a horror film was tana, the actors in Thomas … gli indemoniati, mainly a commercial move (“The average TV
the “painter of agonies” and his sisters in La casa viewer is above 40 years old, whereas moviegoers dalle finestre che ridono, the peasants in Le strelle are around 20”). He even stated that Zeder was nel fosso, the defrocked priest in L’arcano incan-

“in some sense, only half- mine, a proof of good tatore—are obsessed with communicating with will that I wanted to offer to the producers,” con-the dead. Whereas Buono Legnani was attempt-cluding that “without television, an Italian filming to fix on his canvas the moment of passing, maker like me would have no work space at all.”6
here this obsession takes pseudo- scientific But the result is among his very best works, and forms, by way of cameras and monitors poking as a horror movie it is just as scary as La casa into the motionless features of the recently de-dalle finestre che ridono, if not as original.

ceased. Considering that the researchers in Even though his film was about people re-Zeder work on behalf of the Vatican, theirs is an turning from the dead and feeding on the living, act of hybris, as if dogmas and leaps of faith were Avati only superficially related to the zombie no longer sufficient to soothe the anguish before movie thread of the early 980s. Zeder rejects the impending physical dissipation, and proof the traditional living dead iconography and the of the Biblical promise of immortality was subgenre’s narrative mechanisms and focuses on needed. The director labeled the researchers’

a conspiracy movie- like paranoia—everyone voyeuristic experiments as “a form of extreme near Stefano, including his closest friends, turns violence. That’s their “sin” … there’s nothing out to be a conspirator—eschewing graphic gore more indecent than spying on what happens
in favor of suspense and dread, with the same after the burial, during death. It’s the most vulgar sense of an implacable destiny closing in on the thing there is, the most villainous.”8
hero. “I don’t like the cruelty and the gruesome Avati’s researchers are very much like some effects typical of some auteurs who have been unfortunate predecessors, namely Dr. Barrett

8 1983: Zeder (Clive Revill) and his aides, who are recruited a main influence, for its “grammar of fear,”

to investigate “survival after death” at Belasco Henri- Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece Les dia-House in The Legend of Hell House (973, John boliques (9).

Hough) and the research team led by the petu-The actual darkness which surrounds (and
lant Peter Brock (Michael Bryant) in the made-sometimes engulfs) the characters recalls the for-TV The Stone Tape (972, Peter Sasdy). Both cognitive one that swallows them. This is partly films have in common with Zeder the attempt due to their own physical impossibility of seeing, at reviving a typical Gothic tale in a contempo-as in the case of Don Luigi Costa’s blind, elderly rary setting, while replacing old- style clichés sister—who recalls Robert Duval’s character (séances, etc.) with state- of-the-art hi- tech. On (played by Stanko Molnar) in Avati’s co- scripted the other hand, the remarkable similarities Macabro, for both are defenseless and cheated between Zeder and Stephen King’s novel Pet Se-by those around them. But this perceptive dark-matary seem to be the result of astonishing ness is also a consequence of their very human coincidences: the script for Avati’s film was com-essence, the fact that we are destined to grope pleted in March 982, while King’s book (pub-in the dark when considering the limits of our lished in November 983 in the States) germi-physical existence. Nevertheless, Avati’s villains nated as early as late 978, and the American (and his heroes as well) just can’t accept it, in writer—who as well took inspiration from an inexhaustible attempt to look (and know) be-events linked with the death of a pet animal, his yond which characterizes the director’s work in daughter’s cat Smucky—completed the first draft the Fantastic genre.

in May 979.9 As for their literary antecedents, Avati’s doomed hero, again named Stefano
both Avati and King likely drew from H.P. Love-like the unfortunate painter in La casa dalle craft’s Herbert West, Reanimator and especially finestre che ridono, is yet another artist who W.W. Jacobs’ celebrated short story The Monkey’s moves from the big city to the countryside and Paw, which inspired Bob Clark’s Dead of Night becomes the victim of his own abnormal sensi-

(a.k.a. Deathdream, 974) and was adapted in tivity toward the macabre and the mysterious.

977 by Dan Curtis for the made- for-TV Dead But his quest is first and foremost an introspec-of Night, in the episode Bobby. King most likely tive descent which goes far beyond the mere knew the two movies; the latter was broadcast mystery angle of the story, and which leads him in the U.S. in March 977. There is a chance that to an inescapable destiny. Like Prometheus, Ste-Avati too was aware of them, as Clark’s film was fano defies God (or the gods) by trying to learn released in Italy in 976 under the eerie title La things that shall remain unknown by mortals, morte dietro la porta (Death Behind the Door), and therefore he will be punished, as will all while Curtis’ film turned up on Italian private those who dare venture into the unknowable.

television stations as early as 98, as Notte di It’s not the film’s sole reference to myth and morte (Death Night).

to ancient culture. Avati portrays two lovers The story has also some vague (and most
attempting an illusory escape from the horrors likely coincidental) similarities with Jacques that will swallow them, and in the story’s chilling Tourneur’s unfilmed screenplay, Whispering in coda he evokes the myth of Orpheus who brings Distant Chambers (dating back to 966), in back his wife Eurydice from the underworld.

which a millionaire tries to prove scientifically The character of Alessandra conveys a natural, the existence of life beyond death by way of luminous sensuality (see the early scene where advanced recording technology. But Avati she awakes in bed) comparable to that of comes close to the French director’s cinema for Francesca Marciano in the 976 film, which once the method of building restlessness through again makes her a more vulnerable victim. But lighting, inscribing the characters within sparse the same sensuality becomes an element of hor-oases of light as opposed to areas of darkness ror in the ending, as the revenante displays the that “are likely to reshape the contours of a fa-same inviting smile as when she was alive, before miliar space or … thin down the usual bound-the final and supposedly lethal embrace with aries between an imaginary space and the sphere Stefano. She has become a carrier (and an in-of sensorial reception.”0 This similarity becomes carnation) of Death, like other female characters an explicit homage in the swimming pool scene, in Avati’s cinema, most notably Olimpia in Le which pays reference to a similar moment in Cat strelle nel fosso, causing the hero’s ultimate ruin.

People (942). In interviews Avati mentioned as As in La casa dalle finestre che ridono, Avati

1983: Zeder

9
turns the sunny and placid Emilia Romagna into (a bound bundle of wooden rods with an axe an unlikely yet effective setting for a horror with its blade emerging), the main symbol of the story. Except for the prologue set in 96, which Fascist regime, is featured prominently in the takes place in a typical haunted house with un-background wall behind Stefano during the seen presences lurking in the basement, Zeder film’s horrific climax, the resurrection of Don is characterized by a matter- of-fact, very lumi-Luigi Costa. There, the past literally comes alive nous photography. The hot summer Mediter-again.

ranean sun pervades many scenes, characters It’s a felicitous choice for a film which re-sweat and pant, a blinding light accompanies volves around the act of displacement and re-Stefano’s quest in the Riviera, so much so that pression and its object par excellence in today’s Alessandra takes advantage of their trip to Ri-society—death. But the colony is also the rem-mini for a sunbathing session on the beach.

nant of a previous illusory wealth, which now Even a cemetery—the Gothic milieu par excel-has dissolved and turned into a mediocre, relence—doesn’t look so menacing in an August signed routine, like that of the gas station owner morning. But such a warmth and serenity are who rents the rooms of his squalid motel on the utterly deceptive. It takes just a few moments—
opposite side of the street, for the few tourists such as when Stefano remains briefly trapped in who still show up every now and then. The irony the crypt where Don Luigi Costa’s grave is lo-in the film is that, to protect their private expercated—for this mood to change completely and iments and justify the renewed activity around these places to reveal their sinister side.

the colony, the Vatican researchers have spread In his previous horror film Avati had rein-the rumor that the place is going to be recon-vented the Gothic haunted mansion, splitting it verted into a luxury -star hotel, thus igniting into two in the process: the isolated house where the hope of a renewed well- being, an economic Stefano moves, which turns out to be the recip-revitalization which echoes the physical one ient of horrible secrets, and the titular “house they are pursuing.

with the laughing windows,” a dilapidated hut As in La casa dalle finestre che ridono—and near the river where the mad Buono Legnani in L’arcano incantatore, another film centered on worked on his paintings. A key role in Zeder is someone’s quest about the mysteries of the af-played by the imposing ruins of the Provincia terlife—the most horrific figure in the film is Varese colony. Ruins have a central importance that of a priest. Those who have seen Zeder won’t in the Gothic, as remnants of a forgotten or re-forget the toothless laughter of the defrocked pressed past, and the choice of a Fascist building, priest Don Luigi Costa caught by the post-although moved mainly by aesthetic reasons (“I mortem camera, as he awakens from death in think I’ve never had a more beautiful location”

the film’s most unnerving sequence. Once again, the director said) is an interesting one on Avati followed the example of Fellini and cast a Avati’s part, for it draws a red thread between non- professional actor for the role, a pork Italy’s past and the present.

butcher from Bologna named Carlo Schincaglia.

Children’s colonies were structures built in As Avati’s a.d. Cesare Bastelli recalled, “With maritime locations which provided free summer Pupi, for many years, it used to be like that: we holidays for kids, to preserve their health; the arrived in a village without warning anyone and first one was created in Lucca in 822, and their without going to the mayor’s office for the shoot-number grew steadily over the years. During ing permits. We just placed the camera in the the Fascist regime, children’s colonies became main square and waited. The first who ap-an instrument of propaganda, a place to indoc-proached us was regularly the fool of the village, trinate the younger generations on the values of and we cast him on the spot. We recruited many Fascism, and many new structures were built, that way… . Schincaglia was one of them.”2
mostly on the Romagna coast, in the regime’s The defrocked revenant is only one of sev-typical Rationalist style. The huge, ghastly ce-eral clergymen—not counting the Vatican’s high ment building in Zeder becomes a sort of relic, hierarchies, represented by Bob Tonelli’s char-whose bare cement pylons stand out in the land-acter—whom the viewers meet in the film, the scape like the carcass of a monstrous “white others being an ambiguous young priest (Aldo whale” stranded near the beach, a gigantic and Sassi) who seems to know more than he claims looming memento of a wiped- out past. Note, for to, and a (fake) parish priest who wears a gym instance, how the image of the “fascio littorio”

suit and has brisk manners—a striking charac-

20 1983: Zeder scientists record the effects
but not the presence. The
world is a dark and mysteri-
ous place, and nature itself
turns out to be malevolent
and menacing, like the earth-
quake that accompanies the
resurrection of a dead man in
the film’s opening sequence.

Despite centuries of enlight-
enment and the progress of
science, we are ultimately re-
vealed to be at the mercy of
forces that we will never be
able to control, let alone un-
derstand. All we can do is be-
lieve.

the dead rise from their grave and attack an unfortunate victim Avati ends the film on an

(Genoese dialectal actor enrico Ardizzone) in a scary moment from ambiguous and chilling note,

Zeder (courtesy Luca servini).

the final embrace between
two lovers who have finally
terization (by Avati’s regular Ferdinando Or-found each other again, with Stefano’s expression landi) which perhaps hints at the director’s diffi-turning from tenderness to horrified awareness, dence toward heterodox clergymen.

as the man lets out a final scream of horror (and Unlike the simple but coherent story be-perhaps pain? Again, we can only guess) which hind La casa dalle finestre che ridono, Zeder has lingers under the final image of the children’s colan intricate plot which ultimately doesn’t add ony at night, before Riz Ortolani’s synth- driven, up. Its many unanswered questions and incon-dissonant score kicks off. The script included one sistencies turn up from the very first sequences.

more scene which Avati wisely chose not to shoot, If the K- Zones preserve the dead from rotting, an epilogue set at the deserted gas station, at why is Paolo Zeder exhumed as a skeleton? How night. Children are skating in the area. “Their did he manage to return in the coffin after at-shadows, their laughter, their screams. Silence,”

tacking Gabriella, whose shoe is found inside the script reads. On this final freeze- frame, a line Zeder’s coffin? How can Stefano see Don Luigi appears: “…and what if even your garden was a Costa wandering around in the colony when his K- Zone?” A tongue- in-cheek, laughable line wor-body is still locked in the zinc coffin? Is this thy of some cheap B- movie (think of Tonino a phenomenon of bilocation, a hallucination, Ricci’s Bakterion, 982) which would have done a vision of the future? Who kills the parish no justice to the story. It is one of the few priest Don Mario and old Benni? The viewer moments that differ from the finished film. Avati gropes in the dark just like the characters. But had also devised a slightly more elaborate version ultimately these loose ends enhance the overall of the scene where Anna (Laura in the script) is sense of dread that the film conveys.

killed. The director wanted to set it originally in It is as if the director was contemplating the dancing room of the abandoned chalet near the very concept of “miracle,” that is, the unfath-the lake at the Giardini Margherita park in omable ways God works through nature with

Bologna (in the film it takes place underneath the divine providence, or, in the words of St. Thomas wharf), and the murderer used a long Fascist Aquinas, “these works that are done by God out-stiletto (the weapon is hardly distinguishable in side the usual order assigned to things” and the film) with a silver eagle’s head on its handle—
which leave us “astonished at a thing when we another symbol relating the story to the country’s see an effect without knowing the cause.” It is Fascist past, hinting that perhaps at first Avati as if Avati is telling us that there are things wanted to develop a discourse akin to that of the in heaven and earth that it is better not to Nazis’ fascination with the occult. Then, unlike know: as the non- human POV shot that travels in the film, Stefano finds himself face to face with through the K- Zone at night, and of which the Laura’s body, as the dead girl appears before him

1985: Dèmoni

2
and falls headfirst against the broken glass win-decade. The director himself was never too fond dow, “pierced by hundreds of sharp glass splin-of it, pointing out its “technological limits” and ters.” Stefano tries to come to her aid, but it’s too claiming that the movie “didn’t give me great sat-late. When he hears the police siren approaching, isfaction, from any point of view,”3 possibly be-he flees.

cause of its less than felicitous shoot. Over the fol-Initially slated for a February release, Zeder lowing years, Avati’s output consisted mostly of was delayed until August 983, and turned out bittersweet comedies (Noi tre, 984; Festa di laurea, a box- office disappointment despite favorable

98, Storia di ragazzi e di ragazze, 989) or down-reviews. Moreover, in the meantime Avati had beat dramas (Regalo di Natale, 986; Ultimo min-completed another feature film, the bittersweet uto, 987; Fratelli e sorelle, 99). Only in the early period comedy Una gita scolastica (working title:

990s he decided to revive his interest in horror La passeggiata), starring Delle Piane, which and the Fantastic, with the scripts for Maurizio moved to a totally different direction, and was Zaccaro’s Dove comincia la notte (99) and Fab-a critical and commercial success.

rizio Laurenti’s La stanza accanto (994), in addi-Filmed in English with an eye toward tion to the TV mini- series Voci notturne, before foreign sales, Zeder was distributed theatrically directing L’arcano incantatore. His next work in in the U.S. by Motion Picture Marketing the fol-the genre would be sparse and limited to one hor-lowing year, in a heavily edited copy, as Revenge ror movie per decade, namely Il nascondiglio of the Dead. It was first broadcast in Italy on Rai (2007) and the upcoming Il signor Diavolo. The Due on August 8, 984. The TV version was a latter, based on Avati’s own novel published in couple of minutes longer and featured an ex-208, is a grim story set in 92, about a young tended version of the introductory “anniversary lawyer who is sent to Venice to follow a murder sequence” in which Stefano and Alessandra extrial (a teenage boy has killed another one) which change gifts. After putting on the bracelet Stefano turns out to have chilling implications.

has given her, she joins him on the sofa. He explains that he couldn’t buy her a gift with his own Notes
money, as his publisher just rejected his latest novel, telling him that “it sucked,” and so he bor-1. Adele Gallotti, “Tutta Nizza si è messa a ballare nel rowed some more money from Alessandra’s

“Dancing” di Avati,” La Stampa, December 6, 982.

2. Ruggero Adamovit, Claudio Bartolini and Luca father (whom we assume is very wealthy). The Servini, Nero Avati. Visioni dal set (Genova: Le Mani, 20), couple then start making out on the sofa but are

46.

interrupted by the concierge coming out of the 3. Lorenzo Codelli, “Entretien avec Pupi Avati. Zeder.”

kitchen: the elderly man has fixed the electrical L’Écran fantastique #36, July/August 983, 92.

cable of the typewriter Alessandra has purchased 4. Ibid., 9.

5. Adamovit, Bartolini and Servini, Nero Avati, 64.

for her husband, a love gift which will ultimately 6. si.ro., “Avati vuol far cassetta con l’horror e sceglie la turn out to be their ruin. In addition to fleshing faccia di Gabriele Lavia,” La Stampa, January 4, 983.

out Stefano’s characterization by hinting at his 7. Giovanna Grassi, “Con Zeder brividi in Emilia,” Cor-frustration as a novelist, the sequence shows the riere della Sera, August 24, 983.

8. Codelli, “Entretien avec Pupi Avati. Zeder.” 92.

couple’s passionate relationship, but it also hints 9. Michael Gray Baughan, Stephen King (New York: In-at their class difference, with the man striving to fobase Publishing, 2009), 9–60.

come up with enough money to support the fam-10. Frank Lafond, “Le cinéma de la peur selon Pupi ily without relying on his wife’s rich father.

Avati,” in Frank Lafond (ed.), Cauchemars Italiens. Volume The commercial disappointment of Zeder

1: Le Cinéma fantastique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 20), 36.

11. Adamovit, Bartolini and Servini, Nero Avati, 2.

resulted in Avati consigning his fantastique-related 12. Ibid., 0.

themes to an oblivion which would last over a 13. Ibid., 67.

1985

Dèmoni (Demons)

Sacchetti, Franco Ferrini; DOP: Gianlorenzo D: Lamberto Bava. S: Dardano Sacchetti;

Battaglia (Eastmancolor Kodak, LV- Luciano SC: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Dardano

Vittori); M: Claudio Simonetti (Universo Film);

22 1985: Dèmoni E: Piero Bozza; SupE: Franco Fraticelli; PD: Da-

(Spain), Démons (France), Dämonen 2/Dance of vide Bassan; CO: Marina Malavasi, Patrizia Mas-the Demons (West Germany).

saia; AD: Michele Soavi [and Fabrizio Bava, un-Berlin, the present. A mysterious man in the credited]; SPFX: Sergio Stivaletti; AsstSPFX: subway gives a young music student named Barbara Morosetti, Sami Habib Ahmed; SE: An-Cheryl two free tickets for a movie premiere at gelo Mattei (miniatures), Danilo Bollettini, the gloomy Metropol cinema. A varied audience Claudio Quaglietti, Ditta Corridori; MU: Rosario attends the screening: Cheryl and her friend Prestopino; AMU: Giacinto Bretti; Hair: Teodora Kathy; two clean- cut teenagers, George and Ken; Bruno; AE: Roberto Priori; 2ndAE: Sergio Frata teenage couple; a black pimp named Tony and icelli, Fabrizio Fraticelli; AC: Enzo Frattari, Clau-two prostitutes; a middle- age couple celebrating dio Nannuzzi, Daniele Cimini, Federico Mar-their anniversary; a blind man and his wife, the tucci; AsstSD: Livia Pascucci; SO: Raffaele De latter taking advantage of the opportunity to meet Luca; B: Angelo Amattulli; Mix: Romano Pam-her lover. The film is a horror movie about four paloni; Dolby sound consultant: Federico Savina; teenagers who violate the tomb of Nostradamus SOE: Massimo Anzelotti; ChEl: Cristo Verrillo; and unleash a series of gruesome events. Before KG: Franco Serantoni; PrM: Maurizio Jacopelli; the movie starts, one of the prostitutes, Rosemary, W: Carla Latini; G: Paolo Tiberti; SP: Franco accidentally cuts her face with an iron mask ex-Bellomo, Gianfranco Caira; Stunts: Ottaviano posed in the theater’s hall. She soon undergoes a Dell’Acqua, Claudio Pacifico; SS: Daniela Tonti.

horrible transformation in the cinema restroom Cast: Urbano Barberini (George), Natasha Hovey which turns her into a demon. One by one, the (Cheryl), Karl Zinny (Ken), Fiore Argento (Han-moviegoers are attacked and infected by the nah), Paola Cozzo (Kathy), Fabiola Toledo (Car-demons, while the survivors find themselves men), Nicoletta Elmi (Ingrid), Stelio Candelli walled alive inside the venue. George, Ken, Cheryl (Frank), Nicole Tessier (Ruth), Geretta Giancarlo and Kathy are among the few left alive. Mean-

[Geretta Geretta] (Rosemary), Bobby Rhodes while, a small group of punks break inside the the-

(Tony), Guido Baldi (Tommy), Bettina
ater, while the blind man, who has been infected, Ciampolini (Nina), Giuseppe Mauro Cruciano sneaks out and spreads the contagion…

(Hot Dog), Sally Day (Liz), Eliana Hoppe After the low- budget giallo, La casa con la

[Eliana Miglio] (Edith, woman in tent—Horror scala nel buio, Lamberto Bava had become stuck film), Jasmine Maimone (Nancy—Horror film), in B- movie territory with the violent action film Marcello Modugno (Bob—Horror film), Peter

Blastfighter (983) and the sci- fi/horror hybrid Pitsch (Baby Pig), Pasqualino [Lino] Salemme Shark-Rosso nell’oceano (984), both signed as (Ripper), Enrica Maria Scrivano (Blonde Vic-

“John M. Old Jr.,” and was still looking for his tim), Alex Serra (Werner), Michele Soavi (Man big break. Bava was considering directing a in Black/Jerry—Horror film), Claudio Spadaro three- part anthology written by Dardano Sac-

(Liz’s Lover), Patrizia Lazzarini, Paolo Corazzi chetti, in the vein of his father’s I tre volti della (Policeman), Emanuela Zicosky (June), Claudio paura. One of the stories was set inside a movie Insegno (Policeman); uncredited: Sami Habib theater where the spectators are attacked by Ahmed (Kathy’s Baby Demon), Lamberto Bava
monsters during the screening of a horror film.

(st Man Exiting Subway), Giovanni Frezza As Bava recalled, “Then, one day I started think-

(Kirk), Sergio Stivaletti (Victim), Goffredo ing that I didn’t like the idea of a trilogy so Unger (Jeep Driver). PROD: Dario Argento for much, and I didn’t like the other two episodes DAC Film (Rome); PS: Guido De Laurentiis;
that much, so I thought to myself: but this one PSe: Fabrizio Diaz, Rita Friggeri; PAcc: Ferdi-episode, dilated into a full- length movie, would nando Caputo; ADM: Renato Rinaldo; PrA: En-work perfectly.”
rico Lucherini. Country: Italy. Filmed on Bava and Sacchetti submitted a 2-page location in Berlin and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Stu-treatment to Fabrizio De Angelis, but they were dios (Rome). Running time: 88 minutes (m.

disappointed to learn that the producer was 2403). Visa n. 809 (0.4.98); Rating: V.M.8.

planning to recycle footage from the Fulci films Release dates: 0.4.98 (Italy), 4.26.986 (Japan), he’d produced as parts of the film- within-a-film

.30.986 (USA), 0..986 (France), 0.4.986
to cut costs. So, around October 984, they took (Hong Kong), 8.2.987 (Spain); Distribution: the project to Luciano Martino, who suggested Titanus (Italy); Ascot (USA). Domestic gross: that Bava and Sacchetti produce it. The proposal

,22,490,000 lire. Also known as: Demonios was tempting as it would allow them total con-

1985: Dèmoni

23
trol, but the movie would cost almost 400 mil-more intellectual, perhaps better, but Dario lion lire, and it was to be a financial risk for the surely went for something more effective.”4 On director and the scriptwriter, who would be paid his part, Ferrini said that his main contribution with a 0 percent of the grosses and would re-to the script was postponing the appearance of cover the costs and see profits only after Martino the demons, which in an earlier draft came out had recovered his part.

of the movie screen almost at the beginning.

In the meantime, after the box- office suc-The title Dèmoni turned up later in the pre-cess of Phenomena, Dario Argento was toying production stage. Sacchetti maintains it was Ar-with the idea of producing more horror movies, gento who came up with it, while Bava recalls as he had done with Dawn of the Dead. Besides noticing Dostoyevsky’s three- part novel Demons the economic motifs, in a way it was a move in-one day in his father’s library—standing out be-spired by one of his masters, Sergio Leone, who cause of its bright red binding—and being in the Seventies had devoted himself to produc-struck by it. It was as if Mario had provided one tion with such diverse films as Il mio nome è Nes-last piece of the puzzle. Lamberto immediately suno (973, Tonino Valerii), Un genio, due com-phoned Argento, who was enthusiastic about it pari e un pollo (97, Damiano Damiani), Il gatto too.

(977, Luigi Comencini), and comedian Carlo Even more so than Phenomena, Dèmoni

Verdone’s debut Un sacco bello (980), while displays an explicit attempt at tagging along with working on the project of Once Upon a Time in the changes in taste and aesthetics of the decade.

America. Argento’s friend Luigi Cozzi had sub-As a producer, Argento chose to lean on gory mitted to him a science fiction script the merit excess to create an economically viable project of which Dario was not fully convinced about, for the international markets on a par with the so he got in touch with Bava. “He told me: bring overseas products, while at the same time keep-me an idea and we’ll make the movie immedi-ing it highly recognizable as Italian. With a sub-ately.” Lamberto seized the opportunity. “I told stantial budget at his disposal (which Bava Dario the story [of Dèmoni] and on the tenth quantified as three or three- and-a-half billion word he told me: ‘That’s an idea, we’ll make it!’

lire), quite some time and effort was dedicated

… At that point we worked on it as it should al-to Stivaletti’s special make- up effects and cre-ways be done in movies, that is, four people ations.

scripting for four or five months.”2

Besides the nods to Romero, Dèmoni de-

Sacchetti’s recollection of the scriptwriting picts perfectly the metamorphosis of the Gothic sessions is not devoid of bitter remarks. “At that in a juvenile, postmodernist key. Both the film-time, I was again cross with Dario. He esteemed within-a-film and the film itself revolve around me but didn’t trust me. I have a completely dif-teenage characters: Cheryl and her classmate ferent working method. First, he wanted to get have skipped school (possibly conservatory: Franco Ferrini on board, who didn’t understand Cheryl carries a book of Béla Bartók composi-the film and only tried to please Dario. Then, tions) to go to the movies, while George and Ken since as everyone knows I have a bad temper, don’t miss the opportunity to sit close to the girls Dario paid me and got rid of me. He called me and court them—a blossoming blind date which back a few months later for a final polish, but by goes horribly wrong. The city where the story then Sergio Stivaletti had become the film’s deus takes place is never mentioned but it is obviously ex machina, with his special effects.”3 Sacchetti German—the film was shot in Berlin, and in the claimed that the first part of his original story opening sequence Cheryl meets the masked was virtually identical to the finished film, man at the Heidelberger Platz station—and the whereas the second half was set entirely in the makers pay homage to Expressionism by way of cinema’s basement, where the main characters the movie theater’s name (Metropol, hinting at

“found all this stuff—movie posters, costumes, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis). But the setting refers sets, etc.—and then there was this journey to-also to one of the main centers of the Goth sub-ward safety through what was left of an old the-culture, which included ample references to 9th ater’s basement. Dario didn’t want that, but he century Gothic literature and Gothic horror wanted a big demon coming out of the floor …

films. As expected, however, youth culture is re-he wanted something more in the style of a zom-garded with suspicion: in the opening scenes, bie film, with blood and gore, and Stivaletti’s ef-Natasha Hovey’s good girl character is travelling fects. I had thought of a more romantic twist, in a subway train filled with rather menacing-

24 1985: Dèmoni looking types lifted from Christiane F. (98, Uli death in Inferno. Horror literally invades real Edel), and halfway through the movie we are in-life, and movies become a source of infection troduced to a quartet of obnoxious punk vandals and perdition, as in the censors’ worst night-who drive around the city listening to Go West mares.

and Billy Idol and sniffing cocaine. The sound-One of Dèmoni’s cleverest touches is that, track winks (rather confusedly, one might add) unbeknownst to all, the invasion has already to the equation between hard rock and horror, happened when the film begins. The masked
as Argento had done in Phenomena, with a seman played by Michele Soavi, who gives away lection of hits and excerpts from songs by Scor-free tickets for a movie premiere, is one of the pions, Mötley Crüe, Accept and Saxon. In turn, characters from the movie that will be premiered the main theme in Claudio Simonetti’s score that night, who has become a demon and seems to have been inspired by Herbie Hancock’s walked away in the real world, to spread the in-

983 hit single Rockit—another sign of the evolu-fection. It’s a paradox worthy of John Carpenter’s tion of taste from the days of the Tubular Bells-in-In the Mouth of Madness (994), and it’s a pity fluenced theme from Profondo rosso.

that the script doesn’t elaborate further on the Most significantly, the story takes place in-idea, introducing the character again near the side a cinema: the movie theater becomes the end only for a rather anticlimactic fight with the ideal replacement of the Gothic haunted houses, hero on the theater’s roof.

a cloistered container of horror and the natural Still, the film’s central idea is striking. At setting of a story which has its strong point in the time, critics pointed out marginal similarities the cinematic references. “This place is haunted,”

with Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo a character says, and the imposing Metropol (98), released earlier that year, but few recalled theater seems to acquire a life of its own. Like a much closer (and most likely casual) prede-in Buñuel’s El ángel exterminador (962) and in cessor, Giuliano Montaldo’s brilliant, made- for-Giuseppe Bennati’s 974 Gothic giallo, L’assassino TV Circuito chiuso (978), a murder mystery set ha riservato nove poltrone, its doors are locked inside a movie venue where a killing takes place, (even literally walled) by an invisible force and and the culprit is eventually revealed as a gun-open only to let the contagion slip out; its walls slinger (none other than Giuliano Gemma) from sweat indefinable liquids; its interiors are a con-the Spaghetti Western that was being screened.6
coction of Escher- like secret passages, stairs and But the setting also predates Joe Lansdale’s 988
corridors that lead nowhere, and recall the im-horror novel The Drive- In: A “B” Movie with possible architectures of Mario Bava’s films: at a Blood and Popcorn, as does the way Bava piles certain point the survivors break through a wall on the absurd and the gruesome without need that seemingly separates them from the outside for much explanation, gleefully allowing the world, only to find themselves inside a secluded massacre to take center stage.

chamber that shouldn’t be there. And, finally, the For a film centered on the notion of cinema Metropol’s walls are filled with horror movie as a source of horror, Dèmoni collects an im-posters and memorabilia, the modern- day pressive series of homages, nods, references, equivalent of the paintings and paraphernalia borrowings, and stealings. Dawn of the Dead is in classical Gothic.

openly quoted in the image of Urbano Bar-It is cinema that acts as a thread between berini’s character riding a motorbike and decap-old- style Gothic—represented by the nameless itating monsters (with a Japanese sword instead film- within-a-film, which is set near a dilapi-of the machete Tom Savini employed in Romero’s dated church and cemetery, and deals with a film), and in the sight gag of the helicopter in-mysterious prophecy and a curse from the explicably falling into the deserted theater, past—and the present. The demons’ curse pos-which results in yet another decapitation- by-sibly comes from a centuries- old prophecy by helicopter-blade. But Argento himself is also Nostradamus, but is transmitted through a hor-evoked multiple times, from the opening scenes ror movie, which acts as a contemporary varia-with Natasha Hovey walking in the deserted tion on the old cursed manuscripts and written subway station to the poster of 4 mosche di vel-spells in classic Gothic. The screen itself becomes luto grigio hanging in the foyer; a blind man has the source of horror, ripping open like an in-his eyes gouged out like the butler in Inferno, fected womb and giving birth to the menace, in and the spectacular hanging of some characters a scene which in turn pays homage to Sara’s in the middle of the theater recalls the opening

1985: Dèmoni

2

Unlike the living dead, the demons are
not cannibals, but they retain a mad urgency to attack, touch, bite and scratch their victims which is almost sexual, and in turn recalls David Cronenberg’s early contagion films such as Shivers (97) and Rabid (977). It’s unlikely Sacchetti and Bava had in mind a metaphor
for AIDS, but nevertheless Dèmoni features an interesting sexual subtext, with its virginal teenagers and married women giving in to lust in the dark of a theater and, as a result, being menaced and infected by voracious ghouls. It’s not the same situation as the one depicted in slasher films, however, specifically because the setting is very Italian: despite its alleged German setting, the Metropol looks very much
like an old seconda visione Italian venue, with its uncomfortable wooden chairs, clandestine couples and unfriendly usherettes. The kind of movie theaters that were gradually disappearing, converted into bingo clubs or shopping malls. In this respect, the scenes in which the survivors destroy the projector and pull up the rows of seats are a grim prophecy of what would be the norm just a few years later.

In tune with Dèmoni’s postmodernist
quality, the cast itself includes a parade of familiar faces of Italian horror and genre cinema, Italian locandina for Lamberto Bava’s Dèmoni (1985).

from Nicoletta Elmi (the eerie little girl from Baron Blood, Il medaglione insanguinato, Pro-murder in Suspiria. Then, of course, Bava Jr. bows fondo rosso and other scary movies of the previous to the memory of his late father: the unnamed decade) to Giovanni Frezza (the kid from Lucio film- within-a-film develops like a modern- day Fulci’s films), not forgetting Stelio Candelli (Nuda remake of La maschera del demonio (and much per Satana) and Goffredo Unger. As the gigantic more convincing, it must be added, than the one bald black pimp with sideburns, Bobby Rhodes the director will helm for TV a few years later), looks as if he’s just stepped out of a vintage Blax-and the contagion starts when a girl cuts herself ploitation movie (despite being born in Livorno, while donning a “mask of the demon,” vaguely in the Tuscan coast) and provides a temporary hinting at Kruvajan reanimating Asa after acci-proletarian hero before his role is taken by the dentally cutting his hand in the 960 film.

blond and noble Urbano Barberini, the descenAs for the demons, although openly in-
dant of one of the most ancient aristocratic fam-spired by Romero’s zombies, they are in fact ilies in Rome. But Bava’s ace casting choice is that closer to the “crazies” in Umberto Lenzi’s Incubo of the 8-year-old, blue- eyed Natasha Hovey, who sulla città contaminata, and despite some overly had made a striking debut in Carlo Verdone’s aminaive make- up (such as the multicolored painted able romantic comedy Acqua e sapone (983), and veins on their faces) they are impressive creations here proves a pitch- perfect teenage scream queen.

indeed. “The idea that the demons’ eyes had to

“Dèmoni expresses a great love for the be fluorescent came to us on the set. It’s not a genre. I shot it all with a small dolly, purpose-visual effect, we didn’t have CGI back then,”

built, because I wanted the camera never to be Bava explained. “The demons are advancing still. Every shot had to make the viewer anxious, straight to the camera, because the actors had together with the use of noise and the sound-pieces of refractive paper taped on their eyes.

track,”8 Bava explained. Still, after a very tight Behind the camera there was a huge flat lamp first part, the movie suffers a bit from repetitive-that made their eyes shine.”7
ness, so much so that the director and his co-

26 1985: Dèmoni scriptwriters isolate single characters to build an Italian horror film. The models were Rick some subplot of sorts, and then resort to fleshing Baker and Rob Bottin’s prosthetic transforma-out the ranks of the soon- to-be-victims by in-tions in The Howling (980, Joe Dante), An troducing the four punks from the outside, in a American Werewolf in London (98, John Lan-plot twist which also provides the narrative ex-dis) and The Thing (982, John Carpenter), as in planation for the apocalyptic climax. The second the disturbing scene of the demon’s monstrous half drags quite a bit because of this, mainly be-fangs replacing human teeth in lingering close-cause the story doesn’t have the political and soups. It was a neat departure from the old and ciological foundations of Romero’s film. But it often crude Carlo Rambaldi–style gore of the provides some neat scares: in a scene perhaps previous decade, and from the gruesome effects inspired by Alien, an air conditioning duct be-seen in Fulci and Massaccesi’s films of the early comes an illusory way of escape, and Bava plays

980s. Many sequences display an almost playful with the source and direction of the menace will to repel and disgust: a case in point is the with consummate skill and considerable irony.

early scene where an abscess on a woman’s face Incidentally, Dèmoni is filled with pitch-explodes in a triumph of pus, and the overre-black humor, targeted to the characters and the liance on the slimy colored foams and liquids viewer as well. Some vignettes are absurd to the which the demons are drooling. Bava gives the point of Surrealism, most notably the blind man effects center stage, sometimes with even exces-who goes to the screening a horror film (the visive enthusiasm, but some of the most over- the-sual movie experience par excellence) and has top moments, such as the birth of a demon who his wife tell him what is happening on screen emerges from a woman’s back, albeit a bit too (the fact that she has a rendezvous with her lover fake- looking for its own good, are show- stopping next to him only makes the implausible situation surreal moments which show how the makers
even more amusing). But there are also punks were pulling all the stops. Stivaletti explained that sniffing cocaine from a Coca- Cola can (a decid-the demon birth effect was much more complex edly irreverent sight gag), and a punkette girl than what can be seen in the finished film: stopping in the middle of the carnage to admire Firstly, that wasn’t the monster that had to come out, herself in front of a mirror and put on her lip-but it had been conceived for another scene, and then stick, which results in a gruesome retribution due to budgetary and time constraints we did a (the scene somehow recalls Paola Senatore strange mixture between what had to be the demon’s obliviously dancing in the nude in front of a final transformation and the thing coming out from mirror while the victims are piling up in L’assas-the back… . Whereas from the woman’s back there sino ha riservato nove poltrone). Bava even had to emerge a creature similar to Menelik, which inserts a last- minute gag during the end credits, we created for the second Dèmoni film. And so, the which start rolling and stop abruptly while the fact that it came out of the body had people say, grim fate of a main character is revealed just

“That’s like Alien!” but it wasn’t! … and then there when we think the perils are over. As the credits was the aftermath, with the woman literally wilting start rolling again, we are presented with a cyn-on the floor: this was shot but not edited.
ical punchline, in tune with the rest of the film.

Shot in nine weeks in June and July 98,

For its Italian theatrical release, Dèmoni got Dèmoni was released in its home country in Oc-a V.M.8 screening certificate (no minors al-tober 98 and benefited from a clever promo-lowed) from the rating board, something for tional campaign, with Dario Argento’s name in which Argento and Bava were prepared.9 “As a evidence above the title (and three times as big producer, Dario was undaunted by the prospect as Bava’s) and a tagline taken from the film-of substantial cuts. ‘Who cares,’ he said, ‘let’s within-a-film, “Faranno dei cimiteri le loro cat-keep the V.M.8.’ And in fact, one of the reasons tedrali, e delle città le vostre tombe” (“They’ll of Dèmoni’s commercial success was that it was make cathedrals of their graveyards, and turn hardcore gore stuff. Because if it had been softer, cities into your tombs”) which in the grand trait probably wouldn’t have had such an impact.

dition of Italian Gothic is attributed to a famed And look, there’s stuff we cut—I mean in the ed-source (Nostradamus) whereas it was exclusively iting room—such as transformations, etc., the fruit of Sacchetti’s pen. With ,22 million which was a lot stronger.”0
lire, it was the season’s 39th top grossing film and Stivaletti’s pioneering effects, if inevitably the most popular horror movie of the year, outdated nowadays, were unlike anything seen in grossing such titles as Cat’s Eye, Silver Bullet and

1985: Fracchia

27

A Nightmare on Elm Street and paving the way DOP: Luciano Tovoli (Telecolor); M: Bruno for a sequel.

Zambrini (Ed. Alsa Maura); E: Sergio Montanari; The commercial potential of Bava’s film re-PD: Giovanni Licheri; CO: Mario Carlini; MU: sulted in it being distributed theatrically world-Maurizio Trani; AMU: Laura Borselli; Hair: Paolo wide (although the U.K. release was apparently Franceschi; AD: Marina Mattoli; 2ndAD: Anna cancelled at the last minute, after some press

[Annalisa] De Simone; C: Giuseppe Tinelli; AC: screenings2). The reviews were often far from Roberto Marsigli; 2ndAC: Lorenzo Tovoli; PM: positive, though. The New York Times’ Walter Massimo Cristofanelli; PM: Carlo Alberto Fan-Goodman opened his scathing piece on the film tacci, Lionello Fantacci; SP: Vincenzo Savino; SD: with a sarcastic “Blame it on Nostradamus,” and Andrea Fantacci; ACO: Francesco Crivellini; W: labeled it a “made-for-music-video blood gusher,”

Ruggero Peruzzi; AE: Carlo Bartolucci, Luca long on gore and short on logic, concluding: Montanari; SS: Mirella Roi; SO: Massimo

“‘This film contains scenes which are considered Loffredi; B: Giulio Viggiani; Mix: Danilo Moroni; shocking,’ says a line in the advertisements. ‘No Cast: Paolo Villaggio (Giandomenico Fracchia), one under 7 will be admitted unless accompa-Edmund Purdom (Count Vlad Dracula), Gigi
nied by a parent or guardian.’ The kids have all Reder (Rag. Filini), Ania Pieroni (Countess the luck.”3

Oniria), Federica Brion (Stefania), Giuseppe Ced-Dèmoni proved very influential in the years erna (Boris), Susanna Martinková (Catarina), to come: the apocalyptic outcome recalls Danny Andrea Gnecco (Kaspar), Filippo Degara [De Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) and the French La Gara] (Butler), Paul Muller (Fracchia’s Boss), Ro-Horde (2009, Yannick Dahan and Benjamin mano Puppo (Frankenstein), Isabella Ferrari Rocher).

(Luna); uncredited: Lars Bloch (Doctor), Giucas Casella (Himself), Plinio Fernando (Klema), Notes

Daniela Ferrari. PROD: Bruno Altissimi, Claudio 1. Morsiani, “Conversazione con Lamberto Bava,” 49.

Saraceni for Maura International Film (Rome), As for the other episodes, one was a story set in the Faso Film (Rome); GM: Paolo Vandini; PM: Bermuda Triangle, while nothing is known of the third Nereo Salustri, Francesco Benvenuti; PSe: Cate-segment.

rina De Angelis; ADM: Maria Lavinia Gualino; 2. Ibid.

3. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

AsstADM: Gloria Del Gracco. Press attache: com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option= com_

Lucherini- Vasile. Country: Italy. Filmed at Castle content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=79).

Fénis, in Valle D’Aosta, and at Cinecittà Studios 4. Dardano Sacchetti, “La verità” in Genealogia del (Rome). Running time: 94 minutes (m. 297).

delitto. Il cinema di Mario e Lamberto Bava, 7.

Visa n. 843 (2.9.98); Rating: all audiences.

5. Maiello, Dario Argento, 300.

6. Even though the posters that can be seen outside Release date: 2.9.98; Distribution: Titanus. Do-the venue in Montaldo’s film are those of I giorni dell’ira mestic gross: 88,23,000 lire. Also known as: Zwei (967), the clips used were from another Western starring Vollidioten schlagen zu (West Germany).

Gemma, Giulio Petroni’s …e per tetto un cielo di stelle In an attempt to sell a property to the short-

(968).

7. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 4.

sighted accountant Filini, real estate salesman Gi-8. Ibid.

andomenico Fracchia accompanies him to visit a 9. The appeal took place in July 986, and the Appeal castle in Transylvania—which Fracchia has told commission rejected the request of lowering the rating to Filini is just outside Rome. Upon their arrival by a V.M.4.

car, the two men find accommodation at an inn 10. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 40.

11. Alberto Morsiani, “Intervista a Sergio Stivaletti,” in and learn that the villagers fear the mysterious Rosso italiano (1977/1978), 93.

Count Vlad. At the castle, they discover that it is 12. The film had been submitted to the BBFC by Avatar still occupied by the mysterious Count and his sis-Communications Ltd. in January 987, with the BBFC
ter Oniria, who sleep in coffins and turn out to trimming 2 minutes and 4 seconds, resulting in a running time of 86 minutes and 6 seconds.

be vampires. Oniria falls for Fracchia, who is still 13. Walter Goodman, “Screen: Demons, by Bava,” New a virgin, and decides to marry him. However, the York Times, May 3, 986.

vampire girl is destined to marry the Frankenstein monster, who shows up at the castle. The Count Fracchia contro Dracula (Who Is Afraid has Fracchia and the monster challenge one an-of Dracula?, a.k.a. Fracchia Vs. Dracula)

other to a game of tennis and poker to decide who D: Neri Parenti. S and SC: Franco Marotta, will marry Oniria, and Fracchia wins. At the cer-Laura Toscano, Neri Parenti, Paolo Villaggio; emony, attended by a horde of monsters and zom-

28 1985 Fracchia bies, Fracchia and Filini are saved at the last mo-femme blanche, 974) and Pupi Avati (La mazurka ment by Luna, the sister of a deceased vampire del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone, 97), but hunter, and Fracchia accidentally kills the Count by the mid–Eighties the actor was merely treading with his own umbrella. However, it all turns out water, offering his audience tired slapstick farces to be a nightmare, as the fearful Fracchia had which repeated the same gags over and over, ad fallen asleep at the theater while watching a horror nauseam. This had to do in no small part with his movie…

family vicissitudes, namely his 23-year-old son Since the outstanding success of Fantozzi

Pierfrancesco’s heroin addiction: in 984, after (97, Luciano Salce), about a sad, awkward and many unsuccessful attempts at helping him, Vil-unlucky accountant who is bullied by his bosses, laggio had him hospitalized in the San Patrignano colleagues and practically everyone he meets, rehab community, where the young man would Paolo Villaggio’s consistent popularity at the box-eventually detox from drugs.2
office during the mid- to-late 970s and the 980s The second Fracchia movie, Fracchia contro was guaranteed by the repetition of his trademark Dracula, had the 3-year-old Villaggio and the screen persona. In fact, in addition to the Fantozzi co- scriptwriters Laura Toscano and Franco sequels, Villaggio brought to the screen other Marotta (a duo of comedy specialists who had characters who, despite having a different name, worked among others with Giorgio Capitani on were basically more of the same. Such was Gian-Bollenti spiriti) borrow again from a horror domenico Fracchia, a meek accountant that the staple, after 979’s Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora, actor had first played on television in 968, in the and marked the actor’s eight teaming with Par-program Quelli della domenica. Pathologically enti, by then his regular director.

shy, cowardly, slavish to the point of
masochism, Fracchia is continually vic-
timized by his superior (“Com’è umano
lei!,” “How humane you are,” is his
catchphrase, which he utters after being
insulted and humiliated by his boss).

Villaggio reprised many of Fracchia’s
traits with Fantozzi, the protagonist of
his 97 novel and the subsequent films;
he revived the character in the 97 TV
miniseries Giandomenico Fracchia—

Sogni proibiti di uno di noi, and eventu-
ally adapted it for the big screen with
the slapstick comedy Fracchia la belva
umana (98, Neri Parenti).

However, the formula grew tired
quickly, despite Villaggio’s qualities as
a comedian and the screenwriters’ trick
of “borrowing” from old movies for
plot ideas: Fracchia la belva umana was
inspired by John Ford’s classic comedy

The Whole Town’s Talking (93) and

Sogni mostruosamente proibiti (982,

Neri Parenti) reworked the basic plot
of the Danny Kaye classic The Secret

Life of Walter Mitty (947, Norman Z.

McLeod). Villaggio’s turns before the
camera in the early 970s had been
characterized by a willingness to accept
bold roles, with his participation in movies by important directors such as

Italian poster for Fracchia contro Dracula (1985, Neri Par-Nanni Loy (Sistemo l’America e torno,
enti), a Dracula spoof starring Paolo Villaggio and edmund

973), Marco Ferreri (Touchez pas à la

Purdom (as Dracula).

1985: Fracchia

29

The opening, with Fracchia watching a hor-

The film’s use of Gothic stereotypes steals ror movie with his fiancée, recalls an episode of liberally from various sources, from the Addams the anthology comedy I motorizzati (96), where Family TV series to Mel Brooks’ Young Franken-Ugo Tognazzi was scared to death by La maschera stein (974), not forgetting Roman Polanski’s The del demonio. Here, the film Fracchia cannot even Fearless Vampire Killers (967). A fun macabre bear to watch, to the point that he asks a little kid gag finds Boris having his hand chopped off by sitting next to him to tell him what is happening the butler (who is chopping meat for the soup), on screen, is Return of the Living Dead (98, Dan and later retrieving it from Fracchia’s plate when O’Bannon), released in Italy by Titanus, the same dinner is served; in the same scene the butler distribution company as Villaggio’s film. The keeps pouring wine outside Fracchia’s glass just punchline to the scene—the frightened Fracchia as the blind hermit played by Gene Hackman jumping back after a scare and causing a disas-did with the hot soup in Young Frankenstein. A trous Rube Goldberg–like chain reaction, with Frankenstein monster shows up too, played by all the rows behind him overturning and the rest stuntman Romano Puppo and addressed by of the audience ending up on the floor—is em-Dracula as “advocate,” and Villaggio and com-blematic of Villaggio’s comedy antics, which draw pany exploit the monster’s presence for comedy from the physicality of the silent movie era; yet in the absurdist sequence of the tennis match, a it is so hastily rendered, cinematically speaking, rendition of a hilarious episode in the first Fan-that it gives away the slapdash nature of the mise-tozzi film. The wedding ceremony, with the vir-en-scène. Parenti is not a filmmaker on the level ginal Fracchia dressed in white like a bride (“Do of Capitani, and it shows.

I look good in this dress?” he asks Filini) and an Still, the plot is more than just an excuse attendance of various monsters—including anfor the protagonist’s antics, and despite some other regular of the Fantozzi series, the freaky-openly silly dialogue (“I’m Kaspar, vampire looking Plinio Fernando in an uncredited bit hunter” “Giandomenico Fracchia” “Exorcist?”

role—is decidedly more amusing.

“No, real estate agent”) it is endearing and well-As Dracula, Edmund Purdom looks amused
structured. Even though Toscano claimed that and suitably self- ironic, and seems more alive she liked the film very much, she pointed at than in most of the roles he played over the years, budget constraints as the film’s most blatant in his special appearances in films ranging from issue, its cheapness: “The effects were bad, the mediocre to terrible. His best scene has him per-monsters were not as they should have been.”3
form for his guest, playing the balalaika for Frac-If Fracchia contro Dracula is at least one step up chia and Filini, and singing with different voices from the low level of many Italian comedies of (including a woman’s, which belongs to one of the 980s, characterized by careless filmmaking his previous victims: an interesting addition to and poor production values, most of the credit the Dracula canon which goes lost in the story).

goes to Luciano Tovoli’s cinematography and As his “little sister” Oniria, the ravishing Ania Giovanni Licheri’s production design. Tovoli Pieroni makes her last movie appearance. She tries hard to convey a Gothic feel with plenty of would become one of the more influential per-day- for-night scenes tinted in icy blue and sonalities in Italian television. The cast also fea-splashes of bright red in the interiors, while the tures two actors usually associated with commit-set pieces are atmospheric and subtly parodic, ted auteur cinema: Cederna, seen in Marco as is Bruno Zambrini’s score.

Bellocchio’s Enrico IV (984) and later to become Villaggio also reprises the Mr. Magoo- like a renowned stage actor and writer, and Isabella character of Filini (played by his regular comedy Ferrari.

aside Gigi Reder) from the Fantozzi series, and The reviews were rather positive: the Cor-Reder provides some of the best gags, such as riere della Sera’s critic Giovanni Grazzini praised when the short- sighted Filini mistakes vampire the production values and wrote that “Fracchia bats for canaries, or says he smells a rotten goat contro Dracula displays a silliness that here and whenever Dracula’s stinking hunchback servant there touches the sublime.”4 Yet, despite a release Boris (Giuseppe Cederna) is around. On the during the Christmas holidays, the most com-other hand, as Villaggio himself claimed, the im-mercially fruitful period of the year, the film was perturbable blind butler, played by veteran chara disappointment at the box- office, with only 88
acter actor Filippo Degara, was inspired by P.G.

million lire, and ended up at the 60th spot Wodehouse’s character, Jeeves.

among the top- grossers of the year. Despite the

30 1985: Monster wave of horror and vampire comedies of the pe-Re-recording: Alberto Tinebra. Cast: Alice Cooper riod, such as Transylvania 6–5000 (98, Rudy

[Vincent Furnier] (Vince Raven), Victoria Vera De Luca) and I Married a Vampire (987, Jay (Sandra), Carlos Santurio (Frank), María José Raskin), it didn’t find much of an audience Sarsa (Marilou), Pepita James (Angela), Emilio abroad: Variety labeled it “a hard sell.” It became Linder (Jordan), Charly Bravo (Lou), Barta Barri marginally known as a curio, under the title (Old man), Ricardo Palacios (Sheriff Morrison), Who Is Afraid of Dracula?, gaining some foot-Luis Maluenda (Deputy), Fernando Conde (Ed), notes in reference books.

Fernando Baeza (Jerome), Nino Bastida (Greg).

Villaggio’s output for the remainder of the PROD: Eduard Sarlui for Continental Motion decade consisted mostly of hit- and-run, forget-Pictures, M&C Films, Royal Films; EP: Helen Sar-table comedies, often teamed with other popular lui [Szabo], Eduard Sarlui; Line Producer: Carlos names such as Renato Pozzetto and Lino Banfi.

Aured; PM: Roberto Bessi; PA: John Senovilla; By the end of the 980s he decided to renew his PAcc: Jesse [Jesús García] Gárgoles; PSe: Vince image, and in the following years he alternated Ortega. Country: Spain. Filmed in Torrelodones, his more commercial work with several inter-Madrid. Running time: 84 minutes (U.S. version); esting projects, including Federico Fellini’s last 88 minutes (International version). Spanish Visa film, La voce della luna (989), followed by Io n. 9632 (8.6.988); Rating: not recommended speriamo che me la cavo (992, Lina Wertmüller), for those under 8 years old. Release dates: Il segreto del bosco vecchio (993, Ermanno 7..986 (USA—Home video); 9..986 (U.K.—

Olmi), Cari fottutissimi amici (994, Mario Mon-Home video); 8.6.988 (Spain); Distribution: icelli) and Denti (2000, Gabriele Salvatores).

Trans World entertainment (U.S.—Home video); Union Films S.A. (Spain); Eureka Video (Italy; Notes

Home video). Also known as: The Bite; Monster Dog—Il signore dei cani (Italy); Los perros de la 1. Fantozzi (97, Luciano Salce), Il secondo tragico Fantozzi (976, Luciano Salce), Fantozzi contro tutti (980, Neri muerte; Uma noite de Horror (Brazil).

Parenti and Paolo Villaggio), Fantozzi subisce ancora (983, Note: The songs “Identity Crisises” and “See Neri Parenti), Superfantozzi (98, Neri Parenti), Fantozzi Me in the Mirror” are written by Alice Cooper, va in pensione (988, Neri Parenti), Fantozzi alla riscossa arranged and orchestrated by Terry Bautista.

(990, Neri Parenti), Fantozzi in paradiso (993, Neri Par-Rock star Vince Raven, his girlfriend Sandra, enti), Fantozzi—Il ritorno (996, Neri Parenti) and Fantozzi 2000—La clonazione (999, Domenico Saverni).

and Vince’s film crew drive to the singer’s old child-2. Natalia Aspesi, “Noi difendiamo Muccioli,” Repub-hood home to shoot a music video. Along the way blica, May 2, 984.

they are warned by the local sheriff that there has 3. G. Gs. [Giovanna Grassi], “Fracchia e Dracula,” Cor-been a wolf attack in the area. Soon the sheriff and riere della Sera, October 30. 98.

4. G. Gr. [Giovanni Grazzini], “Fracchia alle prese col his deputy are killed by a monster. After an en-vampiro,” Corriere della Sera, December 27, 98.

counter with a crazy old man who warns them of 5. Variety, February 9, 986.

impending danger, Vince and his crew arrive at the house. A girl in the crew, Angela, has a night-Monster Dog, a.k.a. Leviatán (Monster mare about Vince being a werewolf, and he tells Dog)

her that his father was affected by lycanthropy and D: Clyde Anderson [Claudio Fragasso]. S
was lynched by an angry mob. The video shoot is and SC: Clyde Anderson [Claudio Fragasso]

interrupted after the discovery of the dead care-

[and Rossella Drudi, uncredited]; DOP: José taker’s body, and some angry locals show up at the García Galisteo (Technicolor); M: Grupo Di-house to kill Vince, whom they believe is respon-chotomy; E: Antonio José Ochoa; Additional edsible for the murders. A shootout ensues, while a iting: Gabrio Astori, Peter Teschner; Additional pack of wild dogs break into the house and cause editors: Giorgio Conti, Mercedes G. Alted; ArtD: havoc. Vince and Sandra try to get away but are Andrés Gumersindo; CO: María Eugenia Es-attacked by the werewolf. The monster turns out crivá; SPFX, SE: Carlo De Marchis; AD: Michael to be the old man they first met, who in turn had Gutierez; C: Julio Madurga; AC: Joe Villava, been infected by Vince’s father. Vince, who has Michael A. Clavijo; SO: José Mendieta; W: been bitten, starts turning into a werewolf too, but Teresa García; ChEl: Vince Lozano; G: José Fer-Sandra shoots him.

rándiz, Joe Garcia, Pedro Ramírez; KG: Alfonso

“At first I thought I had to be like other Ital-Barambio; SS: Victoria Melian; SOE: Studio ian “high cinema” directors,” Claudio Fragasso Anzellotti; Dialogue editor: Christopher Cruise; explained about his directorial debut, the little-

1985: Monster

3
seen Passaggi (977, shot on Super8) and his memorable appearance (as himself ) in Alan sophomore effort, Difendimi dalla notte (98), Rudolph’s cult film Roadie (980), starring Meat both “intellectual films” with ambitions. “In Loaf.

Italy, to be considered important, you must Working as line producer for Sarlui’s com-shoot something like that.” But Fragasso even-pany—and as his front for the Spanish red tape, tually followed his heart, which was deeply for the film to be categorized as a Spanish pro-rooted in genre cinema. By the mid–980s, at a duction and benefit from the country’s law fa-little over 30, he was a veteran in the Italian cilitations—was also Carlos Aured, the helmer genre film industry. He had been cranking out of several Paul Naschy films who gave up direct-scripts since the mid–970s, and in the early ing after his film Atrapados en el miedo but

980s he had worked on several films with stayed in the movie business assuming produc-Bruno Mattei, ranging from sleazy women- in-tion duties. Monster Dog was part of a two-prison flicks to gory horror movies, which he picture deal that comprised also Deran Serafian’s usually scripted and de facto co- directed (see Alien Predators (a.k.a. The Falling). Both pictures entry for L’altro Inferno). However, for his third were shot back- to-back, but Serafian’s film went official venture behind the camera the Italian way over schedule and left Aured with a pile of filmmaker moved to Spain.

unpaid debts, causing him to quit the movie The offer came from Dutch producer Ed-business.3
uard Sarlui, who contacted Fragasso upon watch-Monster Dog was shot in five weeks4 in Toring his post- atomic extravaganza Rats—Notte di relodones, just outside of Madrid. The director terrore (984, signed as “Vincent Dawn” and cowas thrilled to work with Cooper and claimed directed with Mattei). “He told me he wanted me they had become friends who used to watch to make another movie with animals … after horror movies together at night. Aured as well

“Rats” now it was time for “Dogs,” Monster Dog recalled the star’s low profile and amiability. “I (laughs).”2 Sarlui was looking for low- budget hor-went to meet him at the airport and failed to ror films to distribute on the home video market recognize him! He was wearing white slacks and through his company Continental Motion Pica jumper, looking like an Englishman dressed tures, an umbrella organization registered in for cricket! He didn’t give us any problems. He Panama but selling features in the U.S. through only made two ‘demands’—to have a supply of American Cinema Service and in Italy through cold Coca- Cola on set and a VCR in his room Eureka Film International of Rome. For the so he could watch old Western movies; he was script, Fragasso and his wife Rossella Drudi (who crazy about Westerns. On weekends, he used to co- authored it uncredited) took inspiration from spend all his time playing golf.” Fragasso and the new wave of American werewolf movies, such Drudi even claimed that Cooper used to play as The Howling and An American Werewolf in golf in a miniature golf course in his Madrid London, and added a mystery twist to the story, apartment. The singer was known to all as “The a bit in the vein of the Amicus werewolf whodunit American” during shooting, being the only for-The Beast Must Die (974, Paul Annett).

eign member in an all- Spanish cast which fea-Fragasso had an unlikely lead at his dis-
tured Victoria Vera (soon to become a promi-posal: singer Alice Cooper, then undergoing a nent film and stage actress) and genre regulars bad stretch after his peaks of popularity in the such as Ricardo Palacios, Emilio Linder and previous decade with such albums as Billion Barta Barri.

Dollar Babies and Welcome to My Nightmare.

Cooper’s presence pushed Monster Dog in

Cooper was detoxing from alcohol abuse and a direction akin to those horror films centered needed a project to focus on after the fiascos of on rock bands such as Terror on Tour (980, Don his latest, new- wave spiced records. The singer Edmonds), Rocktober Blood (984, Ferd & Bev-had always liked to associate himself with a erly Sebastian) and Hard Rock Zombies (98, macabre and horror imagery, from the use of a Krishna Shah). The film opens with a music fake guillotine on stage to such songs as “Ballad video, in which Cooper’s alter ego Vincent of Dwight Fry,” whose title paid reference to the Raven sings the song “Identity Crisises” (spelled

930s actor (Dwight Frye, not Fry, incidentally)

“Identity Chrises” in the end credits) and turns who played Renfield in Tod Browning’s Dracula up as the various characters mentioned in the (93). It wasn’t Cooper’s first stint at acting, as lyrics like a quick- change artist such as the fa-he had appeared in several films, including a mous Leopoldo Fregoli (“Sometimes I’m James

32 1985: Monster Bond/Sometimes I’m Billy the Kid/Sometimes Spain. Originally the transformation would have I feel like Sherlock Holmes/Sometimes I feel like to take place gradually, through various stages, Jack the Ripper… ”). The result is as naïve as and the monster was designed by Roman art di-some Italian music videos of the early 980s, and rector Antonello Geleng, following Fragasso’s curiously recalls the one Michelangelo Anto-suggestion to make it look like a prehistoric an-nioni shot in 984 for Gianna Nannini’s song imal or a panther, however more feline than a

“Fotoromanza.” Since the record company and dog. But De Marchis’ creature didn’t look at all the artist are (comprehensibly) unhappy with like Geleng’s design. Moreover, the puppet the result, the film has Raven and his crew move (which could be maneuvered through wires and conveniently to an old dark house in the middle a cart) was ready only on the last week of filming, of nowhere to reshoot the video, an idea with as the director explained. “In a scene (which was some points in common with Luigi Cozzi’s Pa-then cut) the monster breaks through a door and ganini Horror (989) and which provides the holds the head of one of the actors in its jaws.

film with a suitable old- style Gothic mood.

This was the first time that the puppet was used, Fragasso embraces the music video- inspired but unfortunately it broke immediately, forcing style of many early to mid–Eighties horror films us to move it manually in the following scenes.”6
to have the film look American and up- to-date, This pushed Fragasso and Drudi to do some last-with dry ice aplenty and lots of silhouette shots minute rewriting, while for the big climax they in the exterior night scenes to make up for the had to rely on facial make- up and rubber masks scarce budget. He even inserts two more music were used, to less than impressive results.

videos in the film: “See Me in the Mirror” has It wasn’t the only issue that plagued the

Cooper reprising his typical vampire look (dressed filming. The director and production manager in black, with heavy eye makeup and gloomy Roberto Bessi—the third and last Italian in the grin), while the ending features a reprise of the crew, working with Sarlui for the second time

“Identity Crisises” video with excerpts from the after Warrior of the Lost World (983)—had to story, presumably to pad out the running time.

deal with incompetent crew members and face But Fragasso even throws in some Spaghetti many issues. Moreover, Fragasso (who is credited Western- inspired scenes along the way, with an in the film with his Anglicized pseudonym Clyde armed confrontation between Vince and some Anderson) blamed Sarlui for having arbitrarily armed thugs, and during the third act the director recut the movie:

seems possessed by the spirit of Sam Peckinpah, They did me wrong because about 20 minutes of film turning Monster Dog into a sort of remake of were cut. What is now circulating on VHS and DVD

Straw Dogs (97), with rednecks with bandoliers is not the film that I shot. It’s a film that I do not dis-and guns moving around the house and shooting own, it didn’t come out as I wanted but the fault is at the protagonists, and bullet- ridden bodies above all of the editing. When a director signs a deal falling to the floor in slow- motion.

with the Americans you never have the final cut, so The result is less than earth- shattering, and your ideas for the editing need not necessarily be some naivetés in the plot are annoying: for in-considered. In this case, in fact, the final edit was stance, when Vince Raven leafs through an old made by the producer. The deleted scenes are the book called Werewolves: Myths, Legends and Sci-best, all those of the transformation, all the splatter entific Reality, we get to see a full- page still of ones… . It’s a pity but it is also true that in 984/8
extreme splatter began to disappear.7

Lon Chaney, Jr., from The Wolf Man (94), an unlikely choice for a presumably decades- old These cuts remain unconfirmed and there is no tome, and one that sabotages any attempt at old-evidence of extra gory scenes left out of the film.

style Gothic atmosphere. The film suffers from However, in the featurette Lord of the Dogs, in low- par special effects too: there is never a full the American Blu- ray release of the film, Fra-graphic werewolf transformation, and in the cli-gasso and Drudi’s recollection of the cuts was max we get to see some facial hair make- up plus slightly different:

a rubber, deformed dog- head mask.

When I did my cut, the director’s cut, I came back to According to Fragasso, the F/X caused Italy and what happened later was a big mess in my many delays during the shooting and turned out opinion. When I saw the movie, I didn’t recognize it.

a disappointment; namely, there were problems The movie was supposed to be longer, it had 20 min-with the mechanical werewolf built by Carlo De utes cut out and this kind of ruined the atmosphere Marchis, an Italian technician who lived in that I wanted to create. I had counted on that. The

1985: Monster

33
editing was a bit slower in my cut. They wanted to were people who worked on the original Alien, and make it faster, but they made it more confusing. It I was going, “Gee, I hope this isn’t too good.” But it was a pity anyway because I wanted to create a par-ended up being just as bad as I thought. I get to kill ticular atmosphere, but I would need  or 20 more like eight people in it, and I turn into a giant dog …

minutes of the footage I shot to give it that look. Then so it’s good.9
they did some clumsy things trying to fix the movie, but without the director you can’t understand what Fragasso went on to direct more horror
is right to do. They only messed it up and it’s a real films, some with Mattei, with whom he also shame [Fragasso].

filmed the additional scenes for Fulci’s Zombi 3, It was completely different, there was different ed-and some by himself, such as the ultraviolent iting and many sequences were cut, they edited them zombie yarn After Death (Oltre la morte) (989).

in a way that makes the story confusing. The movie The latter was produced by Filmirage, who also had a different meaning than before. We were very financed Fragasso’s La casa 5 and the infamous upset, both of us. Some very nice things that Claudio Troll 2 (both 990). For Troll 2, the director came shot were cut [Drudi].8
up with the a.k.a. “Drako Floyd”0 so that Sarlui, who was involved in the financing and had had The presence in the end credits of no less arguments with him on Monster Dog, wouldn’t than four “additional editors” might as well know that it was Fragasso directing the picture.

suggest tampering on the part of Sarlui. By comAs for Cooper, in 987 he turned up for a special paring the different versions of the film, it appears appearance, as one of the homeless people pos-that the producer trimmed a handful of minutes sessed by a devilish entity, in another horror for the American release, namely surrounding film, John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. Mean-contextual footage consisting of dialogue ex-while his career as a singer and recording artist changes—such as one between the sheriff (Ri-had gained momentum again, climaxing in the cardo Palacios) and his deputy (Luis Malu-

989 album
enda)—but leaving all the existing gore intact. A Trash, his biggest hit in years.

Cooper’s two songs were composed specif-

Japanese version, with a different audio mix and ically for the film and were arranged by Spanish the extra bits, runs a full 88 minutes. In a typical composer and arranger Teddy Bautista (who in practice in European productions, Monster Dog the 960s had been playing in the progressive rock was shot without direct sound and the characters band Los Canarios) and were played by the band were redubbed later in post- production. Cooper’s Dichotomy. They remained unreleased until 999, voice was provided by Ted Rusoff.

when they ended up in the 4-disc box- set The Life Despite reference books and IMDb claim-and Crimes of Alice Cooper. A numbered edition ing that it debuted in Italy in December 984, of 00 copies of a 7-inch single with the two songs Monster Dog wasn’t even submitted to the rating from the film was released in 202.

board for a screen certificate and surfaced to home video some years later. The U.S. prints feature a 98 copyright. Overseas it premiered on Notes
video in 986, while in 988 it was released the-1. Berger, “Claudio Fragasso’s Gore Wars,” 7.

atrically in Spain. According to the official Span-2. Caddeo and Lopéré, “Passion devoreuse,” 74.

ish sources (which list it as a 98 production ti-3. Mike Hodges, “Aured Rises from the Tomb,” Fangoria #89, January 2000, 7.

tled Leviatán, 00 percent Spanish, and credit 4. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 76.

Carlos Aured as scriptwriter), it was seen by an 5. Hodges, “Aured Rises from the Tomb,” 7.

audience of 3,438 spectators and grossed the 6. Caddeo and Lopéré, “Passion devoreuse,” 7.

equivalent of today’s 28,737.3 euro.

7. Ibid.

8. Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi interviewed, Over the years, Alice Cooper often referred in Federico Caddeo, Lord of the Dogs, featurette included to his participation in Monster Dog in amused as extra in the U.S. Kino Lorber Blu- Ray release of Monster terms. In a February 987 interview he explained: Dog.

9. Les Wiseman, “Coop Among Chickens,” Vancouver, I always wanted to do a really cheap splatter movie—

February 987.

one that would make me really big in somewhere like 10. The pseudonym was conceived by Rossella Drudi, who took inspiration from the Dragon sign in the Chinese Pakistan. Then five years from now I’d like to be able zodiac (“Drake”) and from her love for Pink Floyd to rent this movie for 79 cents. That’s the level I (“Floyd”). See Jacopo Coccia, “Conversazione con Rossella wanted this to be on. They gave me a lot of money Drudi (Parte ),” Bizzarrocinema.it (http:// www. bizzarro for it—it must have been half the budget—and we cinema. it/ interviste/ altre- interviste/ professione- scene did it in Spain. A lot of the people who worked on it ggiatore- intervista- esclusiva- a- rossella- drudi/).

34 1986: Anemia 1986

Anemia (Anemia)

ences hallucinations. Umberto’s illness leads him D: Alberto Abruzzese and Achille Pisanti.

to make a drastic decision: he’ll retire for some S: based on Alberto Abruzzese’s novel Anemia.

time in his grandfather’s secluded house by the Storia di un vampiro comunista; SC: Alberto lake. During the trip by train he recalls his love Abruzzese, Achille Pisanti; DOP: Angelo Sciarra; story with a TV reporter, Marcella, and his in-M: Lorenzo Ferrero; E: Mirella Mencio; PD: creasing detachment from the political life. At the Nicola Rubertelli; CO: Giovanna La Placa house, he discovers a diary and learns from it that Wolmsley; AD: Gina Vitelli; Collaboration to the he is the last descendant of a vampire. Upon his direction: Anna Albanese; SS: Marisa Vesuviano; return to the city, Umberto finally embraces his C: Pietro Emozione; SD: Paolo Fabriani; AC: own destiny. He prepares to become the party’s Enzo Leone, Antonio Maglione, Antonio Pas-leader and leaves on a vacation with Marcella at colini; SO: Rino Evangelista; B: Mario Di Iorio; an exclusive hotel where his real nature comes to MU: Enzo D’Anna; Hair: Alfonso Simonelli; the fore…

ACO: Anna Morelli; ChEl: Mario Traditi; KG: Born in Rome in 942, Alberto Abruzzese

Ciro De Pasquale; Titles: Giacomo Stabile; G: is one of Italy’s most highly reputed sociologists Domenico Milano, Mario Richiello; Specializzati and semiologists. Between 972 and 992 he di ripresa: Domenico Gervasio, Antonio Spamp-taught at the University of Naples and specialized inato; AE: Danilo Fedeli, Renata Gengarelli; in mass communication; he wrote several influ-Truka: Claudio Soldati; Luci di stampa: Walter ential volumes on the matter, which often focused Abbondanza, Sergio Moscardi; Negative cutter: on literature, film and popular art, and gained the Rosa Iorizzo; Dubbing director: Elio Zamuto; title of “theorist of the ephemeral.” Among his Dubbing asst: Mirella Russo; SOE: Enzo Di Lib-works are L’immagine filmica. Materiali di studio erto; Mix: Marina Atzu. Cast: Hanns Zischler (974), La grande scimmia. Mostri, vampiri, au-

(Umberto U.), Gioia Maria Scola [Gioia Maria tomi, mutanti. L’immaginario collettivo dalla let-Tibiletti] (Marcella), Julian Jenkins (Shop assis-teratura al cinema e all’informazione (979) and tant), Emily Marchi (Flower seller), Giuseppe Pornograffiti. Trame e figure del fumetto italiano Aprea (Alberto), Luigi Curcione (Barman), per adulti (980)—the latter a pioneering collec-Roberto Pace (Young manager), Francesco Pet-tion of essays on adults- only comics.

tarin (Ice Cream Man), Linda Sini (Marta), Elio In December 984 Abruzzese released Ane-Polimeno (Man in Train), Helmut Plakolmer
mia. Storia di un vampiro comunista, a novelette (Reporter), Enzo Salomone (Waiter in Train), published by a small Rome- based company, Franco Gargia (Waiter in Restaurant), Lucio Theoria, who sought to give new life to the Fan-Beffi (Doctor), Nicola Esposito (Taxi Driver), tastic genre by collecting works of contemporary Vera Matania (Innkeeper), Roberto Corcione Italian authors, such as Vincenzo Cerami (Sua (Tommaso), Gérard Landry (Grandfather), Maestà), Aldo Rosselli (A pranzo con Lukacs), Margherita Rinaldi (Shop Assistant), Gabriella Antonio Caronia (Il cyborg. Saggio sull’uomo ar-Rinaldi (Singer), Roberto De Francesco (Boy), tificiale) and Giampiero Comolli (Il banchetto Marina Ruffo (Hotel Owner), Nicola Vigilante nel bosco). “We wanted Italian authors to con-

(Hotel Owner’s Son), Anna Calato (Waitress).

front the themes of fear and obsessions in PROD: Rai Tre, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana; today’s Western society, that is, the ghosts, vam-PM: Giorgio Scoppa; GM: Bruno Alongi; PS:

pires, monsters of our everyday reality,” claimed Rolando Santorelli. Country: Italy. Filmed in the company’s head, Paolo Repetti.

Rome and on the Amalfi Coast. Running time: In tune with Theoria’s aim and with

90 minutes. Release dates: 9.9.986 (Venice Film Abruzzese’s interests, Anemia mixed references Festival); 0.27.990 (First TV broadcast—Rai to film and literature within an openly political Tre); Distribution: not released theatrically.

context. The story fleshed out the theme of vam-Umberto, a leader of the Italian Communist pirism as political metaphor: the protagonist Party, suffers from a severe form of anemia. He Umberto U. is a member of the Italian Commu-has to wear dark glasses in daylight and experi-nist Party (PCI) who suffers from anemia, pho-

1986: Anemia

3
tophobia, and a growing attraction to blood. PCI just like us, we’ve got the same blood,” says the was undergoing an identity crisis after the death elderly party member to the protagonist.

of its historical secretary, Enrico Berlinguer, who The country’s political malaise is heavily suffered a major stroke during an electoral underlined by TV sets that broadcast news about speech (broadcast live) in June 984 and died a the Brigate Rosse terrorist group (Abruzzese has few days later. A much beloved political figure, a disinterested barman switch channels to a Fred even by people with different political ideas, Astaire musical to stress the average man’s de-Berlinguer left the party at its all- time maximum, tachment from politics). Likewise, Umberto’s with over 33-percent: during the European elec-gradual transformation into a vampire is shown tions, PCI even surpassed its historic rival, with blatant symbolism: he wears shades even in Democrazia Cristiana, but soon its popularity badly- lit rooms, he feels attracted to crypts and started to fall, not least because of the events that cellars (“There’s a good smell of earth here,” he marked European history throughout the decade, says to a flower girl after following her into the from the 98 Polish golpe to the domestic re-shop’s basement), eats a raspberry ice- cream and forms in Gorbachev’s Russia, starting with 986’s gets his mouth all messed up in red.

Perestroika.

The directors scatter many references

In late 98, Abruzzese started working on to classic horror cinema and literature through-a film version of his novel, in collaboration with out the story, from Nosferatu and Vampyr to the 34-year-old Achille Pisanti, who helped him The Castle of Otranto, and deliver some nice adapt the material for the screen and shared the evocative images. Umberto’s night journey directorial duties with him. Shot in 6mm with by train to his grandfather’s house is patterned a small budget, Anemia was produced by Rai over Harker’s trip to Dracula’s castle; the long Tre, the third and most experimental of RAI flashback which illustrates the memories of channels. The State television was intensifying Umberto’s vampiric ancestor (veteran French its participation in production: that year’s Venice actor Gérard Landry, cast because of his work Film Festival included no less than ten films with Abel Gance) is set among cemeteries produced in whole or in part by RAI and to and fog- shrouded villas and aims at a silent be distributed by its consociate company Sacis, movie- like intensity; in the final scene, Gioia

“an unequivocal sign of the vitality of Italian cin-Maria Scola’s character moves forward sliding ema,” as the company proudly claimed.2
like the elderly lady in Bava’s La goccia d’acqua.

Abruzzese’s approach to the modern- day

Abruzzese himself was adamant that the film be Gothic tale shows immediately the author’s considered as a
agenda. The protagonist’s transformation is a hypersensible journey among the literary and cine-metaphor for the loss of political ideals. Umberto matic genres; a game of displacements, estrange-is described as “too young to have been a found-ments, misrepresentations amidst the ruins of TV
ing member of the party, too intellectual to have and cinema; a nostalgic and musical game within the trained as a bureaucrat,” and is said to have de-limits allowed by the “years of lead” … a very hybrid luded himself into thinking he could change the game, indeed, aimed at rethinking the crisis of our PCI, whereas he was changed by it—starting cinema without the pretension of employing the Hol-with the use of cryptic but ultimately void lan-lywood standard, but keeping in mind that … the guage.

Italian spectator lives in a cinematic world which is Abruzzese and Pisanti didactically depict
heavily contaminated by models, emotions and the Roman PCI headquarters, located at the myths coming from Hollywood movies as well as by aptly named Via delle Botteghe Oscure (Street styles inherited from Italian cinema, wavering be-of Dark Workshops), as the modern- day version tween past and present imagery, widespread consumerism and cultural traditions. It is this type of of a vampire castle—immersed in gloom and
viewer that we hope to please.3
full of parasitic bloodsuckers (the party officials) who are busy exchanging favors, pulling the As film critic Fabio Giovannini noted, strings or concocting Machiavellian ways to

“Anemia marks a moment of resurrection for keep their self- interest. House of Cards this ain’t, the vampire figure [in Italian cinema] but also however: the dialogue, heavy with political in-the exposition of the myth to dangers of con-nuendo, is too blatant and self- referential in its tamination that might be fatal. The vampire, depiction of aridness and political mischief, and who uses contagion as a weapon, can die of con-the puns are telegraphed. “In future, you’ll be tamination too.”4 That is, Anemia gradually suc-

36 1986: La casa cumbs to the very metaphors it deals with, and television only a handful of times over the fol-Abruzzese’s ambition to sum up the crisis of lowing years, late at night, in a copy with forced Italy’s major left- wing party and the end of ide-English subtitles.

ologies as a Gothic tale turns out a cataleptic, cryptic and, indeed, anemic narrative. The movie Notes
is distinctly devoid of a strong cinematic style.

1. Nico Orengo, “Ecco il vampiro Made in Italy,” La Unlike its predecessors, such as Corrado Farina’s Stampa—Tuttolibri, January , 98.

…hanno cambiato faccia (97), Anemia ulti-2. [not signed], “Dieci film Rai alla Biennale,” L’Unità, mately fails because it cannot find its own iden-August , 986.

3. Alberto Abruzzese, “Ora vi racconto la mia sfida al tity. The redundant, didactic dialogue in the first cinema,” L’Unità, August 24, 986.

part is paired with an over- reliance on the voice-4. Fabio Giovannini, Il libro dei vampiri: dal mito di over during the flashback that forms the core of Dracula alla presenza quotidiana (Bari: Dedalo, [98]

the tale, showing a direction which is not able to

997), 8.

turn the literary background into a filmic vision.

5. Abruzzese, “Ora vi racconto la mia sfida al cinema.”

6. L.t., “Nel mistero della vita anche i comunisti sono The cast and production values don’t help.

in crisi,” La Stampa, September 9, 986.

Zischler (the protagonist of Wim Wenders’ cel-7. Piero Zanotto, “Dopo l’effimero viene l ‘Anemia,’”

ebrated Im Lauf der Zeit, a.k.a. Kings of the Road, Stampa Sera, 9 September 986.

976) is far from being a convincing lead, while the gorgeous Scola—whose “close friendship”

La casa del buon ritorno (The House of with Silvio Berlusconi’s brother Paolo allowed Good Returns)

her to gain some press exposure during the D: Beppe Cino. S and SC: Beppe Cino; DOP:

early- to-mid 980s, even for such an obscure Antonio Minutolo (Kodak; LV- Luciano Vittori); project as Abruzzese’s film—is certainly an al-M: Carlo Siliotto (Ed. CAM); E: Emanuele Fogli-luring presence but not the world’s best actress.

etti; PD, CO: Silvana Fantino; AD: Diego D’In-The music shifts uneasily between atmospheric nocenzo; AsstD: Paolo Scaffa, Stefano Gabrini; moody synth pieces and Goblin- like, dance-MU: Maurizio Fazzini; SS: Paola Di Giulio, oriented numbers, with horrible results; the only AsstSS: Giovanna Lomagno; AE: Lucia Deidda; welcome interference is a brief excerpt from the C: Giuseppe Venditti; APD: Pier Francesco Gior-music video for The Rolling Stones’ “Neigh-dano; SO: Benedetto Santalucia; B: Fulgenzio bours,” from the Tattoo You album.

Ceccon; SP: Elvira Castellano; ChEl: Giulio Bas-Abruzzese claimed that he hoped the critics toni; El: Alberto Rogante, Giovanni Angeletti, would “acknowledge the attempt at escaping the Roberto Stiffi; KG: Vincenzo Di Costanzo; G: filmic tradition of these last ten years of Italian Roberto Battistioli, Paolo Camera, Francesco cinema,” but this proved wishful thinking. Ane-Bastianoni; Mix: Franco Bassi. Cast: Amanda mia was screened at the 986 Venice Film Fes-Sandrelli (Margit), Stefano Gabrini (Luca), tival in a collateral retrospective (Spazio Aperto) Francesco Costa (Bruno), Fiammetta Carena and at the “Premio Italia” in Lucca, around the (Ayesha), Lola Ledda (Lola), Stanis Ledda (Luca same time, to generally perplexed, if not down-as a child), Fabrizio Capuani (Bruno as a child), right bad, reviews.6 “We have the feeling, con-Eloisa Cino (Girl playing piano), Eleonora Sal-firmed by some, many, too many declarations vadori (Luca’s mother), Elvira Castellano (Bruno’s on the part of Abruzzese, that the narrative core mother). PROD: Remo Angioli and Beppe Cino

… is only a pretext,” a critic wrote. “The narrative for Moviemachine S.r.l. (Rome); PM: Renata is intentionally a series of linear encounters with Crea; EP: Giuseppina Marotta; PS: Anda Fabrizi, oneirism, eroticism, horror, sentimentalism, Benedetto Atria; PSe: Patrizia Pierucci; ADM: period- evoking flash- backs … all tied together Caterina Roverso. Country: Italy. Filmed in and by the extremely thin, yet logical, thread of the around Rome. Running time: 9 minutes (m.

events lived by the protagonist. There are refer-2492). Visa n. 82023 (.29.986); Rating: all au-ences to various genres, then, such as one can diences. Release date: 8.3.986 (Venezia Film find at a stereotypical level in many countries’

Festival); 2.3.987 (Theatrical release); Distribu-filmographies, especially American. As for the tion: C.R.C./Real Film. Domestic gross: n.a. Also pleasantness of the result for the viewers … we known as: Das Haus der blauen Schatten (West have strong doubts.”7

Germany).

Any prospect of a theatrical release was

Luca returns to his parents’ home after a 15-quickly abandoned. Anemia was broadcast on year absence with his fiancée Margit. There, as a

1986: La casa

37
kid, he pushed a little girl to her death from a ter-backup on the part of the State. The article was race while playing hide- and-seek, and he is still at the center of many controversies, since many haunted by the memory of the accident. Luca be-of the movies that benefited from it had hardly comes obsessed with a mannequin that looks like any distribution or visibility, and often resulted the deceased girl and starts to see her everywhere.

in soporific or pretentious dramas which sig-Meanwhile, strange things are going on in the naled a regression in the young generation of house, and Luca’s neighbors (and former child filmmakers, with a stoic refusal in dealing with playmates) Ayesha and Bruno—who seem to be genres, paired with wishful auteur ambitions.

aware of his secret—keep spying on him. Luca Unfortunately, Cino’s film was no exception.

slowly loses his mind. Suddenly a mysterious in-The story encompasses some typical genre
dividual appears in the house, wearing a scary elements, revised in a psychoanalytic way. The mask that once belonged to the dead girl. After haunted house where Luca and his girlfriend an argument, Margit leaves the house and Luca move appears to be haunted not only by the pro-finally succumbs to madness…

tagonist’s memory and his sense of guilt, but also Coming three years after his debut Il cava-by the mysterious Ayesha, a “timeless woman liere, la morte e il diavolo (983), an uncredited

… a keeper of a memory and a grudge” who
adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s novel Traum-carries on a complex vengeance that is accom-novelle (a.k.a. Dream Story), La casa del buon ri-plished only in the film’s last images. Is Ayesha, torno marked Beppe Cino’s second feature film.

who does not seem to get older as years pass, a A CSC diplomat, and an ex- assistant of

Roberto Rossellini from 972 to 97,

Cino (born in Racalmuto, Sicily, in

947) wrote and produced the movie on
a small scale, shooting it in just twelve
days, on 6mm and with a budget of 300
million lire, with only one professional
actor, Amanda Sandrelli. “It was a
movie we decided to make quickly, like
pulling out a tooth.”2

The project had a curious genesis,
as in Spring 98 Cino had announced
a film with the same title but a com-
pletely different plot, which revolved
around the phenomenon of “repentant
terrorists.” “It is a story set in Rome in the arc of only one night, from dusk till
dawn, during which the characters ex-
perience decisive happenings, which
sow the seeds of doubt even in those
who were irreducible.”3 The project
eventually took form under the title

Rosso di sera, released in 989. Mean-
while the director recycled the title for
a completely different story, which he
described as “a Gothic-fantastique film,
in which oneiric moments fit together
with psychological, illusory and believ-
able ones,” even quoting Jorge Luis

Borges as an influence.4

As was the case with his first film,

La casa del buon ritorno was judged

“of national cultural interest” accord-

Atmospheric Italian locandina for La casa del buon ritorno ing to article 28 of the 96 Corona

(1986, Beppe Cino) (art by enzo sciotti, photograph by law, and therefore worthy of financial

Angelo Frontoni).

38 1986: La casa real presence, or a supernatural one? Is she a What is more, the style is unripe, with witch who uses her magic powers to manipulate plenty of dull long takes and talky bits, and with the other characters’ will and actions? Cino the debatable addition of scenes where the cam-keeps this ambiguousness throughout the whole era, placed at ground level, frantically runs be-story, “within that area of phenomena which are hind the main character across the street or a at the edge of pathology, but certainly cannot be flight of stairs à la The Evil Dead—an ill- fated labeled as ‘paranormal.’”6
stylistic choice which plagued Cino’s first film In developing the protagonist’s descent into as well. The graininess and darkness of many madness, La casa del buon ritorno sticks to the scenes, the result of the low budget and haste, category of the “paranoid text” characterized, in were highlighted when the 6mm negative was David Punter’s words, by “the shift towards the blown up to 3 for theatrical distribution.

psychological, the increasing complexity of ver-La casa del buon ritorno premiered at the
ification, the emphasis on the ambivalence of

986 Venice Film Festival, in the collateral De Sica persecution.”7 Cino himself claimed it was nec-section, to scathing reviews. La Stampa dismissed essary to reprise the themes of 8th and 9th it as “below an acceptable professional level… .

century tradition with a renewed sensibility and Stefano Gabrini, awkward and awful, just cannot awareness. “Nowadays, our contemporary world, act. As for Amanda Sandrelli, her unfortunate the knowledge we have of the conscious and un-line ‘An asshole! That’s what I am, an asshole!’

conscious nature of our actions, are all elements was greeted by enthusiastic applause, which to rethink our reality in a ‘fantastic’ way, without meant the audience agreed. But it wasn’t the ac-the need, as it was in Gothic literature, to plunder tress’ fault.”0 The Corriere della Sera summed up among the dumps of the supernatural.”8
effectively the film’s main issues: “It is not clear The “return of the repressed,” linked with whether La casa del buon ritorno is a thriller, a a grisly childhood trauma, brings the movie horror, a love story … or an analysis session: how-into a territory akin to Francesco Barilli’s films, ever, the unpleasant thing is that it seems some-and the insistence on small unsettling details thing already seen, and it wishes to remain de-recalls Pupi Avati’s Gothic works. The core of liberately obscure.”
the tale revolves around Lola, the dead girl at A clever distribution gave the film some
the center of three individuals’ obsession: Luca minor notoriety: the title logo recalled the pushed her off a terrace and killed her, Bruno thread inaugurated by Raimi’s The Evil Dead, (who witnessed the act) is still in love with her distributed in Italy as La casa and leading to memory, and Ayesha keeps a sort of pagan altar many spurious rip- offs and phony sequels. La dedicated to her (an element that echoes Truf-casa del buon ritorno was also screened at faut’s La chambre verte). Another curious and Rome’s Fantafestival, and even earned a prize.

intriguing reference is the Hannya mask (a typ-It was never dubbed in English, nor was it shown ical mask in Noh theater, representing a female theatrically in the United States or the U.K.; it jealous demon) worn by Luca’s persecutor, allegedly surfaced to home video in West Ger-which recalls the one seen in Kaneto Shindo’s many with the title Der Haus der Blauen Schatten Onibaba (964).

(The House of the Blue Shadows). Nowadays it But the psychoanalytic burden ends up is only available in bad quality home video drowning the film, which is also let down by the copies, which do not do justice to Cino’s inten-excessively slow pacing and bad acting. Stefano tions, however flawed the movie might be. As for Gabrini, who played the lead and was Cino’s as-Gabrini, he debuted as director in 99 with Il sistant on the set and during post- production, gioco delle ombre, another evocative ghost story was adamant about his inadequacy: “My turn as financed via article 28.

an actor had me suffer the schizophrenia of being on the wrong side of the camera, leading Notes
me to disown myself and the film as well.”9

1. Giovanna Grassi, “Il regista che viene dalle nuvole,”

Gabrini’s character gradually transforms over Corriere della Sera, August 4, 986. The main locations the course of the story, in an overtly didactic ex-were a couple of 930s villas on the Nomentana road, and planation of his return to his past: first we see the rest of the film was shot in and around Rome (at the Testaccio market, and at the former slaughterhouse, plus him with a long beard, which he shaves halfway a rail crossing along the Rome- Civitavecchia motorway).

through the film, keeping his mustache, and in Thanks to Fabio Melelli and Beppe Cino for these bits of the final scenes he is hairless as a child.

information.

1986: Dèmoni 2

39

2. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 9.

Persiano (Joe—TV show), Robert Chilcott 3. [Ansa agency] “Ciak su terrorismo e pentitismo,”

(Bob—TV show), Eliana Hoppe [Eliana Miglio]

May 23, 98.

(Pam, girl with camera), Yvonne Fraschetti 4. Grassi, “Il regista che viene dalle nuvole.”

5. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 9.

(Jacob’s Girl), Bruno Bilotta (Jacob), Furio Bilotta 6. Ibid.

(Man in the back of Jacob’s car), Giovanna Pini 7. David Punter, The Literature of Terror. Volume 1: The (Girl in the back of Jacob’s car/Woman in garage), Gothic Tradition (London: Routledge, [996] 204), 38.

Stefano Molinari (Demon on TV), Pasquale Va-8. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 6.

9. Mario Bucci, “Buongiorno, Stefano Gabrini,” www.

lente (Tommy’s Father), Kim Rhone (Tommy’s effettonotteonline. com. (http://www. effettonot teon line.

Mother), Annalie Harrison (Sally’s Mother); uncom/ enol/archivi/articoli/interviste/ 200703/2007 03in00.

credited: Lamberto Bava (Sally’s Father). PROD: html)

Dario Argento for DAC Film (Rome); PM: Guido 10. l.t. [Lietta Tornabuoni], “Una sola vita non basta, De Laurentiis; EP: Ferdinando Caputo; PS: An-meglio due o tre,” La Stampa, September 2, 986.

11. M.Po. [Maurizio Porro], “Una “casa”-trappola per tonio Saragò, Fabrizio Diaz; PSe: Paola Rossi, Egle Amanda,” Corriere della Sera, September 2, 986.

Friggeri, Andrea Caputo; ADM: Renato Rinaldo; PrA: Enrico Lucherini, Gianluca Pignatelli. Coun-Dèmoni 2 … l’incubo ritorna (Demons 2) try: Italy. Filmed on location in Hamburg and at D: Lamberto Bava. S and SC: Dario Argento, De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: Lamberto Bava, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti 92 minutes (m. 248). Visa n. 88 (0..986);

[and Sergio Stivaletti, uncredited]; DOP: Gian-Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: 0.9.986 (Italy), lorenzo Battaglia (Eastmancolor Kodak, LV-2.3.987 (U.S.A), 3.2.987 (France), 7.9.987

Luciano Vittori); M: Simon Boswell; E: Piero (West Germany), 9.8.987 (UK), .2.988

Bozza; SupE: Franco Fraticelli; PD: Davide Bassan; (Spain); Distribution: Titanus (Italy); Artists En-CO: Nicola Trussardi; SPFX: Sergio Stivaletti, tertainment Group; Imperial Entertainment Rosario Prestopino; AsstSPFX: Barbara Morosetti; (USA). Domestic gross: ,0,944,000 lire. Also SE: Antonio Corridori, Giovanni Corridori; MU: known as: Dance of the Demons 2/Dämonen Rosario Prestopino, Giacinto Bretti; AD: Roberto (West Germany).

Palmerini; 2ndAD: Fabrizio Bava; AE: Alessandro A series of events take place in a high- rise in Gabriele, Fabrizio Fraticelli; C: Guido Tosi; an unnamed city. During her birthday party, Sally AC: Stefano Falivene, Federico Martucci; SD: Va-locks herself into the room to watch a horror leria Paoloni; SO: Raffaele De Luca; SOE: Studio movie about a group of young people who find a Anzellotti; Mix: Romano Pampaloni; B: Angelo tomb; in the film, the teenagers awaken a demon, Amatulli; Sound consultant: Federico Savina; ChEl: and the monstrous being then turns toward Sally, Domenico Caiuli; KG: Franco Micheli; G: Paolo comes out of the TV and attacks her. Sally turns Tiberti; PrM: Maurizio Jacopelli; SP: Franco Bel-into a demon under her friends’ terrified eyes; lomo; Stunts: Claudio Pacifico; SS: Francesca she attacks the partygoers who turn into other Ghiotto; DubD: Sergio Graziani. Cast: David demons. Because of the corrosive blood that comes Knight (George), Nancy Brilli (Hannah), Coralina out of Sally’s body, a blackout ensues, and all the Cataldi Tassoni (Sally Day), Bobby Rhodes tenants remain locked in the building. Among (Hank), Asia Argento (Ingrid Haller), Virginia them are George and his pregnant wife Hannah, Bryant (Mary, the prostitute), Anita Bartolucci gym instructor Hank, a little kid named Tommy (Woman with dog), Antonio Cantafora (Ingrid’s who is home alone, and a teenage girl, Ingrid.

father), Luisa Passega (Helga Haller), Davide Soon the demons invade the building, and the few Marotta (Demon Tommy), Marco Vivio
survivors must fight for their life…

(Tommy), Michele Mirabella (Prostitute’s client), The box- office success of Dèmoni was a clear Lorenzo Gioielli (Jake), Lino Salemme (Security sign that the Italian public was experiencing a re-guard), Maria Chiara Sasso (Ulla), Dario Casalini newed interest in horror cinema. More precisely, (Danny), Andrea Garinei (Partygoer waiting for teenagers were developing a strong appetite for Jacob), Luca De Nardo (Partygoer), Angela Fron-the genre thanks to the expanding home video daroli (Susan, bodybuilder), Caroline Christina market. Besides the popular foreign titles, Dario Lund (Jennifer, bodybuilder), Karen Gennaro Argento and Lucio Fulci films—albeit often re-

(Bodybuilder), Marina Loi (Kate), Silvia Rosa leased in pan- and-scan or even cut versions—

(Partygoer), Monica Umena (Partygoer), Lorenzo were among the more frequently rented titles.

Flaherty (Partygoer), Fabio Poggiali (Muller, Argento didn’t waste time, and he and his col-bodybuilder), Andrea Spera (Partygoer). Pascal laborators immediately set to work on a sequel.

40 1986: Dèmoni 2

Shooting for Dèmoni 2 started on May 9, 986,
training in the gym. By having their monsters seven months after the release of the first chap-spread the contagion via TV screens, Argento ter.

and Bava unwillingly give their film a metaphoric This time the budget was sensibly higher,
significance which is much closer to Italian his-and the script took several months to perfect.

tory: in September 974, a small cable- TV, Telemi-According to Bava, Sergio Stivaletti took part in lano, started broadcasting in the residential neigh-some scriptwriting sessions2 in order to better borhood of Milano 2, in Milan. In 978, it was conceive the horrific moments and study the purchased by Silvio Berlusconi and became the special creatures and effects in advance. Once founding stone of the mogul’s TV empire, under again, the setting was a secluded one, a high- rise the name Canale . It would change Italian history where the infection spreads—an idea which and culture forever.

brings the movie closer to David Cronenberg’s As with the first chapter, the demons make Shivers (and to the latter’s uncredited inspiration, the transition from a film to the real world, this J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise). Unlike Dèmoni, time through a TV set. The nameless film-where tension rose from the forced cohabitation within-a-film is not the same as in Dèmoni but of various very different characters, here horror some sort of a replica, with different actors in grows and develops within single familiar units, similar roles and set in an abandoned industrial hinting at a sociological discourse that is rather factory. Bava throws in a reference to his father’s disappointingly sketched. An obnoxious teen-La maschera del demonio, as the demon’s rebirth ager is having a birthday party, a pregnant is caused by blood from a wound dripping over woman is left alone by her partner, a kid is home its face, as in the sequence of Asa’s resurrection alone, a family is watching television, a prostitute in the earlier film. Then, while Sally (Coralina is meeting a client, a group of bodybuilders are Cataldi Tassoni) is watching the movie, a demon slowly advances to a close- up until it pushes the screen from behind and comes out of it.

Bava renders effectively the transition by way of alternate point- of-view shots of Sally watching TV and a subjective shot of the demon from inside the television set, advancing toward her, an alternance which recalls La maschera del demonio’s celebrated opening. The effect looks very much like Rick Baker’s famous “animated” television screen in Videodrome, but Bava maintained that he hadn’t seen the movie3; he was very proud of the craftsman- like quality of the effect itself, worthy of his father. “Stivaletti and I had even thought of putting a TV set inside a bathtub with someone inside it … then one night—
because these ideas come at night—I came
up with a Mario Bava–like trick: an empty

TV set, a latex screen, a previously shot scene projected on it, and behind the screen somebody who, when the demon arrives in close-up, pushes it and comes out. That’s my father’s basic concept: the simpler the trick, the more effective the illusion.”4 The effect worked so well that what we see in the film is the first take. It was so good that Bava didn’t have to shoot a second one.

As with the first episode, Argento didn’t
interfere in the shooting. “Dario, like few Italian locandina for Dèmoni 2 ... l’incubo ritorna people, is one of those who persuades you to (1986, Lamberto Bava).

give your best … and I must say that at the

1986: Dèmoni 2

4
same time he fully respected my role as the di-from the first film—Bobby Rhodes and Lino
rector,” Bava pointed out. “He showed up every Salemme—turn up in different roles, and Rhodes once in a while, as were shooting, and watched (as a gym owner) once again plays the strong and the material like every producer does, but he charismatic leader of the survivors, while new never came over and said, ‘Do this, do that.’”
cast members include Marina Loi (Zombi 3) and The director claimed that he liked Dèmoni

Michele Mirabella (Tutti defunti … tranne i morti, 2 even more than its predecessor, possibly also L’aldilà). Argento’s daughter Asia turns up in a as a reaction to the critics, who were quite severe small role in her second film after the made- for-with the film. The makers stick to the repetition TV Sogni e bisogni (98, Sergio Citti), and An-of a winning formula, and the script and direc-tonio Cantafora (Baron Blood) plays her father.

tion go a long way to try and recreate the things Unlike the first film, this time Argento and that worked in the previous chapter, such as the Bava consciously toned down the gore to get a shot of the demons advancing in slow- motion, V.M.4 rating, not least because they were aware their eyes glowing in the dark; but this time that a conspicuous part of the profits would the plethora of ideas borrowed from other films come from television sales. Rather than to become more tiresome, devoid of the wild bold-blood, they often resort to colored pus and slime ness displayed by Dèmoni. For instance, the sub-

(even corrosive, as in Alien), which gives the re-plot about four types driving around town on sult a certain comic- book quality; even the light-their way to the birthday party is superfluous, ing, with much of the movie taking place in par-and the use of pop and rock songs in the sound-tial darkness, was conceived in order not to track—The Cult, Peter Murphy, Gene Loves show too much blood. Nevertheless, box- office Jezebel, Dead Can Dance—is debatable: The grosses were slightly inferior to the original, with Smiths’ “Panic” commenting a scene of people little over . billion lire. Like its predecessor, it panicking is close to self- parody.

was sold abroad and show theatrically in the Even the direction leaves something to be
major European countries (this time the BBFC
desired. Besides some inexplicable out- of-focus passed it uncut) and overseas.

scenes possibly shot by a second unit, the camera Dèmoni 2 was released theatrically less than over- relies on close- ups of the drooling demons a month after the debut of a new horror comic making faces and growling at the camera. With book, created by writer Tiziano Sclavi and cen-too many characters and too much buildup, the tered on a self- styled “detective of the paranor-movie fails to reach the tension it aims for, and mal.” The first issue of Dylan Dog, “L’alba dei the most effective bits are isolated sight gags morti viventi,” came out in September 986 and which are conceived and shot like showpieces in was a smash it. Dylan Dog comics were charac-themselves, a bit in the way Argento does with his terized by a postmodernist approach, for each murder scenes. See, for instance, the opening se-story was filled to the brim with references and quence, where a menacingly- looking butcher’s homages to (mostly) horror films and literature, knife and a suspicious blood- red liquid turn out and the mixture of splatter, humor, romanticism to be the tools of a pastry chef, and the birthday and philosophical antics proved to be irresistible.

cake scene with Tassoni transforming after blow-Within two years of its debut, sales sky- rocketed, ing on the candles. But the supposed centerpiece, with peaks of over 00,000 sales, and over the with the pregnant Hannah (Nancy Brilli) pursued course of a few years it even outsold the classic in her apartment by a grotesque- looking winged Western comic Tex.

demon (which Bava and Stivaletti baptized Significantly, Bava’s original idea for the

“Menelik”6) erupted from a demonic child’s chest, third part of the series was to shift the source of in a blatant rendition of the Amelia episode in the contagion to paper. “It had to be a triptych: Dan Curtis’ Trilogy of Terror (97), with the demons in movies, in television and on the demon standing in for the Zuni doll, is let down printed page,”7 namely a book whose pages, by Stivaletti’s unconvincing creature effects. The soaked with human blood, would give birth to scene perhaps had an antecedent in Bava’s un-the demons. But things took quite a different di-filmed project Gnomi, which he had scripted in rection, and not by chance television had a big the early 980s with Roberto Gandus and Alessan-part in reshaping events. This time, however, no dro Parenzo (see entry for Macabro).

demons came out of a TV set, but rather a di-The acting is worse too, with David Knight rector—Bava himself—was sucked into it.

making for a very unimpressive hero. Two actors

42 1987: La croce Notes

5. Ibid.

6. Menelik was an infamous name for Italians. Menelik 1. According to Rome’s Public Cinematographic Reg-had been the first emperor of Ethiopia, and Menelik II (emister. Alan Jones reports May 26 (Alan Jones, Dario peror of Ethiopia between 889 and 93) had declared war Argento. The Man, the Myths & the Magic [Surrey: FAB
against Italy in late 800, which led to the Italian army Press, (2004/202) 206], ).

being defeated in the infamous battle of Adua, on March 2. Morsiani, “Conversazione con Lamberto Bava,” 2.

, 896.

3. Ibid., 7.

7. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava.”

4. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 4.

1987

La croce dalle 7 pietre (Cross of the Seven at the station was not Carmela, but her friend Jewels)

Elena. At a disco, Marco meets a girl called Maria, D: Marco Antonio Andolfi. S and SC:

who falls for him. He goes to a fence, Totonno O’

Marco Antonio Andolfi; DOP: Carlo Poletti; M: Cafone, in the hope of retrieving his cross, but Paolo Rustichelli (Ed. C.A.M.); E: Marco Anto-finds out that the jewel has already been pur-nio Andolfi; PD, SD: Massimo Corevi; SE: Eddy chased by a Camorra boss, Don Raffaele Esposito.

Endolf [Marco Antonio Andolfi]; C: Renato While Marco is questioning Totonno, midnight Doria; AC: Lucio Granelli, Andrea Doria; SS: strikes: the young man undergoes a horrific trans-Marisa Agostini; MU: Lamberto Marini, Angelo formation, turning into a werewolf, and kills the Mattei, Alfonso Cioffi; Hair: Claudia Bianchi; fence. It turns out Marco is the offspring of a CO: Gilian; W: Liana Dentini, Anna Cirilli; PM: member of a devilish cult impregnated by the Amato Gabotti; G: Gualberto Franceschini, demon Aborym, and that he is destined to turn Michele Fedele; El: Aldo Mercenaro, Francesco into a werewolf every night at midnight; the cross Piccardi. Cast: Eddy Endolf [Marco Antonio is a talisman given to him by his mother, which Andolfi] (Marco Sartori), Annie Belle [Annie can stop the transformation. Desperate, Marco Brillard] (Maria), Gordon Mitchell (Black Mass continues his search and comes upon the presence Leader), Paolo Fiorino, Giorgio Ardisson (The of Don Raffaele Esposito, but the boss mistakenly Sicilian), Zaira Zoccheddu (Armisia, the Clair-believes him to be an undercover agent, investi-voyant), Glauco Simonini, Giulio Massimini gating the Camorra traffics, and takes him pris-

(Minister), Stefano Muré, Irmgard Konnertz, oner. At midnight, the transformation takes place Marco Merlo, Giò Batta Merlo, Cristoforo Vet-and Marco slaughters Don Raffaele and his men.

then, Gino Lodero, Franco Altobelli, Mario Do-He and Maria find out that the cross is in posses-natone, Piero Vivaldi (Totonno ‘O Cafone), Um-sion of a fortune teller, Armisia, who is also a berto De Luca, Gino Serra, Antonietta Rinaldi.

prostitute: he turns into a monster again during PROD: Compagnia di Prosa “Roma” G.C. Pic-intercourse with the woman and kills her. It is up tures; PM: Francesco Giorgi; PS: Tiziano Sarno; to Maria to save Marco from his curse…

Country: Italy. Filmed in Rome, Zagarolo (Rome) The Neapolitan- born Marco Antonio An-and Naples. Running time: 83 minutes (m. 2270); dolfi had acting in his blood since the time he re- edited version: 86 minutes. Visa n. 866
was a technician at the Singer sewing machines (7.24.986); Rating: V.M.4. Release date: 4.30.987.

company: on Saturdays and Sundays he moon-

Distribution: Compagnia Distribuzione Inter-lighted as a thesp in a small theatrical company.

nazionale P.R. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known as: After losing his job at Singer, Andolfi decided Talisman (99 re- edit).

to take a leap and become an actor full- time, Bank employee Marco Sartori travels from
and founded the Roman- based Compagnia Rome to Naples to meet his cousin Carmela, Roma, which then became Compagnia “Artisti whom he hasn’t seen in years. Soon after his ar-Riuniti.”

rival some thugs snatch a jeweled cross he carries Andolfi’s first steps in the movie industry on his neck. Marco and the police trace the thieves proved more difficult. He claimed to have been but find out they have already sold the jewel. The just one step away from playing important roles following day Marco discovers that the girl he met in well- known films, such as Florestano Vancini’s

1987: La croce

43

Il delitto Matteotti (973), but this never hap-a general. Many clashes occurred. Theater is a pened, and he languished in obscurity, allegedly very harsh environment,” the director recalled.

writing plays and photonovels for the Lanciostory

“Then there was the Mafia of film distribution, magazine.

dubbing, extras, and even the Mafia of develop-Eventually, Andolfi took the tiger by the
ment and printing labs. I had to do everything tail and mounted his own feature film project.

by myself, I was present everywhere … there The inspiration for the story came from an au-were also a few slaps and criminal complaints, tobiographical episode.

it helped me that I had a powerful physique.”4

Such a dedication to his work is truly re-

One day I went to Naples wearing a pretty nice, valuable cross… . I was going to meet a girl, my fiancée… .

markable, but worthy of a better cause. In addi-And there was this snatch, which happened in a tion to being Italy’s first werewolf movie since rather strange way. There were two bikes, you see, Lycanthropus (96, Paolo Heusch), La croce one passed near me and the passenger snatched the dalle 7 pietre has a reputation of being one of cross from my neck. I was about to react, but the the worst Italian movies ever made. It will take young man passed the cross to the passenger of an-just a few minutes for the viewer to realize that other bike. The second motorcycle fled. I pursued it such a title was no exaggeration. In the mind-

… I managed to reach the bike, hurl it to the ground bogglingly inept pre- credit sequence, set in what and have those bastards arrested! From this theft the looks like a condo’s basement, a cult leader (Gor-story of La croce dalle 7 pietre was born. I then soaked don Mitchell) officiates some sort of Satanic rit-it with other imagery, drawn from my plays, comedies ual which consists mostly in several people in I wrote or comics.2

S/M outfits groping or whipping each other How Andolfi managed to get a 0 million lire (“Your pain is my pleasure!”), and summons the financing from the State is still anyone’s guess.

demon Aborym, who looks like a man with a

However, La croce dalle 7 pietre benefited from papier- mâché gorilla mask and fur like a the infamous article 28 of the 96 cinema law Komondor dog. The rest of the film fares even (see entry for Notturno con grida) which guar-worse, with atrocious acting and dialogue, goofy anteed State loans for films with cultural or artis-direction (with a perhaps unrivalled number of tic aspirations. As a true Renaissance man, An-passers- by looking at the camera during exterior dolfi undertook various tasks to carry his dream scenes), amateurish special effects and a plot project home. In addition to writing the story which to call “demented” would be an under-and screenplay, he took care of the direction statement.

himself and played the starring role, hiding The script stems from an oft- employed under the a.k.a. Eddy Endolf: “It was simply nec-Gothic cliché, a curse from the past which per-essary so as not to show that I was the protago-secutes the hero. The theme is reminiscent of nist as well, otherwise the distributors would many other werewolf films, from The Wolf Man not even take me into consideration!”3 He also to the Waldemar Daninsky cycle, but Andolfi did the editing, the special effects, and per-adds more to the recipe, as the supernatural el-formed a couple of stunts which another actor ement is bizarrely inserted into a sketchy crime was scared to attempt. Without any assistant di-story about the Neapolitan crime syndicate, the rector, he acted also as general manager and, for Camorra, which aims at exposing its ties with much of the shooting, as script supervisor. Dur-politicians. A subplot has a commissioner ining post- production he was the dubbing director vestigating the Camorra’s involvement with a for both the Italian and English language ver-Senator, who maneuvers them for political assions, and even dubbed seven characters; he per-sassinations and violent acts; “Tomorrow night sonally took care of the film’s theatrical release Italy will tremble!” enthuses the commissioner’s (which apparently took place in Sicily, in the aide, after learning that many powerful names cities of Palermo and Trapani) and took the film have been exposed. This climaxes in a dialogue to Milan’s MIFED fair to sell it abroad. “Since it confrontation between the commissioner and was my first movie and I came from the stage I the politician, who rebukes the accusations by was considered an incompetent, a fanatic able objecting that “there are so many congregations, only to waste money. Everyone felt compelled or lodges, that nowadays like to put decent peo-to act like slackers, alluding, stealing and other ple into trouble,” a reference to the 98 “P2
pettiness … they did not know that I had an iron Lodge” scandal that, if nothing else, underlines fist, I was able to direct a thousand people like that Andolfi’s story was several years old by the

44 1987: La croce time it was filmed. Incidentally, the political-The Sardinian- born Zoccheddu—a hair-
crime subplot is dropped at this point, and never dresser- turned-actress who became one of Italy’s mentioned again in the film. The happy ending first porn starlets after her appearance in 98’s features Andolfi (proudly wearing his cross on Gocce d’amore—is one of several familiar faces his chest) strolling with his girlfriend and their that turn up during the movie. The female lead, dog in St. Peter’s Square, presumably on their Annie Belle (then undergoing a bad period way to a hearing with the Pope, under the ac-caused by alcohol abuse) did not remember companiment of a religious choir and with Jesus anything about the film.7 Gordon Mitchell and Christ’s face (looking like it was taken from a Giorgio Ardisson have minor roles, respectively holy picture) superimposed on the dome of St.

as the cult leader, who in the end meets a grisly Peter’s Basilica—an image which gives an idea fate while Marco is freed from the curse (the of Andolfi’s delusions of depicting the eternal melting effect achieved via drawing exposed struggle between Good and Evil…

parts of skull over his face), and as the “Sicilian,”

The special make- up effects consist prima-an Italian- American Mafia boss. “Mitchell and rily of a fur mask that covers the upper half of Ardisson were professionals,” Andolfi recalled.

Andolfi’s face: during his werewolf scenes he

“They knew better, and they soon realized that wears a pair of furry gloves and nothing else, ex-I could improve upon them. They were always cept for a much welcome stretch of fur above punctual, obedient, professional, although their his private parts. The central transformation scenes could be shot in no more than two or scene brings the viewer back to the glorious days three takes.”8
of Universal 930s horror: for about 90 seconds, The rating board gave La croce dalle 7
during a lingering close- up of Andolfi grinding pietre.9 a V.M.4 certificate after a minor cut (4
his teeth, wolf- like fur appears progressively on seconds) during the scene between Marco and his face via a series of cuts. The goriest bit has a man’s face inexplicably melt down while the wolfman strangles him, while another scene shows a woman’s face inflating and putrefying in real time under Aborym’s demonic influence. Both effects were created by Lamberto Marini and Angelo Mattei, with decidedly
poor results.

If Andolfi’s acting leaves a lot to be de-
sired, he is certainly not devoid of a good dose of narcissism. Despite his far from outstanding looks, all the girls fall for him in the blink of an eye (“Look at that hunk!” a couple of them comment as he sets foot in a disco).

On top of that, he has a lengthy nude sex
scene with a prostitute named Madame

Armisia (Zaira Zoccheddu), which climaxes
in Marco transforming into a monster and
killing the woman while still humping her: Madame Armisia’s moans of pleasure turn
into horror and pain as the wolfman abun-
dantly drools on her. Speaking of which, the author’s view on the opposite sex is problematic to say the least: “I will forever have a negative memory of women. In La croce dalle 7
pietre there are many negative female characters and only a positive one… . 90% of the experiences I’ve had in Italy with women Italian poster for La croce dalle 7 pietre (1987, Marco were negative. All of them sex- hungry, or du-Antonio Andolfi). the tagline promises “Mistero, plicitous, or aiming at something, and so on.

intrigo, amore, orrore” (Mystery, intrigue, love, hor-Treacherous. Evil.”6
ror).

1987: La croce

4

Armisia—quite surprisingly, given Andolfi’s in-senior” he is his older self, whereas as “Eddy En-sistence on demented sex encounters between dolf Junior” he appears in the footage from La women and monsters, also in the flashback that croce delle 7 pietre. Finally, he is credited as graphically depicts Marco’s mother mating with

“Marco Antonio Andolfi” for the role of Abothe grotesque demon Aborym. The movie dis-
rym. The author’s ideas and delusions are well appeared almost immediately and turned up
expressed in the following excerpt from a 2008
only several years later among collectors, where interview:

it acquired an underground cult fame under the Riecco Aborym can be seen as a short film, a TV
phony title L’uomo lupo contro la camorra (The movie, but also as a fiction documentary. It was born Wolf Man vs. the Camorra).

a bit like La croce dalle 7 pietre. I went to Kiev, looking In 99 Andolfi assembled a re- edited ver-for a job; I had to script and direct about 20 films, and sion, called Talisman, with money from foreign I was in talks with the local State television. There investors. The new edit partially reshaped the was a woman involved and … I was kidnapped. All story, turning Marco Sartori’s curse into a this happened to me in early 2007, and I wrote the cosmic tale of evil. The prologue opens in the script for the small fiction documentary some time year 962 with a line that reads as follows: “In later. I asked for a financing to IMAIE and I built the the heart of Africa, a precious talisman was kept, movie around my misadventure—to be kidnapped which radiated well- being. One day it was and betrayed by the woman who went to bed with me stolen, and all over the world famines, war and and seemed mad with love, and who at the end even disaster started.” The new edit features shot- on-wanted to kill me. Instead of the Ukranians, I put Romanians in my film, also to give the story an actual video scenes of African tribal dances taken from feel, which is not so far removed from the facts you some newsreels and documentaries, plus footage hear every day—of Romanians sneaking into houses from the 990s Balkan wars, as well as excerpts and stealing everything, because they are like night from other films (a snake coming out of a skele-wolves. And then, she, who looked so much in love, ton’s mouth comes from The Serpent and the and is supposed to have undergone so many misfor-Rainbow) mixed with the original black mass tunes with Eddy, because of the cross, the evil, the prologue. Accordingly, Andolfi could even use Romanians etc., at the end it is she who betrays me.2
some outtakes given to him by the producers of The NeverEnding Story. An epilogue dated 999

Notes
shows someone putting away the cross in its 1. “My starring role in Il delitto Matteotti was 00%
case, followed by more documentary footage sure. Then Franco Nero fell in love with the role, and he (windy mountains and tropical fish swimming played Matteotti. That was a film where I played the whole in the ocean) and African dances, hinting that second part, and in the movie, everyone talked about me (perhaps) the world is now at peace.

[as Matteotti].” Luca Ruocco, “Riassumendo Marco Antonio Andolfi,” Rapporto Confidenziale #0, December In the new opening credits, Mitchell is 2008, 2.

credited under his real name Charles Pendleton 2. Ibid.

(misspelled as “Pendelthon”), while Annie Belle 3. Luca Ruocco, “Discutendo con Marco Antonio An-becomes “Annie Silvie”; the music is credited to dolfi [Eddy Endolf] dell’importanza di avere uno pseudonimo e delle molteplici forme del demonio,” Rapporto Con-

“Jay Horus and Raphael Pike” thus confirming fidenziale #0, 23.

the rumors that have Horus as an a.k.a. of Paolo 4. Marco Antonio Andolfi interviewed in CineWalk Rustichelli (who scored the original version); OfShame (https:// cinewalkofshame. wordpress. com/ tag/
the direction is credited to “Allan Fleming.” The eddy- endolf- intervista/).

5. Not counting, of course, Claudio Fragasso’s Monster film is listed as a “United Artists Company Pro-Dog, a.k.a Leviatán produced with Spanish funds by duction,” with “Seven Stars Pictures” as co-Eduard Sarlui and filmed in Spain.

producer.0 Talisman was distributed abroad and 6. Ruocco, “Discutendo con Marco Antonio Andolfi apparently gained some cult following in Japan.

[Eddy Endolf] dell’importanza di avere uno pseudonimo But Andolfi felt there was more to tell e delle molteplici forme del demonio,” 24.

7. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, 99 donne.

about his filmic alter ego. Twenty years later he Stelle e stelline del cinema italiano (Milan: MediaWord Pro-wrote, directed, starred in, etcetera, the 30-duction, 999), 73–74.

minute featurette Riecco Aborym, which recycles 8. Marco Antonio Andolfi interviewed in CineWalk footage from the previous film(s) and is, if pos-OfShame.

9. The official ministerial papers and the on- screen sible, even more racist and misogynist—not to title list the film as La croce dalle 7 pietre, while the posters mention inept. Andolfi the actor gets all of three spelled it as La croce dalle sette pietre.

distinct mentions in the credits: as “Eddy Endolf 10. Here are the rest of the bogus credits (misspellings

46 1987: Spettri included): The cast features Paul Travis, Jean Louis Note: the song “Never Change” (P.L. Ger-Serrault, Susan Shadix, Nicholas Muré, John Hicks, Elena mini—A. Cicco) is performed by Blue Visconti.

Patnova; Casting by Wendy Zmann and Gerarda Monie; Rome. A team of archaeologists led by Executive producer: Mark Jess Medawar; Editor: Anthony Schwartz; Production designer: Jhon Charris, Jr.; Director professor Lasky discover an ancient tomb, protected of Photography Ed Charters; Written by Alan Fleming and by an ominous inscription which alludes to an evil Richard Garris; Produced by Alice Wess, Sam Reeves.

force being buried in it. Soon strange events follow, 11. IMAIE (Istituto mutualistico per la tutela degli which affect not only the archaeologists, but also artisti interpreti ed esecutori) is an institution which protects the rights of artists and performers of musical, cine-those who are close to them. Alex, a female singer matographic and audiovisual works that are reused or and the fiancée of Lasky’s assistant, Marcus, expe-broadcast on radio, television or any other user entity.

riences frightening visions. Several people fall victim IMAIE’s activity is to collect, on behalf of the performers, to the evil demon: a night club owner, a member of the proceeds due to them following the reuse of their Lasky’s team, a gay antiquarian and his right- hand works, and, after identifying those entitled to compensa-tion, distribute the proceeds collected.

man. Alex is abducted by the monster in her bed.

12. Ruocco, “Riassumendo Marco Antonio Andolfi,”

After discovering that the bones buried in the tomb 22.

are not human, Marcus and Lasky descend underground, to finally face the monster…

Spettri (Specters)

Marcello Avallone’s fourth feature film D: Marcello Avallone. S: Marcello Avallone, came a full decade after his third work, Cugine Andrea Purgatori, Maurizio Tedesco; SC: Marcello mie (976), an erotic comedy which underwent Avallone, Andrea Purgatori, Dardano Sacchetti, lots of trouble with the censors. The director Maurizio Tedesco; DOP: Silvano Ippoliti (Kodak); explained that the idea of toying with the horror M: Lele Marchitelli, Danilo Rea (Ed. Gatta Ci genre had come to him several years earlier, dur-Cova); E: Adriano Tagliavia; ArtD: Carmelo ing a work trip to the United States:

Agate; CO: Paola Collacciani Bonucci, Maurizio It was just 980. I was there because Francis Ford Marchitelli; MU: Dante Trani; SPFX: Sergio Sti-Coppola’s company Zoetrope was producing a doc-valetti; AD: Vivalda Vigorelli; SS: Daniela Tonti; umentary on new American cinema, together with C: Enrico Sasso, Ettore Corso, Enrico Fontana; Marina Cervi, who represented RAI. Doing this AE: Graziella Zita, Delia Apolloni; SO: Davide work, I immersed myself in the air that you breathed Magara; B: Stefano Rossi; Hair: Maria Fiocca, there, and I understood how much this kind of cin-Claudia Reymond Shone; SPFXAss: Barbara Mo-ema—let’s call it horror, even though I don’t know if rosetti; ChEl: Sergio Spila; El: Marcello Cardarelli, we can really call it horror—met the public’s taste… .

Franco Cardarelli; KG: Mario Occhioni; G: I realized how strong an impact it had in America.

Roberto Anzellotti, Roberto Rosati; W: Emanuela By then, almost all the horror movies that were made Curatolo; Press: Anna Rosa Morri; SOE: Cine-there were “B” pictures, but not in a derogatory sound; SP: Pennoni & Serto; Mix: Danilo Moroni.

sense… . So, I came back to Italy with the idea of making a horror movie.2

Cast: John Pepper (Marcus), Katrine Michelsen (Alex), Donald Pleasence (Prof. Lasky), Massimo In the following years Avallone returned to De Rossi (Matteo), Riccardo De Torrebruna (Anthe genre with a three- part TV program called drea), Lavinia Grizi (Barbara), Riccardo Parisio Il cinema della paura, co- directed with Patrizia Perrotti (Gasparri), Giovanni Bilancia, Matteo Pistagnesi and broadcast in November 986 on Gazzolo (Mike), Laurentina Guidotti (Maria), Rai Tre. The show included excerpts from Erna Schurer [Emma Costantino] (Catacomb horror films and interviews with filmmakers, in-Guide), Giovanni Tamberi (Gino). PROD: Mau-cluding Avallone’s old mentor Riccardo Freda.

rizio Tedesco for Reteitalia S.p.A. (Milan), Trio In the meantime, Avallone’s project was taking Cinema e Televisione S.r.l. (Rome); GM: Eliseo shape thanks to the help of Maurizio Tedesco, Boschi; PM: Marco Donati; UM: Filippo Campus, brother of actress Paola Tedesco, a former editor Giovanni Ligato; ADM: Gabriella Nardi. Country: and assistant director, and an aspiring producer; Italy. Filmed at R.P.A. Elios Studios (Rome). Run-ten years younger than Avallone, he shared the ning time: 92 minutes (m. 223). Visa n. 82289
same vision as the director and was willing to (2.2.987); Rating: V.M. 4; Release dates: .7.987
take risks with a genre picture aimed at foreign (Italy), 0.7.989 (USA); Distribution: D.M.V.; Do-markets. Avallone wrote the script with journal-mestic gross: n.a. Also known as: Espectros (Spain), ist Andrea Purgatori, a young reporter of the Spectre (France), Specters—Mächte des Bösen Corriere della Sera newspaper and the author of (West Germany), Catacomb (Sweden).

important reports on such themes as the Lebanon

1987: Spettri

47
war and the Ustica plane crash (the latter became three friends who had big motorbikes and went on the subject of the 99 movie Il muro di gomma, trips together every Sunday. They had written the directed by Marco Risi). Luckily for Avallone and script together and believed in it a lot. Mediaset [Au-Tedesco, they joined forces with an important thor’s note: actually Reteitalia], who financed the en-partner, Silvio Berlusconi’s Reteitalia, which by terprise, believed less in it, and Mediaset imposed me as film doctor … the script didn’t work well, but then had entered steadily in the film production it had a fascinating idea: the mysterious subterranean business.

Rome, the mithrea, the dovecotes, the sewers, the Spettri was shot in nine weeks, directly in underground of the Colosseum, etc. We discussed, English. The male lead, John Randolph Pepper, even in a spirited way, for more than a week, than the son of the noted Newsweek reporter Curtis one day they told me: “This is our film, we believe Bill Pepper,3 was an American in Rome: at just in it, and we want to make it this way.” … They said:

 he had played Caesarion in Mankiewicz’s

“We’re paying you all your fee but leave us our Cleopatra (963), and he became a painter and movie.”4
a photographer. Over the years he had worked as assistant director on such works as The World Avallone’s idea was to make a horror film

According to Garp (982, George Roy Hill), the deeply tied with Italy’s ancient history. “I had TV mini- series The Winds of War (983) and two cities in mind to shoot something like that: Ghostbusters (984), and in 986 he directed the Rome and Naples. Naples would have been per-English version of Eduardo De Filippo’s stage fect, because it has two faces. Above you have play Le voci dentro (a.k.a. Inner Voices) at the the serenades, pizza, the Vesuvio, and below Spoleto Festival in Charleston.

there are strange and obscure realities. Rome Obviously chosen more because of his
was perfect as well: above there are the churches, fluent English than his acting skills in what would the alleys, but then there are also the subter-be his one and only leading role, Pepper was raneans, the long underground tunnels. There paired with the 2-year-old Katrine Michelsen, is the shadow of an ancient Rome which does formerly Miss Denmark 984; the Danish actress not exist anymore, terrible and bloody.” The had become a starlet of Italian erotic cinema after concept was not new: Rome’s past as the subject Salvatore Samperi’s La bonne (986), where she for a Gothic story had been the core of the im-played alongside Florence Guérin and amply dis-mensely successful TV mini- series Il segno del played her stunning body, something she also comando (97), among others.

does in Avallone’s film. Spettri did not bring good In interviews of the period, the director
fortune to the beautiful Michelsen. Around the was nitpicking when labeling his project, same time, she starred in Sergio Bergonzelli’s perhaps as a way to win the critics’ bias toward erotic thriller Tentazione (987) and played a role the genre: “Spettri is not a horror film. I’d rather in Lamberto Bava’s sexy giallo Le foto di Gioia define it a movie about fear, and the borderline, (987) but her career would soon wane: one of populated with shadows, between Good and
the last roles in her scarce filmography would be Evil.”6 But, as the title suggests, Avallone & Co.

in Lars von Trier’s Idioten (998). She died of looked at the success of the Dèmoni diptych, and bone cancer in 2009, at only 42.

tried to repeat the same mélange of old- style Donald Pleasence, a recurring presence in

Gothic and new trends. In fact, the look of the Italian horror movies of the period, was the re-film is heavily influenced by Lamberto Bava’s quired “name” actor for export sales; as prof.

work—notice the shots of people walking Lasky (a tongue- in-cheek nod to the founder of toward the camera lighted in silhouettes.

Paramount Pictures?) he does very little besides Moreover, Avallone liberally spiced the tale looking worried and delivering insipid dialogue.

with references to classic and contemporary Avallone even cast Erna Schurer, the star of his horror cinema. An elaborately deceptive se-weird Gothic yarn Un gioco per Eveline (97), quence featuring Michelsen—wearing a stun-in a small part. It would be the actress’ last movie ning long red dress—falling prey to a monster role.

emerging from a lake, which looks just like the Despite his name being featured in the Gillman in The Creature from the Black Lagoon credits, Dardano Sacchetti’s participation to the (94, Jack Arnold), turns out to be a horror-screenplay was little more than nominal, as the themed music video. Later on, Michelsen’s char-screenwriter himself explained. In Sacchetti’s acter is menaced by an eerie- looking shadow words, Tedesco, Avallone and Purgatori were whose features—pointed ears, long spiky finger-

48 1987: Spettri nails—recall Max Schreck’s vampire in Murnau’s little blood and gore. The first one, the demise Nosferatu (922). The hero’s descent in the cat-of the night club owner who ends up with his acombs followed by his colleagues via a com-throat slashed by a glass door with a tiger drawn puter monitor, to an unexplored tomb whose on it, borrows from the ending of Cornell Wool-walls look almost like organic, bone- like mat-rich’s novel Night Has a Thousand Eyes, while ter, recalls Ridley Scott’s Alien rather than L’etr-the murder of the gay antiquarian under the usco uccide ancora (972). Finally, the bit with notes of Umberto Giordano’s opera Andrea Che-Michelsen’s character hallucinating and seeing nier has a certain Argento- like quality to it, and a snake instead of a microphone seems lifted features the film’s goriest moment, but the other out of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series—
deaths are disappointingly lame, with elaborate ditto for the scene where she is swallowed in her build- ups to little ensuing effect. Sacchetti rebed by the demon.

called Avallone’s refusal to push the pedal on Avallone claimed he wanted to focus on
graphic violence: “He was in love with the scene

“this mysterious city protected by darkness where the specter embraces the girl and deli-which lives beneath our feet and which maybe cately pulls her underground, with no blood, no feels in its restless soul the echo of the urban nothing. He liked it that way and would shoot degradation and of our malaise.”7 Indeed, the it that way.”8 The prosthetic F/X created by opening shots—the Colosseum, the Imperial

Sergio Stivaletti are reduced to very little: a Forum, a fountain with a monstrous stone head, rubber- looking claw which rips apart a face, a menacingly lit by the water reflections—capture head smashed and the long- awaited demon effectively the idea of an arcane, centuries- old which finally manifests in the last ten minutes Rome. The script ties it effectively with the and rips somebody’s heart out—too little, too scenes of men at work in the Rome under-late.

ground—a nod, perhaps involuntary, to Fellini’s Given the decent budget (of one billion and Roma (972)—and to archaeologists who study a half lire)9 and the use of such stunning natural an ancient Roman burial site and find a portal locations as the Roman catacombs, a number of with the ominous sign “Hic vocatum atque non scenes have an atmospheric quality, heightened advocatum malum aderit” (“Here, either sum-by the use of the Steadicam, and Avallone’s direc-moned or not, evil will manifest itself ”). “It is tion is a step above the cheap Italian B- pictures of full of mystery, it’s magic … and it never stops the period. Still, he does little to enhance the story.

fascinating me,” says a character about the Eter-He makes ample use of close- ups and quick cuts, nal City.

American- style, sometimes with goofy results: But after such a promising beginning, take the scene where the archaeologists prepare things rapidly go downhill. Despite the many for an expedition, patterned over many similar cinephile references, there is little tension in the moments in American cinema (Rambo: First movie. An early manifestation of evil, as a young Blood Part II, Aliens, etc.) with details of hands couple are trapped in the catacombs amid rats tying shoes, wearing jackets, closing belts or wear-and skeletons, is accompanied by naive lighting ing earphones, which feels almost comically bom-and wind effects that ape those seen in U.S. hor-bastic. Likewise, Silvano Ippoliti’s photography ror films of the period, but on the cheap. Not sports a passably international look, but at the only is the plot so bare- bones that very little hap-same time it feels banal and déjà-vu. In this sense, pens throughout, but the characters too are Spettri is indicative of the growing loss of person-stereotyped if not laughable ciphers, such as ality of Italian cinema during the course of the the blind guy who, of all things, works as a guide decade.

in the catacombs (“One does not need eyes to The director was moderately happy with
find the way in these places dominated by dark-the film, albeit critical of himself: “When I see ness”). Blindness, in typical horror movie tra-some scenes I feel ashamed, and if I were to dition (see Manhattan Baby) is the punishment reshoot them now I’d make them completely dif-for those, like professor Lasky, who dare look ferent, but this is normal. I find it absolutely de-into the abyss.

cent and pleasant… . The special effects stand When the evil forces finally manifest after up well, considering that by then everything was a half- hour buildup, Spettri becomes a super-done live on camera.”0
natural body count movie, in the vein of the cur-Spettri was released on May 7, 987, with a rent trends, although the creative deaths feature V.M.4 rating. Despite being heavily publicized

1988: Blood

49
in the media, it did mediocre business in Italy (played by the Australian Pete Phelps) as bland and was panned by the critics. The Corriere della as the one in Spettri. Maya turned out a box-Sera reviewer blamed the “scarce internal logic”

office flop upon its release in 989.

of the plot, “engulfed with unresolved ideas,” and added: “All this could have had a sense, were it Notes
playfully treated. But Marcello Avallone’s direc-1. Originally titled Noi siamo le vergini dai candidi tion—undecided on which tone to adopt, uncer-manti… (We Are the Virgins with the Candid Mantles… ), tain between real or laughable scares, distressing it was rejected by the rating board as obscene. It was reedited and resubmitted under the new title Arrivan le in its attempt to dilate tensions that don’t go off—
vergini dai candidi manti (Here Come the Virgins with the has made a great mess of it.”2 Foreign sales were Candid Mantles) and approved with a V.M.8 rating. How-satisfying, though, and the film circulated world-ever, the distributor refused to release it and the producer wide in home video. A script for a sequel was dewas forced to change the title yet again.

posited at Italy’s SIAE on May 27, penned by Sac-2. Eugenio Ercolani, “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Marcello Avallone,” PaperBlog, January 7, 204 (http://
chetti, Purgatori, Tedesco and Avallone and it. paperblog. com/ tra- cinema- e- cavalli- intervista- a-bearing several titles: Spettri 2, Il ritorno degli marcello- avallone- 244496/).

spettri, La vendetta degli spettri, and Spettri parte 3. Lino Lombardi, “All’Olimpo la tribù delle tenebre,”

seconda. But it never materialized.

Corriere della Sera, October 4, 986.

4. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

On the same day, Purgatori, Tedesco and
com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option= com_

Avallone deposited the script for Maya, which content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=79).

would be Avallone’s next film, again produced 5. Ercolani, “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Marcello by Reteitalia. It was an even more ambitious Avallone..”

project, a story set in Mexico which blended ex-6. Giovanna Grassi, “Paura nella Roma sotterranea,”

Corriere della Sera, November 8, 986.

otic adventure and the esoteric, with an opening 7. Ibid.

quote by Carlos Castaneda and sparse Gothic el-8. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

ements (namely, references to the threshold becom.

tween this world and the beyond, as in L’aldilà) 9. r.s., “L’incubo è “underground,”” Corriere della Sera, April , 987.

to fortify a narrative structure very similar to 10. Ercolani, “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Marcello Spettri. But the script was just as confused, with Avallone.”

some “creative deaths” (a guy crashed by a car as 11. It was subsequently re- examined by the board on in Christine; a woman having a bath who knocks April 9, 992, in light of the Mammì law, and a new visa her head against the faucets and the bathtub’s (n. 8690) was emitted, with the movie judged suitable for all audiences.

edge; another ravaged by fish hooks, as in Hell-12. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “Terrore tra le rovine della raiser) and unlikely characters, including a hero Città eterna,” Corriere della Sera, May 9, 987.

1988

Blood Delirium (Delirio di sangue)

Lucia Prato (Yvonne), Ezio Prosperi (Gallery (Blood Delirium)

Manager). PROD: Scino [Mushi] Glam for Cine D: Peter Storage [Sergio Bergonzelli]. S and Decima (Rome); PM: Filippo Campus; PSe: An-SC: Sergio Bergonzelli; DOP: Raffaele Mertes tonio Mammolotti; ADM: Angela Melis. Country: (Telecolor); M: Nello Ciangherotti (Ed. Scogliera); Italy. Filmed at the Castle Piccolomini in Balso-E: Vincenzo Di Santo; SE: Raffaele Mertes, Delio rano, and at Incir- De Paolis Studios (Rome). Run-Catini, Giovanni Corridori, Antonio Corridori; ning time: 90 minutes (m. 2464). Visa n. 8388

AD: Pierstefano Marangoni; AC: Stefano Pugini; (8.8.988); Rating: V.M.4. Release date: not re-MU: Guerrino Todero; Hair: Silvana Locatelli; leased theatrically; Distribution: Azzurra (Home APD: Massimo Cerquini; ASD: Giovanni

Video—Italy). Also known as: Delírio Sangriento Passanisi; Mix, SOE: Walter Polini; W: Giovanna (Brazil).

Russu; Color Technician: Pasquale Cuzzupoli.

Note: Paintings by Maria Alborghetti,

Cast: John Phillip Law (Saint Simon), Gordon Marenza Azzopardi, Carlo Cirilli, Janos Gilevic, Mitchell (Hermann), Brigitte Christensen (Sybille Livia Marcellini Gaddi, Giuseppina Laura Taran-Leclerc/Christine), Marco Di Stefano (Gérard tola; Sculptures by Angelo Pizzicaroli.

Goupta), Olga [Olinka] Hardiman (Corinne), Shocked by the death of his wife Christine,

0 1988: Blood a painter named Saint Simon loses not only his mainly for the chance of working with his good inspiration, but his mental balance as well. With friend Gordon Mitchell, who had helped him the help of his wicked butler Hermann, Saint get started in Italian cinema. Mitchell had been Simon even exhumes the skeleton of the deceased in Bergonzelli’s Diamond Connection (982), and spouse. Then, at an exhibition of his works, he the director said of him: “He had a face that meets Sybille, a young pianist who is a dead ringer didn’t have to be interpreted.”

for Christine. Struck by the resemblance, Saint The rest of the cast was a mixed bunch.

Simon invites her to his castle to try and revive French porn actress Olinka Hardiman, who had his creative impulse, but to no avail. But the turned up in Tentazione in one of her rare non-painter recovers his inspiration in an unexpected hardcore roles, had a small part which never-way: Hermann, attempting to rape a young girl, theless allowed her to show her breathtaking kills her, and Saint Simon finds out that human body. The lead, Danish- born Brigitte Chris-blood is just the right color he needed for his tensen, was a weird casting choice: born in 97, paintings. He sends Hermann to kidnap Sybille’s Christensen was a stage actress who had estab-friend Corinne, who is then drained of her blood lished herself in Italy in 983, when she founded and murdered. Sybille, now imprisoned in the cas-the company Teatro della Luna with Marco Di tle by the two madmen, is likely to become Saint Stefano and became the artistic director of a the-Simon’s next target, but her fiancé Gérard arrives ater festival in Amandola, in the Marche region, to save her just in time.

based on the interaction between the audience, Blood Delirium, Sergio Bergonzelli’s penul-the townspeople and the artists.2 Di Stefano also timate work, represented his first stab at the ended up in the movie, playing the heroine’s Gothic horror genre in a directorial career pony- tailed fiancé, who earns his living rather spawning three decades between Italy, Turkey, improbably as a test pilot of fast cars and heli-Greece, France and Spain, and within such di-copters. Bergonzelli even managed to shoot in verse genres as adventure, pirate films, westerns, a pre- existing main location—the 3th century spy stories, gialli, erotic documentaries, sleazy castle of Pereto, in the Abruzzo region—a typical comedies, and out- and-out hardcore. After dab-production gimmick in tune with the common bling with porn for the best part of the decade, practices of 960s horror films shot entirely in the director had returned to mainstream film-ancient manors.

making with the erotic thriller Tentazione, pro-The plot for Blood Delirium gathers char-
duced by Enzo Gallo and starring Katrine acters and archetypes of the golden age of the Michelsen, and Blood Delirium represented an Gothic and revolves around the themes of the attempt to hold on to genre filmmaking, by then double and reincarnation. The mad artist Saint waning and destined primarily to foreign con-Simon is obsessed with the woman he loved, sumption.

Christine, who was also his muse, and whose

“I wrote that movie with Fabio De Agostini, death deprived him of his artistic inspiration.

a profound and very commercial author, aiming When he meets a young female pianist, who is to make a shocking film,” the director explained.

the mirror image of his deceased wife, he jumps De Agostini, whose name does not feature in at the opportunity to keep her with him in his the credits, had collaborated with Bergonzelli castle. The script plays on the idea that in every on several scripts, such as Silvia e l’amore (968), person there are two personalities, two halves Le 10 meraviglie dell’amore (969) and Nelle who, even though separate, are linked by a pieghe della carne (970). Besides his work as as-spiritual bond: “This is what we are, two in one sistant director for the likes of Mario Bonnard, flame,” Christine’s spirit tells her other half, Joseph Losey, Sergio Grieco and Giacomo Gen-Sybille. In addition to that, Bergonzelli added tilomo, De Agostini’s main claim to fame had an element that brought the story closer to H.G.

been the controversial erotic Nazi flick Le lunghe Lewis’ Color Me Blood Red (96), as Saint notti della Gestapo (977).

Simon finds out that human blood gives “life”

Working on a low budget, Bergonzelli nev-
to his creations. “The most precious thing in the ertheless managed to cast a rather prestigious world is blood, and the painter of my story has- been, John Phillip Law, for the role of the thinks that if he can paint with blood he can ob-mad painter Saint Simon, who believes himself tain a special communicativeness.”3
to be the reincarnation of Van Gogh. Law (who Bergonzelli’s take on the Gothic genre is
dubs himself in the film) accepted the role filled with gratuitous nudity and gore, with an

1988: Blood


insistence on the grotesque and the excess that

“Sweet mistress, I loved you in silence… ” he recalls extreme adults- only comics such as Oltre-mourns—while his master is madly playing the tomba and Terror—all of this amply peppered organ, and later Hermann’s sexual escapades with jaw- dropping dialogue. “I’ve sacrificed phi-provide the film’s goriest bits, as he supplies Saint losophy on the altar of entertainment, transfer-Simon with the blood of his victims and then ring my personal convictions in the movie,”4 the gets rid of the bodies, which he either hacks director claimed. True to his philosophy studies, to pieces or gives as food to his Doberman Pin-he threw in plenty of Pindaric flights, starting scher dog (aptly named Satan), saving the best with Saint Simon’s opening monologue, as the cuts for himself, cooked rare and with just a little artist contemplates the sunset from the ramparts bit of salt.

of his castle and is upset by the totality of the The climax must be seen to be believed. All universe. “Emptiness. Overflowing emptiness.

hell breaks loose in the castle, as Christine’s in-The presence of the infinite. Eyes without di-visible spirit takes revenge on her husband: “You mension. Wings of invisible light. The restless think you are Van Gogh? Now you are!,” her eye of the spirit dispels the arcane, glimpsing fu-voice announces, cutting off the man’s ear. Then ture fragments—always present, never seen.”

the castle crumbles down to pieces like the And this is just the beginning.

house of Usher in Poe’s story, and Bergonzelli Sometimes one cannot decide whether
vainly attempts to overcome the shoestring Bergonzelli’s tongue is in his cheek or not. Saint budget with slow- motion shots of Saint Simon Simon’s remark after he discovers that a soon-falling around, apparently slammed by invisible to-be-victim is about to pay him a visit (“Let her forces. The sight of Hermann submerged under come… . I have just finished my color!”) makes Styrofoam columns and capitals incongruously one suspect it is; and yet the hopelessly would-raining down from the ceiling looks almost like be-poetic tone of the dialogue suggests the op-a retribution for Mitchell’s past as a peplum icon.

posite, with such lines as “The future is as real The final image of servant and master holding as the present—except that it exists in a dimen-hands in the moment of death plays like a ho-sion that eyes cannot see.” In addition to that, mosexual riff on the closing shot of Duel in the the lack of means paves the way for the ridicu-Sun (946).

lous: the French setting is phony, Saint Simon’s Blood Delirium was released directly to paintings are obviously the work of different home video in Italy, in a version devoid of the artists with very different styles, and in a scene, goriest bits, such as the sight of Hermann ex-he listens to Sybille’s piano concerto performance tracting the viscera from a victim’s chest cavity.

on a cheap, small boom box. The only redeeming Over the years, it gained some sort of a cult quality of many scenes is Raffaele Mertes’ cine-status as an example of what Michael J. Weldon matography. The talented d.o.p. would soon turn described as “psychotronic movies.” Those in-up in bigger productions, such as Michele Soavi’s volved had a far less favorable opinion of it: La setta (99), Carlo Carlei’s La corsa dell’inno-

“That one, yes, is extremely bad. When my Ital-cente (99) and Dario Argento’s Trauma (993).

ian agent found out that I had starred in it, he In the late 990s he moved on to direction and practically exploded, ‘John, you can’t make worked exclusively for the small screen.

movies like that! Don’t you take yourself seri-Though not a bad actress, the angular-ously?’” Law admitted.6
jawed Christensen lacks the looks and physique Bergonzelli directed only one more film,
of Gothic heroines, but she soldiers on ad-Malizia oggi (990), featuring future porn actress mirably, given the material she must work with.

Valentine Demy. He died in 2002.

John Phillip Law’s hammy performance, all rolling eyes and frantic brushstrokes while cre-Notes
ating his masterpieces, is a hoot, but Gordon 1. Massimo F. Lavagnini, “Sergio Bergonzelli. Una Mitchell steals the show as Saint Simon’s malev-cinepresa in pugno al diavolo,” Nocturno Cinema #2, Deolent, sex- crazed butler- cum-factotum Her-cember 996, 77.

mann. “Son of the devil, but innocuous,” the 2. r.s., “Nelle case della gente il festival di Amandola,”

painter says of him, a debatable understatement Corriere della Sera, August 23, 989.

3. Lavagnini, “Sergio Bergonzelli. Una cinepresa in indeed. In an early scene we see Hermann in-pugno al diavolo,” 77.

dulge in passionate lovemaking with the still 4. Ibid., 78.

warm body of the dead lady of the house—

5. Weldon described psychotronic movies as “the ones

2 1988: Il bosco 1
traditionally ignored or ridiculed by mainstream critics at spied on by something invisible. At a nearby vil-the time of their release: horror, exploitation, action, lage, the two meet Algernoon, a weird- looking science fiction, and movies that used to play in drive- ins horror writer whose sight makes Arva flee. Alger-or inner- city grindhouses.” Psychotronic Video, #, 989, 2.

6. Carlos Aguilar and Anita Haas, John Phillip Law. Di-noon tells them that centuries earlier a local pop-abolik Angel (Pontevedra/Bilbao: Scifiworld/Quatermass, ulation, the Cimbri, practiced satanic rites in the 2008), 90.

woods. Cindy and Tony resume their journey and meet Arva again, who offers them to sleep in an Il bosco 1 (Evil Clutch)

isolated barn. There, the witch offers Tony some D: Andrea Marfori. S and SC: Andrea Mar-drugs, which he accidentally drops into a strange fori; DOP: Marco Isoli; M: Adriano Maria Vitali liquid that splashes on him. Soon Tony starts feel-

(Ed. CAM); E: Andrea Marfori, Fabrizio Polver-ing ill and Cindy chases Arva away. The witch’s ari; PD: Giovanni Albertini; SPFX: Studio Arte victim pops up as a zombie and attacks them.

Fare [Bruno Biagi, Paolo Forti], Gianni Alber-Tony is possessed by an evil force and tries to rape tini; AD: Giulio Calcinari; C: Paolo Sanna; AC: Cindy, who runs away terrified. The boy is se-Paolo Ferrari; Steadicam: Pippo Ciliberto, Vachi duced by Arva, who transforms into her true self.

Mallaby; ArtD: Lisa Nisio; SD: Sebastiano De Algernoon comes to their rescue but he is killed Caro, Simona Migliotti; CO: Giovanni Albertini, by Arva. Cindy and Tony (who has been badly Lisa Nisio, Daniela C. Fava; 2ndUC: Bruno Mal-injured) take refuge in the ruins near a spring, tese; AE: Angelo Mignogna; SP: Stefano Carofei; but the monster reaches them and beheads the GA: Stani Galasso; BB: Giovanni Galasso; KG: young man. Cindy takes refuge in the barn where Sergio Fiori; G: Marco Due; B: Angelo Colone; she slaughters Algernoon (who has returned as a SO: Sandro Aliscioni, Bruno Pupparo, Massimo zombie) and the other undead with a chainsaw.

Tucceri; Soundtrack: Luciano Anzellotti, Mas-At dawn, Cindy runs away, but the horror is not simo Anzellotti, Dario Pasquale, Attilio Gizzi; over…

Music recording mix: Marco Streccioni; Mix: Born in Verona in 98, Andrea Marfori

Danilo Sterbini; Dialogue coach: Teresa Pase; had been a movie buff since an early age. It was Screenplay dialogue: Dinah Rogers; SS: Roberta fated that this passion would evolve into some-Guastella, Silvia Nelvina. 2nd Unit: C: Bruno thing more. Even though he got a degree in Phi-Maltese; AC: Claudio Schiano; GA: Stefano losophy in Bologna, Andrea wrote his thesis on Alessi; BB: Fabio Capozzi; SS: Susanna S. Rocchi; F.W. Murnau, then he moved to Rome and got Titles: Fabio Testa. Cast: Coralina Cataldi Tassoni a master’s degree in direction and editing at (Cindy), Diego Ribon (Tony), Luciano Crovato Rome’s CSC in 982. His first works were a doc-

(Algernoon), Elena Cantarone (Arva), Stefano umentary on the Verona Arena and some short Molinari (Fango). PROD: Agnese Fontana for films. Then, in April 987, Marfori set out to Fomar Film; PSe: Pietro Raschillà, Manuela Di make the short horror film Gorysand—Sabbia Priamo; Location manager: Francesca De Filippi; insanguinata: shot around Rome and at CSC’s ADM: Enrico Marfori. Country: Italy. Filmed in own studio with a handful of friends and CSC

Giazza (Verona) and Rome. Running time: 8
graduates, it was an experiment (or, in Marfori’s minutes (m. 2338). Visa n. 8793 (6.26.990); Rat-words, a “pre-film”) which paved the hand for ing: V.M.4. Release dates: 3.26.988 (Brussels In-the director’s feature film debut. “There was the ternational Festival of Fantasy Films), 6.4.992
will to make a genre product, the passion for (USA—Home video); Distribution: Eagle Home Gothic stories and the desire to create a product Video (Italy), Troma (International). Domestic that was not auteurish, nor classic or ordinary.

gross: not released theatrically. Also known as: Hor-In fact, I wanted to make a commercial movie.”
ror Queen (U.S.A—Home video), Evil Clutch—

Produced by Marfori with his CSC class-

Die Rückkehr der Dämonen (Germany)

mate Agnese Fontana on a budget of about 00

Note: the song “Evil Clutch,” by Vitali/Mar-million lire, Il bosco 1 was filmed over the course fori, is performed by Elisabetta De Palo.

of three weeks, from late August to mid–Sep-Two lovers, Cindy and Tony, take a trip to tember 987. The director worked with a crew the Alps. On the road they help a girl, Arva (ac-of about 20 and with a cast of five, led by Diego tually a witch whom we have seen castrating and Ribon and the Italian- American Coralina killing her lover), who claims to have been at-Cataldi Tassoni, the latter a rather popular face tacked by something horrible at the cemetery.

at that time after her work with Dario Argento Tony goes to check and has the feeling of being (Dèmoni 2 … l’incubo continua, Opera and the

1988: Il bosco 1

3

TV program Giallo). On the first week, filming B.C. In the region, local people still speak a di-took place on location in the Venetian prealps, alect, “cimbro,” which retains German words.

in the Lessinia plateau around Asiago before the Nevertheless, Il bosco 1 tries hard not to crew moved to Filacciano, in the countryside look Italian. The form and directing style are near Rome, for two more weeks of filming in an blatantly influenced by The Evil Dead and Evil estate owned by the family of Prince Del Drago.

Dead II (987) to the point of idolatry. The Il bosco 1 (the number, in the director’s own Steadicam prowls around the woods at ground words, is an ironic nod to the plethora of horror level and fast speed as an evil entity is unleashed, movie sequels playing in theaters at that time) and the violence is over- the-top and cartoonish.

has a Gothic core to it. As Marfori stated, “I Besides the aforementioned “evil clutch,” the wanted to make a film about mountains and
film sports a fast- moving zombie who amputates ghosts, in an openly Gothic key, by concocting a character’s hands with a heavy stone and a story with a mysterious atmosphere… . I chases the heroine with a scythe (and later he wanted to create a style similar to the Hansel hooks her like a fish by the cheek with a rod!), and Gretel tale, but in a Gothic version.”2 The monstrous tree root tentacles coming out of the story takes place in a handful of milieux—a ground, a chainsaw- vs-axe showdown, zombies small hamlet, a cemetery, a dilapidated farm-drooling multicolored pus and corpses melting house, a barn (but with a cuckoo clock incon-like hot wax.

gruously placed on the wall)—and draws from If this sounds amusing on paper, Marfori’s the Gothic tradition, with the theme of the two direction turns out to be an ordeal for the lovers travelling in a foreign country (and viewer. Il bosco 1 is conceived and shot with all getting lost in a remote and inhospitable region), the enthusiasm of a beginner who hasn’t got a and with the figure of the female witch.

clue of what moviemaking is about. At less than The character of Arna is Marfori’s version 90 minutes, it looks and feels like an overinflated of the evil sorcerers who seduce and destroy the short film (the horror story Algernoon tells the weak- minded males, a trope of Italian horror protagonists, which has no other function than since its early days. (Let’s put aside for a moment to pad the running time, consists of excerpts the fact that actress Elena Cantarone doesn’t from Gorysand). The systematic use of long have an ounce of Barbara Steele’s alluring power) takes and POV shots is monotonous and point-Under her seductive façade, the witch conceals less, with Marfori having his cameraman swirl an ugly appearance, but not just that: in a mind-around the actors like the invisible presence in numbing riff on the theme of the “vagina den-Raimi’s film (as in the cemetery scene) as if it tata,” a several feet long claw emerges from be-were enough to create atmosphere: see, for in-tween her legs and grabs her unfortunate lovers stance, the expository scene where Cindy, Tony in the crotch with gruesome effects, thus giving and Algernoon descend through a small hamlet the film its English language title Evil Clutch.

and discuss the evil nature of the place.

Such a depiction of sexuality as morbid and Such an approach predates the film buff,
punitive recalls the past Gothic classics as well, fanboy mentality which will characterize many albeit with a distinctly tongue- in-cheek attitude.

Italian indie filmmakers over the next decades, Another typical Gothic element are the worried about wearing their influences on their ruins as containers of a past evil waiting to sleeve and attempting bravura stunts in a mis-be unleashed. The character of Algernoon, the guided conception of what film technique is.

weird horror novelist who warns the protago-Ditto for the scenes where the camera lingers on nists about the dangers of the surroundings, is the gory aftermath to emphasize the make- up a bizarre sort of savant, who rides around in an effects, not unlike the many independent U.S.

outmoded motorbike and speaks through a horror films of the period. The F/X range from voice device. Most notably, the film takes place barely competent to overly clumsy, with the in an Italian setting, the Venetian alps, an ele-radio- controlled claw standing out, but the sup-ment which marks—at least ideally—a turning posedly suspenseful bits are ruined by the am-point from the many Italian horror movies set ateurish mise-en-scène. Examples? Tony strug-abroad, from Fulci’s works to the Dèmoni dip-gling with the tree root tentacles in a similar way tych: the dialogue even mentions the Cimbri, a as Bela Lugosi did with the rubber octopus in Germanic population who lived in the area and Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster (9), the fought the Roman Republic in the 2nd century scythe- wielding zombie trying not to hit the

4 1988: La casa 3
heroine while chasing her, the final showdown based on the true story of the killing of a teenage between Cindy and the zombie.

girl, which was to be “a harsh recreation in the The handful of characters that populate the way of the 970s Italian poliziottesco” but was story are the best indication of Marfori’s approach, severely changed (and self- censored) in the and perhaps the proof of Il bosco 1’s none too se-making. He then made Il ritmo del silenzio rious intentions. Tassoni is dressed like a (a.k.a. Port of Crime/Mafia Docks, 993), an Ital-Madonna lookalike and in the Italian version her ian/U.S. co- production featuring Rena Niehaus, character sports a hard- to-swallow American ac-Traci Lords and Randi Ingerman, and eventually cent (which is on a par with the bad English spo-landed on television, where he directed the soap ken by the characters in the international version), opera Un posto al sole, as well as several docu-while the surreal- looking Algernoon, in the dimentaries. Marfori’s name resurfaced in recent rector’s words, looks like “a perfect cross between years, with the short film The Unfortunate Life Snoopy and Lieutenant Columbo.”3 The script has of Georgina Spelvin Chained to a Radiator (20) them deliver stupid dialogue and behave in an inand the featurette Soviet Zombie Invasion (206), coherent way, with half of the film consisting of co- financed with Russian festival organizer Vik-Cindy’s character running away and screaming tor Bulankin and shot in HD cam in Moscow, while the Steadicam is chasing her. Commenting which according to the director’s intentions on the atrocious, cartoonish acting, Marfori half-should be the pilot for a horror series.

jokingly mentioned Werner Herzog’s Herz aus glas In 203 Marfori self- released a special 2th (976) as an influence of sorts: “They are not sim-anniversary edition DVD of Il bosco 1. It included ply actors who act badly … they act weirdly.”

a celebrative feature- length documentary with The movie had its world premiere on
the director evoking the genesis and the making March 26, 988, at the 6th Brussels International of the film, commenting at length over the “most Festival of Fantastic Films (BIFFF), and on June famous” scenes, acting as a tour guide for dozens 7th it was screened at Rome’s Fantafestival (on of fans through the actual locations, signing authe same night as Fulci’s Zombi 3). On both oc-tographs, and overall self- congratulating himself, casions it was presented with the international savoring the cult status that his feature film debut title Evil Clutch. However, it was submitted to has reached since its release and explaining it as the Italian rating board only in 990 as Il bosco follows: “It puts together unblendable things: cul-1, earning a V.M.4 certificate, and was confined tured music, comics, trash, the absurd, the to home video in its country. Marfori claimed surreal … putting together all these elements was that for a young filmmaker like him to make a a heterodox gesture.”

genre movie was an act so outside the box that the “official” film world ostracized his movie—

NOteS
a delusional view which simply doesn’t consider the overall crisis of Italian cinema in the late 1. Brando Taccini, Stracult Horror. Guida al meglio (e

980s. But Marfori managed to cut a deal with al peggio) del cinema horror italiano anni ’80 (Rome: Quintilia Edizioni, 202), 240.

Troma, and Il bosco 1 was picked up and released 2. Ibid., 24.

to home video by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael 3. This and Marfori’s quotes, where not specified oth-Herz’s label in 992 as Evil Clutch, with the di-erwise, come from the documentary Il bosco 1–25th An-rector credited as Andreas Marfori. Reviews niversary Edition, shot by Brando Taccini.

were scathing: “If you understand any of what’s 4. [not signed], “The Video Eye of Dr. Cyclops,” Fangoria #8, November 992, 3. Incidentally, the reviewer going on in this dubbed flick, you’ve probably mistakenly believes the name of the zombie (Fango) to be been drinking what writer/director Andreas

“the ultimate ass- kiss” (Fangoria being usually called Fango Marfori was,” wrote Fangoria, adding “In all, this by fans). But in this case, Marfori wasn’t paying a tongue-movie features a level of tedium and inanity to in-cheek homage to the popular horror movie magazine: in Italian, Fango means “mud,” and indeed in the film the tax even the most diehard gorehound’s pa-zombie comes out of the mud.

tience.”4 As haphazard and trashy as it was, the 5. Andrea Marfori interviewed, in www. jamovie. it movie found an international audience, which (http://www.jamovie.it/intervista-ad-andrea-marfori-il-ultimately was just what Marfori wanted. “It regista-del-mitico-il-bosco-/).

has its own independent life, its soul,” he commented about its enduring popularity among La casa 3—Ghosthouse (Ghosthouse)

horror fans.

D: Umberto Lenzi. S: Umberto Lenzi; Dial:

The director’s next film was Perduta (990), Sheila Goldberg; SC: Cinthia McGavin; DOP:

1988: La casa 3



Franco Delli Colli (Telecolor, Eastman Kodak); to investigate and discover a trail of gruesome past M: Piero Montanari (Ed. Idra Music); E: Rosanna events. It seems that the key to the mystery is the Landi; PD, CO: Massimo Lentini; AD: Alexander malevolent clown doll which Henrietta’s father—

Colby [Massimo Antonello Geleng]; SD: Roberto a mortician—stole from a dead girl and gave her.

Granieri; MU: Peter Moor [Pietro Tenoglio]; Meanwhile, Valkos is still at large…

Hair: Paula White [Adriana Sforza]; AD: Clay By the mid- to late-eighties, the Italian Millicamp [Claudio Lattanzi]; AsstArtD: Rob genre film industry was winding down. The Rockett; SE: Dan Maklansky, Robert Gould, home market would not welcome low- budget Roland Park; SO: Larry Revene; SOE: Hubrecht horror films if not in the summer season, where Nijhuis; AC: Daniel Kalehoff [Daniele Massac-the lack of major releases would allow them a cesi]; G: Brian Taitt [Elio Terribili], Mark niche in the distribution circuit. Independent Caruso, Sam Winston, Albert Ellis; El: Saul companies aimed mainly at the foreign markets, Barry, Jeff Herbert, Bob Siegel; W: Kou Ami; SP: where their products would sell more easily, ei-Jeff Hest [Carlo Alberto Cocchi]; AE: Henry ther to theatrical distribution or more likely to Robinson [Enrico Grassi]; Generator Operator: home video.

Silver Murray; SS: Olga Pehar; DialD: Sheila One of such companies was Aristide Mas-Goldberg. Cast: Lara Wendel [Daniela Barnes]

saccesi’s Filmirage. Founded in 980, it produced (Martha), Greg Scott [Greg Rhodes] (Paul horror, sci- fi, and erotic films, with Massaccesi Rogers), Kristen Fougerosse (Henriette Baker), performing various duties, and operated with Mary Sellers (Susan), Kate Silver (Tina Dalen), an eye firmly on foreign deals. For several years Ron Houck (Mark Dalen), Martin Jay (Jim Filmirage churned out virtually only films di-Dalen), Willy M. Moon (Pepe), Donald O’Brian rected by Massaccesi, usually under his alias Joe

[O’Brien] (Valkos), Susan Muller (Mrs. Baker), D’Amato (one exception was Mino Guerrini’s Alain Smith (Sam Baker), William J. Devany comedy Cuando calienta el sol … vamos alla (Lieutenant), Ralph Morse (Coroner), Robert playa, where Massaccesi was the director of pho-Champagne (Mortician), Hernest Mc. Kimnoro tography). By the mid–980s Filmirage started (Cemetery Custodian). PROD: Aristide Mas-producing low- budget horror films directed by saccesi for Filmirage Production Group other filmmakers, namely Deran Serafian’s In-

(Rome); PS: Tony Hood; PAss: Mary Noolite, terzone and Michele Soavi’s Deliria, and it was John Therrien; ADM: Charles Wallach. Coun-Massaccesi’s company who picked up the pro-try: Italy. Filmed in Boston and Cohasset, Mas-duction of Umberto Lenzi’s first horror film sachusetts (USA). Running time: 9 minutes (m.

since Incubo sulla città contaminata.

2632). Visa n. 83280 (.23.988); Rating: V.M.4.

Lenzi had written the story in January 987, Release dates: .988 (France—Avoriaz Fantastic and immediately found Italian and American Film Festival), .2.988 (Japan), 6..988
backing. Initially titled Ghosthouse, the project (France), 8..988 (Italy); Distribution: Gruppo had to be financed by producer Roberto Di BEMA. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known as: La Girolamo, who backed out due to money issues.

maison du cauchemar (France), La casa fan-

Then Massaccesi stepped in. As with many other tasma (Spain).

Filmirage productions, shooting took place in New England. When he finds out that his
the United States—as Massaccesi explained, little daughter Henrietta has killed the family cat, filming abroad was far less expensive than in Sam Baker punishes her severely, but soon he and Italy—and on the cheap: Lenzi claimed the his wife are horribly murdered. Boston, twenty movie cost one billion lire. The crew was mini-years later: Paul and his girlfriend Martha receive mal: Lenzi’s wife Olga Pehar acted as script girl, a strange radio call which leads them to the de-and Massaccesi took on as director of photog-serted house where Henrietta’s family once lived.

raphy during the last three days of filming in There, they make acquaintance with a group of Boston, after the titular d.o.p. Franco Delli Colli radio amateurs who are camping nearby. Weird had returned to Italy. According to the director, things occur: the visitors are terrorized by the

“it was almost impossible to shoot under those ghastly apparitions of Henrietta and her evil-conditions, the budget was too small.” The cast looking clown doll, and one of them meets a hor-was an ensemble of unknown faces, except for rible death. However, the police believe the killer Lara Wendel (who would soon appear in is a crazed man named Valkos. While their another Filmirage flick, Killing Birds—Raptors) friends stay at the house, Paul and Martha leave and Donald O’Brien. Mary Sellers was a recur-

6 1988: La casa 3

Italian fotobusta for Umberto Lenzi’s La casa 3—Ghosthouse (1988).

ring presence in the company’s productions, paura; the eerie lullaby which can be heard in such as Deliria and Eleven Days, Eleven Nights.

the haunted house when the girl shows up (and The screenplay—credited to the elusive which hides a message if played backwards)

“Cinthia McGavin” but written solely by the di-hints both at the typical giallo lullabies and at rector2—is a hodgepodge of ideas, filtered the “Satanic panic” around back- masking in the through Lenzi’s own vision. “Terror, as far as I early 980s; the mansion where the story takes am concerned, stems exactly from the attach-place recalls both The Amityville Horror and The ment to reality,” he observed about his concept Evil Dead (see the scenes in the basement); the of the genre, while recalling the genesis of Ghost-bit where a girl is cut in half by some sort of guil-house. “The basic idea started from the docu-lotine window (incongruously placed inside a mented existence of paranormal activities so room) comes from Superstition (98, James W.

that particularly sensitive people can have pre-Robertson); the final appearance of Death as a monitions of gruesome events that perhaps are hooded, maggot- infested skeleton is a cheap taking place in the opposite part of the world.

recreation of the climax in Inferno. There are The strength of my film is that the premonition also nods to Fulci’s L’aldilà and Quella villa ac-was not made by a man, but by a radio. So you canto al cimitero, from the scene where an un-had a mechanical device which caught in the fortunate guy falls into a pit of acid to the un-airwaves the cry for help of a person who was settling moment where Lara Wendel’s character about to be killed.”3
notices the evil doll in a shop’s window; finally, If the idea of a message intercepted through the climax set in a cemetery’s crypt, where the airwaves seems like an updating of a classic young hero exhumes the still- preserved body of Richard Matheson story, Long Distance Call, Henrietta, buried with her doll by her side, the list of “homages” draws from varied filmic and sets them on fire, is a poor man’s riff on the sources. The ghost of Henrietta, complete with ending of Paura nella città dei morti viventi. The a scary clown doll, comes from Operazione few interesting ideas, such as a scene where a

1988: La casa 4

7
haunted room is filled with flying dolls and pil-tanari’s score, blaming the film’s “great confusion low feathers—Lenzi’s horror reimagining of a and lack of accuracy.”4 But it reportedly proved famous moment in Zéro de conduite (933, Jean a solid box- office success, and was sold well Vigo), perhaps?—are ruined by bottom- of-the-abroad, including France, Jana and Spain. Mas-barrel special effects.

saccesi soon set to work on La Casa 4. On his The direction does not improve upon the
part, Lenzi directed another movie for Filmirage, scarce originality and minimal budget. Lenzi the thriller Paura nel buio—Hitcher in the Dark doesn’t have Fulci’s visionary talent, and for (989).

most of its running time he sticks to the movie’s horror imagery- by-numbers—arms breaking

Notes
through walls, dead bodies behind doors, faucets 1. Manlio Gomarasca, Umberto Lenzi (Milan: Nocturno dripping blood—with a stolid lack of imagina-Libri, 200), 26.

tion. Overall, it is the prone sticking to 980s 2. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 98.

U.S. body count horror that is most grating: 3. Gomarasca, Umberto Lenzi, 2.

once Italian Gothic was a matter of ladies in 4. G. Gs. [Giovanna Grassi], “Horror italiano,” Corriere their nightgowns wandering through dark cor-della Sera, August 20, 988.

5. According to the official Spanish ministerial data, it ridors; in Lenzi’s film, it has become all about was seen by 8,963 spectators and grossed an amount cor-dumb teenagers with denim jackets and sneak-responding to 3,460 Euro. (http:// infoicaa. mecd. es/
ers. It is not quite the same.

CatalogoICAA/ Peliculas/ Detalle?Pelicula= 9668) Eventually, though, Ghosthouse found its
way to the home market as well. Distributor La casa 4 (Witchcraft) (Witchery)

Achille Manzotti picked it up and retitled it La D: Martin Newlin [Fabrizio Laurenti]. S

Casa 3, a title that artfully referred to The Evil and SC: Daniele Stroppa; DOP: Gianlorenzo Dead and Evil Dead II, released in Italy respec-Battaglia (Eastmancolor Kodak, Telecolor); M: tively as La Casa (House) and La Casa 2. The Carlo Maria Cordio (Ed. Idra Music); E: reference to a “house” in the title was common Rosanna Landi; Casting: Paul Werner [Werner to many horror movies released over the course Pochath]; ArtD: Alex Colby [Massimo Antonello of the decade, starting with Superstition, which Geleng]; MU: Maurizio Trani; AD: Allen Don-came out as La casa di Mary. Even Massaccesi’s ner; STC: Brian Ricci; C: John Wynn; AC: Camillo Buio Omega (979) was re- released as In quella Sabatini; SO: Keith Young; SP: Peter Bates; AE: casa Buio omega, to jump on the bandwagon.

David Shaw; SS: Laura Curreli; G: Paolo Tiberti, This led to a series of sometimes bizarre reti-Franco Micheli; El: Marcello Montarsi, Ben tlings: for instance, Steve Miner’s House (98) Miller; PrM: Julie Duncan; Stunts: John Mason; came out as Chi è sepolto in quella casa? (Who Mix: Michael Barry. Cast: David Hasselhoff is Buried in That House?) and Harley Cokeliss’

(Gary), Linda Blair (Jane Brooks), Catherine Dream Demon was retitled La casa al n° 13 in Hickland (Linda Sullivan), Annie Ross (Rose Horror Street.

Brooks), Hildegarde Knef (Lady in Black), Leslie Lenzi was initially credited as “Humphrey

Cumming (Leslie), Bob [Robert] Champagne

Humbert,” an Anglicized pseudonym which (Freddie Brooks), Rick Farnsworth (Jerry Gior-echoed the name of the narrator (Humbert dano), Michael Manchester (Tommy Brooks),

Humbert) in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita.

Frank Cammarata (Tony Giordano), Victoria

It seemed one of Filmirage’s typical cheap mar-Biggers (Secretary), Ely Coughlin (Satan), Kara keting tricks (which even Fulci was not spared, Lynch (Cindy), James [Jamie] Hanes (Jon), when Le porte del silenzio was credited abroad Richard Ladenburg (Sheriff ), George Stevens to “Henry Simon Kittay”), and according to the (Fisherman). PROD: Aristide Massaccesi for director he sued the producers and had his name Filmirage Production Group (Rome); PS: Annie restored: in the Italian prints, the credits carry Jurgielewicz; PSe: Sophie Ali; PAcc: Walter Kelly.

his real name. However, “Humphrey Humbert”

Country: Italy. Filmed in Scituate and Cohasset, was an a.k.a. Lenzi had used earlier in his career, Massachusetts. Running time: 9 minutes (m.

for instance on I tre sergenti del Bengala (964), 20). Visa n. 8467 (.26.988); Rating: all au-so there is a chance he was aware of the stunt diences. Release dates: 2..988 (West Germany), from the beginning.

7..989 (Japan), 7.6.989 (USA—Home video), Critics were severe: the Corriere della Sera 8.6.989 (Italy); Distribution: Artisti Associati/
praised only the photography and Piero Mon-Gruppo Berna. Domestic gross: ,283,94,000 lire.

8 1988: La casa 4

Also known as: Ghosthouse 2 (UK); Encuentro Wilder’s Fedora, which also featured a mysteri-con la maldad (Spain); Démoniaque présence ous retired actress. The cast also included David (France); Hexenbrut (West Germany).

Hasselhoff (still very popular in Italy after the A photographer, Gary, and his girlfriend TV series Knight Rider) and Linda Blair, who Leslie arrive at an isolated house on an isle near ends up again playing a possessed soul. For the the coast of Massachusetts to conduct research on main female role Massaccesi cast Leslie Cuma past legend. Supposedly, centuries earlier, a mins, on Lattanzi’s suggestion: she had been in pregnant witch took refuge there from her perse-Killing Birds and had a brief liaison with the di-cutors and then committed suicide by throwing rector. Massaccesi would regret the choice, given herself out of a window. In recent times the place Cummins’ utter lack of acting skills.

was inhabited only by a retired actress. Other In the end, Lattanzi gave up directing the people arrive on the island: a pregnant young film—or Massaccesi decided he was unfit for the woman, Jane Brooks, who is looking to buy the movie: Lattanzi’s version on why he left the proj-house and convert it into a hotel, accompanied ect is rather vague and unconvincing. The pro-by her parents and her little brother Tommy; a ducer’s old acquaintance Luigi Cozzi came real estate agent, Jerry, and an architect, Linda.

aboard, only to resign after just two weeks of Soon the group find themselves stranded on the pre- production work: “The story didn’t attract island, after a mysterious lady in black has dis-me, I found it too predictable and banal. Mas-patched the boatman who brought them there.

saccesi wanted me to make a film which I didn’t The guests start dying in horrible ways, and Leslie feel like mine, and without any special reason I finds out that the witch is still out for vengeance…

decided to give up directing a horror movie The good commercial results of La casa 3
aimed at the small screen.”4 Cozzi went on to convinced Aristide Massaccesi and distributor make his own project, Paganini Horror, and Achille Manzotti to follow along the same route, Massaccesi replaced him at the eleventh hour which resulted in Filmirage putting in the with Fabrizio Laurenti, a debuting director who pipeline another sequel in name only to La casa.

had made an impressive 30-minute vampire film Umberto Lenzi had already submitted to the shot in Super8, The Immigrant (98), about a producers an idea for La casa 4, “a story in the Transylvanian immigrant in New York who vein of Psycho, about a woman who is released wakes up 80 years later in the East Side, thirsty from jail and goes to live in a villa where years for blood, which leads to a series of grotesque earlier bloody murders were committed, but vicissitudes. The Immigrant had won the “Gab-they didn’t even take it into consideration. They biano d’oro” prize at the 987 Bellaria Film Fes-told me … that these films made no money, tival, and gathered favorable reviews in the and that they had no intention whatsoever of press.
making a sequel. In fact, they not only made La La casa 4 tries hard to pose as an American casa 4, but also La casa 5!”
horror movie. The vengeful witch and the ref-Even though the only credited scriptwriter erences to the Massachusetts witch hunts recall is Daniele Stroppa, Claudio Lattanzi claimed he among other things James W. Robertson’s Su-had a part in concocting the scenario. “Daniele perstition, the character of the “lady in black” is wrote all the screenplay, but I remember going borrowed from Dan Curtis’ Burnt Offerings to his place in the evening, to write the story to-

(976), the creative graphic deaths and mutila-gether, because I had to direct it.”2 It was Lattanzi tions take place in an extradimensional hell just who suggested Massaccesi to aim high for the like in Hellraiser, and the final bit of possession cast: “I kept telling Aristide: ‘Come on, now that is the price to be paid to The Exorcist. But you have made a leap in quality and you are un-Stroppa’s script adds even more fuel to the fire.

dergoing a felicitous period, why don’t we cast The theme of the victims being symbolically Bette Davis for the role of the witch?’ We talked punished for the deadly sins they represent re-again a few days later, and he told me: ‘You calls La plus longue nuit du diable (97, Jean know, maybe I really have a chance to have Bette Brismée), the notion that the hotel is built on Davis, because I know people who know her …

three doors of hell (respectively greed, luxury what a shot it would be!’ and I: ‘Well, if Bette and ire) draws from The Sentinel and L’aldilà, Davis is in it, I’m making the movie for free!’”3
and the witch’s look was Lattanzi’s homage to Eventually the producer had to settle with Hilde-Inferno: “I liked the idea of showing the witch garde Knef, possibly because of her role in Billy Argento- style … with this long black cloak,

1988: Killing

9
while Daniele thought it was bullshit!.”6 Just like would recycle it again for La Casa 5 (990)—La Argento did in Opera, incidentally, the leading casa 4 looks more polished than other Filmirage man is dispatched in the epilogue.

productions. Its appearance misled the film The very insistence on Catholic guilt makes critic in the Corriere della Sera, who took it for for a rather morbid subtext. “It is a childish su-a genuine U.S. production and (perhaps exactly perstition of the human spirit that virginity is a because of this) reviewed it rather favorably, rec-virtue and not the barrier that separates igno-ommending it to genre fans “who will enjoy …

rance from knowledge,” a line of dialogue states the usual American- style doggerel on family near the beginning, and Leslie’s virginity—
neuroses.”7 The film played theatrically in Italy which turns her into the “final girl” as the rules almost a year after its release in other countries, of the American slasher film demand—leads to to very good box- office: with over .2 billion lire, her being raped by Satan in an uncomfortable it ended up on the 60th place among the year’s nightmare sequence which elicits further com-top grossers, right behind James Cameron’s The parisons (Soavi’s La chiesa) and allows for a Abyss, and outgrossing among others Brian De telegraphed twist ending.

Palma’s Casualties of War and Spike Lee’s Do the All this is assembled chaotically. For in-Right Thing. It was sold abroad under various stance, only three victims are punished for their titles, such as Witchery, Witchcraft and even sins, respectively greed, luxury and ire, while Ghosthouse 2, as if there were people who would other deaths are left unexplained, and some plot pay to go and see a sequel to Lenzi’s film.

elements (such as the film- within-the-film star-Laurenti directed another horror picture for ring the “lady in black”) don’t really make sense.

Filmirage, Contamination .7 (a.k.a. The Crawlers, On top of that, the series of events that keep the

990), and then went on to make two films written main characters stranded on the island demand by Pupi Avati, the intriguing but flawed La stanza a leap of faith rather than mere suspension of accanto (994), and the extraordinary TV mini-disbelief. The script also makes poor use of a series Voci notturne, which unfortunately flopped child’s Sesame Street tape recorder as a last-badly. His subsequent career has been spotty, with minute Deus ex machina.

a couple of documentaries which caused minor The movie comes alive only now and then
controversy: Il segreto di Mussolini (200), about with the odd surreal moment, such as when Benito Mussolini’s secret son, which inspired Blair’s character falls inside a bathtub and is Marco Bellocchio to make the powerful Vincere transported into another dimension. Laurenti’s (2008), and Il corpo del duce (20).

depiction of hell looks like something that could have come out of a Goya painting, with witches Notes
dressed in rags and intent on munching on new-1. Gomarasca, Umberto Lenzi, 26.

born children, and Satan is portrayed as a lech-2. Manlio Gomarasca, “Claudio Lattanzi. La verità sec-erous young man with his mouth sewn shut. The ondo Claude Milliken,” in Davide Pulici (ed.), Misteri d’I-director stages the gory moments in a rather talia 3. Guida ai film rari e scomparsi. Nocturno Dossier convincing way, and the film’s pièce de résistance

#70, May 2008, 6.

(Annie Ross’ character having her mouth sewn 3. Ibid.

4. Luigi Cozzi interviewed, in www. davinotti. com shut with a huge pin in graphic details) has (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option=com_con-nothing to envy to a similar sequence seen in tent&task=view&id=49&Itemid=79).

the “It’s a Miserable Life” episode of the TV

5. Alberto Farassino, “Dalla Transilvania agli USA per series Freddy’s Nightmares (988). Other grue-svegliarsi dopo 80 anni con una gran sete,” Repubblica, July

7, 987.

some showpieces include Hickland’s body show-6. Gomarasca, “Claudio Lattanzi. La verità secondo ing up with her throat transfixed by a swordfish’s Claude Milliken,” 6.

sword, her one- time lover being crucified upside 7. M.P. [Maurizio Porro], “Quei fantasmi maligni down and burned alive, and Bob Champagne’s inclusi nel prezzo,” Corriere della Sera, August 23, 989.

neck veins inflating and eventually exploding, with make- up artist Maurizio Trani coming up Killing Birds—Raptors (Zombie 5: Killing with a passable imitation of Dick Smith’s effects Birds)

for Scanners (98).

D: Claudio Lattanzi [and Aristide Massac-

Overall, despite its many shortcomings and cesi]. S: Claudio Lattanzi, Sheila Goldberg; SC: money- saving tricks—such as Carlo Maria Cor-Daniele Stroppa; Dial: Sheila Goldberg; DOP: dio’s score lifted from Killing Birds: Massaccesi Fred Sloniscko, Jr. [Aristide Massaccesi] (East-

60 1988: Killing man Kodak, Telecolor); M: Carlo Maria Cordio Claudio Lattanzi (b. 962) grew up dreaming of (Ed. Idra Music); E: Rosanna Landi; C: Aristide making movies. His first chance came in the Massaccesi [uncredited]; MU: Frank Moor; mid–980s, when he was chosen as one of the Hair: Paula Ross; AD: Antonio Bonifacio; APD: unpaid assistants for the filming of Bernardo Rub Du Valier; SO: Larry Revene; SE: Harry Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (987), but his Harris III, Robert Gould; AC: Dan Kalehoff family opposed, and it all came to nothing.

[Daniele Massaccesi]; SP: Jeff Hest [Carlo Al-Then, almost by chance, he managed to meet berto Cocchi]; G: Brian Taitt [Elio Terribili], Dario Argento, who during that period was Sam La Falette; El: Marcello Montarsi, Rob shooting Phenomena, and Michele Soavi. When Samuel; W: Angel Goodman; AE: Helen Robin-the latter started working on a documentary on son; Locations: David Ross McCarty; SS: Silvy the director of Suspiria, tentatively titled Katana Louis; Bird consultant: Buddy Valentine. Cast: and later released as Dario Argento’s World of Lara Wendel [Daniela Barnes] (Anne), Robert Horror, Lattanzi gave him a hand; Soavi then Vaughn (Dr. Fredrick Brown), Timothy W.

asked Lattanzi to be his assistant on his feature Watts (Steve Porter), Leslie Cummins (Mary film debut, Deliria, produced by Aristide Mas-Brad), James Villemaire (Paul), Sal Maggiore, Jr saccesi’s Filmirage. It was Massaccesi who gave (Brian), James Sutterfield (Rob), Lin Gathright Lattanzi the chance to become a director, when (Jennifer), Brigitte Paillet (Steve’s Mother), Nona Soavi, who was supposed to direct Killing Birds, Paillet (Steve’s Grandmother), Ellis Paillet (Steve’s accepted Argento’s offer to make La chiesa in-Grandfather), John H. Green (Prof. Green).

stead.

PROD: Aristide Massaccesi for Filmirage ProThe genesis of the film was rather convo-
duction Group, Flora Film (Rome); UM: Roberto luted. According to Lattanzi, during the 986

De Laurentiis; PS: Giorgio Bertuccelli; ADM: Christmas holidays he had written a story enti-Charles Wallach. Country: Italy. Filmed in Thi-tled Il cancello obsoleto (The Obsolete Gate) bodaux, Louisiana. Running time: 9 minutes about a record producer who invites a rock band (m. 207). Visa n. 8347 (3.23.988); Rating: all (who sent him a violent music video) to a audiences. Release dates: 7.3.988 (France), gloomy deserted house where they would record 8.9.988 (Italy), 9.23.989 (Japan); Distribution: a tune to accompany the video; unbeknownst to D.M.V. Distribuzione. Domestic gross: n.a. Also them, Nazi soldiers are buried in a cemetery known as: Killing Birds—Uccelli assassini (Italy—
near the house, and when one band member

TV version), Killing Birds—Zombi 5 (Italy—
finds a sheet of music and plays it, the Nazi zom-DVD), Zombie Flesheaters 4 (UK), L’attaque des bies resurrect. It turns out that the only way to morts- vivants (France), Los pájaros asesinos have the zombies go back to their graves is to (Spain).

play the music in reverse. In the end, it turns out Note: Lattanzi is credited in foreign prints that everything has been tape- recorded in a se-as “Claude Milliken.”

cret room beneath an “obsolete gate,” and the Louisiana. Upon returning from the Vietnam devilish record producer invites another rock War, Fred Brown finds his wife in bed with her band: the horrific events are about to start all lover, and slaughters his whole family, sparing over again.

only his newborn son. After the massacre he is at-Lattanzi’s story mixed diverse influences, tacked and blinded by his falcon. Twenty years most notably The Evil Dead and Ken Wieder-later, a group of ornithology students led by Steve horn’s Shock Waves (977), and it had weird go on the search for the almost extinct ivory- billed analogies with Paganini Horror. Lattanzi main-woodpecker. They are accompanied by a young tains that Massaccesi asked him to reshape the reporter, Anne. Steve and Anne meet Brown, and story, keeping all the scenes with the zombies camp at the man’s former home, which is now but discarding the rock band and the Nazis. The empty and dilapidated. Soon grisly occurrences producer also suggested he introduce a new el-ensue, and during the night the boys are killed ement—birds, and namely the search for the one by one by vengeful zombies. Steve and Anne ivory- billed woodpecker—since he had in mind are the only survivors. It is eventually revealed to shoot the film in Louisiana. “I rewrote the that Steve is none other than Brown’s son. In the story completely, and titled this new version Ar-morning Anne and Steve leave the house while tigli [Talons],” Lattanzi explained. “I thought it Brown is consumed by the angry ghosts…

was a good title, but Aristide said: ‘Nah, Artigli Like many filmmakers of his generation,

… seems like we’re making a documentary on

1988: Killing

6
cats… ’” The screenplay was written by Daniele got trapped into a generator recalls Profondo Stroppa, with the English language dialogue re-rosso; the zombies pay homage to Romero’s vised by Sheila Goldberg. However, Claudio Fra-films, and turn up in the middle of a thick fog gasso and Rossella Drudi maintained that Killing like the specters of Botany Bay in John Carpen-Birds—Raptors evolved from their own story, titer’s The Fog (980); and so on. A scene where a tled Artigli, but the Italian DVD of the film in-zombie’s hand breaks into the house from the cludes a pdf file of a 2-page treatment, Artigli, roof and grabs a victim is a virtual restaging of signed by Lattanzi and Bruna Antonucci and a similar moment in Massaccesi’s own Antropoph-dated January 29, 987, which is very similar to agus (980), but Lattanzi denied having taken in-the finished film, thus dismissing Fragasso and spiration from it.3 The use of technology in the Drudi’s claims. Drudi’s script for Artigli was re-film borrows from American cinema, with invol-cycled for another Filmirage production, Con-untarily amusing effects: see the naive use of the tamination .7, directed by Fabrizio Laurenti.

personal computer in the film—at one point a Killing Birds was filmed on location with a character is putting data in it in order to find a very small crew (8 or 9 persons, and only one way to escape!—which turns out as an instrument camera) and a minimal budget, not to mention for the evil forces to manifest themselves and send under harsh conditions (in the form of hot tem-messages to the unfortunate protagonists.

peratures and heavy humidity). Most actors The result is confusing to say the least, as were locals recruited on the spot, with just a few the script puts together different elements that exceptions. Leslie Carol Cummins, with whom never really gel. The narrative structure is that Lattanzi had a brief affair during the filming, of a body count movie, while the scenes of the would also turn up in another Filmirage movie, zombies preying on their victims provide the La casa 4, and the director himself stood in for excuse for a few creative deaths. And yet the the unseen soldier in the opening scenes as well bulk of the tale is that of a standard ghost story.

as for all the zombies that appear in the film.

Most of the action takes place during one The only “name” actors were Lara Wendel (still endless night in a haunted house, and the “return a rather popular name after her role in Enrico of the past” is embodied by the revenants that Montesano’s hit comedy A me mi piace, 98) turn up to slaughter the innocent young ornithol-and Robert Vaughn, who turned up in a brief ogists. (Bizarrely but incongruously, the ghostly

“special guest” appearance, for a couple of days: persecutors are not after anyone, but just after Lattanzi and Massaccesi wrote a couple of extra those who show fear of them.) Moreover, the scenes for his character on the spot. Vaughn was moment when Steve experiences a vision of the supposed to wear blue contact lenses, and the past massacre in the abandoned house where it eyes would be removed in post- production via occurred 20 years earlier features the same chroma key; however, since the actor could not blending of past and present as in Danza stand wearing the painful lenses, Massaccesi and macabra and other classical Gothics. Interest-Lattanzi opted for a crude prosthetic make- up, ingly, the idea of the psychopomp birds that which the actor wore in one scene only; then the carry away dead people’s souls to the beyond problem was solved by having Vaughn sport
leads to a climax which is very similar to dark glasses.

Stephen King’s novel The Dark Half, published Like other Filmirage productions included
in 989.

in this volume, Killing Birds is less a proper story Even though terribly messy, the film ben-than a jigsaw of ideas taken from other films.

efits from decent cinematography (by Massac-The gory opening sequence borrows heavily cesi himself, under one of his many aliases, Fred from The Prowler (98, Joseph Zito), but cli-Sloniscko, Jr.) and features some suitably atmos-maxes with the raptors attacking the soldier who pheric moments. Lattanzi was quite happy with just slaughtered most of his family and gouging the scene where Steve, experiencing a night-out his eye, and throws in a reference to Hitch-mare, runs across several empty rooms, and we cock’s The Birds; the opening scenes look like a see the doors open one after another through carbon copy of some 980s slasher flick set in a his POV shots. On the other hand, the director campus; the sight of Lara Wendel’s character regretted the cheap ending, with a flock of birds crucified to a wall, her wrists pierced by huge filmed in Rome and superimposed on the shot nails, evokes L’aldilà2; the moment where a boy via a crude optic effect. The synth- heavy, perhas his throat slashed by his own necklace which cussive score by Carlo Maria Cordio was re- used

62 1988: Il nido in other Filmirage productions, namely La casa Notes

4 and Paura nel buio.4

1. Gomarasca, “Claudio Lattanzi. La verità secondo As with other Filmirage releases, two ver-Claude Milliken,” .

sions of the film were prepared. The one for for-2. Incidentally, the house where the story takes place is eign markets was quite gory, with plenty of grue-the same one as seen in Fulci’s film.

some effects; the one released in Italian theaters

3. Uccelli rapaci, extra in the Italian DVD of the film.

4. Lattanzi, a big Ken Russell fan, claimed he had edited toned down the gore drastically, replacing most the workprint using Thomas Dolby’s score for Gothic of the graphic bits with alternate footage, such (986) as guide.

as close- ups of birds or actors. Only the scene 5. This version is the same one later released on DVD
where Rob (James Sutterfield) is pulled into the as Killing Birds—Zombi 5.

6. Samuele Zàccaro, “Intervista esclusiva a Rossella generator, loses two fingers in the machine and Drudi,” www. darkveins. com, 2 March 2009.

has his neck cut by his necklace was considerably 7. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 07.

shortened in the TV edit. Lattanzi was credited with his own name in the Italian prints, and as Il nido del ragno (The Spider Labyrinth)

“Claude Milliken” in the foreign ones.

D: Gianfranco Giagni. S: Tonino Cervi; SC: The question on who directed Killing Birds Riccardo Aragno, Tonino Cervi, Cesare Frugoni, is debated. Some sources state that Massaccesi Gianfranco Manfredi; DOP: Nino Celeste took care of the direction, uncredited, because (Kodak Eastmancolor, LV- Luciano Vittori); M: of Lattanzi’s incompetence. On the other hand, Franco Piersanti (Ed. S.B.K.); E: Sergio Monta-according to Rossella Drudi,
nari; PD, ArtD: Stefano Ortolani; CO: Nicoletta Ercole; SVFX: Sergio Stivaletti; AsstSVFX: Bar-Claudio Lattanzi was a front for the direction, because Aristide could not be credited on too many bara Morosetti; MU: Renato Francola; Hair: films as producer and director, even though it was Maria Angelini; C: Sandro Grossi; AC: Francesco always him, a true underestimated genius… . I re-Damiani; 2ndAC: Cristiano Celeste; AE: Mario member that in the last years he [Lattanzi] was D’Ambrosio, Giovanni Pallotto; AsstArtD: Jo always around in Aristide’s office in viale delle Chevalier; SO: Alberto Salvatori; Mix: Steve C.

Milizie, when even Michele Soavi left the factory to Aaron; SOE: Roberto Arcangeli Studio Sound; work with Dario Argento. Lattanzi was one of the DubD: Gianni Bonagura; MA: Nazzareno Zam-last entries in the factory, the son of a pharmacist, perla; SP: Enrico Appetito; ACO: Carlotta Poli-and thus rebaptized “the pharmacist” by Aristide. He dori; W: Anna Inciocchi; ChEl: Agostino Gorga; wanted to become a film director, but it seems he was El: Antonio Gasbarrini, Antonio Labarbera; KG: not cut out for it.6

Tarcisio Diamanti; G: Claudio Brizzolari, Roberto Lattanzi, while acknowledging the weight

Brizzolari; Props: Piero Riccini, Nazzareno Sgo-of Massaccesi’s presence on the set and describ-lacchia; SS: Margherita Reginato. Cast: Roland ing their work as “in symbiosis,” also due to the Wybenga (Prof. Alan Whitmore), Paola Rinaldi very low budget, claims the paternity of the (Geneviève Weiss), Margareta von Krauss (Sylvia movie, and vindicates the choice of many shots Roth), Claudia Muzii (Marta), William Berger and scenes. Massaccesi himself explained that (Mysterious Man), Stéphane Audran (Mrs.

he personally took care of the sequences featur-Kuhn), Valeriano Santinelli, Massimiliano Pavone, ing special effects, allowing Lattanzi to sign the Arnaldo Dell’Acqua (Polgár Móricz), László Sipos film.7

(Inspector Blasco), Attila Lõte (Professor Roth), Claudio Lattanzi never directed another

Bob Holton (Frank, Intextus Committee Mem-
movie. He worked (uncredited) on the story for ber), Bill Bolender (Chancellor Hubbard), John La casa 4, which he claims he was slated to Morrison (Reverend Bradley). PROD: Tonino
direct; he re- edited the TV version of Sergio Cervi for Splendida Film (Rome), Reteitalia; PM: Martino’s Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (982) Antonio Levesi- Cervi, Tamás Hámori; EP: Endre into a 3-hour TV movie, with new music by Flórián, Endre Sík; PSe: Carlo Gagliardi. Country: Carlo Maria Cordio; and he developed a giallo Italy. Filmed on location in Budapest and at script, A un’ora dalla notte, which ended up in Cinecittà (Rome). Running time: 86 minutes (m.

the drawer after Massaccesi’s death. In 2009, 2363). Visa n. 8372 (4.27.988); Rating: all audi-Lattanzi attempted to put together a sequel, ences. Release date: 8.2.988 (Italy), 0.3.988

Killing Birds Return, but the project never went (West Germany—Home video), 4.22.989 (Japan); beyond a -page synopsis written by Federico Distribution: Medusa/Penta Film (Italy); Domes-Monti.

tic gross: n.a. Also known as: Spider Labyrinth—

1988: Il nido

63

In den Fangen der Todestarantel (West Germany), scriptwriter Gianfranco Manfredi and together Noroi no meikyû: Rabirinsu in za dâku (Japan).

we tried to give it a more modern framing Alan Whitmore, a young American professor
story.”3 Manfredi was an eclectic figure in Italian of Eastern religions in Dallas, is sent to Budapest popular culture, being a singer- songwriter, to meet Professor Roth, who is collaborating with writer, scriptwriter, actor and soon- to-be comic him on the mysterious Intextus project. Upon ar-book writer: in the 990s he created the Western rival, the terrified Roth handles Alan a black comic Magico Vento and wrote episodes for booklet where, he says, his colleague will find the Dylan Dog and Tex. Firstly, Giagni and Manfredi key to the enigma. The booklet contains notes changed the setting from Venice to Budapest, about the discovery of a mysterious tablet. When frequently visited by Italian cinema in those Alan returns to Roth’s house that night, he finds years (see also La chiesa, Etoile, and Carlo Ver-out that the professor is dead, and that the woman done’s 987 hit comedy Io e mia sorella): “It is a who lived with him and claimed to be his wife has city with many Gothic elements, with disquieting disappeared. Alan does not give up, and continues buildings in an apparently rational context …

his risky investigation, helped by Roth’s assistant, cities like Budapest, Prague or Sarajevo suggest a Geneviève. Meanwhile, other deaths follow: a sense of anxiety: behind their ‘normality’ there maid at the hotel where Alan is staying is brutally lies in fact a hidden ‘abnormality.’”4
killed by a monstrous- looking woman, and the Given the script and budget limits, the second victim is an antique dealer, Polgár Móricz.

director also sought to balance the horrific Alan finds out about the existence of a mysterious and gruesome elements with more classic ones, cult: its members—the Weavers—worship spider-like deities whose names are written in the tablet Roth had discovered. Alan recovers the tablet, but despite the help of a mysterious man he is captured, tortured and subjected to a horrible initia-tory rite…

Born in 92, Gianfranco Giagni had di-
vided himself between radio and television since the mid–970s, and worked sporadically in cinema as well, as assistant to Mauro Bolognini (L’eredità Ferramonti, 976) and Alberto Negrin.

Already an accomplished radio director, in 98
he created the pioneering music program Mister Fantasy. Giagni directed some of Italy’s first music videos for Vasco Rossi, Loredana Berté and Matia Bazar, but he also worked with foreign artists, such as Miguel Bosé and Madness. In May 986 Giagni’s short Giallo e nero won the “Gabbiano d’Argento” prize at the “An-teprima” Film Festival in Bellaria and was broadcast on television a couple of months later.

Producer Tonino Cervi, who in turn had di-
rected an interesting Gothic film, Il delitto del diavolo, liked Giallo e nero very much, and got in touch with the director with an offer to make his feature film debut with a horror movie. “I accepted to direct it “for hire” in order to confront myself with the rules of genre filmmaking, as the masters of the American B- movie of the

940s and 0s had done before.”2

The original script for Il nido del ragno, by Cervi, Riccardo Aragno and Cesare Frugoni, dated from a few years earlier. As Giagni ex-Italian locandina for Gianfranco Giagni’s Il nido plained, “It seemed a bit dated to me, so I called del ragno (1988).

64 1988: Il nido with references to Hitchcock and Polanski. The oped thoughtfully,” and adding that it “incorpo-latter’s influence can be seen in the conspiracy rates many ideas characteristic of HPL, from the angle of the story (see for instance the suspicious-shy, retiring scholar/hero to the forbidden his-looking guests of the hotel where the protagonist torical text and the cabal of radical followers Alan Whitmore is staying), while the scene dedicated [to] the Old Ones.”

where Alan looks almost hypnotized at the op-It is likely that Cervi had in mind other
posite building, where the fascinating Geneviève sources for his original story, but the theme of takes off her clothes and then stares at him in the lone scholar who arrives in a strange town the nude behind her window, silently luring and confronts a mystery, only to find himself the him, nods to both Rear Window (94) and Le designated victim to an obscure power, is truly locataire.

Lovecraftian, as is the idea of monstrous ancient But Giagni’s film has also several elements gods lurking in a world which reveals itself as in common with past Italian horrors and thriller.

nightmarish and absurd under a façade of ap-The Eastern European setting brings to mind parent normality. The script riffs on the theme another classic conspiracy tale, Aldo Lado’s po-of the spider’s web as a labyrinth with no way litical thriller La corta notte delle bambole di out, and Giagni depicts the transition between vetro (97), while the idea of an evil cult spread reality and nightmare in an eerie sequence all over the city and possibly worldwide recalls where Alan is driving around Budapest in search Francesco Barilli’s Il profumo della signora in of an antique shop, only to find the road blocked nero, in turn a grim Polanski variation; the by a weird- looking barricade which vaguely bouncing black ball which erupts on the scene recalls an oversized web. He soon gets lost in the before each murder borrows from Operazione labyrinthine streets of the old town, whose weird paura, while the murder scenes have Argento’s topography recalls those of Lovecraft villages.

name written all over them. In typical Argento Later, Whitmore finds himself in another fashion, the agents of evil employ very earthly labyrinth, a surreal underworld filled with ca-weapons such as butcher’s knives, and the killing davers wrapped in web cocoons and car wrecks.

of the maid openly draws from Suspiria and In-The film’s pièce de resistance is the climactic ferno, with its eerie greens and the sheets around appearance of the idol. Mitchell identifies the the poor victim acting like a white screen ready monster worshipped by the “weavers” in Atlach-to be ripped open by knives or turning into Nacha, conceived by Clark Ashton Smith in his artistic canvas to be sprayed with arterial blood.

934 story The Seven Geases and described as “a But Giagni maintained that the reference was darksome form, big as a crouching man but with subconscious: “I surely admire Argento very long spider- like members… . There was a kind much, and I love his cinematic universality as of face on the squat ebon body, low down amid well as the capacity of being essential at the same the several- jointed legs.”7 Sergio Stivaletti’s elab-time: everyone can identify themselves in his orate special effects combine the expected trans-movies, and while I shot Il nido del ragno I real-formation with optical stop- motion. “I con-ized how difficult it was!”
vinced the producer that I would do all the Il nido del ragno exudes an interesting and mechanical and optical effects in the film,” Sti-unusual Lovecraftian mood, with its reference valetti explained some time before its release. “I to a submerged millennial cult that worships was entrusted with the creative- technical part monstrous beings akin to the Providence writer’s as well as the optical animation effects… . I can

“Old Ones.” In The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Fil-tell that there’s a monster in the film, that this mography, one of the few English language books monster is not how you see it in the end but it that analyzed the movie thoroughly, author turns like that through a transformation.”8 The Charles P. Mitchell went so far as calling it “one scene is blatantly inspired by a famous moment of the finest of all films inspired by Lovecraft,”6
in The Thing, with a suitably grotesque baby spi-which seems a bit too much, given the variety der who undergoes a horrific metamorphosis, of influences. Mitchell elaborates on the state-and the optical stop- motion effects à la Ray Har-ment, claiming that except for its predictable de-ryhausen, albeit not impeccable, display Sti-nouement, Giagni’s film “clearly demonstrates valetti’s inventiveness and attempt to bring that Lovecraftian concepts can be adapted to the something new to Italian fantastique in terms of screen in a fresh, dramatic and interesting way visual inventions. Back then, it looked like the if the material is treated with respect and devel-30-year-old Stivaletti was ready for the big step

1988: Il nido

6
and make his directorial debut. However, not Commercial expectations were high, and
least because of the declining state of Italian cin-Reteitalia managed to obtain some press expo-ema, it would take him nine years before finally sure for the project. Giagni’s name was men-making his first film as a director, M.D.C.—
tioned together with those of Michele Soavi and Maschera di cera (a.k.a. Wax Mask, 997).

two more debutants, Fulvio Wetzl (Rorret) and Compared with many other Italian horror

Andrea Marfori (Il bosco 1), and Il nido del ragno movies of the decade, Giagni’s direction is truly was compared to 940s film noirs and to Kafka’s impressive, as it blends the visual elegance Metamorphosis (an audacious but hazardous typical of the Italian masters of the genre and a term of comparison, actually) in an article which polished style that is effectively international.

spitefully dismissed Lucio Fulci “and other The deliberate pacing is never boring, and each hacks” and welcomed the “new wave” of Italian scene is carefully developed by way of camera horror.9 But such expectations were doomed angles and movements, lighting and frame com-to be disappointed. Released with an “all audi-position. A particularly effective moment in this ences” rating despite its rather gory murder respect is Alan’s dialogue with Mrs. Kuhn, scenes and transformations, Il nido del ragno played by Stéphane Audran: the woman is sitting performed badly at the box- office and was barely in her room, rocking an empty cradle on the noticed by critics.0 On the other hand, the right side of the frame, while on the left, atop a Catholic “Segnalazioni Cinematografiche” were piano, we see a big, weird doll highlighted by a harsh to the point of insult, stating: “The movie source of light that falls right on it. What in doesn’t represent anything worth signaling, if other hands would have been a rather dull pas-not as a manic product, a mental test of a de-sage, aimed at providing some slight character ranged, ranting mind.”

development and a clue to the mystery, turns When Il nido del ragno came out, Giagni was into a strikingly effectively atmospheric scene.

already at work on a more ambitious project, a TV

Another outstanding moment is a passionate series based on Guido Crepax’s comic Valentina, love scene between Alan and Geneviève which starring U.S. model Demetra Hampton. Accom-suddenly turns nasty, as the woman, while kiss-panied by a huge hype, the series’ 3 episodes (2
ing her partner’s body, secretes a thick foam that to 30 minutes each) were broadcast between Sep-reveals her spider- like nature, unbeknownst to tember 989 and February 990. Giagni, who the oblivious Mark.

penned the scripts with Manfredi, directed 9

Giagni’s accomplished direction overcomes
episodes, while the remaining 4 were directed by the acting limitations of its leads. Paola Rinaldi Giandomenico Curi, himself a video maker and is barely convincing as the femme fatale, despite TV author and director. Despite being a moderate her willingness to perform frontal nude scenes, success, Valentina was not confirmed for a second while male fashion model Roland Wybenga, in season. Giagni made his second feature—the po-his film debut, is the typical anonymous hand-litical thriller Nella terra di nessuno—only in 200, some hero seen in other horror movies of the which as of today remains his last fictional film; period, such as Dèmoni and its sequel. Still, he over the years he kept working in television, on is fit for the role, as the umpteenth weak detective several TV series and programs, and he also hero who is deceived and defeated by his oppo-helmed several interesting documentaries on Ital-nents, not unlike Lino Capolicchio’s character ian cinema.

in La casa dalle finestre che ridono, although the script does very little to characterize Whitmore, Notes
except for an opening childhood trauma scene 1. See Curti, Italian Gothic Horror Films, 970–979, in the vein of La casa con la scala nel buio.

2. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 92.

Wybenga, who turned up in a couple more films, 3. Ibid.

including Enzo G. Castellari’s Sinbad of the Seven 4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

Seas (989), seemingly died of AIDS in 99.

6. Charles P. Williams, The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Claude Chabrol’s ex- wife and muse Stéphane Au-Filmography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 200), 87.

dran is quite effective as the mysterious hotel 7. Ibid., 9.

manager, and William Berger turns up in one of 8. Morsiani, “Intervista a Sergio Stivaletti,” 96.

9. Piero Perona, “Il nuovo regista ama l’horror,” Stampa his rare good guy roles as the mysterious would-Sera, August , 988.

be savant, who is reserved one of the most inven-10. One notable exception was the Turinese newspaper tive death scenes.

La Stampa, whose critic wrote a rather positive review of

66 1988: Nosferatu the film, praising the makeup and special effects by Sti-invites to her home an English expert in vam-valetti (“a name who, as far as nightmares are concerned, pirism, Paris Catalano. Helietta wants to end foris a guarantee”). Too bad the review was illustrated with a ever the gloomy atmosphere that still weighs in still from the very last scene, which gave away the ending.

See a.pie. [Aldo Piersanti], “La ragnatela mortale del her palace, where she lives with her grandmother mostro di Budapest,” La Stampa, August 3, 988.

and her young sister Maria. Two centuries earlier, in fact, while in Venice raged the plague, one of Nosferatu a Venezia (Vampire in Venice) her ancestors had been the victim of a vampire D: Augusto Caminito [and Klaus Kinski,
and vanished with him. In the basement of the uncredited]. S: Carlo Alberto Alfieri, Leandro palace there is still a mysterious iron- rimmed sar-Lucchetti; SC: Augusto Caminito; DOP: Antonio cophagus and Helietta, thinking that Nosferatu is Nardi (Kodak, Telecolor); M: Luigi Ceccarelli right there, invites Catalano to destroy the (Artem Publishing); E: Claudio Cutry; PD: undead. The vampire, evoked in a séance, arrives Joseph Teichner, Luca Antonucci; CO: Vera Coz-in Venice, while the body of the ancestor, Letizia, zolino; MU: Sergio Angelponi Franco Corridoni, strangely resembling Helietta, is discovered in the Luigi Rocchetti; Hair: Alberta Giuliani, Maurizio tomb. But exorcising Nosferatu turns out to be an Lupi; AD: Andrea Prandstaller; 2nd UD: Luigi impossible undertaking. One after the other those Cozzi; C: Giovanni Ciarlo; AC: Luca Alfieri, Vin-around Helietta fall victim to the vampire’s bite, cenzo Carpineta; KG: Tarcisio Diamanti; G: Vit-and she dies too. Nosferatu knows he can be lib-torio Pescetelli; SP: Enzo Falessi; W: Palmira Tac-erated and die on one condition: being loved by coni; AE: Maria Elvira Castagnolo, Evandro a virgin maiden. Helietta’s half- sister Maria is the Postorino; PM: Claudio D’Achille; B: Luciano chosen one, but just when Nosferatu is about to Muratori; SO: Nick Alexander; SOEd: Fernando achieve his goal—in a dilapidated villa on the Isle Caso, Claudio Gramigna, Edmondo Gintili; Foley of Dogs, in the lagoon—Helietta’s lover shows up Artist: Alvaro Gramigna, Claudio Gramigna; and shoots the vampire, leaving the monster un-Mix: Primiano Muratori; SE: Franco Ragusa [and harmed but mortally wounding Maria. After tak-Luigi Cozzi]; Stunts: Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, ing revenge on the man, Nosferatu vampirizes the Franco Pacifico; SS: Annamaria Liguori; Adap-girl and leaves Venice with her in his arms…

tation/DubD: Alberto Marras. Cast: Klaus Kinski When in 98 producer Augusto Caminito

(Nosferatu), Christopher Plummer (Prof. Paris took over the project of Nosferatu a Venezia he Catalano), Donald Pleasence (Don Alvise), Bar-did not imagine that it would become the worst bara De Rossi (Helietta Canins), Yorgo Voyagis nightmare in his career. In the mid–980s, (Dr. Barneval), Anne Knecht (Maria Canins), Caminito (born in Naples in 940), a former Elvire Audray (Uta Barneval), Giuseppe Manna-scriptwriter turned producer, had decided to fi-juolo (Gianmarco Tosatti), Clara Colosimo nance some thriller and horror films, which (Medium), Maria Clementina Cumani Quasi-seemed a profitable investment for the Italian modo (Princess), Micaela Flores Amaya “La and foreign markets. With his company Scena Chunga” (Woman at Gypsy Camp); uncredited: Film, he had produced Lucio Fulci’s Murde-Mickey Knox (Priest). PROD: Augusto Caminito rock—Uccide a passo di danza, and he would for Scena Film Production (Rome), Reteitalia commission some more films to Fulci, which he S.p.A.; EP: Carlo Alberto Alfieri; PM: Ennio would contract out to the Distribuzione Alpha Onorati, Angelo D’Antoni; UM: Giorgio Padoan, company, owned by Antonio Lucidi and Luigi Silvano Zignani; PSe: Marco Alfieri, Marco De Nannerini, namely Sodoma’s Ghost and Quando Rossi; UP: Luigi Biamonte; PAcc: Franco Maia.

Alice ruppe lo specchio, plus the other titles dis-Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Venice tributed under the tagline “Lucio Fulci presenta.”

and at De Paolis In.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Run-Caminito came across the script for Nos-
ning time: 98 minutes (m. 2700). Visa n. 83889
feratu a Venezia through Carlo Alberto Alfieri, (8.20.988); Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: 9.9.988
who had written the screenplay with Leandro (Italy–Venice Film Festival), 4..989 (Japan); Dis-Lucchetti, but couldn’t manage to sell the idea tribution: Medusa. Domestic gross: n.a. Also to any distributor and hadn’t enough money to known as: Nosferatu in Venice; Prince of the Night produce the movie by himself; so, he offered it (USA); Nosferatu in Venedig (Germany); Nosferatu to other producers. The idea of a sequel to à Venise (France); Nosferatu, el príncipe de las Werner Herzog’s 979 film Nosferatu: Phantom tinieblas (Spain).

der Nacht seemed a brilliant commercial move The Venetian noblewoman Helietta Canins
to Caminito, especially since Alfieri was well-

1988: Nosferatu

67

Italian lobby card for Nosferatu a Venezia (1988), Augusto Caminito’s ill-fated sequel to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979), starring Klaus Kinski.

acquainted with Herzog’s Nosferatu, Klaus Kin-rected the erotic comedy La portiera nuda ski, and had secured the actor’s participation in (976)—explains: “Caminito realized that Nos-the project. The Neapolitan producer and the feratu in Venice would probably be a hit if it had Polish actor met, discussed some more film a bigger budget. He doubled the budget, but de-projects and found a satisfying agreement for cided Lucidi was not the right director, and that both. On December 7, 98, Caminito and Kin-he needed a “name” director for the film.”2 So, ski signed a deal for two films, Nosferatu a he fired Lucidi,3 who only shot some footage Venezia and Grandi cacciatori, and Caminito of the February 986 Venice Carnival with a promised that he would produce a third title, small crew and without Kinski, and hired fellow Kinski’s pet project Paganini, which the actor Neapolitan Pasquale Squitieri, who had just had been dreaming for years, and which he had helmed the crime drama Il pentito (98) starring tried in vain to put together in 980 with Alfredo Franco Nero and Tony Musante. The producer Bini producing and Herzog directing.
also gathered an impressive supporting cast, Caminito secured a distribution deal with
which included such internationally renowned Reteitalia, obtained a strong advance from the names as Christopher Plummer and Donald bank and hired Alfieri as executive producer.

Pleasence, as well as Barbara De Rossi, Yorgo Voy-The film was to be directed by Maurizio Lucidi agis, and Stefania Sandrelli’s daughter, Amanda.

(who had already helmed a film set in Venice, Squitieri rewrote the script, setting it in the the excellent 97 thriller La vittima designata, near future, in 996 Venice,4 and had Alfredo starring Tomas Milian and Pierre Clementi), but Castelli and a number of comic book artists pre-Caminito decided that the Italian sequel to Nos-pare a series of storyboards for the film’s most feratu needed to be more ambitious. Luigi Cozzi, spectacular scenes. Caminito found the result who worked on the film as a consultant on the

“too baroque” and most of all too expensive for set and during post- production at his friend Al-his economic possibilities. But Squitieri was not fieri’s request—the two had met when Cozzi di-willing to resize the script according to the avail-

68 1988: Nosferatu able budget; moreover, he and Kinski had morning I showed up regularly on the set. Without already had a clash. Since he could not afford to even saying hello, Kinski and Caminito locked them-lose his star, Caminito had no other choice but selves in the actor’s trailer and stayed there the whole terminate the contract with Squitieri and pay morning. Only then I understood the state of things: him the agreed sum before the director filmed Caminito had promised Kinski, in addition to a Ferrari car, that he would let him direct the movie. Of even a single shot. By then, he had already spent course, the actor’s “weight” was greater than mine.

lots of money before the film even got started The only thing I could do was get in my car and go and was forced to reshape the project. He called home.8

Alfieri and told him the budget he was willing to spend on the film. As Cozzi recalls, “Alfieri According to Caminito, Caiano’s desertion came told him that, since the project was rather am-after a violent argument during filming the bitious, it would be very difficult not to go over scene where Nosferatu arrives at the gypsy budget, unless the movie was directed by a film-camp, shot in Tor Caldara. The producer ran to maker they could trust—that is, one more con-Kinski’s trailer in a rage and the actor, still in his cerned with respecting all the conditions laid Nosferatu costume, told him, “Now you’re di-down by the producer rather than dreaming of recting the movie!” To which Caminito didn’t chimerical artistic peaks.”6
object: “Truth is, I was terrified by the idea of The producer and Alfieri then hired Mario
directing the film myself, but at that time too Caiano, another expert filmmaker who had al-many things in my life were not going right, and ready directed Kinski in the Seventies, in the I was firmly convinced that I would finish the Spaghetti Western/Kung Fu hybrid Il mio nome movie at any cost.”9 In interviews of the period, è Shangai Joe (a.k.a. The Fighting Fists of Shanghai the producer diplomatically explained the change Joe, 973). Caminito and Caiano had worked to-behind the camera as follows: “Mario Caiano’s gether on a film shot in Africa by Mino Guerrini, shyness clashed against the difficult roughness of Le miniere del Kilimangiaro (986), which Caiano Kinski’s temper, and so Caiano left the set spon-completed, finishing the action scenes in record taneously. As you see, I decided to make the film time in Tor Caldara, near Rome. He seemed the myself.”0
ideal director to deal with Kinski and take care But working with Kinski turned out a night-of the economical issues.

mare for Caminito. The actor altered the script In Summer 986 Caiano completed the
according to his whims and mood changes, and casting and went location scouting, while he made ample display of his erratic and offensive Caminito frantically rewrote the script to make behavior with the crew: his favorite target was Al-it more suitable for the by now drastically re-fieri, who, in Caminito’s words, had become a true duced budget. According to Cozzi, several scapegoat for the actor’s outbursts of anger. Cozzi scenes and characters were totally discarded recalled:

with this last- minute rewriting.

When we were rehearsing a scene, Kinski moved in Shooting started on August 2th,7 but
a certain way, and consequently the director of pho-things went wrong from the beginning. Firstly, tography spent a couple of hours setting the lighting Kinski refused to shave his head and wear the according to his movements on the set. But when we prosthetic fangs as in Herzog’s version, and in-shot the scene … well, Kinski regularly behaved as sisted that he keep his hair long—or else he the rehearsals hadn’t even taken place and changed wouldn’t do the movie. On the first day of shoot-his acting and most of all his movements. Therefore, ing, Caiano shot the scene of the shipwrecked the d.o.p. had to design the lighting from scratch!

boat carrying the vampire’s coffin, in Tor Cal-This meant exhausting delays in the shooting sched-dara, then came the turn of shooting with ule, and crew members were obviously exasperated, Kinski. After filming a scene, he called cut. But, because they worked in vain and felt they were being as Caiano recalled,
made fun of. What’s more, Kinski absolutely refused to reshoot the same scene twice … if the director Kinski didn’t stop and kept doing his usual grimaces.

asked to shoot another take … he just said no. Like I was incredulous. On that occasion, Caminito ap-Paganini, Kinski would not repeat!
proached and told me that Klaus didn’t want to be interrupted because—he said—he could come up Kinski’s dominion over the film also manifested with good facial expressions. Meanwhile, I heard with an abrupt recasting. He demanded that Klaus ask who I was and what was the reason of my Caminito fire Amanda Sandrelli, who played presence on the set. Despite my dismay, the next Helietta’s (Barbara De Rossi) younger sister

1988: Nosferatu

69

Maria, whom he didn’t consider sensual enough to shape into a coherent whole. It was finally refor the role of the virgin who offers herself to leased theatrically in 988, after premiering as Nosferatu. Kinski replaced her with an inexpe-the closing event at the midnight screenings of rienced young girl—Yorgo Voyagis’ girlfriend the 988 Venice Film Festival—a choice that left Anne Knecht, whom he noticed when she critics perplexed.4 Caminito and Kinski were visited the set. The fact that the Dominican-about to leave for Africa, to film Grandi caccia-born, dark- skinned Knecht didn’t look Venetian tori, which turned out another ill- fated project (and Italian) at all, didn’t seem to be a problem.

for the producer.

It was just a matter of changing the script and In a short piece on Nosferatu a Venezia turning Maria into Helietta’s adopted sister.

which appeared in the Corriere della Sera shortly Cozzi, who shot some scenes as second before its Venetian screening, Caminito men-unit director—namely, Maria throwing herself tioned that the film was  hour and 46 minutes from the San Marco steeple, Christopher Plum-long, whereas the copy submitted to the rating mer and other characters on boat in the lagoon, board was about 98 minutes, and the current as well as details of the duel scene between version runs 89 minutes—a difference in length Plummer’s character and the vampire—had to which speaks volumes about the mess that the accompany Kinski around Venice at dawn to
movie had become. Its unfinished nature is ev-shoot additional scenes that weren’t even in the ident from its haphazard, shaky narrative, barely script. “I think we ended up with about 0 hours tied together by a voice- over which explains var-of footage, which more or less consisted of the ious passages that were never filmed: according same thing: Kinski walking here and there.”2
to Cozzi, for instance, the opening section was Another such addition was the final scene of originally supposed to be in the middle of the Nosferatu walking through the streets of Venice story.6
with a nude dead girl in his arms, filmed without The film opts for a different approach to
permits: interminable and clumsy, with the actor the vampire myth than Nosferatu, and more akin struggling to carry the girl (who visibly clings to classical Gothic, and its visual style is miles to his shoulders so as not to fall), it is a testament away from Herzog’s film. The vampire incarnates to Kinski’s delirious dreams of grandeur.

a “return of the past” which haunts a Venetian The actor’s behavior with the other ac-family for centuries, courtesy of a flashback set tresses was often downright offensive: for the in 786: “To him, this house is a door open in scene in which Nosferatu vampirizes Helietta, time,” Helietta explains (or tries to). Nosferatu the actor simply had to bend over the actress becomes an unlikely Byronic hero, his eyes and pretend to bite her neck in close- up. But perennially gazing toward the horizon, who boom man Luciano Muratori, who was on the
crosses lagoons and quays as if they were cen-set, is adamant that on that occasion Kinski in-turies of immortality, and his only chance to end serted his fingers in the woman’s vagina. Mura-his torment on Earth is to make love to a virgin tori struggled with the impulse of grabbing the woman who loves him.

actor by the neck and flinging him away for that The script makes attempts at reshaping the squalid act. After the scene, the actress left the vampire mythology. During a séance, Catalano set in tears.3 Tension between Kinski and the (Plummer, giving the best performance in the crew rose day by day and at a certain point, ac-film by far) explains that one can become a vam-cording to Cozzi, the whole crew abandoned the pire “by being the illegitimate sons of illegitimate set in protest against the actor, who had to apol-parents, the son of witches and warlocks, a man ogize publicly for his behavior.

who takes his own life, those who died by hang-After six weeks’ shooting on location in
ing, those who died of the plague, those who Venice, Caminito had completed only half of the died with blasphemy on their lips, murderers scenes to be filmed there, and there was still a who die unpunished, and the descendants of third of the script to be filmed. But he had no vampires.” Other details are sparsely mentioned alternative than wrap the shoot and make do in the dialogue: the vampire is said to sleep 24
with the footage he had, no matter how inco-hours every 24 days in a coffin leaning on cursed herent. Born under a bad sign, and at the mercy soil, he can walk around in the daylight, casts a of its undisputed master, Nosferatu a Venezia reflection in the mirror, which in a scene he con-ended up an unlikely—and unfinished—con-
templates, and is not at all scared by crosses. The coction, which not even three editors managed most interesting scene in this respect is Nosfer-

70 1988: Nosferatu atu’s encounter with a group of gypsies on the ravation of humanity, great master of rottenness, beach, who are his worshippers, where an elderly champion of evil.” Caminito injects some timid woman offers him her daughter to be vampirized.

gore in the process, with a priest falling from a The gypsy is Micaela Flores Amaya “La Chunga,”

window and ending up transfixed by a spiked a noted barefoot Flamenco dancer and painter gate as in Black Cat, and gives room to the erotic who had been the muse of several writers and aspect of vampirization, with some soft- focus painters, including Rafael Alberti, Picasso and nudity more in tune with 980s soft porn. The Dalí, and had appeared in a handful of films, such lack of a firm directorial hand is dramatically as Tip on a Dead Jockey (97, Richard Thorpe).

evident in such scenes as the duel between the The Venetian setting allows for a few ar-vampire and his hunters, which is filmed like resting but repetitive images, such as Catalano some sort of Spaghetti Western showdown and arriving on boat at dawn, or Nosferatu on a gon-comes off as utterly ridiculous. Apart from dola amid the fog of the lagoon, well- served by Plummer, the supporting players look mostly Luigi Ceccarelli’s score (which covers a couple uninterested (Pleasence’s wily and famelic priest of movements from Vangelis’ 98 album Mask), is a case in point), or totally lost: poor Anne but it betrays the filmmaker’s simplistic ap-Knecht is embarrassing in her only screen role proach: the city never becomes a living presence as Nosferatu’s great love, a character so sketchily in the film (as it was in, say, Don’t Look Now), developed that it is almost ignored for much of but it serves merely as eye candy. In a way, Nos-the film.

feratu a Venezia is telling of the Italian way of However, it is Kinski who ultimately drowns life in the 980s, a country that lived above its the movie. His charismatic presence is vampiriz-means, and sported an abundance it couldn’t re-ing, and unlike in the actor’s stints in 970s Goth-ally afford.

ics—such as Sergio Garrone’s Le amanti del Despite the script’s ambitions, the dialogue mostro and La mano che nutre la morte—it be-is often poor if not ridiculous: Nosferatu is comes distracting and self- sabotaging. Rather pompously described as “adversary of life, dep-than act, here Kinski simply is himself, histrionic Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski) carrying his own coffin in a German lobby card for Nosferatu a Venezia.

1989: La chiesa

7
and disturbed, spiteful of the story and the peo-Luigi Cozzi gave a more picturesque version of the episode ple surrounding him on the set, constantly mov-

(in Cozzi, “Di Nosferatu e di altri mostri a Venezia,” 363–

364), with Kinski throwing a portable mirror at Caiano’s ing as if to detach himself from the ordinary face and calling him “a shitty director,” but Caiano denied crowd, lost in his own train of thought and pos-this, and pointed out that Cozzi wasn’t even on the set that sibly dreaming of his life project, Paganini. But, day.

like Nosferatu, leaving behind a trail of (cine-9. Ibid. The change in directing took place within the matic) destruction.

course of a few days, in late August or early September

986. See Giuseppina Manin, “Miguel Littin: ‘Ecco il mio Cile torturato,’” Corriere della Sera, September 7, 986. On Notes
the other hand, an article on Kinski published a couple of days earlier still mentioned Caiano as the director. Lam-1. Stefano Loparco, Klaus Kinski. Del Paganini e dei berto Antonelli, “Klaus Kinski un vampiro sulla laguna per capricci (Piombino: Il Foglio, 20), 4–8.

il secondo Nosferatu,” La Stampa, September , 986.

2. Luigi Cozzi, “Di Nosferatu e di altri mostri a Venezia,”

10. Zanotto, “Kinski assetato di sangue “gira” per in Antonio Tentori and Luigi Cozzi, Guida al cinema horror Venezia.”

Made in Italy (Rome: Profondo Rosso, 2007), 362.

11. Cozzi, “Di Nosferatu e di altri mostri a Venezia,”

3. However, Lucidi is still credited as the director in the 367.

986 Public Cinematographic Register, with the start of 12. Ibid., 368.

shooting date indicated as April 28, 986.

13. Loparco, Klaus Kinski. Del Paganini e dei capricci, 4. Piero Zanotto, “Kinski assetato di sangue “gira” per 6–66.

Venezia,” Stampa Sera, October 6, 986.

14. Maurizio Porro, “Kinski, vampiro stanco che vuole 5. Loparco, Klaus Kinski. Del Paganini e dei capricci, 63.

andare in pensione,” Corriere della Sera, September , 988.

6. Cozzi, “Di Nosferatu e di altri mostri a Venezia,” 362.

15. Caminito, “Il vampiro Kinski.”

7. Augusto Caminito, “Il vampiro Kinski,” Corriere della 16. Cozzi, “Di Nosferatu e di altri mostri a Venezia,”

Sera, August 28, 988

37.

8. Loparco, Klaus Kinski. Del Paganini e dei capricci, 64.

1989

La chiesa (The Church)

Marisa Calia; AsstD: Claudio Lattanzi. Cast: Hugh D: Michele Soavi. S: Dario Argento, Franco Quarshie (Father Gus), Tomas Arana (Ewald), Ferrini [and Dardano Sacchetti, uncredited]; SC: Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. (The Bishop), Barbara Cu-Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini, Michele Soavi; pisti (Lisa), Antonella Vitale (Bridal Model), Gio-DOP: Renato Tafuri (Eastmancolor); M: Keith vanni Lombardo Radice (Reverend), Asia Argento Emerson, Philip Glass, Goblin [Fabio Pignatelli]

(Lotte), Roberto Caruso (Freddie), Roberto (Ed. Bixio C.E.M.S.A.); E: Franco Fraticelli; PD: Corbiletto (Hermann, the Sacristan), Alina De Si-Massimo Antonello Geleng; CO: Maurizio Paiola; mone (Lotte’s Mother), Olivia Cupisti (Mira), Gi-MU: Laura Borselli, Franco Casagni, Barbara Mo-anfranco De Grassi (The Accuser), Claire Hard-rosetti, Rosario Prestopino; Hair: Piero Cucchi, wick (Joanna), Lars Jorgenson (Bruno), John Assunta Emidi; AD: Filiberto Fiaschi; C: Alessan-Karlsen (Heinrich), Katherine Bell Marjorie dro Carlotto, Enrico Maggi; Steadicam: Nicola (Heinrich’s Wife), Riccardo Minervini (School-Pecorini; AC: Maurizio Cremisini, Alfonso Vicari; boy), Enrico Osterman (The Torturer), Micaela 1stAE: Piero Bozza; 2ndAE: Roberto Priori; SD: Pignatelli (Fashion shoot photographer), Patrizia Caterina Napoleone; AsstSD: Daniela Giovannoni, Punzo (Miss Brückner), John Richardson (Archi-Barbara Morosetti; Set furnishing: G.P. Postgione, tect), Matteo Rocchietta (Younger Schoolboy), Is-E. Rancati; SE/SPFX: Sergio Stivaletti, Renato abella Rocchietta (School girl), Michele Soavi (st Agostini, Danilo Bollettini, Massimo Cristofanelli, Policeman at Lisa’s house). PROD: Dario Argento Danilo Del Monte; Props: Fabio Altamura, for ADC, Mario Cecchi Gori, Vittorio Cecchi Gori Osvaldo Monaco; Set construction chief: Aldo for Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematografica, in Taloni; Carpenter: E. Tappezzeri; W: Carla Latini, collaboration with Reteitalia; EP: Giuseppe Man-Claudio Antonucci; SOE: Luca Anzellotti, Luciano gogna; UM: Saverio Mangogna; PSe: Ezio Orita, Anzellotti, Massimo Anzellotti, Mauro Anzellotti; Daniela Rocco; PAcc: Carlo Du Bois; Paymaster: B: Claudio Paolucci; Mix: Giulio Viggiani; Stunts: Carlo Cestari. Unit publicist: Enrico Lucherini, Gi-Arnaldo Dell’Acqua; SP: Franco Vitale; G: Fer-anluca Pignatelli. Country: Italy. Filmed in Bu-nando Massaccesi; KG: Augusto Proietti; SS: dapest, Hamburg, and at R.P.A. Elios Studios

72 1989: La chiesa and De Paolis In.Ci.R. studios (Rome). Running numbers. The film will be directed, as usual, by time: 00 minutes (m. 2728). Visa n. 8403

Lamberto Bava, who’s very good.”2 Bava claimed (3.0.989; 4.2.989); Rating: V.M.8/V.M.4. Re-that the third chapter was going to be rather dif-lease dates: 3.0.989 (Italy), 8.8.990 (Japan), ferent from the previous ones and pointed out: 8.22.990 (USA), 6.8.992 (Spain); Distribution:

“We don’t want to make a “Number 3,” we want Cecchi Gori (Italy), TriStar Pictures (USA) Do-to make a film about demons, of course, but it’s mestic gross: ,926,277,000 lire. Also known as: not going to be a sequel, let’s say we’d like to Sanctuaire (France), El engendro del diablo (Spain, reprise the “demons” subject from other points Argentina), Démonok temploma (Hungary).

of view. A bit like when Spielberg and Lucas Germany, Middle Ages: an army of Teutonic
talked about the Star Wars movies: let’s say it is knights discover a village of witches. They burn a chapter of the Dèmoni saga.”3
it, kill the inhabitants and bury them in a mass The original story, concocted with Franco
grave, on which a cathedral is built. The present: Ferrini and Dardano Sacchetti, took place on a a librarian, Ewald, is hired to catalog the church’s plane which, due to a perturbation, was forced books and finds an ancient manuscript that re-to an emergency landing in a strange, extradi-veals a secret about the cathedral. Assisted by a mensional universe, near a volcano; there, the young restorer, Lisa, Ewald follows the indications passengers had to face the demons’ assaults.

on the manuscript and finds a heavy cross placed

“The idea was that they ended up in some sort on the floor in the basement of the cathedral to of a weird Hell,” Sacchetti explained. “The plane seal the witches’ grave. He removes the cross and was taken into consideration because we were releases the demons, who possess him. The fol-looking for a closed, isolated place, in a totally lowing day lots of people gather in the church—a adverse situation with danger inside as well as school class, a photographer doing a fashion photo outside. Let’s say something like Alien, with the shoot with some models, as well as many visitors plane instead of the spaceship and the demons and people in prayer. Ewald injures the sacristan, replacing the nasty big bug.”4
infecting him. In turn, the man infects other vis-Argento and Bava even announced the
itors, then commits suicide. His blood activates a news on television, during the TV show Giallo, mechanism which locks the church doors and where Argento was one of the hosts. But, even traps all its visitors inside. A young priest, Father after several drafts, they could not come up with Gus, realizes that evil has been unleashed inside a fully satisfying script. According to Sacchetti, the cathedral, where the visitors are killing each the story didn’t work well because of the setting.

other, and he finds out that the place has a secret

“There is not much possibility of movement in-self- destructing system. Ewald, who has turned side a plane: the characters couldn’t run from into a demonic creature, mates with Lisa during one side to the other or act with freedom of an esoteric ritual. After saving little Lotte, the sac-movement in that secluded space. Moreover, we ristan’s daughter and the only one not yet infected, didn’t have a clear idea of how many characters Father Gus activates the self- destruction mecha-would be inside the plane, and if the demons nism… .

could break through the cockpit and get in. On In an interview with Lamberto Bava
top of that: how would the ending be? … Given recorded on January 22, 988, discussing the such an amount of unanswered questions, we enormous success of Dèmoni, journalist Alberto gave up.” Argento, initially enthusiastic about Morsiani noted: “It is also quite rare that an Ital-the idea, grew disillusioned with it, too.

ian horror movie had a sequel, Dèmoni seems So, the scriptwriters came up with a new
the first occurrence to me.” To which Bava story: the secluded place where to unleash the replied: “Yes, indeed it is the first, and I think it demons was to be a church, built on some sort is even the first time that a third chapter is set of passage to hell. Not a novelty, considering into production. I think we’ll make it, we’re Sacchetti’s previous scripts for Lucio Fulci, but thinking about it, we’re writing it.” Just a few a theme that was closer to Argento’s sensibility.

days earlier, producer Dario Argento had con-During his work on Suspiria and Inferno, he firmed the news, adding: “The next one in the had become familiar with Fulcanelli, the elusive series will not be called Dèmoni 3. I rather think early 20th century alchemist who had been the it will have a title like Ritorno alla casa dei dè-inspiration for the character of Varelli, and his moni [Author’s note: Return to the House of book Le Mystère des cathédrales. This way, the the Demons]; people got tired of titles with new movie would ideally link to the previous

1989: La chiesa

73
diptych, especially for its reliance on alchemy Nevsky, 938) for its depiction of the Teutonic and its mysteries.

Knights, which Eisenstein had totally made up.8

However, the delay caused by the decision

Der Name der Rose also suggested the inclusion to start all over again with a new storyline had in the cast of the octogenarian Feodor Chaliapin, the effect of Lamberto Bava abandoning the Jr., in a role vaguely similar as that of the “ven-project. The director had signed a deal with Fin-erable Jorge” which he played in Annaud’s film, invest and would start shooting another quartet as well as the idea of the riddles in Latin. On the of TV horror movies for the series “Alta ten-other hand, another blatant influence is John sione” in October 988, and by July of that year Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, an (admittedly it was clear that he would not be able to make much more successful) blending of traditional the third Dèmoni film.6 An argument with Sac-Gothic motifs within a modern- day setting. The chetti ensued, and the scriptwriter claims he was young director’s cinephile taste also resulted in royally paid by Argento in order to keep quiet some surprising references for an Italian horror about his involvement in the film. Exit Bava, film, such as paying homage to Michael Mann’s enter Michele Soavi, fresh from the success of The Keep (983).

Deliria.

Shooting took place from September to No-

With the new director on board, the project vember 988, on a budget of 3 and a half million took quite a different direction. Now Argento dollars.9 Many scenes were filmed at an imposing had found a convincing title, La chiesa, which location, the astonishing Matthias Church in Bu-didn’t connect the movie to the previous ones dapest, in front of the Fisherman’s Bastion, de-

(except for the subtle reference of a stylized consecrated for the period of the shooting. Ar-demon face on the letter “C” in the film’s poster).

gento’s 3-year-old daughter Asia was cast in one Soavi suggested a new opening scene, set in the of the film’s key roles. It was her third movie after Middle Ages and inspired by John Milius’ Conan Dèmoni 2 and Cristina Comencini’s Zoo (988), the Barbarian (982). Most importantly, in Sac-where she was the protagonist. Around the same chetti’s own words, the directorial turnover af-time, Asia was filming Nanni Moretti’s political fected the film drastically, resulting in a much comedy Palombella rossa: it was an auspicious ca-more dynamic and engrossing visual style, dif-reer start for the teenage actress, which would ferent cinematography and color choices, and, make her one of the most popular young thesps most notably, a different approach to the narra-in 990s Italian cinema.

tive.

Shooting was an exhausting experience for

Despite the game of references and thefts

Soavi. “I was free, and I could do what I wanted that form a strong undercurrent in his work, Ar-

… but I also suffered a lot because of the diffi-gento cannot be considered a postmodernist, culties, the vicissitudes, the delays.”0 Lighting focused on pillowing and reassembling old the church proved an ordeal due to the vast in-movies: his relationship with cinema of the past terior spaces, and the director had to give up the is an “occult metabolization”7 rather than an idea of shooting the scene of Barbara Cupisti’s open homage. Whereas Soavi, born in 97 and character coupling with a horned demon on lothe son of the noted poet Giorgio Soavi, is an cation, due to the protests of the persons in out- and-out postmodernist filmmaker. La chiesa charge of the cathedral. The scene had to be is an omnivorous and self- satisfied collection of filmed at the De Paolis studios. But despite a a wide variety of explicit references, from Hi-rather weak and repetitive third act, La chiesa eronymus Bosch’ apocalyptic paintings to Boris displayed Soavi’s visionary technique, especially Vallejo’s comic book panels, from music videos in the scene which starts in the Middle Age, in to video games—and, of course, many films of the church crypt, and ends in the present day, the distant and close past, which turn up every on the surface, with the camera travelling now and then like pieces of a crazy jigsaw. The through space and time in what looks like a long aforementioned prologue, for instance, takes take, even though there are a few cuts.

place in a gloomy medieval setting influenced Even though Argento and his co- script-by the gruesome excesses of Paul Verhoeven’s writers were drawing on Fulcanelli’s work, with a Flesh+Blood (98), as well as by Der Name der dab of the esoteric and alchemic elements de-Rose (a.k.a. The Name of the Rose, 986, Jean-rived from Suspiria and Inferno, La chiesa looks Jacques Annaud), although Soavi mentioned
like a paraphrase on film of Maurice Lévy’s fas-Eisenstein’s Aleksandr Nevskij (a.k.a. Alexander cinating thesis on the Gothic novel, “toute “his-

74 1989: La chiesa toire gothique” se doit d’etre la mise en fable d’une episodes can multiply at will, and blossom from demeure” (every “Gothic story” should make a each other, from characters which are promoted narrative out of a house). In La chiesa, the very within the space of a shot from mere extras or title refers to the place where the story unfolds: spectators of the story to makers and objects of it is the abode, the building, the enclosed area, horror, like the two young bikers, the arrogant the house—here, by definition, the “House of fashion model, the elderly couple. They have a God”—which is the protagonist. It is the subject similar function as the figures in the bas- reliefs and the object, it affects the plot and acts as the which decorate an apse, which at first get lost in (almost) unmoved mover of the characters’ ac-the overall composition and only at second tions and tribulations. In turn, said characters glance stand out in the small space allowed to are merely two- dimensional presences, barely them by the artist. It is the same method Argento sketched, and utterly expendable figures.

and his collaborators experimented on Dèmoni In his study of the Gothic genre, Lévy de-and Dèmoni 2, and which only in La chiesa, velops an analogy with architecture, and em-thanks to the Gothic setting, finds a consistent phasizes the symbolic significance of the Gothic point of arrival.

building and the concept of man’s aspiration to While preparing the film, Argento heard
the Divine it expresses. Such a concept is over-that Keith Emerson would be interested in writ-turned in Soavi’s film, where both the characters ing the score. The idea of working again with and the camera are attracted and driven down-the English keyboardist, nine years after Inferno, ward, most notably in the impressive sequence was tempting: it would not only be an attempt in which a vast abyss opens under the gigantic to top his previous works as a producer, but it cross that seals the crypt floor. As Edmund would also bring back his own past (a trait Burke wrote in his A Philosophical Enquiry into which would characterize more and more Ar-the Sublime and Beautiful, “I am apt to imagine gento’s following output as a director). Around likewise, that height is less grand than depth; the same time Alejandro Jodorowsky (who was and that we are more struck at looking down making Santa Sangre, with Argento’s brother from a precipice, than at looking up at an object Claudio producing) got in touch with Emerson of equal height.”2
too, having liked his work on Inferno very much.

Moreover, Lévy finds in the Gothic novel

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

“an application, at the level of the dreamlike When Argento received Emerson’s twelve- track mechanisms, of the very structures of medieval demo, he was in for a huge disappointment.

art.”3 The same metaphor turns into images in

“They were terrible. Not even a child would have La chiesa, and the film’s dreamlike imagery lit-written music like that. A sort of bombastic erally take shapes which recall Medieval iconog-march, it sounded like the Carabinieri fanfare. I raphy. That is the case with the cross atop the was aghast… . Naturally, Soavi and I looked for mass grave of the victims of the plague, the another musician. And some time later I found monstrous tangle of bodies which emerge from out that Jodorowsky had received a demo tape the bowels of the Earth, the appearance of Satan more or less like mine, and that he too had re-in the shape of a goat, and the system of coun-jected Emerson’s collaboration.” The incident terweights and gears which eventually causes left sore feelings on Emerson’s part. What is left the cathedral to collapse. The latter idea was in the film of the English musician’s work are reprised almost verbatim in Mariano Baino’s three tracks: the organ- driven main title theme film, Dark Waters (993).

(in two versions), another titled Possession, and Writing about the Gothic romance, Lévy
a rearranged version of Bach’s Prelude 24 which and his peers pointed out its incomplete and sounds like a blatant attempt to recreate the magic maze- like narrative structure, filled with enig-of Emerson’s take on Verdi’s Va, pensiero. For the matic passages and aimed at peaks of suspense, rest, Soavi relied on Fabio Pignatelli (credited as lacking a real continuity between the various Goblin, although his was in fact a solo work) and episodes and “more similar to a suite of frag-inserted two tracks by Philip Glass.

ments—we’d almost say a heap of romance As with Argento’s previous productions, his

“ruins”—than to an organic construction.”4 In-name appeared in evidence in newspapers, as if ferno was an example of the same technique ap-he was the director himself, a confirmation of plied to film, and La chiesa is a further attempt his superstar status among Italian filmmakers at a potentially infinite container, in which the and in the public eye.6 However, the commercial

1989: Etoile

7
expectations were destined to be partially un-Ferrini, Sandro Petraglia; DOP: Acácio de fulfilled. At first, despite Argento’s will to per-Almeida (Kodak); M: Jürgen Knieper (Ed. BMG
form some cuts, the rating board gave La chiesa Ariola; Faso Edizioni Musicali); E: Anna Napoli; a V.M.8 certificate “in consideration of the Casting: Michelle Guillermin, Francesco Cinieri; many, particularly violent and shocking scenes ArtD: Giantito Burchiellaro; SD: Bruno Cesari; which are considered unsuitable for the sensi-CO: Giuseppe Crisolini Malatesta; MU: Massimo tivity of the spectators in developmental age.”

De Rossi, Andreina Ambrosini; Hair: Vincenzo The decision severely harmed the film’s box-Cardella, Giancarlo Lucchetti; AD: Roberto office potential: La chiesa ended up in 36th place Palmerini; 2ndAD: Pietro Sola; C: Antonio Scara-among the year’s top grossers, with a little less muzza; AC: Roberto De Nigris, Massimo Intoppa; than 2 billion lire, only slightly more than Dario AsstArtD: Mauro Borelli, Andrea Gaeta; Piana’s glossy erotic thriller Sotto il vestito niente 2ndAsstArtD: Luca Tentellini; ACO: Mariella II, and a trifle compared with the 7 billion and Dirindelli, Elena Carveni; W: Silvana Cocuccioni, a half earned by the season’s biggest Italian hit, Bertilla Silvestrin; AE: Ambra Giombolini, Fabio Roberto Benigni’s Il piccolo diavolo.

Maiuri; PM: Giancarlo Gabrielli; Construction One year later, on appeal, the commission
manager: Luigi Sergianni; Painter: Claudio overturned its previous ruling and, considering Tedesco; G: Delio Catini; KG: Sergio Serantoni; that the “violent and shocking scenes … are not G: Paolo Tiberti; SE: F.lli Corridori; SPFX: Sergio particularly and intensely underlined within the Stivaletti; SO: Amelio Verona; B: Maurizio Merli; general context of the film,” changed the rating Mix: Danilo Sterbini; Sound dubbing mixer: into a V.M.4, a move which at least allowed the Roberto Cappanelli; Re-recording mixer: Angelo film a very favorable home video run in Italy Raguseo; DubD: Novella Marcucci; SP: Angelo and easier access to television broadcasting.

Pennoni; SS: Daniela Tonti; CHOR: Zarko Prebil; AsstCHOR: Lia Calizza; Ballet advisor: Notes

Vittoria Ottolenghi. Cast: Jennifer Connelly 1. Morsiani, “Conversazione con Lamberto Bava,” 0.

(Claire Hamilton/Natalie Horvath), Gary Mc-2. Gianni Vitale, “Dario Argento, l’astratto immaginato.

Cleery (Jason Forrest), Laurent Terzieff (Marius Conversazione con Dario Argento,” in Rosso Italiano (1977/

Balakin), Olimpia Carlisi (Madam), Mario 1987), 3.

Marozzi (Balakin’s servant/chauffeur), Donald 3. Morsiani, “Conversazione con Lamberto Bava,” 60.

4. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

Hodson (Dancer), Charles Durning (Uncle com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option=com_

Joshua), Raffaella Renzi (Dancer: Odette/Odile); content&task=view&id=3).

uncredited: Tom Felleghy (Concierge). PROD: 5. Dardano Sacchetti quoted in Davide Pulici, “La Achille Manzotti for Gruppo Berna; Reteitalia terza volta dei demoni,” Nocturno #82, February 208, 6.

(Rome); EP: Claudio Mancini; PM: Tullio Lullo; 6. Giovanna Grassi, “Vi preparo quattro serate horror,”

Corriere della Sera, February 2, 989.

Production Coordinator: Massimo Iacobis; PSe: 7. Alberto Pezzotta, La modernità imperfetta, in Vito Cinzia Taffani; PAss: Stefano Mandini; ADM: Zagarrio (ed.), Argento vivo. Il cinema di Dario Argento tra Giancarlo Ciotti; PAcc: Archimede Orlando; genere e autorialità (Venice: Marsilio, 2008), 84.

Cash: Carlo Gagliardi, Angelo Frezza; Press at-8. Maiello, Dario Argento, 309.

9. Jones, Dario Argento, 79.

tache: Lucherini- Fantoli. Country: Italy. Filmed 10. Ibid.

on location in Budapest, and at Villa Parisi 11. Maurice Lévy, Le Roman gothique anglais 1764–1824

(Frascati, Rome), Spoleto and Cinecittà (Rome).

(Paris: Albin- Michel, 200 [968]), VI.

Running time: 0 minutes (m. 2830). Visa n.

12. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the 84344 (.2.989); Rating: all audiences. Release Sublime and Beautiful (London: Routledge, 2009), 72.

13. Lévy, Le Roman gothique anglais 1764–1824, 64.

dates: 3.7.989 (Italy), 0.4.989 (Japan); Dis-14. Gian Mario Anselmi (ed.), Mappe della letteratura tribution: Artisti Associati. Domestic gross: n.a.

europea e mediterranea: Dal Barocco all’Ottocento (Milan: Also known as: Ballet, Os fantasmas de uma Es-Paravia—Bruno Mondadori, 2000), 343.

trela (Portugal).

15. Costantini and Dal Bosco, Nuovo cinema inferno, 8.

Note: P. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is played 16. Giovanna Grassi, “Un incubo gotico color Argento,”

by the orchestra of the Unione Musicisti di Corriere della Sera, February 28, 989.

Roma, directed by Franco Tamponi.

Ballet student Claire Hamilton arrives in
etoile (Ballet Star)

Budapest to audition for a new production of D: Peter Del Monte. S: Peter Del Monte,

Swan Lake. At the hotel she meets a young Amer-Sandro Petraglia; SC: Peter Del Monte, Franco ican, Jason, who is immediately smitten with her.

76 1989: Etoile When her moment comes, Claire is so overin an unusual environment such as classical bal-whelmed that she ditches the audition. She then let, “the milieu par excellence which cancels any dances alone in the empty auditorium to find sol-time dimension… . A mortuary ritual which re-ace and is spotted by the enigmatic choreographer, peats itself immutable.”3 The story, concocted Marius Balakin. One night a pair of mysterious with Sandro Petraglia, draws from a number of ballet dancers, a woman and a man, sneak in elements typical of the Gothic genre—the Dop-Claire’s hotel room and put a spell on her. Claire, pelgänger, reincarnation, a revealing portrait, a now believing she is called Natalia Horvath, is led mysterious villa which functions as a gateway to an abandoned villa which belonged to the between the past and the present, and an aban-dancer, who died 100 years earlier. There she doned theater which travels in time like a ghost starts training for her leading role in Swan Lake, ship—albeit in a peculiar way, which eschews under Marius’ guidance. Jason, who followed horror in favor of mystery and romanticism. Del them to the villa, starts researching on Balakin, Monte described it as “a black fairytale, an illu-whom he recognizes as the man in a 19th century sionistic game, a big firework show with terri-portrait, and on Horvath. Jason’s uncle, an antique fying moments, although without a single drop dealer named Joshua, is hypnotized by the myste-of blood.”4
rious female dancer and attempts to take Jason Co-opting screenwriter Franco Ferrini was
back to the U.S., but the young man flees, and possibly a move on the part of Del Monte (or Joshua meets an accidental death. Jason discovers Manzotti) to give the project a more commercial that Natalie Horvath played the prima ballerina edge. A former film critic, Ferrini had worked in a performance of Swan Lake choreographed by with Dario Argento on Phenomena and Opera, Balakin, but she met a tragic fate on opening night.

as well as Lamberto Bava’s two Dèmoni films, He returns to the villa to save Claire from Balakin’s and had debuted as a director with a giallo, spell, and finds himself transported to the past, in Caramelle da uno sconosciuto (987). Ferrini’s the theater when Swan Lake is being performed contribution is quite likely the reason behind in front of a 19th century audience, with Claire as the prima ballerina. He also discovers Balakin’s unspeakable secret…

Following Giulia e Giulia (987), the first fiction film shot with Sony’s HDVS high definition video system, Peter Del Monte continued in the exploration of the Fantastic genre, which he had already approached in an original and compelling way in the outstanding Piccoli fuochi (98). Given Giulia e Giulia’s commercial success both in Italy and abroad, his new project was born with the aim of meeting an international audience. Producer Achille Manzotti provided the director with a small but impressive cast which included the ravishing Jennifer Connelly (Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena), Gary McCleery (Matewan), Charles

Durning (The Front Page, Tootsie, To Be or Not to Be) and Laurent Terzieff, a veteran of French and Italian auteur cinema. Filming
took place in Budapest and Italy in the Summer of 988, under the working title Ballerina.2

The plot reprised one of the director’s
favorite themes, the search for one’s own identity—already at the core of some of his previous films, namely L’altra donna (980), Invito al viaggio (983) and Giulia e Giulia—

International poster for etoile (1989, Peter Del Monte).

1989: Etoile

77
certain passages which look like they were riddled with psychological nuances, proves borrowed verbatim from an Argento film, not detrimental to a film which would have been just because of Connelly’s presence and the pro-much better had it been a simple, unpretentious tagonist being a ballet dancer. Not only is the genre tale. The opening scenes, set in the fasci-opening, with Claire’s arrival in Budapest, nating and arcane Mitteleuropean city, are suit-vaguely reminiscent of Susy Benner’s arrival to ably atmospheric, but the fantasy angle never the dance school in Suspiria (minus the storm, comes alive, despite Acacio de Almeida’s impres-the witches and the murders, that is), but the sive cinematography and an interesting score ballet audition which she flees in a panic has a by frequent Wim Wenders composer Jürgen certain uneasiness to it, which recalls the way Knieper, as the direction lacks the surreal quality Argento depicted the petty, jealous dance stu-such a project would have needed. Several dents at the Tanzacademie.

scenes seemingly played for suspense (Claire The Argento connection returns in several
menacing the sleeping Jason with a knife) scenes: Jason’s visit to a library recalls Inferno, turn out to be useless, throwaway diversions while the whole final part, with the young hero that show the director’s uneasiness with the trap-discovering access to Balakin’s secret rooms, his pings of genre filmmaking, while the symbols—
climactic fight with the incarnation of evil and the juxtaposition of the White and Black Swan the stabbing by way of a mirror splinter—all this as the eternal ambiguity between good and evil, interspersed with the climactic ballet—all look the references to the myth of Leda being seduced like a much- toned down retelling of Susy’s de-by Zeus in the form of a swan—are trite. The ac-scent into the witch’s lair. On top of that, tors are poorly directed too and cannot breathe Balakin’s rendition of Swan Lake, albeit not quite life into their characters: Durning is wasted in as bizarre as Marco’s (Ian Charleson) mise-en-a thankless role, McCleery is a leading man as scène of Verdi’s Macbeth in Opera, is another nod bland as Leigh McCloskey in Inferno, and Carlisi to Argento’s use of opera to convey suspense and and Marozzi (of Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera) fail dread. Some elements are lifted from The Phanto make an impression as the two mystery tom of the Opera, the source of inspiration for dancers.

Argento’s film as well: the tormented choreog-Etoile was not the commercial success its
rapher, who lives in the bowels of a theatre makers had hoped for, and Italian critics ravaged and can cross the boundaries of time, is part it: “At first it looks like a remake of Opera with Phantom (minus the mask and the gruesome

Tchaikovsky instead of Verdi, and, alas, without features) and part Svengali.

suspense… . Confused and not at all fascinating, What Etoile has certainly in common with
persecuted by music, written … in a semi-the scripts Ferrini delivered for Argento are the profound style, and riddled with clues as if shaky logic and paper- thin characters. The something is going to happen which never does, backstory of Natalia Horvath is clumsily intro-Etoile is… . Del Monte’s worst film.” It had mar-duced via a quick expository scene in the library, ginal distribution abroad, although it was and the final revelation—Marius’ staging of awarded the critics’ award at the 990 Fantas-Swan Lake is supposed to end with the triumph porto Film Festival, in Portugal. The director’s of the Black Swan and the unleashing of evil in subsequent project, an adaptation of Gary the world—turns what looked like a case of Devon’s thought- provoking novel Lost, produced amour fou through the ages into a hard- to-by Alberto Grimaldi and to be shot in the States, swallow mess about good and evil, clumsily ex-never materialized, and Del Monte returned to plained via a brief diary excerpt. The hero’s intimate psychological drama with the anthology meeting and climactic fight with a giant black Tracce di vita amorosa (990).

swan which symbolizes the forces of evil tries In recent years, Etoile has regained some
hard to be suspenseful but ends up an embar-attention on the part of film buffs because of its rassment (a much more interesting variation many similarities with Darren Aronofsky’s Black of the scene will be found in Soavi’s La setta, Swan (200).

99). The animatronic swan, courtesy of an uncredited Sergio Stivaletti, can be glimpsed in the Notes
film for a handful of seconds.

1. The Italian locations (such as Villa Parisi in Frascati, Ultimately, though, the major culprit is Del whose unmistakable octagonal fountain can be glimpsed Monte, whose idea of cinema, self- conceited and in the garden of the abandoned villa where Marius resides,

78 1989: I frati and the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti in Spoleto) olinist, and then a nude woman who wanders blend seamlessly with the Hungarian ones (the Buda castle, around the house. He follows her into the crypt, Heroes’ square, Városliget park).

where the woman beheads him with a sword. 50

2. Giovanna Grassi, “Jennifer Beals è della Partita,” Corriere della Sera, July , 988. The title refers to Jennifer years earlier: Roberto Gherghi marries the young Beals’ starring role alongside Matthew Modine and Faye Ramona, whom he met casually in the park of his Dunaway in Carlo Vanzina’s La partita (a.k.a. The Gamble, villa, much to the chagrin of his housekeeper

988), another production devised for the foreign markets.

Priscilla, who is also his mistress. On the wedding 3. Paolo Cervone, “Vi invito a una danza macabra,” Corriere della Sera, January 4, 989.

night Roberto is summoned in the crypt by a 4. Ibid.

secret sect, the Red Monks, who warn him not to 5. M. Po. [Maurizio Porro], “Quel ‘mago’ dei cigni,” Cor-consummate the marriage, since Ramona will riere della Sera, March 22, 989.

have to be sacrificed as a virgin four nights later.

Roberto’s refusal to perform his conjugal duties I frati rossi (The Red Monks)

brings tension to the couple; what is more, Ra-D: John [Gianni] Martucci. S: Luciana Anna mona is assaulted by a mysterious young man, Spacca; SC: Pino Buricchi, Gianni Martucci; and the French housemaid is decapitated by an DOP: Sergio Rubini (Eastmancolor); M: Paolo unknown murderer. Ramona finds out that Rustichelli (Ed. Nazional Music); E: Vanio Roberto’s family is plagued by a centuries- old Amici; PD: Joseph Teichner; CO: Silvio Laurenzi; curse which started in the Middle Ages, when the MU: Rino Todero; Hair: Regina Usidda; SO: An-Grand Duke Lodorisio, the founder of the Red tonino Pantano; Mix: Sandro Occhetti; PrM: Gi-Monks, was killed by a hired assassin, Gherghi’s anni Muzzi; SP: Franco Biciocchi; KG: Elio Bosi; ancestor, and his gypsy wife swore revenge…

ChEl: Antonio Leurini; AC: Mauro Masciocchi; With only five films directed between 97

W: Giovanna Russu; AE: Marco Buricchi, Carlo and 988, Gianni Martucci was definitely not a Pulera; SS: Annamaria Liguori; Generator Oper-prominent presence in national genre cinema ator: Otello Simotti; Driver: Aldo Marcenaro.

of those two decades, and yet his scant filmog-Cast: Gerardo Amato (Robert Gherghi), Lara raphy as director (with the addition of a few Wendel [Daniela Barnes] (Ramona Icardi), Mal-other works he scripted) is somewhat indicative isa Longo (Priscilla), Richard Brown [Chuck of the various trends followed by the Italian film Valenti] (Ben), Claudio Pacifico (Mystery Man), industry. Born in Rome in 946, Martucci started Mary Maxwell (Lucille), Ronald [Gaetano]

scripting gialli, namely Ragazza tutta nuda as-Russo (Riccardo Gherghi), Ludovico Dello Jojo sassinata nel parco (972, Alfonso Brescia), co-

(Notary Berti); uncredited: Bruno Di Luia authored with his friend, the elusive Peter Skerl, (Lodorisio/Old Man), Luca Intoppa (Adept).

and Il fiore dai petali d’acciaio (973, Gianfranco PROD: Pino Buricchi for Natmas Productions Piccioli); he moved on to erotic comedies (La (Rome); PM: Raniero Di Giovanbattista; PSe: collegiale, 97; La dottoressa sotto il lenzuolo, Claudia Endrigo. Country: Italy. Filmed at Villa

976), crime films (Milano … difendersi o morire, Giovanelli (Rome), Forte Portuense (Rome),

978), slasher flicks (the obscure and absurdly Pratica di Mare (Pomezia, Rome), Monte Gelato titled Trhauma, 980), Neapolitan melodramas Falls (Mazzano Romano) and at De Paolis (Pover’ammore, 982, directed by Vincenzo SalIn.Ci.R. Studios (Rome). Running time: 83 min-viani and, uncredited, Fernando di Leo). His utes (m. 2290); 8 minutes (Home video). Visa final movie, I frati rossi, marked the attempt at n. 846 (.8.988); Rating: V.M.4. Release reviving yet another genre, the Gothic.

date: 8.24.989 (Italy); Distribution: Chance I frati rossi was produced by Pino Buricchi, Film. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known as: Sex-who, together with his brother Marco, was also orgien der roten Mönche; The Red Monks—Der a distributor with the Marco Film Company.

Todesfluch der roten Mönche (Germany).

With such works as L’ultimo treno della notte Note: Originally, in the opening credits (97, Aldo Lado) and La settima donna (978, Lucio Fulci was credited as “special effects su-Franco Prosperi), Buricchi’s name was a war-pervisor”; a subsequent version, with newly de-ranty of sleaziness and exploitation; in the early signed credits, lists him as “Lucio Fulci pres-

980s he had jumped on such threads as the ents.”

Conan-inspired sword- and-sandal as well as the The present. Riccardo Gherghi, the last of glamorous period erotic in the vein of La chiave.

the Gherghi family, is visiting the old family villa The project was conceived for the foreign mar-he has inherited. He spots a mysterious veiled vi-kets and was distributed with Lucio Fulci’s name

1989: I frati

79
in evidence. In the official papers and in the suited us.”3 Other locations were the Forte opening credits, Fulci was credited as “special Portuense and the falls at Monte Gelato, one of effects supervisor,” but he never once showed the recurring sights in Italian genre cinema of up on set, nor did he take care of any special ef-the past decades.

fect, as confirmed by the film’s script girl, An-Based on a story by Luciana Anna Spacca,
namaria Liguori, who believes his name was Martucci’s film looks back to an old- style Gothic used without Fulci’s knowledge. But the most mood. The tale revolves around such archetypal likely option is that he willingly accepted to themes as a centuries’ old family curse, a gloomy

“lend” his name for the credits of somebody villa/castle replete with crypts, and, most inter-else’s film, not as much for personal pride and estingly, a central female character who turns gratification but for mere economic reasons.

out to be in tune with the idea of “devil as a fe-Around that time Fulci got aboard the ill- fated male” which dominated the imagery of Italian series “I maestri del thriller” (a.k.a. “Lucio Fulci Gothic.

presenta”) as well.

The bulk of the story—count Roberto

According to Martucci,

Gherghi (Amato) marrying the beautiful Ra-
mona (Wendel) but being unable to consummate Fulci did not participate in the making, he just agreed the marriage for his bride must be sacrificed as to “present” the movie, but this suited the distributors, who needed a “heavy” name for the sales abroad. By a virgin on a certain astrologically favorable then Fulci had become a name, let’s say, exportable.

night—allows for the same kind of sexual ten-He was already very ill, and I met him to talk to him sion that could be found in such 960s works as about the project. He agreed to lend his name to this L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock: the continually as a “presenter” … he never set foot on set, also be-postponed “first night” between husband and cause, as I said before, he was very ill. At that time, wife leads to uneasiness, misunderstanding, de-he was going through a particularly difficult stage of tachment, and ultimately tragedy. The conjugal his illness. Then he managed to get well again, but crisis is enhanced by Priscilla, the unfriendly at that time he couldn’t even speak, devoured as he housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers- style, who turns out was by cirrhosis. He suffered a lot and had a very low to be Gherghi’s mistress: unlike the characters level of concentration, a matter of minutes and then played by Harriet White, though, here she has he needed to rest or take medicines, and I had to the gorgeous features of Malisa Longo, and is come back and talk the following day.2
more than willing to display her body for the The small cast comprised among others
camera.

Lara Wendel, by then a veteran in the genre, Despite the ample nudity, courtesy of Wen-Gerardo Amato, and Malisa Longo. As in the del and Longo, such a morbid and antiquated early days of Italian Gothic, shooting took place vision of marriage further enhances the movie’s almost entirely in an existing location, Villa retro feel. I frati rossi even inherits the same nar-Giovanelli- Fogaccia, the palace of Prince Gio-coleptic pacing from its blueprints, with long and vanelli in Rome, a luxurious villa usually rented superfluous sequences featuring the nightgown-for weddings, mundane events and parties, and clad Wendel wandering in the crypts to the sound seen in many Italian films since 970, including of Paolo Rustichelli’s eerie lullaby score. However, Fernando di Leo’s Il boss (973), Umberto Lenzi’s if at first Ramona seems to be a designated vic-Spasmo (974), Daniele D’Anza’s TV mini- series tim, gradually she becomes aware of her own I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe, and La mission (and power): the revealing Medieval casa stregata. Martucci recalled the pros and flashback explains her role as an avenging cons of such an accommodation: “If evenings angel/devil of sorts, not unlike Barbara Steele’s were quiet, mornings were a disaster. Because character in I lunghi capelli della morte (964).

at night he [Prince Giovanelli] went around to Spacca’s story also drew from late 9th cen-various mundane events, so he wanted to sleep tury/ early 20th century feuilletons: the eponymous late in the morning, and if you woke him up, he secret sect recalls, at least iconographically, the was pissed. Several times we had to wait for him Sicilian- based “Beati Paoli,” described by Luigi to give us permission to shoot in a certain room.

Natoli in his historic serial novel I Beati Paoli The villa is unique, it has the appearance of a (909). Whereas the “Beati Paoli” acted as a se-fortress … it looks very regal, princely, but in cret society against the Church and the State, fact it is shabby, since he lives only in one wing.

the Red Monks appear to be simply old- style The rest is almost in a state of neglect, which Devil worshippers. They are indeed an impres-

80 1989: I frati sive sight, with their crimson hoods and robes with a newly- shot opening scene set in the pres-looking a bit like the mysterious killer in Der ent in which the last descendant of the Gherghi Mönch mit der Peitsche (a.k.a. The College Girl family (Gaetano Russo) wanders in the park Murders, 967, Alfred Vohrer), but are given around the house and meets a veiled female vi-very little to do except move in unison while olinist; then, in the villa, he spots a beautiful handling swords, while Martucci’s camera films naked lady and follows her in the crypt, where them in menacing wide- angle shots.

she decapitates him with a sword. The addition Despite the director’s visual tricks to estab-destroys whatever suspense the original story lish a Gothic mood, such as the use of mirrors might have had, since it blatantly gives away the to reflect characters and avoid a shot/ counter-final twist. It was likely added after the movie shot routine, the scant budget penalizes the had been submitted to the rating board, since result heavily. “Being a horror movie, it needed the original copy was 2290 meters long (83 min-many more special effects, and better cared for,”

utes and 30 seconds), while the version currently Martucci admitted. “There was a scene, for in-available runs 8 minutes and 7 seconds at stance, where you could see a knife hovering in 2fps (that is, about 89 minutes).

mid- air, which I had to cut because you could I frati rossi was briefly released theatrically see the wires. In order to achieve special effects in August 989, nine months after obtaining the you have to bear special costs, and on that film visa, and then quickly resurfaced on home we had no money.”4 The gory effects, limited to video. On the cover of the Italian VHS, on the a couple of severed heads, are embarrassing, and Playtime label, one could read: “Un film di Lucio so is the patently fake tarantula which pops up in a couple of scenes, and which looks suspiciously like one of those seen in L’aldilà—
the same prop, perhaps?

The ridiculous hangs over the movie
like Damocles’ sword. Not only is the story completely incoherent, but some plot points are never cleared (whose is the unknown hand that murders the housemaid?), and several scenes defy suspension of disbelief, such as when Ramona is sexually assaulted by a
mysterious young man, an incident that is
forgotten with no explanation whatsoever:

was it a restaging of the assault her gypsy ancestor suffered centuries earlier, and a necessary step to have her become aware of her true identity? One can only guess… . Later she and Roberto find a severed head in the picnic basket, but this incident as well is quickly dismissed as Gherghi pretends to have talked to the police—but no policeman ever shows up
at the villa to investigate! Inconsistencies abound, especially in the Middle Age flashback. And, last but not least, the hooded “Red Monks,” whom Gherghi incongruously hosts
in the subterraneans of his castle, warn him not to deflower his bride, just like the spirit of the Arab warrior did with Renato Pozzetto in La casa stregata.

International press sheet for I frati rossi (1988, Gianni During post- production, after finishing

Martucci), featuring Lucio Fulci’s name in evidence-the mixing, Martucci was told that the movie even going so far as listing “a Lucio Fulci picture” and was too short for exportation: he therefore had crediting him also for the special effects—even to re- edit it and add several minutes, by re-though in fact Fulci had nothing to do with the film.

envisioning the whole story as a flashback, Martucci is credited as “Joe Martucci.”

1989: Paganini

8

Fulci” (“A film by Lucio Fulci”). This led to a Kate, the lead singer of a rock group, receives controversy, with Fulci threatening to sue, and from her drummer Daniel an unpublished piece the fake credit was obscured by way of a sticker of music by Niccolò Paganini, which Daniel pur-which reported the name of Martucci as director.

chased from the enigmatic Mr. Pickett in Venice.

However, the same stunt was employed in other The band rearrange it and make it their next sin-home video editions throughout the globe. As gle. It is said that Paganini used that music to of today, some still believe it to be a Lucio Fulci evoke the devil, to whom he sold his soul in ex-film.

change for fame; but the devil then forced the musician to kill his wife. Kate and the band’s producer Notes

Lavinia hire renowned horror filmmaker Mark Singer to shoot a horror- inspired music video in 1. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 36.

Paganini’s house in Venice. There, they are wel-2. Eugenio Ercolani, “Gianni Martucci, un intellettuale al servizio del cinema di genere,” PaperBlog, September 22, 203
comed by Silvia, the current owner. Shooting for (http:// it. paperblog. com/ gianni- martucci- un- intellettuale-the video starts, but in the evening Rita and Daniel al- servizio- del- cinema- di- genere- prima- parte- 99979/).

disappear, then Mark too is killed by a figure which 3. Ibid.

appears to be the ghost of Paganini. Lavinia, Kate 4. Ibid.

and her bandmate Silvia realize that they can’t leave the house as it is surrounded by an invisible Paganini Horror (Paganini Horror)

shield. They try to exorcise the curse by playing D: Luigi Cozzi. S: Raimondo Del Balzo; SC: Paganini’s piece on violin, but to no avail. Even-Luigi Cozzi, Daria Nicolodi; DOP: Franco Lecca tually, just as Kate—now the only survivor—is (Telecolor); M: Vince Tempera (Ed. DEAF); E: about to be killed, the sun rises, striking the ghost Sergio Montanari; PD, ArtD: Marina Pinzuti An-with its rays and pulverizing it. But the nightmare solini; CO: Donatella Cazzola; SPFX: Casagni e is not over…

Prestopino [Franco Casagni, Rosario Prestopino]; As Luigi Cozzi recalled, Paganini Horror

MU: Franco Casagni; AMU: Luigi Ciminelli; was born in a manner worthy of the glorious Hair: Piero Cucchi; AD: Marilena Cavola; AE: golden age of Italian genre cinema. The starting Paolo Lanzani; 2ndAE: Gianni Pallotto; C: Ar-point was to draw on the expected success of cangelo Lannutti; AC: Enzo Carpineta; 2ndAC: Klaus Kinski’s pet project Paganini, which the Carlo Lannutti; ChEl: Ennio Di Stefano; KG: Ser-actor had been trying to mount since the early gio Fabbriani; SE: Paolo Ricci; SO: Mauro

980s. Finally, Paganini was screened in a rough Lazzaro; PrM: Osvaldo Monaco; SP: Antonio
cut at the 989 Cannes Film Festival. As had Benetti; SS: Maria Luisa Merci; Set technician: happened in the 960s and 970s, the news of Ugo Tucci; G: Claudio Fabriani; El: Michele Pel-important and potentially successful films was legrini; W: Damiana Celletti. Cast: Daria Ni-enough to start production with a series of rip-colodi (Sylvia Hackett), Jasmine Main [Jasmine offs centered on the same theme.

Maimone] (Kate), Pascal Persiano (Daniel), Cozzi came up with the title, producer Ugo Maria Cristina Mastrangeli (Lavinia), Michele Valenti (who had co- financed Contamination) Klippstein (Elena), Pietro Genuardi (Mark liked it and commissioned artist Enzo Sciotti to Singer), Luana Ravegnini (Rita), Giada Cozzi draw a poster. Sciotti came up with a striking, (Sylvia as a child), Elena Pompei (Sylvia’s comic book- like and almost Surrealist image: a mother), Roberto Giannini, Perla Costantini, ghastly skeletal figure in a tuxedo and with in-Donald Pleasence (Mr. Pickett). PROD: Fabrizio congruous long white hair—Paganini resur-De Angelis for Fulvia Film (Rome); PM: Gian rected from the grave?—is playing the violin, its Maria Vismara Currò; PS: Giorgio Padoan; PSe: bow dripping blood. Below, a pair of teenagers, Andrea Usai. Country: Italy. Filmed on location a girl and a boy, are standing under the moon-in Venice, and at R.P.A. Elios Studios (Rome).

light before an eerie house which looks very Running time: 82 minutes (m. 220). Visa n.

much like Norman Bates’ abode in Psycho (and 8438 (.24.989); Rating: V.M.4. Release dates: its many surrogates seen in Italian posters for 6.6.989 (Italy), .9.9 (Japan); Distribution: the La casa series). The teenagers are surrounded Fulvia Film. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known as: by music sheets, menacingly floating around Paganini Horror—Der Blutgeiger von Venedig them. These too are stained in blood. Then, once (West Germany—home video), Melodía de hor-the poster was ready, all that was left to do was ror (Argentina), Partitura mortal (Portugal).

to write the script.

82 1989: Paganini Cozzi, who had just finished penning a The director then teamed up with Daria
screenplay on Paganini for producer Nat Wachs-Nicolodi, who around that time was working berger, recycled a few notions on the famous vi-with him also on what became De Profundis—
olinist and, being an avid science fiction fan, The Black Cat, to crank out a new script. Ac-threw in many elements and themes from his cording to Cozzi, “she wrote all the esoteric favorite genre. The result was a story about a scenes, like the one about the pact with the haunted house where “time killed you, making Devil.”3 The director also recycled and developed you age or rejuvenate suddenly, turning you into some ideas from a couple of episodes of the TV
a newborn child and then an egg cell,” and orig-series “Turno di notte,” broadcast on Rai Due be-inally it was to be shot in Colombia, like Con-tween late 987 and early 988 in the TV show tamination.2 Valenti didn’t like the script, though.

“Giallo” and on which he shared directing credits He had Cozzi rewrite it drastically and add splat-with Lamberto Bava—namely Delitto in rock ter scenes in the process to make it more mar-

(broadcast on December 4, 987) and La casa ketable. But after vainly trying to sell the project, dello Stradivari (broadcast on December 8, the producer just gave up the film industry and

987).

left for Santo Domingo where, according to Cozzi got in touch with several producers

Cozzi, he set up a successful prawn factory busi-and eventually set up a deal with Fabrizio De ness.

Angelis of Fulvia Film, the financer of several Lucio Fulci films. But the director’s
ambitions were soon to be frustrated.

For one thing, De Angelis made last-
minute demands which caused Cozzi
to rewrite the script all over again: “A
few days before filming started, in
order to cut costs, he told me to dis-
card all the splatter sequences, and so

I tried to rebalance the script by rein-
serting some of the weirdest and
more fantasy- oriented things from
my previous version… . The result
was definitely not a horror movie
but a fantasy or a fantastique with
lots of irony and lots of theories on
music and time,”4 as the director
summed it up. The lack of money
proved a decisive factor, too. “There

I was with this beautiful, ambitious
script and they handed me a 6mm
camera, which was broken, gave me
a villa to set the story in, and said,

‘Start shooting!’ In conditions like
these, not even the best film director
in the world could have done any
better.”

Shot in three and a half weeks,

Paganini Horror6 may not be “the
poorest film in the history of cin-
ema” as the director labeled it, but
its low budget is evident throughout,
as is its haphazard nature. Still, the
experience on the set of Nosferatu a

Venezia proved fruitful when it

Italian poster for Luigi Cozzi’s Paganini Horror (1989) (art by came to shoot on location in Venice,
enzo sciotti).

as the director found a couple of in-

1989: Paganini

83
teresting locations for the scene where a music the Devil” or other famous tunes connected with sheet with a composition penned by Paganini, the Horned One, the characters finds nothing and kept inside a suitcase whose combination is better than name- dropping Michael Jackson’s 666, is purchased from the mysterious Mr. Pick-

“Thriller.” In a scene, Silvia recalls the violinist’s ett. As the film’s guest star and main selling point devilish pact as follows: “He signed the deal in for the foreign markets, Donald Pleasence (an-a Venetian house and then he killed Antonia, other survivor from the exhausting experience his wife, and from her intestines he made the of Nosferatu a Venezia) has very little to do, ex-strings of that gilded violin which since then was cept looking British and devilish. He has the always his own. An instrument which emitted most amusing scene, though, throwing a unique notes when played, probably because its handful of bills from a Venice bell tower, mum-strings contained the soul and the desperation bling about “little devils.”

of that poor woman.” The only true bit of infor-The opening scenes, which follow a little
mation here is the name of Paganini’s wife, An-girl (Cozzi’s own daughter, Giada) coming home tonia Bianchi, while the rest is the fruit of Cozzi after her violin lessons through the Venice and Nicolodi’s imagination. Namely, the story canals and indifferently electrocuting her of the cursed violin is lifted from La casa dello mother while she’s taking a bath, bring to mind Stradivari, which revolved around a Paganini the domestic horrors of Shock and Macabro, for piece (Le streghe), a priceless Stradivari violin the casual transition from everyday family life and took place in a music school called Casa del to horror; but they also underline the shoestring Sol, like the villa in the film.

budget, with the electrocuting effect rendered On the other hand, for the idea of turning through cheap optical effects worthy of the laser a piece of classical music into a pop tune—not battle in Roger Corman’s The Raven. Then the an uncommon occurrence in pop music, starting film changes tone dramatically and takes us to with, say, Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of a studio were a mostly female rock band (well, Pale,” with its Bach- derived melody—Cozzi pos-sort of) is recording what sounds like a bad rip-sibly had in mind the Italian/Swiss combo Rondò off of Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name”

Veneziano. Emerging in 979 from a notion by and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” complete with awful Freddy Naggiar and Gian Piero Reverberi, Rondò

980s keyboards all over the place. The scene is Veneziano played 8th century- inspired tunes very similar to the opening sequence in Delitto (written by Reverberi) in baroque pop arrange-in rock, about the search for a valuable tape with ments. Their debut album was a Top Ten hit, and a lost Jim Morrison song.

the covers of their records featured surreal, sci-The inclusion of pop- rock tracks (again, fi oriented illustrations with spaceships and au-sort of) and visuals which ape music videos—
tomatons playing strings in the Venice canals.

an element in common with Fragasso’s Monster For the occasion, Vince Tempera didn’t go back Dog—gives an idea of the makers’ view of the as far as the 8th century for the supposedly decade’s music. It also gives away the attempt at Paganini- penned piece which the band rearranges jumping on the notorious rock/horror associa-into a would- be hit: the piano- based melody tion that was so popular in the period, from the played by Daniel (Pascal Persiano) blatantly rips notion of Satanic back- masking in heavy metal off Electric Light Orchestra’s “Twilight,” included songs to the nefarious influence of rock music in their 98 album Time.

on teenagers’ minds. The growing popularity of In one of Cozzi’s recurring nods to his hard rock and heavy metal even spawned a hor-friend Dario Argento, the band hires “the world’s ror subgenre which dated back to Terror on most famous horror movie director” to shoot the Tour, and Cozzi certainly knew Trick or Treat video for the song. The in- joke possibly refers to (986, Charles Martin Smith), which had been Opera, where Ian Charleson played a horror released theatrically in Italy as well.

filmmaker called to direct Verdi’s Macbeth on Paganini, with the many legends surround-stage, an occurrence in turn inspired by Argento’s ing his existence, was the perfect figure to in-own unfortunate experience when in 98 he was carnate the pact with the Devil. The script men-hired to direct the Rigoletto for the Sferisterio tions Paganini’s “secret music which he used to theater in Macerata, which he attempted to turn summon Satan,” even though the references to into a Grand Guignol opera, with gimmicks wor-the present are debatable to say the least: instead thy of William Castle. Eventually his idea was of mentioning the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for discarded, causing him to resign7 and turn

84 1989: Paganini Opera into some sort of cinematic revenge. But mone—the role was originally to be played by when the renowned Mark Singer (Pietro Gen-Cinzia Farolfi.8 Overall, though, the story never uardi, looking like a distant relative of Urbano really adds up, at least in the Italian theatrical Barberini’s character in Opera) shows up to cut. At dawn the masked stalker dissolves into shoot the allegedly expensive video all by him-ashes—shaped, in one of the film’s most de-self, with no crew and just a hand- held 6mm mented ideas, as a treble clef!—like Nosferatu, camera, it is hard to keep a straight face—and but it remains unclear who it really is. Similarly, perhaps Cozzi was just putting on screen what a character wondering whether the house is ac-was happening to him on Paganini Horror, sad-tually hell is met elusively by the one who might dled with a villa and a (broken) 6mm camera.

be the most suited to answer, Mr. Pickett. And Likewise, the would- be trendy visual style of the despite the circular ending, with a new group of music video sequence clashes against lack of unfortunate victims entering Paganini’s house means and looks very much like the work of Al and heading for (presumably) another night of Festa (Gipsy Angel, 990; Fatal Frames—Fo-horror, the whole discourse about time and togrammi mortali, 996), all wide- angle shots, music just sounds like mumbo- jumbo.

cheap filters and dry ice.

The alternate version (included on the GerThe more its story develops, the more Pa-
man DVD) is more interesting in this respect, ganini Horror reveals its slapdash nature. There as it includes bits and scenes that make Cozzi’s are too many ideas, some of them half- baked, claims about the film’s science fiction core more others which would have been better discarded, coherent and clear. Before the opening credits, and the paucity of means just cannot sustain in fact, we see shots of a planet and an hourglass such a muddled plot. We have a masked, black-floating in space; the latter, a surreal image in gloved figure stalking the corridors that looks tune with Cozzi’s most personal efforts such as like it was lifted from an Argento film, gorily the two Hercules movies, introduces the theme stabbing its victims with a blade coming out of of warped time right at the start, and it will be a violin. There are the nods to Mario Bava (di-reprised near the end. Similarly, inserts of rectly or by way of Argento’s Inferno), such as planets rotating in space are interspersed with mannequins wearing multi- colored veils, and the scene of the victims hearing a mysterious rooms lighted with bright reds and blues (a suit-sound: Sylvia’s monologue about the “harmony ably eerie scene involves a cobweb- ridden hour-of the spheres” becomes more clearly linked glass which has seemingly stopped). There is with the plot, as does the connection between also room for assorted borrowings: a sheet of the harmony of the universe and the disruption music flying away by itself as if animated by a of time and space coordinates inside the haunted spiteful force recalls Tourneur’s Curse of the house. The original ending also reveals the na-Demon (97). And, finally, there are the rem-ture of the masked Paganini killer: after the new nants of Cozzi’s original idea of a time loop, tenants have entered the house, Mr. Pickett dons which the director had toyed with in his film the same costume as the killer and starts playing debut Il tunnel sotto il mondo (969) and which the violin.

was also a recurrent element in Italian Gothic Released in June 989, Paganini Horror pre-

(think of Danza macabra). Such a concept is the dictably did badly at the box- office, but carved basis for some of the most bizarre bits: a room a niche for itself in the Italian home video mar-whose walls are covered with Einstein’s relativity ket, no doubt because of its good distribution equations; a straight tunnel which nevertheless (on the Avo Film label) and impressive cover leads a character back to the starting point; and art. It became some sort of cult movie over the an invisible barrier which prevents the protag-years: most viewers approached it as an Ed onists from leaving the house, causing a Wood–style extravaganza, but there were even runaway car to explode and crushing someone some serious attempts at re- evaluation. Soon to death in the film’s goriest scene.

Cozzi would return behind the camera for De The director does his best to enliven the

Profundis, which became The Black Cat, but his proceedings with weird shots, the camera tilting activity as a filmmaker waned, not least because and rotating, and he tries to milk the suspense of the ongoing crisis of the Italian film industry.

for what it’s worth; but he can do little to Meanwhile, in 989 he started a new commercial improve upon the horrible acting on the part of venture: he and Argento opened a shop in Rome most cast members, especially Jasmine Mai-dedicated entirely to horror in all its forms, the

1989: Streghe

8
aptly named “Profondo Rosso,” which soon be-Hirby (Maria Hayes), Gary Kerr (Ed Hayes), came a reference point for film buffs all over the Suzanne Law (Rachel Hayes), Deanna Lund country.

(Helena), Jason F. Lefkowitz (Paul), Christopher Peacock (Ken), Stewart Penn (Bus Driver), Notes

Richard Powell (Cop), Nancie Sanderson (Simona), Michele Vannucchi [Michele Peacock]

1. Matteo Contin, “Intervista con Luigi Cozzi,” in Gor-

(Carol Hayes), Bob Bouchard (Yokel), John diano Lupi, Cozzi Stellari. Il cinema di Lewis Coates (Rome: Profondo Rosso, 2009), 28.

Boyd (Yokel), Kevin Kirton (Yokel), Mario 2. Luca Cirillo, “Intervista a Luigi Cozzi,” www.

Millo (Yokel), Fred ‘Big’ Price (Yokel). PROD: palcoweb. net (http://www.palcoweb.net/Interviste/Luigi-Alessandro Capone, Mauro Morigi, Giuseppe

Cozzi/Index.asp).

Pedersoli for United Entertainment Corporation, 3. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 64.

4. Ibid.

Numero Uno International (Rome); EP: Claudio 5. Ibid.

Bonivento; PS: Roberto Allocca; PM: Ricky 6. The film is sometimes mentioned with the a.k.a. Il Sacco; PSe: Antonio Mammolotti; Location violino che uccide (The Killing Violin), which nevertheless manager: Stewart Smith; PAss: Jeff Lupton, doesn’t appear in the credits nor in ministerial papers.

Suzanne Rust; ADM: Pasquale Manzollino.

7. [ANSA agency] “Argento dice “no” alla regia di Rigoletto,” Corriere della Sera, April 24, 98.

Country: Italy. Filmed on location in Mount 8. The Milan- born Farolfi was a singer who achieved Dora and Winter Garden Groveland (Florida).

popularity in the 990s with the band Cattivi Pensieri. She Running time: 90 minutes (m. 2472). Visa n.

had appeared in an episode of the TV series “Turno di 84646 (4.28.989); Rating: V.M.4. Release date: notte,” Delitto in rock.

.26.989 (Italy); Distribution: Titanus. Domestic gross: n.a. Also known as: Witch Story (UK), Tanz Streghe (Witch Story) (Superstition 2) der Hexen Teil 2 (Germany), Pesadilla (Spain) D: Alessandro Capone. S: Alessandro

Note: The songs “Down the Highway”

Capone; SC: Rosario Galli, Alessandro Capone; (Jones/ Cordio) and “Reflex” (Jones/Cordio) are Adaptation: Maura Vespini; M: Carlo Maria sung by Karen Jones.

Cordio; DOP: Roberto Girometti (Eastman-Florida, 1927. A young woman, Helena, is
color, Technicolor); E: Franca Silvi; Casting: Bill lynched by an angry mob for being a witch. A Williams; ArtD: David Minichiello; SE: Rick little girl, Rachel, whom the woman took care of Gonzales; AD: Mike Kirton; AE: Rosalba Gia-as governess, watches in horror as Helena is burnt cobbe, Roberto Amicucci; SS: Laura Curreli; alive, and commits suicide by jumping from a Dial: Mary Lynn Clemente; C: Roberto Brega; window of their house. The present: Ed and Carol, 1stAC: Maurizio Piano; 2ndAC: Andy Fisher; SP: two teenage siblings who recently lost their parents Gianni Caramanico; SE: Mike Davy, Mike Or-in a car accident, move from New York to Florida nelas, Dan Bedell, Dave Katz, David Blood, Jesús with a group of friends to the country house they Martinez; B: Maurizio Merli; CO: Vera Coz-inherited. The house—the same where Helena zolino; ACO: Rita Cecconi; W: Connie Pierce, and Rachel lived—is dilapidated, and the teenagers Beverly Frisz, Maria Pia Boccia; Hair: Anna set out to restore it. But starting on the first night Chiodi, Pat Patton; MU: Amedeo Alessi; AMU: of their stay, strange things happen in there, and Mario Di Salvio, Selena Miller, Victoria Stewart; the new inhabitants experience nightmares and KG: Elio Bosi; G: Pietro D’Antoni, Piero Bosi, hallucinations. It turns out that the house is Cecil Stone, Jorge Frier; ChEl: Furio Rocchi; El: cursed, and Rachel’s ghost appears. The teenagers Italo Di Steffano, Marcello Perricone, Cragg are possessed by the evil entity and are pushed to Richards, Jeff Morriss, Don Lamont; Generator murder each other in gruesome ways. Ed and driver: Claudio Cartocci; Driver: Claudio Men-Carol find out that Helena had seduced the local chini; Weapons: J.R. Johnson; Press attache: priest, Father Michael, which caused the mob to Kim Gatti, Paola Papi; SOE: Alvaro Gramigna, revolt against her. They locate the elderly priest, Fernando Caso; Mix: Danilo Moroni. Cast: now defrocked, who faces Helena’s undead spirit Amy Adams (Susan), Jeff Bankert (Michael), Ian and attempts to exorcise her. The curse seemingly Bannen (Father Matthew), Charon Butler (Glo-abates but, as Ed and Carol will find out, evil ria), Todd Conatser [Conner] (Virgil), John never dies…

Freda (Alex Hayes), Peter Gold [Pierre The feature film debut of the then 34-year-Agostino] (Father Gabriel), Kirk Green (Young old Alessandro Capone is emblematic in its ap-Father Matthew), Cecil Hawkins (Sheriff), Elise proach to the Gothic genre, a wild mixture of

86 1989: Streghe Italian and U.S. movie references that give away entire duration before being mercilessly exter-from the very beginning Streghe’s composite na-minated in graphic (but not overly gory) ways.

ture. Capone had started as a screenwriter in the As often in Italian horror films of the pe-late 970s, and among his early work there are a riod, the depiction of American teenagers results couple of horror movies, Gianni Martucci’s in involuntary parody, and the characters look Trhauma and Ruggero Deodato’s Camping del
like larger- than-life walking stereotypes: an terrore (987), which both drew liberally from anorexic black girl who boasts she is used to the American slasher film and its conventions.

vomiting after eating; a bitchy bimbo who is so As Capone explained,
proud of her perfect ass that she strips off in front of everybody on the living room table; and I was always fond of horror cinema, and I tried for a fatso who sports a t- shirt of the female pop/
years to make my debut in the genre. Since nobody rock band Heart, claims that his only passion in allowed me to showcase my passion, I decided to set life is eating and swallows handfuls of jam di-up a company, I produced my first film and of course rectly from a jar with his bare hands, in what is I made a horror movie! … We managed to convince perhaps an ill- fated homage to John Belushi’s an international distributor, Manolo Bolognini, to give us a guaranteed minimum, and then Claudio unforgettable stint as “Bluto” Blutarsky in John Bonivento, whom I met in New York for another Landis’ Animal House (978). In some 970s hor-project, associated with another quote.
ror film such a grotesquely stereotyped slice of humanity would have had perhaps a metaphoric Streghe puts on the table a wider variety of value; here, they simply represent the naïve vi-references. The plot draws from the Canadian sion of a different culture and society, which the horror film Superstition, from which it reprises filmmakers are shaping through their own not only the theme of the vengeful witch, but cinephile experience. Naturally, these teenagers also the central character of a priest, as well as are film buffs too: “He has seen The Exorcist one the presence of a crucifix which plays a crucial time too many!” someone says when a weird-role in the story. As for the body count, some of looking priest shows up on their bus; later they the murders—such as the chainsaw slashing in hum the theme song for The Twilight Zone, and the pool—try hard to be original, but the notion upon exploring a sinister country mansion of Helena’s possessed succubi attacking the other someone jokingly mentions Mrs. Bates and her victims looks very much like what Sam Raimi son Norman.

did in The Evil Dead minus the gruesome facial The story moves predictably along the ex-make- up. Capone claimed he took inspiration pected horrific events and deaths. Some touches, from Carpenter (even in the use of the scope such as the protagonists’ dead father returning format), Raimi and Craven, but there are also from the grave to torment his offspring—pos-much more familiar references for fans of Italian sibly another nod to an Italian horror classic, Gothic horror films. The opening scenes set in namely La maschera del demonio—hint at the late 920s recall the prologue of L’aldilà, while themes of incest and Catholic guilt which are the character of Rachel, the little girl with a merely played for their superficial value. Ditto white ball who asks people to “play with her,” is for the expected Gothic trappings, such as the a blatant nod to Operazione paura.

“return of the past” of the curse plaguing gener-But the important thing to Capone was to
ation after generation. For the climax, Capone disguise and conceal the Italian identity, to the relies heavily on slow- motion shots of people point that the film doesn’t even include the jumping in the air or through windows, but he opening credits, except for the title Streghe fails to generate any suspense. And the twist (Witch Story)—note the fake English title in ending doesn’t really make much sense.

brackets. It is a chameleon- like game of subtrac-Filmed partly in Rome (in November 988)

tion that goes in a different direction than the but mostly in Florida2 over the course of five gory fireworks of the early 980s, where the way weeks, on a budget of about one million dollars,3
to excess was the trick to bite away bigger slices Streghe looks very much like Massaccesi’s Filmi-of pie in the chaotic horror market. The setting rage productions of the period. Still, the higher and context try hard to convince us that we are amount of money involved results in a suitably watching a 980s American body count flick, professional mise-en-scène, with dolly shots, starting with the parade of annoying teenagers careful lighting schemes, passable special effects who joke, bicker and hump each other for the (courtesy of Rick Gonzales), and at least one in-

1989: Streghe

87
teresting set piece, the tunnel- like underground leased there as Tanz der Hexen. As the director passage which allows director of photography recalled, “I remember that during the screening Roberto Girometti some suitably eerie light/
in New York there was an applause, when one shadows effects. The cast comprises a number of the girls comes out of the pool handling a of nondescript young actors, mostly in their first chainsaw. In Italy people criticized it, because movie role. The only familiar faces in the cast of course you can’t start a chainsaw underwater, are Deanna Lund (best known for her partici-but once the joke was evident, the American au-pation in the TV series Land of the Giants) as diences applaud and laugh, whereas the Italians the evil Helena, and Ian Bannen (in place of criticize. It’s a matter of approach.”6

Capone’s original choice for the role, Donald Capone (who dedicated the film to his fam-Pleasence), who turns up an hour into the film ily) moved on to television in the following for a less- than-inspired special appearance, decade, directing episodes of the TV series De-sporting a blatantly fake- looking wig and cheap tective Extralarge, starring Bud Spencer (whose make- up. But Z- movie devotees will be thrilled son Giuseppe co- produced Streghe), and spo-to spot Pierre Agostino, the lead in a couple of radically returned to the big screen with an Ray Dennis Steckler’s most demented efforts, adaptation of his own play Uomini sull’orlo di The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row una crisi di nervi (99). In the 2000s he worked Slasher (979) and its sequel, Las Vegas Serial mainly for the small screen, directing TV series Killer (986), here hiding under the a.k.a. Peter such as Distretto di polizia (2007–2008), I delitti Gold.

del cuoco (200) and I segreti di Borgo Larici The Italian distribution through the his-

(204). In 204 he helmed the sci- fi thriller 2047: torical Titanus allowed the film a theatrical re-Sights of Death, featuring an astonishing quintet lease, with a V.M.4 rating.4 Predictably, it col-of has- beens: Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, lected harsh reviews: “The usual inventory of Michael Madsen, Stephen Baldwin, and Rutger coarse special effects,” labeled it the Corriere Hauer.

della Sera, noting the “slapdash editing, full of inconsistencies” and the “amateur cast (except Notes
for a bored- looking Ian Bannen) in a cumber-some parade of grimaces.” Streghe soon resur-1. Taccini, Stracult horror, 276.

faced on the national home video market. It was 2. Giovanna Grassi, “Cinema e gente,” Corriere della Sera, November 8, 988.

sold well abroad, however, allowing Bolognini 3. Taccini, Stracult horror, 279.

to recover the advance. Overseas it was adver-4. In 993 the rating was turned to “all audiences tised—not surprisingly, given the aforemen-allowed” after some cuts were performed for its TV broad-tioned similarities—as a sequel to Superstition, cast (visa n. 8786, 3.22.993) for a total of 48 meters (about whereas in Germany it was passed off as Tanz

 minute and 43 seconds).

5. L.A. [Leonardo Autera], “La casa disabitata nella der Hexen Teil 2, a sequel to Larry Cohen’s radura,” Corriere della Sera, May 26, 989.

horror comedy Wicked Stepmother (989), re-6. Taccini, Stracult horror, 279.

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Appendix :

Direct-to-Video Releases

Entries are arranged in chronological order, according to their shooting dates

“I maestri del thriller,” a.k.a. “Lucio Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; C: Luca Fulci presenta”

Alfieri; AC: Rolando Stefanelli; PM: Valentino PROD: Luigi Nannerini and Antonino Lu-Salvati; B: Aristide Bagliocchi; SO: Davide Ma-cidi for Cine Duck (Rome), Alpha Distribuzione gara, Giulio D’Angeli; Mix: Claudio Oliviero; SE: Cinematografica (Rome); PM: Marco Alfieri, Gino Vagniluca; G: Gaetano Barbera, Nino Silvano Zignani, Stefano Trani; UPM (Le porte Magostini, Armando Salino; El: Massimo Roc-dell’inferno): Bruno Bagella, Maurizio Mattei.

chi, Marcello Tallone; W: Cinzia Reggiani; SS: Camilla Fulci. Cast: Peter Hintz (Dr. Werner Hansel e Gretel

Vogler), Loes Kamma [Louise Kamsteeg] (Mi-

D: Giovanni Simonelli [additional scenes:

caela di Saint- Bon), Brigitte Christensen (Mrs.

Lucio Fulci]. S and SC: Giovanni Simonelli; Rezzori), Sacha Darwin (Sasha), Nubia Martini DOP: Silvano Tessicini; M: Lanfranco Perini (Simona), Any Cerreto (Mary Cohen), Marco

(Ed. Artem Publishing); E: Luigi Gorini; CO: Di Stefano (Priest), Alessandra Massari (Micaela Cinzia Milani; MU: Pino Ferrante; Hair: Maria as a child), Marco Massari (Werner as a child), Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; C: Luca Vassili Karis [Vassili Karamenisis] (Tramp/Dr.

Alfieri; AC: Rolando Stefanelli; PM: Vincenzo Williamson), Paul Muller (Lawyer Cohen); un-Lozzi; B: Aristide Bagliocchi; SO: Davide credited: Leandro Lucchetti (Gamekeeper’s son).

Magara, Giulio D’Angeli; Mix: Claudio Oliviero; Running time: 0 minutes. Also known as:

SE: Gino Vagniluca; G: Nino Magostini, Gaetano The Snake House (International title); Bloody Barbera; El: Massimo Rocchi, Marcello Tallone; Psycho—Lo specchio; Nel nido del serpente (Ital-W: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Camilla Fulci; Generator ian alternate titles); Pesadilla sangrienta (Spain); operator: Roberto Stiffi. Cast: Elisabete Pimenta Snake House (Germany).

Boareto (Silvia), Lucia Prato (Lina), Ronald

[Gaetano] Russo (Fred), Giorgio Cerioni (Mario), Massacre

Mario Sandro De Luca, Renzo Robertazzi, Silvia D: Andrea Bianchi. S and SC: Andrea

Cipollone (Gretel), Massimiliano Cipollone Bianchi; DOP: Silvano Tessicini; M: Luigi Cec-

(Hansel), Paul Muller (Procurer), Maurice Poli carelli (Ed. Creamus); E: Vincenzo Tomassi; CO: (Commissioner Roy); uncredited: Brigitte Chris-Cinzia Milani; MU: Pino Ferrante; Hair: Maria tensen (Solange), Zora Kerova [Zora Keslerová]

Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; C: Luca (Woman in bath), Roberta Orlandi (Rosi).

Alfieri; AC: Rolando Stefanelli; 1stAE: Paola Running time: 6 minutes. Also known as:

Tomassi; 2ndAE: Sergio Fraticelli; PM: Vincenzo Hansel and Gretel (International title); Die Saat Luzzi; B: Aristide Bagliocchi; SO: Davide Mag-des Teufels (Germany).

ara, Giulio D’Angeli; Mix: Claudio Oliviero; SE: Gino Vagniluca; G: Nino Magostini, Armando Bloody Psycho

Salino; El: Massimo Rocchi, Marcello Tallone; D: Leandro Lucchetti. S and SC: Giovanni

W: Cinzia Reggiani; SS: Camilla Fulci; Generator Simonelli, Leandro Lucchetti; DOP: Silvano Tes-operator: Roberto Stiffi. Cast: Gino Concari sicini; M: Lanfranco Perini; E: Luigi Gorini; CO: (Walter), Patrizia Falcone (Jennifer), Silvia Conti Cinzia Milani; MU: Pino Ferrante; Hair: Maria (Liza), Pier Maria Cecchini (Robert), Robert



0 Appendix 1

Egon (Jean), Danny Degli Esposti (Adrian), Martha; The Broken Mirror (International titles); Marcello Furgiuele (Gordon), Lubka Lenzi El espejo roto (Spain).

(Mira), Anna Maria Placido (Madam Yurich), Maria Grazia Veroni, Cristina Lynn, Piero Pieri, Sodoma’s Ghost (The Ghosts of Sodom) Paul Muller (Commissioner), Maurice Poli D: Lucio Fulci. S and SC: Lucio Fulci, Carlo (Frank Brennan).

Alberto Alfieri; DOP: Silvano Tessicini; M: Carlo Running time: 0 minutes. Also known as:

Maria Cordio; E: Vincenzo Tomassi; MU: Pino La morte della medium (TV version, cut).

Ferrante; Hair: Maria Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; SO: Roberto Barbieri; Foley Luna di sangue
artist: Giulio D’Angeli; SE: Gino Vagniluca; C: D: Enzo Milioni. S and SC: Enzo Milioni,

Luca Alfieri; AC: Rolando Stefanelli; KG: Um-Giovanni Simonelli; DOP: Silvano Tessicini; M: berto Magostini; El: Massimo Rocchi; W: Paolo Gatti, Alfonso Zenga (Ed. Tangram); E: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Camilla Fulci; Generator op-Vincenzo Tomassi; CO: Francesco Sforza; MU: erator: Roberto Stiffi. Cast: Claudio Aliotti Pino Ferrante; AD: Michele De Angelis, Enzo (Paul), Maria Concetta Salieri (Celin), Robert Rossi; PrM: Vincenzo Luzzi; SO: Davide Magara; Egon (Willi), Luciana Ottaviani (Maria), Teresa B: Aristide Bagliocchi; Foley artist: Giulio D’An-Razzaudi (Anne), Sebastian Harrison (Jean); geli; SE: Gino Vagniluca; C: Luca Alfieri; AC: uncredited: Pierluigi Conti (Drunken Nazi), Rolando Stefanelli; G: Gaetano Barbera, Nino Joseph Alan Johnson (Mark), Zora Kerova [Zora Magostini, Armando Salino; El: Massimo Roc-Keslerová] (Succubus).

chi, Marcello Tallone; W: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Running time: 4 minutes. Also known as:

Camilla Fulci; Generator operator: Roberto Stiffi.

Los fantasmas de Sodoma (Spain); Les fantômes Cast: Jacques Sernas (Dr. Marc Duvivier), Zora de Sodome (France); Sodoma’s tödliche Rache Kerova [Zora Keslerová] (Mary), Barbara Blasco (Germany)

(Ann Moffet), Alex Berger [Alessandro Frey-berger] (Larry Moffet), Jessica Moore [Luciana Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio (Touch Ottaviani] (Tania), Giuseppe Morabito (Solly), of Death)

Pamela Prati (Mirella Alfonsi), Annie Belle D: Lucio Fulci. S and SC: Lucio Fulci; DOP:

[Annie Brillard] (Brigitte Garré).

Silvano Tessicini; M: Carlo Maria Cordio; E: Running time: 5 minutes. Also known as:

Vincenzo Tomassi; ArtD: Franco Vanorio; E: Escape from Death (International title).

Vincenzo Tomassi; MU: Pino Ferrante; Hair: Maria Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; Non avere paura della zia Marta

SO: Roberto Barbieri; Foley artist: Giulio D’An-D: Mario Bianchi. S and SC: Mario Bianchi.

geli; SE: Angelo Mattei; C: Luca Alfieri; AC: DOP: Silvano Tessicini; M: Gianni Sposito (Ed.

Rolando Stefanelli; KG: Umberto Magostini; El: Artem Publishing); E: Vincenzo Tomassi; CO: Massimo Rocchi; W: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Camilla Cinzia Milani; MU: Pino Ferrante; Hair: Maria Fulci; Generator operator: Roberto Stiffi. Cast: Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis; C: Luca Brett Halsey (Lester Parson), Ria De Simone Alfieri; AC: Rolando Stefanelli; PM: Vincenzo (Alice Shogun), Pierluigi Conti (Randy), Sacha Lozzi; B: Aristide Bagliocchi; SO: Davide Mag-Darwin (Margie MacDonald), Zora Kerova ara, Giulio D’Angeli; Mix: Claudio Oliviero; SE:

[Zora Keslerová] (Virginia Field), Marco Di Ste-Gino Vagniluca; G: Nino Magostini, Gaetano fano (The Tramp); uncredited: (Guest at Randy’s Barbera; El: Massimo Rocchi, Marcello Tallone; Poker Table), Maurice Poli (TV Newscaster #).

W: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Camilla Fulci; Generator Running time: 6 minutes. Also known as:

operator: Roberto Stiffi. Cast: Adriana Russo La sombra de Lester (Spain), Soupçons de mort (Nora Hamilton), Gabriele Tinti (Richard (France); When Alice Broke the Mirror (Germany).

Hamilton), Anna Maria Placido (Richard’s mother), Jessica Moore [Luciana Ottaviani]

Le porte dell’inferno

(Georgia Hamilton), Maurice Poli (Thomas the D: Umberto Lenzi. S: Umberto Lenzi; SC:

caretaker), Massimiliano Massimi (Charles Olga Pehar; DOP: Sandro Mancori; M: Piero

Hamilton), Edoardo Massimi (Maurice Hamil-

Montanari; E: Vanio Amici; SE: Giovanni Cor-ton), Sacha M. Darwin (Aunt Martha).

ridori; ArtD: Dario Micheli; CO: Giovanna De-Running time:  minutes. Also known as:

odato; MU: Gabriella Trani; Hair: Maura Turchi; The Murder Secret; Don’t Be Afraid of Aunt Casting: Werner Pochath; SO: Francesco Zan-

Direct-to-Video Releases


noni, Franco Borni; B: Marco Di Biase: Foley Cinematografica and Cineduck, owned by Luigi artist: Giulio De Angeli; STC: Franco Fantasia; Nannerini and Antonio “Antonino” Lucidi, and C: Luca Alfieri; AC: Davide Mancori; ChEl: Fab-pre- sold the television rights to Reteitalia.

rizio Faitanini; KG: Giovanni Savini; Generator The original project for the series comprised operator: Roberto Stiffi; SS: Olga Pehar. Cast: ten films, but eventually, because of Reteitalia re-Barbara Cupisti (Erna), Pietro Genuardi (Paul fusing to buy all of them, only eight were made: Brandini), Lorenzo Majnoni (Manfred), Gia-Hansel e Gretel (Giovanni Simonelli), Bloody Psy-como Rossi Stuart (Dr. Jones), Gaetano Russo cho (Leandro Lucchetti), Massacre (Andrea (Maurizio Fesner), Andrea Damiano (Laura Bianchi), Luna di sangue (Enzo Milioni), Non Benson), Mario Luzzi (Teo), Paul Muller (Si-avere paura della zia Marta (Mario Bianchi), mone di Reims).

Sodoma’s Ghost and Quando Alice ruppe lo spec-Running time: 0 minutes. Also known as:

chio (both directed by Lucio Fulci) and Le porte Gates of Hell; The Hell’s Gate (International ti-dell’inferno (Umberto Lenzi).2 The whole series tles); Las puertas del infierno (Spain).

was made with very little money: according to Alfieri, the budget for each film was about 300–

By the second half of the 0s, the crisis 350 million lire, whereas production manager of the Italian film industry was no more an Silvano Zignani recalled an even smaller sum, open secret which everyone knew about but about 207 million, and Fulci himself talked of most pretended was untrue, but a harsh reality.

“200–300 million.”3 The films were shot in Theatrical distribution was becoming more and

6mm and then blown up to 35mm, on tight
more difficult, with the disappearance of many schedules (three to four weeks each) and with venues of the second and third run circuit. Sell-the same crews and several recurring cast mem-ing films to foreign markets was still an option, bers. Another trick to save money would be to although this mostly meant straight to home shoot some of the films at the producers’ own video releases. But even with regards to the na-villas, in order to save the rental money. With tional market, it was inevitable for producers to such premises, it is hard to believe that anyone try and sell their products to television or home expected the results to be any good.

video: renouncing to submit a film to the rating Things started out badly with Hansel e Gre-board for a theatrical screening certificate meant tel. Despite the title, the film is not a modern-also saving money, as films released straight- today version of the celebrated Grimm fairy tale, video did not need an official rating.

as the only element in common is given by the

“I maestri del thriller” was a project born children’s names, but merely a tiresome revenge-specifically with the aim of television and home from-beyond-the-grave plot about a couple of video destination. According to producer Carlo children kidnapped and killed by organ traffick-Alberto Alfieri, who claimed that the idea for ers. The story is as dull as it gets, with sequences the series (initially to be called Il cinema italiano stretched to reach an acceptable running time del terrore) was his own, the main concept was (a case in point is the kidnappers’ car driving to have several new authors or scriptwriters across country roads and being followed by write and direct their own films. “We started barking dogs), and the ridiculous is always looking for scriptwriters with a great experience around the corner.

in the specific field of horror movies: the basic Hansel e Gretel was Giovanni Simonelli’s
idea was to put them in a position to realize their only movie as a director. The son of director Gior-vision, but with their own means. This, because gio Simonelli, and an experienced scriptwriter scriptwriters complain very often that their who had worked among others with Antonio scripts are distorted and altered, thus losing their Margheriti, the then 62-year-old debuting film-original momentum. We precisely wanted to ex-maker was not a beginner, and was one of the se-ploit the desire, the creativity and the unvoiced ries’ regular contributors, having penned the strength of these authors.”
scripts for Bloody Psycho and Luna di sangue as Alfieri presented the project to Luciano well. Soon, however, it became apparent that di-Martino, who rejected it, and eventually he set recting was not his forte. Michele De Angelis a deal with Augusto Caminito’s Scena Interna-

(who was the assistant director on all films ex-tional, who was attempting to exploit the horror cept Lenzi’s) recalls a significant episode in this fad of the period (see also Nosferatu a Venezia).

regard. One day the crew was ready to shoot, Caminito then contracted Distribuzione Alpha but the director was nowhere to be found. The

2 Appendix 1
crew was filming in a villa, and the young a.d.

Besides Pimente Boareto, in her only film
finally found Simonelli in the wine cellar. “When role, the cast includes regulars of the series such he saw me, he told me, ‘Look at this beautiful as Brigitte Christensen (as the evil Solange), must … now they’re making wine out of it… ’

Maurice Poli and Paul Muller. The acting—in-He didn’t even think about the film!”4
cluding that of the two children—is atrocious, At the end of the scheduled three weeks’

but lines of dialogue such as “You’re half-shoot Simonelli had filmed footage for approx-Brazilian, so you should know that the most poi-imately 50 minutes, with whole chunks of the sonous snakes are undoubtedly the ones with story missing. Shooting went on for the other the most beautiful colors” are beyond redemp-films in the series, but several weeks later the tion. Worst of all, Simonelli’s direction is per-producers called Lucio Fulci behind the camera functory and haphazard to the point of amateur-to supervise an additional week’s shoot, in an ishness, with jumbled camera set- ups and plenty attempt to salvage the film. As De Angelis points of continuity errors: for instance, the kidnappers out, this “supervision” was actually much more sedate Hansel and Gretel with chloroform and than that: “Lucio shot everything. Simonelli put them in the car trunk, but in a following stayed by his side, just watching… . ”5
scene we see them chatting with the children, Fulci shot several additional scenes to reach who are sitting in the back set of the car; later feature length, namely the one in which an eldin the film a man sinks in a pit of quicksand- like erly woman has her skull transfixed by a wood manure and in the next scene is found dead on splinter which gouges out her eye, as in L’aldilà; top of it. Post- production is evidently careless.

a woman (Zora Kerova) taking off her clothes A laughable blooper has the police listening to and having a bubble bath while giving instruc-a tape recording of Solange’s death, which even tions to a pair of thugs; the same woman being includes a bit of the score from said scene as dispatched by the ghosts of the two children in well.

the bathtub; the two goons falling into a canal The second in the series, and the closest to and being torn apart by the dewatering pump; the tradition of Italian Gothic cinema was Leand some scenes which according to De Angelis andro Lucchetti’s Bloody Psycho. Born in Trieste were shot in a hotel—possibly the love scene be-in 44, the then 43-year-old director had tween Lina (Lucia Prato) and Fred (Gaetano worked on television during the previous Russo), and Silvia (Elisabete Pimenta Boareto) decade, with such programs as Per conoscere Pa-relaxing in her bedroom.6 However, even Fulci’s solini (7), a documentary which included ex-intervention was not enough to make the prod-cerpts of the poet’s last interview with Enzo uct marketable, and Andrea Bianchi was report-Biagi and Alberto Moravia’s speech at Pasolini’s edly recruited as well. With such a troubled pro-funeral. This was his third film, after the little-duction history, it’s not surprising that Hansel e seen Maledetta Euridice (6) and Mercenari Gretel is the lowest point in a series which had dell’apocalisse (a.k.a. Apocalypse Mercenaries, hardly any peaks to begin with.

7), the latter featuring most of the same cast The theme of innocence betrayed and the
as Bloody Psycho. It was Alfieri who asked Luc-insistence on violence toward minors are akin chetti to come aboard the project: “I took it for to Fulci’s work (see Non si sevizia un paperino, what it was—an adventure,”7 the director points Quella villa accanto al cimitero, and Voci dal pro-out. The film was initially to be directed by Si-fondo), and the image of children as revenants monelli, who had written the basic scenario. “I is a constant in Italian Gothic, from Bava’s I tre changed, adapted and invented as best as I could volti della paura and Operazione paura to La to put together something that looked like a notte dei diavoli (72, Giorgio Ferroni)—and film. Simonelli hadn’t written a real script, but one of Fulci’s additional scenes even reprises the rather a long synopsis or a more or less substan-image of the two children looking eerily from tial treatment.”

outside a window, featured in Bava and Ferroni’s Shot in November 7, in three weeks,
films. Yet Simonelli never goes beyond cut- rate in the villages of Castelnuovo di Porto and shock value. The gore bits are crude in an H.G.

Magliano Romano, Bloody Psycho features a cast Lewis way, and special effects are as cheap as led by German actor Peter Hintz and including they come, with plenty of animal entrails and other recurring faces in low- budget horror quarters of beef taken from the nearest abattoir movies of the period, namely Brigitte Chris-making up for body organs and human torsos.

tensen, Sacha Darwin (also in Non avere paura

Direct-to-Video Releases

3
della zia Marta and Quando Alice ruppe lo spec-even features a use of yogurt as an erotic stim-chio), Marco Di Stefano (Quando Alice ruppe lo ulant in a blatant rip- off of the notorious “food specchio, Blood Delirium), plus guest stars Vassili scene” in 9½ Weeks. Overall the plot doesn’t re-Karis and Paul Muller.

ally add up, as even the characters admit. “This

“I’m some kind of medium,” says Dr.

is really an incredible story,” a female reporter Vogler (Hintz) to a drunkard (Karis) in the film’s named Sacha (Darwin) notes. “So incredible opening scene, a line of dialogue which recalls that, if I write it down in the newspaper, they a notorious one in Bava’s Operazione paura—
will think I’m mad.” To which Micaela replies, which Bava himself had mentioned as an exam-

“But it would make for a beautiful film … a perple of embarrassment when discussing his fect thriller!”

mixed feelings toward his own work. There are Besides the nudity, crude splatter scenes and many such lines in Lucchetti’s film, which draws demented dialogue, Lucchetti (who even turns up openly from classical Gothic not only in the set-in a brief cameo role) conveys a passable Gothic ting (a medieval village, a creepy castle and a mood by way of wide, low- angle camera set- ups moldy cemetery) but also in its plot about ghosts and eerie lighting. He is helped in the process by and Doppelgängers. As in La maschera del de-Silvano Tessicini’s photography, replete with color monio, here as well a female ancestor is trying filters, silhouettes and dry ice, and definitely better to take the place of her young descendant who than the d.o.p.’s work in the other films in the se-looks just like her (both are played by the same ries. “Tessicini understood perfectly the mood actress); and, like so many Gothic heroes before and lighted the scenes masterfully, making the him, Vogler goes to bed with a reincarnated best of the sets I had chosen,” the director noted.

ghost, who then bares her putrefied breast and

“I’m not a big fan of Bava, and even less of Ar-asks, “Do I disgust you? And yet I know you like gento. Actually, I admired Hammer’s Dracula my body…,” in yet another mixture of fear and films.”

desire, attraction and repulsion. But Vogler the Lucchetti even attempts some personal
psychic is also a male version of Jennifer touches. In a scene, Vogler and Sacha walk along O’Neill’s character in Sette note in nero, as he is a path outside a cemetery which is gradually shocked and disturbed by visions whose mean-filled with scattered debris of contemporary so-ing he cannot grasp until the very end. Other ciety, from plastic bottles to ceramic toilet seats, scenes solicit weird cinephile references: the one from dolls to broken TV sets, and which leads in which a wheelchair- bound zombie falls down them to a tomb in a desecrated ground. It’s a sura flight of stairs looks like a horror remake of a real moment that looks as if it belongs in a Fer-celebrated moment in Kiss of Death (47, Henry reri film, and it sounds strangely out of place, Hathaway), while the same zombie killing a vic-almost like an attempt at claiming ambitions tim (Paul Muller) by trampling over him on the which cannot be fulfilled in such a cheap and wheelchair comes closer to the sheer delirious clumsy little movie. “It was an inspiration of the insanity of Polselli’s Mania (74).

moment, as many others in the film, linked to Lucchetti added some dollops of eroticism
extemporaneous things I discovered on set,”

to the mix as well, as in the glory days of 70s Lucchetti recalls.

Gothic. It is soon clear that the relationship Overall, although modest, Bloody Psycho
between the wheelchair- bound Mrs. Rezzori fares better than the others in the series. It was (Christensen) and her sexy housemaid (Nubia definitely the one Alfieri was happy with the Martini) is a barely disguised sado- masochistic most, so much so that he even considered sub-liaison, as the lady of the house throws a cup of mitting it to the board of censors to obtain a visa tea on the floor and then forces the servant to for theatrical release. It was eventually released kneel down “like a whore” to clean it. Soon to home video just like the other titles, and the after, the maid shows up in Vogler’s room to English language version features a superim-provide vital bits of information as well as posed credit of Lucio Fulci as supervisor, even sexual advances. “Hey, but I’m even better than though Fulci never showed up on the set nor did you with hands! I feel I can make things grow”

he discuss anything about the film with Luc-she says while caressing his crotch, yet another chetti. After Bloody Psycho, Alfieri offered the line of dialogue which would have made Bava director to make another cheap horror movie blush. A sex scene between Hintz and Micaela for the series, which he refused. “One was (Louise Kamsteeg, credited as Loes Kamma)

enough. The story level was what it was and

4 Appendix 1
shooting in three weeks was quite a stress. The who claims to be Larry. The direction and acting game was not worth the candle for me, but it are worthy of a South American soap opera, and was for Nannerini and Lucidi, who sold this nothe story is overly talky and hopelessly boring.

torious series all over the world!” Lucchetti went Milioni and scriptwriter Giovanni Simonelli try on to direct some more low- budget films in the to revive the proceedings with some sex and following years, including the W.I.P. Caged—Le gore extravaganza, with bullets to the face, a de-prede umane () and La ragnatela del silen-capitation by scythe (the victim is played by zio–A.I.D.S. (a.k.a. Web of Silence, 4). In 206

Annie Belle), and a notorious scene where a he debuted as a novelist with Amorosi sensi, set young mute woman (Jessica Moore) is shot in during the Resistance, followed by a mammoth the head while performing fellatio on her inces-three- tome work, Bora scura.

tuous father, and the killer’s second bullet strikes Some entries in the series feature only the man’s erect member (the scene was shot in sparse Gothic elements. That is the case with two versions, a more explicit one for the foreign Andrea Bianchi’s Massacre, set during the shoot-markets). It’s a moment worthy of Milioni’s ing of a horror movie: the director (Maurice trashy giallo, La sorella di Ursula (7).

Poli) attempts to inject some frisson into the film The fifth in the series, Mario Bianchi’s Non by hiring a psychic (Maria Letizia Placido) to avere paura della zia Marta (known abroad as perform a séance on the set, resulting in the The Murder Secret) works for much of its run-spirit of Jack the Ripper possessing one of the ning time as a gory thriller about a family’s visit participants, who starts killing the others one to a country house where the titular aunt by one. Besides the opening sequence of the Martha is about to return, released after 30
film- within-a-film (titled Dirty Blood) in which years in a psychiatric hospital. The woman, like a woman is terrorized in a cemetery by some Beckett’s Godot, doesn’t show up though, and monstrous figures, and the séance scene, com-while everyone is waiting for her the main char-plete with a prowling camera, Sam Raimi–style, acters end up killed one by one in gory ways: a the rest of the film works as a gory body count shower murder quotes Psycho, and the most
whodunit, long on gore but short on cinematic gruesome bit has an admittedly obnoxious kid value. Despite the dialogue name- dropping being decapitated with a chainsaw à la Murder Anaximenes and Jung’s collective unconscious, Obsession. However, the final ten minutes push the attempts at self- reflexiveness are ill- fated, Bianchi’s film right into Gothic territory, with with Poli’s character delivering a pompous the introduction of a supernatural twist that monologue on the nature of horror cinema: rips off the evergreen An Occurrence at Owl

“Films of this type can no longer be dealt with Creek Bridge, redone in a similar way as Herk in the spirit of the 30s, and this because our Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (62) and Kevin generation knows what horror means. In fact, Bi llington’s Voices (73), and in turn reprised besides the atrocities of war and its horrors, cin-in Fulci’s Le porte del silenzio () as well as ema introduced us to zombies and other monin Jean- Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa’s strous creatures, so that today even an illiterate Dead End (2003).

knows everything about terror and horror. So, Bianchi was rather pleased with Non avere
if we still want to frighten the audience, I think paura della zia Marta (“There was quite some we must stick to reality. It’s useless to rely on atmosphere, and even some twists”) but found imagination because fantasy will never be real-the experience of working with Nannerini and ity.” He claims he wants to “draw from the faith-Lucidi to be a letdown: “It seemed we’d go on ful reproduction of man’s primordial fear,”

[with this series] for our whole life, with the before concluding: “And even in this type of film producer telling me, ‘Look, if it goes well we’ll I want to apply Neorealism.”

never stop!’ … and then I found out it was all a Enzo Milioni’s Luna di sangue (also known
scam set up to divide the cake… . ” Alfieri was as Fuga dalla morte) is some sort of a mystery less enamored of the result: “Even though the with supernatural undertones. Told in flashback original ideas were good, on many occasions by a dying man, in would- be film noir style, the there were disappointments. For instance, with incoherent plot deals with a woman (Barbara Bianchi. Since he could make films at a very low Blasco) who discovers her husband Larry’s dead cost, on a shoestring, once he had the opportu-body, but the corpse disappears, and no one benity to put more care and attention on the proj-lieves her; one year later she is visited by a man ect, on paper he could achieve interesting re-

Direct-to-Video Releases

5
sults. Whereas he filmed a three- week movie in for another film to direct on his own, namely just two, perhaps he was put under pressure… .

Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio. But when one Fact is, he worked in haste just like with the of the directors backed out, he offered to replace films he usually made, so he ended up making him, and that’s how Sodoma’s Ghost—a script a pretty bad movie.”0

Fulci had co- written with Roberto Gianviti and Non avere paura della zia Marta is hardly
dated back at least four years—took form. It was distinguishable from the others in the series, with the first to go into production, with the working crude gore effects, a suitably creepy synth- driven title Ghost Light. Filming lasted four weeks, score by ex prog- musician Gianni Sposito, and starting May 30, , and took place at the Cas-some nudity courtesy of Adriana Russo and the tel di Decima castle, just outside Rome (the ex-stunning Jessica Moore (real name Luciana Ot-terior shots portrayed a different villa, though).

taviani). The 2-year-old actress had debuted in The film was plagued by production troubles, Aristide Massaccesi’s La monaca nel peccato and it was also the only one of the series to go (6) and starred in a couple more of Massac-over budget.
cesi’s classy soft porn flicks, the 9½ Weeks rip-Sodoma’s Ghost is basically a ghost story set off Eleven Days, Eleven Nights: 11 giorni, 11 notti in a haunted house—a villa in France where in (7) and Top Model (), but her career was

43 a group of Nazi officers were killed by a short- lived. Non avere paura della zia Marta was bomb while having a wild party, and one of one of Gabriele Tinti’s last films. The actor, a for-them was filming the orgy. Forty- four years later, mer beau of Italian cinema in the 50s and later a group of teens end up lost, stumble upon the a regular of Joe D’Amato films, being Laura abandoned villa and spend the night there. But Gemser’s partner, was already very ill (he would the Nazi ghosts appear and seduce their victims, die of cancer in ), although he still looks materializing their passions and desires. Fulci younger than his age (he was 56 at the time of called it his worst film2 and on one occasion he the shooting). Speaking of which, a blatant in-even claimed he had left the set.3 According to consistency turns up in the narrative: in the some sources, Mario Bianchi shot the remaining flashbacks, when Aunt Martha is hospitalized, scenes after his departure, but Bianchi himself Richard is a 0-year-old boy, so at the time of explained: “Fulci didn’t leave the set, absolutely.

the events in the film, with Marta being released He finished the film.”4 In fact, Bianchi—who from the asylum “after 30 years,” he should be had just finished filming Non avere paura della 40, whereas according on the gravestone in the zia Marta5—was recruited at some point during cemetery scene he is 55.

the shooting by production manager Silvano It was d.o.p. Silvano Tessicini who involved Zignani, upon Fulci’s request, to film some Lucio Fulci in “I maestri del thriller.” Near the scenes as second unit.

end of the 0s, the director was in rather dire Fulci told me, “Look, do me a courtesy, shoot some straits. He had moved from Rome to Casteln-connecting scenes for me… .” He asked me because uovo di Porto, had experienced serious health he was probably a bit behind schedule. It was he who issues and was back from the unfortunate expe-told me what to shoot: the boys’ arrival at the house rience of Zombi 3, which the producer completed on a jeep, the various bits. Moral of the story: by say-with additional scenes shot by Bruno Mattei ing “Shoot this, shoot that,” from three short bits I and Claudio Fragasso (but approved by Fulci), ended up shooting much more footage, several with an extra ten days’ shoot in the Philippines, scenes. Meanwhile he completed the movie, shooting without the main actors and with only a other scenes. If I happened to have the four or five minimal crew. Tessicini lived in Morlupo, near leads, he would film other scenes, but most times I Castelnuovo di Porto, and started calling on the had to wait until he finished working with them and then I could shoot.6
director, helping him in some practical matters.

“Lucio had just returned from the Philippines, In the same interview, Bianchi claimed that “I he was not well, and had a huge belly,” he re-wouldn’t say I shot half the film, but almost,” and called. The inflated belly was a consequence of complained that Fulci never even thanked him.

the liver disease which plagued him during the However, Michele De Angelis pointed out that shooting of Zombi 3.

Bianchi was on the set for only a couple of days,7

The producers accepted Tessicini’s sugges-
which would obviously reduce greatly his con-tion, even though initially Fulci was to act tribution to the film.

merely as supervisor, but he submitted an idea In a French interview, Fulci described the

6 Appendix 1
film as follows: “It’s as if a bomb exploded in the director pointed out: “Have you ever thought Pasolini’s film Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma,”
why there are so many useless shots in Quando but the most obvious connection is with the Alice ruppe lo specchio or Sodoma’s Ghost…? So Nazisploitation thread of the mid–70s. The as to get to the minimum running time of one script borrows ideas from other sources as hour and 22 minutes … there were not enough well: the scene where the protagonists vainly money to shoot more scenes (and anyway, it was try to escape from the villa but always find a bet with myself)!”20
themselves back in front of its castle is lifted But the budget constraints were once again from The Legacy. That said, the result is less than overwhelming. The story takes place in an un-mediocre. Fulci belabors one of his favorite likely, depopulated America which looks very themes, that of time, albeit in a much less suc-much like Italian suburbia, and according to cessful way than in his subsequent made- for-Michele De Angelis many extraordinary ideas TV film, La casa nel tempo, and he throws away in the script didn’t come out well on screen or the most interesting idea, about the curse having were simply discarded for lack of time and to be broken only by means of an old film reel money. Fulci eventually got fed up, and during (a concept reprised also in Lamberto Bava’s A shooting he had many arguments with the pro-cena col vampiro). The dialogue is awful, espe-ducers, who on the other hand were unhappy cially the phony lingo spoken by the young pro-with the director being constantly behind tagonists (who are headed to Paris but have surf schedule (and not helped in this regard by his boards atop their jeep!), the actors are atrocious, d.o.p. Silvano Tessicini, who was good but quite and the low budget is painfully evident in the slow).

ridiculous special effects.

As with other films in the late phase of In accordance with one of Italian Gothic’s Fulci’s career, Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio has main topics, Fulci’s ghosts are an embodiment a literary, philosophical core to it. Despite the of the main characters’ hidden desires and ob-over- the-top gory scenes (with the most grue-sessions, but this results in bargain- basement some one placed near the beginning, as if to fool erotic scenes, filmed like a cheap soft porn flick.

the audience into thinking they are watching a The most bizarre bit has a Nazi officer playing brain- dead splatterfest), it is an original medi-pool while a girl is lying with her legs spread on tation on the theme of the double and identity.

the billiard table and preparing to shoot a cue The director’s open dislike toward psychoanaly-ball right into her crotch. It’s unlikely Fulci knew sis notwithstanding, the idea of a man suffering Alberto Cavallone’s 77 surrealist drama Spell—
a split personality and becoming dissociated Dolce mattatoio, which features a similar scene, with his own shadow seemingly draws from but Cavallone’s version is much more powerful Otto Rank’s study The Double, who had dis-than his cheap attempt at transgression. The cussed the way “primitive man considers his director had some problems with an actress, shadow as something real, as a being attached Teresa Razzaudi, who at first refused to perform to him, and he is confirmed in his view of it as nude scenes, much to Fulci’s displeasure. After a soul by the fact that the dead person … simply many discussions, the scene of her being no longer casts a shadow,”2 and to Jung’s concept seduced by a Nazi ghost was partially shot with of the shadow as the hostile double, “that hidden, a body double.

repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-Filming for Quando Alice ruppe lo spec-
laden personality”22 which stands in opposition chio—with the working title Licia ha rotto lo to the rationally- governed ego. Aenigma featured specchio (Licia Has Broken the Mirror)—started a scene in which a narcissistic gym teacher is at-just three days after finishing Sodoma’s Ghost tacked and strangled by his own mirror image, and went on for four weeks, starting on June 22, a moment which vaguely recalls Giacomo Rossi

, around Rome and at Vides studios. To Stuart’s encounter with his evil double in Oper-save on the budget, some interiors were shot in azione paura. Here, Lester Parsons—a modern-Nannerini’s own villa. This time Fulci ap-day Bluebeard who seduces, kills, robs of their proached the project with much more care, even wealth and sometimes eats rich women—is though the resort to long takes (such as the framed by his own shadow, who leaves vital clues opening scene, which amusingly references to for the police to identify him.

Citizen Kane) must not be seen as a stylistic The main problem is that the concept choice but rather as a cost- cutting gimmick, as doesn’t stand up for the entirety of a feature

Direct-to-Video Releases

7
film, hence the many stretched out sequences closer to Alien 2—Sulla Terra (0, Ciro Ip-of Lester seducing his horrid victims (who all polito) than to La chiesa, with a final twist bor-have physical defects, a nod to Siodmak’s The rowed from Rats—Notte di terrore, before Lenzi Spiral Staircase, 46) and dispatching their ca-reprises the “it-was-all-a-dream” circular ending davers, which are filled with a grotesque humor of his own Incubo sulla città contaminata.

not unlike Buñuel’s Ensayo de un crimen, well-Unbeknownst to Alfieri, Fulci, in accor-
served by Brett Halsey’s spot- on, self- ironic perdance with Nannerini and Lucidi, made another formance. If anything, the film shows Fulci’s film, Il gatto nel cervello, assembling most of growing interest toward the abstract and the the gory footage from the other titles in the metaphysical, which clashes jarringly with his

“I maestri del thriller” series and adding new habit of indulging in hyperviolent scenes: it is scenes in which he played himself, a horror film not particularly good, but it’s undoubtedly per-director who suffers from nightmares and goes sonal.

to a psychiatrist, unaware that the latter is a Umberto Lenzi’s Le porte dell’inferno was
serial killer. It was some sort of revenge against the last to be made. As the Tuscan director re-Alfieri, who had given him an advance to make called,
two more low- budget movies. The producer sued him and won the trial, but Fulci was Fulci was contacted by Dania to direct two films of already dead by then.

the series “Le case maledette,” and after shooting Il The eight films were released to home fantasma di Sodoma and Quando Alice ruppe lo spec-video as “Lucio Fulci presenta” (Lucio Fulci chio he gave up and left the project. Then the execu-Presents) on the label Formula Home Video.

tive producer, Alfieri, called me and offered me to Alfieri sued the company too, since he owned make the two films that Lucio would have to shoot.

the rights to the home video market. Formula I accepted out of friendship, but I suggested a story went bankrupt and Avo Film purchased the of mine. I was to direct two films for them. The first was Le porte dell’inferno, while the second was Paura rights and rereleased them to VHS and DVD.

nel buio which eventually I made with Massaccesi.23

Since none of them had been submitted to the rating board, any theatrical release was out of Lenzi also realized immediately that the budget the question.

was too scant, in his words “not enough even for a one- hour TV movie.” However, there is NOTES
little to salvage in the story about a group of speleologists (including Barbara Cupisti and Gi-1. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 362.

acomo Rossi- Stuart, the latter in his last movie 2. The chronology is confirmed by Michele De Angelis, role) who descend into a cave to help their who points out that after Massacre the crew did minor reshoots (two or three days) for Bloody Psycho, and that wounded colleague (Gaetano Russo) and find after Luna di sangue a whole week was spent shooting ad-out that the place is haunted by the spirits of ditional scenes for Hansel e Gretel under Fulci’s supervision.

seven monks burnt at the stake 700 years before, Michele De Angelis, email interview with the author, May who swore to take their revenge. Lenzi’s script 20.

3. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 35.

(credited to his wife Olga Pehar) does little to 4. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 365.

establish a convincing Gothic mood, and stum-5. De Angelis, email interview with the author.

bles upon laughable ideas, such as a copy of Um-6. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 365.

berto Eco’s best- selling mystery Il nome della 7. Leandro Lucchetti, email interview with the author, rosa showing up in a couple of scenes to provide November 207. All the quotes from Lucchetti come from this interview.

a cultural basis for the plot’s references to here-8. Even though Alfieri claimed that Bloody Psycho was sies. Ditto for the resort to numerology to spice submitted to the rating board to obtain a regular certificate up the medieval prophecy which provides the for theatrical distribution, there is no record of this in min-excuse for the graphic deaths that follow. The isterial papers.

9. Stefano Ippoliti and Matteo Norcini, “Mario Bianchi.

story proceeds with the expected gory body

‘Il mio cinema pizza e fichi,’” Cine70 e dintorni #5, Summer count, as the speleologists are offed one by one 2004, 2.

while wandering around the labyrinthine caves 10. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 362.

and tunnels: one scene featuring poisonous spi-11. Ibid., 366.

12. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 35.

ders even pays reference to Fulci’s L’aldilà (and 13. Marcello Garofalo, “Uno, nessuno, centofulci,” Seg-Lenzi would reprise a similar moment in La casa nocinema #65, January/February 4.

delle anime erranti). However, the result comes 14. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 366.

 Appendix 1

15. Ippoliti and Norcini, “Mario Bianchi. ‘Il mio cinema 20. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 35.

pizza e fichi,’” 2.

21. Otto Rank, The Double. A Psychoanalytic Study 16. Ibid.

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, [4]

17. De Angelis, email interview with the author.

202), 3.

18. Maccaron and Nadjar, “Lucio Fulci: ‘Je suis un mon-22. Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections stre,’” 55.

(New York: Pantheon Books, 63), 47.

19. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 36.

23. Gomarasca, Umberto Lenzi, 260.

Appendix 2

Made-for-TV Films

“Brivido giallo”

AC: Enzo Frattari, Giancarlo Battaglia; ChEl: (Giallo Thrill)

Domenico Cauli, Franco Rachin, Stefano Mari-D: Lamberto Bava. DOP: Gianlorenzo
noi; KG: Franco Micheli, Luigi Orso; SP: Battaglia, Gianfranco Transunto; M: Simon Roberto Nicosia Vinci, Francesco Narducci; W: Boswell, Mario Tagliaferri; E: Mauro Bonanni, Mirella Pedetti, Anna Cirilli; AE: Carlo Bar-Daniele Alabiso; PD, ArtD: Antonello Geleng; tolucci, Rossana Cingolani, Mario Cinotti, Sil-CO: Valentina Di Palma; AD: Fabrizio Bava, vana Di Legge; SS: Paola Bonelli.

Franco Fantasia; MU: Fabrizio Sforza, Luigi PROD: Dania Film (Rome), Reteitalia

Ciminelli, Barbara Morosetti; SPFX: Fabrizio (Milan). EP: Massimo Manasse, Marco Grillo Sforza, Rosario Prestopino; Hair: Giancarlo Spina; PS: Francesco Fantacci, Renato Fié; PSe: Marin; PrM: Roberto Ricci, Romano Renzi; SO: Alberto Brusco; ADM: Anna de Pedys; DubD:

Giuliano Piermarioli; Mix: Alberto Doni, Ro-Gianni Giuliano.

mano Checcacci; SE: Angelo Mattei, Paolo Ricci; Episodes from “Brivido giallo” are arranged in chronological order according to their original air dates

Una notte al cimitero (Graveyard Disturbance) Running time: 3 minutes. Aired on August

S: Dardano Sacchetti; SC: Dardano Sac-

5, .

chetti, Lamberto Bava. Cast: Gregory Lech Thaddeus (Robin), Lea Martino (Tina), Beatrice La casa dell’orco (Demons III: The Ogre) Ring (Micky), Gianmarco Tognazzi (Gianni), S: Dardano Sacchetti; SC: Dardano Sac-Karl Zinny (David), Lino Salemme (Tavern chetti, Lamberto Bava. Cast: Virginia Bryant Keeper), Gianpaolo Saccarola (Man at Tavern), (Cheryl), Paolo Malco (Tom), Sabrina Ferilli Fabrizio Bava (Shop Assistant), Mirella Pedetti (Anna), Patrizio Vinci (Bobby), Stefania Mon-

(Shop Assistant); uncredited: Lamberto Bava torsi (Maria), Alice Di Giuseppe (Young Cheryl), (Shop Keeper).

David Flosi (The Ogre), Alex Serra (Dario, the Running time: 3 minutes. Aired on August

Artist); uncredited: Lamberto Bava (Man in Bar),

, . Also known as: Zombies des Grauens Roberto Dell’Acqua (Man in Bar).

(West Germany)

Running time: 6 minutes. Aired on August

22, . Also known as: The Ogre (International Per sempre (a.k.a. Fino alla morte) (Until Death) English language title); Demons 3; The Ogre S: Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti; SC:

(UK); Ghost House II (Germany); El ogro (Spain); Dardano Sacchetti, Lamberto Bava. Cast: Gioia Una extraña casa macabra (Argentina).

Scola [Gioia Maria Tibiletti] (Linda), David Brandon (Carlo), Giuseppe [Stefano] De Sando A cena col vampiro (Dinner with the Vampire) (Carabinieri Marshall), Roberto Pedicini (Luca), S: Luciano Martino; SC: Dardano Sacchetti, Marco Vivio (Alex), Urbano Barberini (Marco).

Lamberto Bava; SVFX: Sergio Stivaletti. Cast:



200 Appendix 2

George Hilton (Jurek), Patrizia Pellegrino (Rita), pre, La casa dell’orco, and A cena col vampiro—

Riccardo Rossi (Gianni), Isabel Russinova, Va-dealt with characters and themes typical of the leria Milillo (Sasha), Yvonne Sciò (Monica), Gothic genre: the vampire (A cena col vampiro), Daniele Aldrovandi (Gilles), Igor Zalewsky the haunted house (La casa dell’orco), the ghost (Gilles), Roberto Pedicini, Letizia Ziaco (Nadia), story in different forms (Per sempre, Una notte Stefano Sabelli (Matteo).

al cimitero), all revised through the parameters Running time: 2 minutes. Aired on August
of contemporary taste. The music scores were 2, .

written by Simon Boswell. It took a couple of years before they were eventually aired during When discussing his move from the big to
prime time in August , on Italia .

the small screen, Lamberto Bava explained: Una notte al cimitero—Bava’s original title People in the movie industry, up to a certain point, was Dentro il cimitero (Inside the Cemetery)—
thought of television as an adversary. Whereas I was the first to be aired, and it came as a shock made some assessment… . Looking at the TV ratings, for those who had in mind the savage bloodshed back then, you could see that those products that did of the Dèmoni films. The story, about five badly were seen by at least two million viewers. Far teenagers (including Beatrice Ring, Karl Zinny, more people could see your work on television, and and Gianmarco Tognazzi), who steal goods so a genre which has always been very important to from a store and then make a bet to stay a night me, the Fantastic—I’m not just speaking about in a cemetery inside a cursed crypt, to collect a horror, but Fantastic, which is a wider genre—could treasure, relied heavily on humor. Bava defended reach a much wider audience.
this choice, explaining that first and foremost Silvio Berlusconi’s company Reteitalia was the products “had to avoid being too “heavy,”

willing to invest in horror after the huge comand should not be exceedingly gory; at the same mercial success of Dèmoni and Dèmoni 2, not time, they had to have a somewhat relaxed ap-to mention the many foreign films released the-proach, with some tongue- in-cheek moments.

atrically in Italy. The home video market as well I’m not saying “comic,” but something that showed that the genre was among the most pop-would release tension—which, however, you ular among consumers, and several companies never get to find on television… .”3
had a large part of their catalog devoted to The film had received its baptism of fire a horror and the fantastique. Berlusconi’s TV net-couple of years earlier, in October 7, at the work was quick to follow the trend, and horror Sitges Film Festival in Spain. It was introduced movies became a staple of its schedule, especially by the director himself, who warned the audion the channel “Italia ,” aimed specifically at ence that what they were going to see was not younger audiences.

supposed to be a picture for theatrical release.

News that Reteitalia would be financing

It didn’t help much, as Una notte al cimitero was

“Brivido giallo,” a series of five made- for-TV
heavily booed, with a pale- faced Bava sitting in films directed by Lamberto Bava, came in July the audience. The Catalonian newspaper La

6. “These will be low- budget products, signed Vanguardia commented the memorable screen-by young authors who should be able to rejuve-ing as follows:

nate the movie business,” Reteitalia’s executive for Italian productions Massimiliano Fasoli Rarely we have seen the audience scream for a film’s commented when announcing the new films
heroes’ death, but this is what happened. During the and telefilms to be produced by the company.2
screening of Graveyard Disturbance by Lamberto In addition to “Brivido giallo,” another significant Bava, a sector bawled, another was outraged and the investment was the TV comedy series I ragazzi other threw down the simultaneous translation della 3°C (The Boys in Class 3C), set in a high equipments. The five oh- so-very-cute young Italian school and directed by Dino Risi’s son Claudio—
fashion models spent over one hour inside a crypt lit like a carnival, repeating the same dialogue over and a clear sign of the target audience these products over, getting lost without moving from the site and would be aimed at.

not believing at all (thank goodness) their misadven-The series, which eventually comprised ture. The dead (whose faces are the only—badly—
four (instead of five) films co- written by Dardano made-up part) run away from them, and every now Sacchetti and produced by Luciano Martino’s and then a silly joke comes up, pretending (?) to be Dania Film, was shot between 7 and . The parody. Luckily, the detestable protagonists end up four TV movies—Una notte al cimitero, Per sem-arrested by the “carabinieri,” an experience that many

Made-for-TV Films

20
wished for the director, invited by the festival project, asked me if it was still available. I said yes together with one of the “actors,” Ugo Tognazzi’s son.4
and gave it to him. Fulci, who was jealous about Lamberto (whom he didn’t hold in any esteem) making The second episode, Per sempre was an-a film he cared a lot about, came out saying that the other old script by Sacchetti, about a pregnant project was his… . Fact is, in that moment he was ill, woman, Linda (Gioia Scola), who kills her hus-in disgrace, with money problems, and back from band with the help of her lover, Carlo (David very bad experiences such as Zombi 3.6

Brandon). Eight years later an unknown drifter named Marco (Urbano Barberini) stops at Linda Next was La casa dell’orco, starring Virginia and Carlo’s inn by the lake and asks for a job.

Bryant (seen in Dèmoni 2, and Fulci’s original But he seems to know far too many things about choice for the leading role in Aenigma), Paolo Linda’s dead husband. As Bava noted, script-Malco, Sabrina Montorsi and Sabrina Ferilli wise, it had the most cinematic strength and im-

(the latter soon to become one of Italy’s top ac-pact of the four. It starred Gioia Scola, Urbano tresses). The story bore more than passing sim-Barberini and David Brandon.

ilarities to Quella villa accanto al cimitero, which The episode caused some controversy, for

Bava Jr. at a certain point was slated to direct.

Lucio Fulci claimed the original idea was his In fact, as the director himself explained, the own:

script for La casa dell’orco was based on Sacchetti’s original one for Quella villa accanto al One day I told (Dardano) the story of Evil Comes cimitero, which had been liberally altered by Back, a sequel on a fantastic note to The Postman Al-Fulci. But Sacchetti had a different version: ways Rings Twice, and he wrote it up and proposed it several times over to producers with my name on Quella villa accanto al cimitero and La casa dell’orco it as director, and then, one day, he registered it with are not the same story, but they are part of my poetics his name on it! (laughs) I later found out that he’d regarding home and children: a recurring theme sold it to a friend of mine—[Luciano] Martino—but which I have explored several times with different in view of our past friendship I decided not to sue shades, but also with assonances. These are stories him. I just broke off all relations with him.5
that came from my own life in this great country Sacchetti’s version of the story goes as follows: house that had a strange fame and was inhabited by a disturbing presence. So, let’s say that the feeling be-It is one of the most painful moments in my relation-hind these movies is the same … the house had a first ship with Fulci. We hadn’t been speaking to each cellar, from which a staircase leading to a second cel-other for some years. Then one day he called me. He lar came down for more than fifteen meters, dug into and Roberto Gianviti were trying to put together a rock. After the electrical system was interrupted, that story about sex and ghosts … they were both very staircase and that second cellar remained in darkness confused, because they didn’t know whether to em-for eternity. No one knew what was below. Only my phasize the sex or the ghosts. I attended meetings grandmother dared go down those stairs. I stayed on with them for about a week. I told them I didn’t like the first steps handing a lit candle and saw her dis-their story, and Fulci asked me what I was working appear in the dark. I only heard noises. So the films on. I told him I had written a sort of sequel to The are different, but behind them there is the same emo-Postman Always Rings Twice. Fulci read it and liked tion I experienced at different moments and with it very much. He found a producer who bought the different moods.7
story and commissioned me and Elisa Briganti to write the script… . After I delivered the screenplay, The last in the series, A cena col vampiro, the producer didn’t pay me and said he was not able was openly parodistic, and packed full of movie to make the film… . Fulci brought the script to an-references, starring George Hilton as the suave other producer, who … went around for some time director- cum-vampire Jurek, who stays young trying to make it into a film, but to no avail. The like Dorian Gray while his ageing self is trapped magic moment of Italian horror film had waned, and in an old black- and-white film. It was also the so had Fulci’s, after the financial catastrophe of Con-only one shot in a typical Gothic location, the quest and other mistakes. Fulci kept on carrying the Moorish- style Castle Sammezzano near Flo-script around, which was beautiful. I was against this rence.

… unbeknownst to me, he had an English translation done by Brett Halsey, promising him the leading role.

The very title itself, “Brivido giallo” (Giallo I got angry and finally broke off my relationship Thrill), which presents the four films as gialli, with Lucio. A couple of years later, working on the not as Gothics, is significant. By targeting the

“Brivido giallo” series, we needed one more script to four films as sticking to the giallo tradition, the complete the series. Lamberto, who knew about the producers showed no trust in the Gothic as a

202 Appendix 2
marketing factor, which is understandable. But a dusty inventory, which can and must be even the promised thrills were few and far be-laughed at. Moreover, the gags are littered with tween.

references to the small screen: for instance, the From a narrative point of view, pastiche
hunchbacked and idiotic servant in A cena col and in- jokes aimed at film buffs are the norm.

vampiro is not so much a reworking of Marty In La casa dell’orco Bava and Sacchetti reprise Feldman’s Igor in Young Frankenstein, as of Isaia, almost to the letter the scene of the underwater a recurring character in the TV sketches starring room in Inferno, while Una notte al cimitero and the comic duo Zuzzurro & Gaspare (Andrea especially A cena col vampiro feature a plethora Brambilla and Nino Formicola), one of the most of references and self- references that range from popular acts in the TV show Drive In,0 also Mario Bava to Murnau’s Nosferatu and The Fear-broadcast on Italia . In fact, the actor playing less Vampire Killers—not forgetting the director’s both characters is the same.

own Dèmoni, with the idea of the film- within-In short, the Gothic emerges from these
a-film.

films as a heritage of the past, serviceable as a Predictably, the most disturbing elements, background and little more. “We’re at the end of such as the visionary and violent excesses and the 20th century, the age of electronics. The the themes related to transgression (especially world is full of stuff to be afraid of: pollution, sexual) were absolutely precluded. For instance, atomic warfare, AIDS … but not this! It’s all as Bava explained, La casa dell’orco suffered a lot papier- maché,” the vampire’s assistant explains from self- censorship. “An issue in the script was to a girl who was frightened by the sight of sev-when the ogre showed up. What could we do
ered limbs, skulls and assorted body parts in A with it? Had it been a movie … the ogre would cena col vampiro. Later, the vampire himself says: eat children, but on TV you couldn’t do that. So

“Nowadays vampires hold a controlling interest we settled for a “symbolism” of the ogre, with in large corporations, they fly the Concorde, as people disappearing.” The odd gory scene, such evolution has been good to us we have the world as a heart ripped from a chest by invisible hands at our feet… .” Despite the appearances, this is in A cena col vampiro, could be acceptable if in-not a discourse similar as that of Freda’s I vampiri serted in an openly humorous context: “I had or Corrado Farina’s …hanno cambiato faccia.

the alibi of comedy,” the director commented.

The updating of the times has a metafilmic angle Visually, the results display the serial ap-

(the vampire is a famous horror movie director), proach to the product. A case in point is the but this is not a trick to reflect on the present, recycling of Antonello Geleng’s set- pieces to and not even to renovate the genre’s archetypes save on budget: the crypt seen in Una notte al in an effective way. It is simply a joke, a step be-cimitero was turned into the ogre’s subterranean hind, a way for the makers to distance them-lair in La casa dell’orco. On the other hand, the selves from what is being told. When Hilton’s films show a quick disinterest in reimagining character complains, “You can’t imagine how and portraying the Gothic genre beyond the boring a vampire’s life can be,” the nod to the mere playful and postmodernist rereading of eternal sadness of the bloodsucker as portrayed clichés.

in Herzog’s version of Nosferatu is immediately This is primarily a sign of the new way au-turned into a joke, as he concludes: “Always in diences dealt with the genre. Young viewers debed before sunrise, never getting up before sun-veloped a film buff mentality, and welcomed set, always sleeping in the same old coffin… . ”

cinephile homages, a recurring element in the His would- be-victims are not much impressed highly popular Dylan Dog comics. Horror and either. “Don’t you have a vampires’ union?” the the Fantastic were now being perceived as a uni-skeptical Gianni (Riccardo Rossi) asks.

verse formed by bits and pieces of old and new The Gothic is presented in its playful and movies, some sort of a representation which re-more superficial aspects. Despite the odd literary combined the same elements in different varia-reference (such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, tions. But such a choice shows also a two- faced which provides the key to the solution in A relationship with the genre’s archetypes. On the cena col vampiro) the real blueprints are Hal-one hand it is parasitic, because TV audiences loween parties and amusement parks. Signifi-need stereotyped and easily recognizable refer-cantly, Antonello Geleng’s impressive set- pieces ences; on the other, it is detached if not openly in Una notte al cimitero look less like horror mocking. The Gothic tradition is represented as movie material than funhouse paraphernalia.

Made-for-TV Films

203

A compulsory choice, given the average target own Macabro. Moreover, with Per sempre Lam-audience: “Up to the 0s moviegoers were berto Bava reconnects with his father’s cinema, usually older than 6,” as Sacchetti pointed out.

most notably Shock.

“I remember that going to the movies alone was Here, however, “the re- emerging of Bava’s almost a male initiation, a sort of rite of passage staples doesn’t look like a silly citationist oper-to adult age. After the 0s, especially in Amer-ation right off the table. Rather, it is an uncon-ica, cinema became a matter of consumption for scious resurfacing from memory, a reconnecting kids who were 6 or younger, and so you’d have to a poetry … recreated in a low- key, almost do-to make films that would satisfy the tastes of this mestic dimension.”2 In Per sempre, the rework-type of moviegoer.”
ing of the genre tradition is barely conditioned Another sign of the times is the depiction by commercial needs—there is not a single pos-of the male and female protagonists. Italian itive character, and humor is absent—and the Gothic was connected since the beginning to few narrative compromises are far less intrusive the portrayal of femininity as a perturbing ele-than usual. As a result, the film is by far the most ment and has always drawn from fetishistic im-original and successful of the lot. With regards ages of strong, distant, unreachable heroines, to eroticism, it is also a notable exception to the whether they be the alluring characters played bland and sexless proceedings of the “Brivido by Barbara Steele or the naked ingénues of the giallo” series, thanks to the slovenly and sweaty following decade. In the 0s the new prototype sexuality embodied by the stunning- looking was deeply linked with what commercial televi-Gioia Scola, who in a scene confesses: “I can’t sion offered, and not surprisingly “Brivido giallo”

live without love,” a line of dialogue very much features in the casts such female icons as Patrizia like the one uttered by Barbara Steele’s character Pellegrino and Isabel Russinova, familiar faces in Danza macabra. She’s not a noble and haughty (and bodies) for the Italian public thanks to their ghost, though, just a desperate housewife in search appearances on the small screen.

of the right man.

Likewise, the lack of strong male figures is

“Brivido giallo” was a critical and audience noticeable and in stark contrast with the 70s, flop, resulting in Bava’s subsequent series “Alta where television offered several memorable he-tensione,” shot between late  and Spring roes, starting with Ugo Pagliai’s character in Il

, being shelved. “Alta tensione” consisted of segno del comando. Instead, the will to have the four films, with horror elements but closer to audience identify with the main characters had the thriller genre: Il maestro del terrore (a.k.a.

Bava opt for teenage stereotypes, inherited from The Prince of Terror), L’uomo che non voleva U.S. teen horror flicks: the juvenile delinquents morire (a.k.a. The Man Who Didn’t Want to Die, of Una notte al cimitero and the young actors based on a short story by Giorgio Scerbanenco), looking for movie roles of A cena col vampiro Testimone oculare (a.k.a. Eyewitness) and Il gioko look no less phony and ridiculous than the un-

(a.k.a. School of Fear). Apart from the self-likely thugs in Katarsis/Sfida al diavolo (63).

referential Il maestro del terrore—the story of a And they show a similar inadequacy on the part scriptwriter’s revenge against a conceited horror of the makers to read the present in a critical movie director (and which Dardano Sacchetti manner. Rather than an attempt to disguise a claimed to be his own retaliation on Bava, Jr.)—
product by sticking to the American standard, which was released to home video in the early as in the action and war movies made for foreign

0s, they remained unseen for a decade, and consumption during the decade, this is the were broadcast on the Mediaset network only umpteenth sign of a cultural capitulation which in  (except for the ultraviolent L’uomo che will have devastating effects, far beyond the cin-non voleva morire, broadcast in 2007 on the ematic field.

satellite channel Fantasy TV).

There is an exception, though. In Per sem-

Lamberto Bava’s next project would be a
pre, Bava and Sacchetti managed to find room made- for-TV remake of La maschera del demo-for a more personal product. The provincial set-nio (on which he initially wanted Barbara Steele ting, an inn on the Lake Bolsena, is a far cry to play a minor role3), as part of a European from the Gothic castles and mansions, and is television series (Sabbath) on the theme of closer to the Italian sensibility, recalling the likes witchery produced between  and 0—co-of Malombra (42) and Un angelo per Satana financed by the Spanish TVE, the Portuguese (66, Camillo Mastrocinque), as well as Bava’s RTP, France 3, Silvio Berlusconi’s Reteitalia,

204 Appendix 2
and the companies SFP and Betafilm. The new 5. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 7.

version of La maschera del demonio had a 6. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option=com_
disastrous premiere in June 0, at Rome’s content&task=view&id=5).

Fantafestival. Bava eventually found his dimen-7. Dardano Sacchetti interviewed, in www. davinotti.

sion on the small screen with the fairy tale mini-com (http://www.davinotti.com/index.php?option=com_
series Fantaghirò () and its many sequels.

content&task=view&sectionid=3&id=5).

The four “Brivido giallo” films had a differ-8. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 43.

9. Ibid., 44.

ent destiny outside Italy and surfaced on home 10. Drive In was one of the cornerstones of Silvio video. A couple of them, Una notte al cimitero Berlusconi’s TV empire and imagery as well: its mixture and Per sempre, were accordingly released on of gross comedy and scantily- dressed babes—a provincial tape in Germany more than a year before their rendition of an imaginary American drive- in populated with stand- up comedians and cheerleading types—proved airing on Italian television. Per sempre was re-immensely successful. It ran for five years, from 3 to leased on video as a sequel to The Changeling

, and launched many of the most popular Italian co-

(0, Peter Medak), while La casa dell’orco was medians of the decade, such as Ezio Greggio and Giorgio released abroad as Demons III: The Ogre and ad-Faletti (who went on to become a singer- songwriter and vertised as the third chapter in the Dèmoni saga.

best- selling mystery novelist). Significantly, in  and

0, during summer months, “Italia ” broadcast the pop-A German DVD release, bearing the title Ghost ular “Zio Tibia Picture Show,” a weekly program where a House II, confused matters even further, relating puppet modeled upon the character of Uncle Creepy pre-Bava’s film to Umberto Lenzi’s La casa 3—Ghost-sented a series of horror films, engaging in macabre jokes.

house.

The show was broadcast on Friday nights, at prime time: after the Mammì law, it would be out of the question to N
show a horror movie at prime time, if not previously cut OTES
to obtain a new “all audiences” certificate.

1. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 42.

11. Paolo Fazzini, Gli artigiani dell’orrore. Mezzo secolo 2. “Berlusconi a capofitto nel cinema,” La Stampa, July di brividi dagli anni ’50 ad oggi (Rome: Un mondo a parte,

7, 6.

2004), 32.

3. Gomarasca, “Intervista a Lamberto Bava,” 42.

12. Alberto Pezzotta, “Per sempre,” in Genealogia del 4. Félix Flores, “Un filme húngaro contempla Sitges a delitto. Guida al cinema di Mario e Lamberto Bava, 5.

vista de pájaro,” La Vanguardia, October , 7.

13. Grassi, “Vi preparo quattro serate horror.”

“Le case maledette”

Spina for Dania Film (Rome), Reteitalia; PM: (Houses of Doom)

Renato Fiè; PS: Alessandro Loy; PAcc: Massimo PROD: Massimo Manasse, Marco Grillo

Massimi.

Films from “Le case maledette” are arranged in chronological order according to their shooting date

La casa del sortilegio (The House of Witchcraft) Frasca (Steven), Maria Clementina Cumani D: Umberto Lenzi. S: Gianfranco Clerici,

Quasimodo (Witch); uncredited: Tom Felleghy Daniele Stroppa; SC: Umberto Lenzi; DOP: Gi-

(Police Inspector).

ancarlo Ferrando; M: Claude King [Claudio Si-Running time: 6 minutes. Also known as:

monetti]; E: Alberto Moriani; CO: Valentina Di La casa dei sortilegi (Alternate Italian title); Palma; Hair: Maria Teresa Carrera; SE, SPFX: Ghosthouse 4: Haus der Hexen; Totentanz der Giuseppe Ferranti; AD: Alessandra Lenzi; SD: Hexen II (Germany).

Sandro Velchi; PrM: Roberto Granieri; SO: Giuliano Piermarioli; Foley artist: Enzo Diliberto; La casa delle anime erranti (The House of Lost C: Bruno Cascio; AC: Alessandro Capuccio; KG: Souls)

Matteo Giordano; GA: Armando Moreschini;

D: Umberto Lenzi. S and SC: Umberto

SP: Maria Rosa Messori; W: Mirella Pedetti; SS: Lenzi; DOP: Giancarlo Ferrando; M: Claude Olga Pehar. Cast: Andy J. Forest (Luca Balmas), King [Claudio Simonetti]; E: Alberto Moriani; Sonia Petrovna (Marta Balmas), Susanna MarCO: Valentina Di Palma; Hair: Maria Teresa tinková (Elsa Balmas), Marina Giulia Cavalli Carrera; SPFX: Giuseppe Ferranti; AD: Alessan-

(Sharon Mason), Maria Stella Musy (Debora
dra Lenzi; SD: Francesco Cuppini; ASD: Marco Balmas), Paul Muller (Andrew Mason), Alberto Marcucci; PrM: Roberto Granieri; SO: Giuliano

Made-for-TV Films

205

Piermarioli; SOE: Tullio Arcangeli, Gjka Sodir, Damiani, Luigi Conversi; SP: Romolo Eucalitto; Roberto Sterbini; C: Bruno Cascio; AC: Luigi KG: Tarcisio Diamanti; GA: Armando Mores-Conversi; KG: Matteo Giordano; GA: Armando chini; W: Milena Pintus; AE: Rosaria Bellu; SS: Moreschini; SP: Maria Rosa Messori; W: Mirella Egle Guarino; Set technician: Elio Terribili. Cast: Pedetti; 1stAE: Ernesto Triunvieri; 2ndAE: Nico-Jean- Christophe Brétignière (Carlo), Cinzia letta Leone; SS: Olga Pehar. Cast: Joseph Alan Monreale (Marcia), Lubka Cibulova (Mary Johnson (Kevin), Stefania Orsola Garello Valdi), Lino Salemme (Guido), Franco Diogene (Carla), Matteo Gazzolo (Massimo), Laurentina (Mr. Oppidi), Alexander Vernon Dobtcheff Guidotti (Mary), Gianluigi Fogacci (Guido), Ya-

(The Exorcist), Giuliano Gensini (Marco), Ilary manouchi Haruhiko (Buddhist Monk), Licia Blasi (Sarah), Dante Fioretti (Priest), Pascal Per-Colò (Daria), Costantino Meloni (Gianluca), siano (Roberto Valdi).

Charles Borromel (Hotel Owner), Dino Iaksic Running time: 4 minutes. Also known as:

(Ghost Child), Marina Reiner (Ghost), Benny Das Haus des Bösen (Germany), A Doce Casa

Cardoso (Ghost), Fortunato Arena (Ghost), dos Horrores (Portugal).

Massimo Sarchielli (Cemetery Caretaker), Fabio Branchini, Giulio Massimini (Librarian), Vin-Soon after finishing “Brivido giallo,” procenzo Menniti.

ducer Luciano Martino set up another horror se-Running time:  minutes.

ries destined to Reteitalia. This time it was centered on the common theme of haunted houses, La casa nel tempo (The House of Clocks) and appropriately titled “Le case maledette”

D: Lucio Fulci. S: Lucio Fulci; SC: Daniele (Houses of Doom). Developed for Dania Film Stroppa, Gianfranco Clerici; DOP: Nino Celeste; by Gianfranco Clerici, Daniele Stroppa and Vin-M: Vince Tempera; E: Alberto Moriani; CO: cenzo Mannino, the project was inspired by the Valentina Di Palma, Cinzia Milani; Hair: Maria success of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, which re-Teresa Carrera; AD: Michele De Angelis, sulted in many rip- offs sporting the Italian title Camilla Fulci; PrM: Vincenzo Luzzi; SD: Elio La casa. Reteitalia participated as co- producer Micheli; ASD: Paolo Faenzi; SO: Giuliano Pier-with Dania National Cinematografica and se-marioli; SPFX: Giuseppe Ferranti; C: Sandro cured the TV rights to the films.

Grossi; AC: Francesco Damiani, Camillo Saba-Originally the series was to comprise six ti-tini; SP: Romolo Eucalitto; KG: Tarcisio Dia-tles, to be directed by Lucio Fulci, Umberto manti; GA: Armando Moreschini; W: Milena

Lenzi and Lamberto Bava, but due to other Pintus; AE: Rosaria Bellu, Nicoletta Leone; SS: working commitments Bava was replaced by

Egle Guarino; Set technician: Elio Terribili. Cast: Marcello Avallone. Fulci approached the project Keith Van Hoven (Tony), Karina Huff (Sandra), enthusiastically and asked to substitute two of Paolo Paoloni (Vittorio Corsini), Bettine Milne his own stories for the ones he had been as-

(Sara Corsini), Peter Hintz (Paul), Al Cliver [Pier-signed, and Lenzi did the same with one of his luigi Conti] (Peter), Carla Cassola (Maria), Paolo own invention, La casa delle anime erranti. But Bernardi (The Nephew), Francesca DeRose (The a last- minute budget cut on the part of Reteitalia Niece), Massimo Sarchielli (Storekeeper); uncred-and Avallone’s commitments had the series reited: Vincenzo Luzzi (Policeman #).

sized to four titles only, namely La casa nel tempo Running time: 4 minutes. Also known as:

(script by Stroppa and Clerici, from a story by Die Uhr des Grauens (Germany); A Casa do Fulci), La dolce casa degli orrori (scripted by Tempo (Portugal).

Mannino and his wife, Gigliola Battaglini, also from a story by Fulci), La casa delle anime erranti La dolce casa degli orrori (The Sweet House of (written by Lenzi) and La casa del sortilegio Horrors)

(scripted by Lenzi, from a story by Clerici and D: Lucio Fulci. S: Lucio Fulci; SC: Vincenzo Stroppa). The remaining two titles to be directed Mannino, Gigliola Battaglini; DOP: Nino Ce-by Avallone, La casa del nano deforme (The leste; M: Vince Tempera; E: Alberto Moriani; House of the Deformed Dwarf), then retitled La CO: Valentina Di Palma; PD: Giacomo Calò casa dell’amico del cuore (The Best Friend’s Carducci; Hair: Maria Teresa Carrera; AD: House), and La casa della bambola con i capelli Michele De Angelis, Camilla Fulci; SD: Anche crescono (The House of the Doll with Grow-tonello Geleng; ASD: Paolo Faenzi; PrM: Vining Hair), were left in the drawer. “It’s a real cenzo Luzzi; C: Sandro Grossi; AC: Francesco shame, because the two films Marcello Avallone

206 Appendix 2
would direct were really good,” Stroppa recalled.

ambiguous Marta—who in one scene is seen

“We had written those scripts with lots of walking in her sleep in the park like a 60s passion and interest, trying to blend the Fantastic Gothic heroine—only to come out with a pre-and contemporary issues. In fact, La casa dell’am-dictable twist ending.

ico del cuore, written by me and Clerici … treated The final revelation and the circular ending the issue of organ transplants in an original way,”

are in tune with the genre’s staples (the protag-the scriptwriter explained (thus revealing a pass-onist is seduced and defeated by an evil creature ing similarity with Giovanni Simonelli’s Hansel e hiding behind a seemingly innocent façade), Gretel, in the “I maestri del thriller” series), adding and the idea of a marriage crisis paving the way that “the story devised by Mannino and Battaglini for a man’s irrational obsession is an interesting for La casa della bambola con i capelli che crescono starting point. A line of dialogue even mentions centered on abortion.”2

Marco Bellocchio’s film La visione del sabba, The four films were shot on 6mm, outside
where witchcraft is openly linked with sexual Rome (in order to be able to work six days a repression. The plot has its share of inconsisten-week, which wouldn’t have been possible oth-cies (not to mention a ridiculous car accident erwise), with a filming schedule of four weeks near the beginning) but compared with Lenzi’s each, starting with the ones directed by Lenzi, horror films of the late 0s the direction is less which were made between October and Decem-ham- fisted, with some oddly surreal moments, ber . The budget was around 00 million such as the scene of the snowfall in the cellar.

lire each. La casa del sortilegio3 (a.k.a. The House La casa delle anime erranti (a.k.a. The of Witchcraft) is the story of a man, Luca (Andy House of Lost Souls) fares much worse. It is the J. Forest), who suffers from a recurring night-story of six students on vacation who stop by an mare in which he is persecuted and decapitated old abandoned hotel in the Alps, where a mas-by a witch who puts his severed head in a caul-sacre happened many years earlier. The ghosts dron. As a way of relief from the stress, he and of the victims still haunt the place and seek rehis estranged, occult- obsessed wife Marta (Sonia venge on the teenagers, who find out they Petrovna) move to a country house inhabited by cannot leave the building… . Despite the attempt a blind pianist (Paul Muller) and his niece at making a ghost story in an Italian setting, Sharon (Maria Giulia Cavalli), which turns out Lenzi bluntly described the result as “downright to be the same as in Luca’s nightmare. Soon hor-crap” and complained he hadn’t found the right rific events ensue, and Luca begins to suspect setting for the movie, which was shot in the re-that Marta is actually the witch of his dreams…

gion of Marche, in Central Italy, with a Fascist Shot in the Tuscan countryside, in a villa summer camp made to pass as an old hotel.

owned by Daria Nicolodi’s uncle and surrounded Moreover, there were issues during filming—
by a beautiful park, the film benefits from an in-such as the art director abandoning the set after teresting and typically Italian atmosphere and an argument with the production manager, and turns out as another variation on a Gothic staple, the cast and crew having to shoot amid cold the theme of seduction and repulsion. Despite weather and snow.

psychiatrist Elsa (Susanna Martinková) claiming The story soon turns into a series of gory that witches are only “the outside projection of deaths, with plenty of decapitations (including our secret obsessions,” the witch in the film is one by washing machine), severed limbs, bodies very much real. As with Argento’s Suspiria and hung in cold cells and spiders crawling into their Inferno, La casa del sortilegio conveys a dark victims’ mouths (yet another nod to L’aldilà).

fairy- tale like mood: the initial appearance of The debts to The Shining are blatant to the point the ugly hag, cooking a gruesome meal in a boil-of plagiarism: one character, Carla (Stefania Oring cauldron in the villa’s kitchen, is an image sola Garello), is a psychic who “sees” the grue-reminiscent of the Grimm Brothers’ fables, and some events in the past. As with Lamberto Bava’s the sorceress can even turn into a black cat. The

“Brivido giallo” films, the story revolving around script makes use of the genre’s tropes (the return a group of teenagers is further evidence of the of the past, the mysterious portrait and the in-genre’s adherence to the standards of 0s eluctability of fate) and plays on the ambiguity American horror films. The cast of unknowns—
of the witch’s identity in a way akin to what Mas-save for a couple of familiar faces in Italian genre trocinque’s La cripta e l’incubo did with its cinema, such as Haruhiko “Hal” Yamanouchi
female vampire, amassing clues that lead to the and Charles Borromel, while Licia Colò, soon

Made-for-TV Films

207
to become a noted TV presenter, has a small role Hintz)—sneak into the villa to steal their jewels, as a reporter—doesn’t help either. Both films but they end up killing the owners and the gar-were scored by Claudio Simonetti, hiding dener. Immediately all the clocks stop and start behind the a.k.a. Claude King and recycling going backwards: as time regresses, the dead re-themes from Dèmoni and Opera.

turn to life and act their revenge upon their Lucio Fulci talked about the experience murderers.

with “Le case maledette” in very positive terms: Fulci was very proud of the result, but even

“Fantastic! Excellent filmmaking! Nino Celeste at a little over 0 minutes the plot seems overly is a splendid cameraman. They’re two of the best stretched, with lengthy introductory sequences films I’ve made. I wrote both the stories for La (including one in which the trio goes shoplifting casa nel tempo and La dolce casa degli orrori and at a local store) that take up almost half of the I’m very pleased with them.”4 Indeed the two running time. Moreover, the destination for the movies revolved around more personal themes small screen explains some rushed scenes, while than the ones he had helmed for Nannerini and the gore effects are rather crude and the acting Lucidi, and the director worked on the projects ranges from passable to awful, with the trio of carefully. La casa nel tempo—shot with the young protagonists faring the worst. But this working title La casa degli orologi, the literal time, unlike in Sodoma’s Ghost and Quando Alice translation of the international title The House ruppe lo specchio, the director’s visual style is re-of Clocks—was filmed in a villa in Torgiano, near markable, with ample use of tracking shots and Perugia, between January 3 and February 25, dollies, turning the titular “house of clocks” into

5; immediately after Fulci set out to work on a fascinating haunted mansion, amid eerie light La dolce casa degli orrori, wrapping it in March.

and shadow games.

His daughter Camilla was the a.d. on both films.

The main themes, typical of the last phase According to those on the set, the director was of Fulci’s filmography—the persistence of guilt, much more energetic and motivated than on
his latest works, a sign that Fulci believed in the projects, especially La casa nel tempo.

“I hate time: it’s our slavery,” Fulci once claimed. “We are crushed by time; it can’t be stopped. I hate the idea that tomorrow will come, and what the fuck do I care about tomorrow… If I could, I would master time and move it at my will. Stop it when I feel like it, go on, go back… . ”6 The film marks the director’s most explicit reflection on the theme.

Opening with a quote by Honoré de Balzac

(“If time turned back, our sins would also have to start anew”), La casa nel tempo introduces us to an elderly couple, Paolo and Sara Corsini (Paolo Paoloni and Bettine Milne), who live in a luxurious villa with a housekeeper (Carla Cassola) and a sinister- looking one- eyed gardener (Al Cliver), surrounded by a multitude of clocks of all sizes and shapes. The Corsinis are in fact homicidal maniacs who have killed their nephews and
keep their rotten bodies in the family chapel, and when the housekeeper discovers it, she too is dispatched by Sara by way of a spiked pole in the groin, in a scene that openly quotes the climax of Paura nella città dei morti viventi. A trio of young thugs—Tony

(Keith Van Hoven), his girlfriend Sandra Karina Huff and Paolo Paoloni in a scene from Lucio (Karina Huff ) and their friend Paul (Peter Fulci’s made-for-TV film La casa nel tempo (1989).

20 Appendix 2
the damnation of sin, the obsession of death—
ders took place with their aunt and uncle; the are also more lucidly developed than in his other building is still haunted by the souls of the de-works of the period. On top of that, La casa nel parted, and Sarah and Marco (who are able to tempo sports a chilling, nihilistic vision of hu-see their dead parents, like Marco did in Shock) manity, that makes it one of Fulci’s darkest films.

become the instruments of their revenge.

In his gallery of human monsters, the Corsinis Fulci’s idea was to meditate on death from are among the most unpleasant and horrible the children’s innocent point of view. Horror ever, as amiable on the surface as they are vi-takes the form of a child’s game—as shown by ciously violent and selfish, but the other char-Sarah and Marco’s laughter at the adults, after acters are no better, even though, as in Sodoma’s the latter fall victim to gruesome accidents and Ghost, the depiction of the younger generation deaths, and their total lack of surprise before su-is far from convincing. The appearance of a pernatural events (as Tommy’s in Manhattan black cat, in what at first looks like a gratuitous Baby). But there’s more: the scenes of the happy depiction of (simulated) cruelty upon animals, family virtually reunited, the children playing seems just a passing reference to the director’s with the ghost of their parents (and the dog!) in

 film. But in the denouement—which blends the villa’s garden, shot in slow motion and in together a circular “dream” ending borrowed soft- focus as if they belonged to some 70s tear-straight from Dead of Night (45) and a sneering jerker, convey a sense of regret and loss that sting in the tail that vaguely recalls Le salaire de turns these mawkish and potentially ridiculous la peur (a.k.a. The Wages of Fear, 53, Henri-bits into some of the most personal and open-Georges Clouzot)—the feline becomes an agent hearted material in Fulci’s late career.

of arbitrary justice and moral retribution, in a The mixture of horror, grotesque and sen-world dominated by cruelty and madness. In timent is often uneasy, in an attempt at creating fact, the only ones who benefit from an enig-a harsh fairytale where innocence and cruelty matic happy ending are the original victims of are inextricably blended. In a way, La dolce casa the Corsinis, who are seen having breakfast to-degli orrori is the opposite of Quella villa accanto gether in the villa, in an image of new- found fa-al cimitero, which featured a monster who fed miliar serenity. But once again, this idyllic sight on childish fears and cried like a baby; here the hides a dark, horrible truth: the situation has re-ghosts are benevolent presences who protect versed, and now it’s the revived nephews who children against adults who are either stupid, keep their aunt and uncle’s dead bodies as tro-cruel, or just plain ugly. Interestingly, keeping a phies. Obviously, they are just as mad as their child’s point of view, unappealing or ugly char-predecessors.

acters are also mean, such as the fat real estate Shot in Ponte Pattoli, near Perugia, with a dealer (Franco Diogene) who is nicknamed “the small cast that included Cinzia Monreale, Franco infamous Sausage.” The same can be said about Diogene, Lino Salemme, Pascal Persiano, and the exorcist, Teufel (Alexander Vernon Dobtch-Alexander Vernon Dobtcheff (a last- minute re-eff), who claims he is not afraid of ghosts but placement for Cosimo Cinieri), La dolce casa despises them. His characterization—thin, degli orrori opens with yet another quote (this black- dressed, with a ridiculous red beard—is time by Nathaniel Hawthorne: “…when I try to like that of a stern and obtuse teacher who takes imagine the impossible, I would like to return a perverted pleasure in punishing weaker creato childhood. Only children can reach the im-tures, such as children and ghosts.

possible”). The film focuses on one of Fulci’s fa-La dolce casa degli orrori shows that Fulci vorite themes, the inner violence of childhood, was still willing to experiment. He had his d.o.p.

which imbued the last part of his work as well, use a very bright, soft- focus photography, with as proven by several of the short stories included blinding whites and fog filters, to create a in the collection Le lune nere as well as by his dreamy mood which would enhance the story’s second- to-last work, Voci dal profondo (0).

absurdist twists. Several sequences, such as the Here, the script borrows from Bava as well as long take in the cemetery during the funeral, from Poltergeist, and pits two orphan siblings, portraying Sarah and Marco’s point- of-view (as Sarah and Marco,7 against the world of adults.

if they were one entity, thus enhancing their dis-After their parents have been horribly killed by tance from adulthood), or the children’s magic a thief (who turns out to be the caretaker), the rite, are indeed worthy of his best material. But children keep living in the villa where the mur-ultimately the clashing mixture of extreme

Made-for-TV Films

20
graphic violence and fairy tale falters, and some

“I must say that back then I was very inexperienced scenes—such as the ending featuring a bulldozer regarding television… . My colleagues and I were not going on a rampage, which is played for laughs the only ones though, but even the producers were, like some sort of a silent movie gag—just don’t and they completely messed up the series. They work. Moreover, the gore is unconvincing and didn’t consider that the horror genre couldn’t be accepted by TV sponsors… . I wasn’t an expert and I crude, and the score by Vince Tempera is best made those films as I would have made them for a forgotten.

theatrical release. I didn’t realize that this way I was Eventually, “Le case maledette” suffered a precluding myself from a career on television… . It sad fate in its home country, resulting in the se-was the wrong project: we’d have had to make ries being shelved, possibly because of the gory thrillers, whereas the stories that were proposed to content, which was likely to have put off TV
us were all centered on witches, enchanted forests execs: in the opening scenes of La dolce casa and so on.”
degli orrori, a man has his head repeatedly bashed against a column and an eye gouged out, In Italy, the four films were eventually re-and a woman has her face reduced to a gory leased directly on VHS only in 2000, thanks to mess with a meat grinder. It was too much, con-the efforts of the magazine Nocturno Cinema, sidering the protests that Dario Argento’s silly and surfaced on Italian satellite TV in 2006, short films in the TV program Giallo had caused whereas abroad they found their way to the among the public due to their violent content.

home video market.

In the early 0s, when asked when the
films would be broadcast, Fulci gave a disillu-NOTES
sioned reply:

1. Raimi’s Evil Dead II (a.k.a. La casa 2) was also popular in Italy, and excerpts of it even turned up in a box-

“You’ll have to ask Reteitalia, because, although the office comedy hit, Vacanze di Natale 90 (0), starring co-series has already been sold all over the world, no-medians Massimo Boldi and Christian De Sica.

body knows when Le case del terrore [sic] will be 2. Manlio Gomarasca and Davide Pulici, booklet for broadcast in Italy. I’d be pleased if someone rings the VHS release of La casa del sortilegio.

these people up and ask about the program; it might 3. The on- screen title reads La casa dei sortilegi.

get things moving a bit. It all ends up in the grinder—

4. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 7
television manages to devour and soak up every-5. Albiero and Cacciatore, Il terrorista dei generi, 375.

6. Romagnoli, L’occhio del testimone, 3.

thing… . Television should be re- examined at some 7. The two children were Giuliano Gensini and Ilary point and the right amount of time dedicated to Blasi. The latter became a well- known showgirl and the watching it; it’s a very important means of commu-wife of soccer player Francesco Totti.

nication, though it’s used unwisely—always in a tran-8. Palmerini and Mistretta, Spaghetti Nightmares, 7
sient, changeable way.”

9. Gomarasca, Umberto Lenzi, 262–263.

Looking back on the experience, Lenzi was adamant:

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tique #22, January 2.

ERIODICALS—SPECIAL ISSUES

Garofalo, Marcello. “Uno, nessuno, centofulci.” Seg-Bava, Lamberto, and Grazia Fallucchi. “Omaggio a nocinema #65, January/February 4.

Mario Bava.” La Lettura, September 0.

Gires, Pierre. “Frayeurs.” L’Écran fantastique #6, January Della Casa, Stefano (ed.). “Speciale fantastico italiano.”

.

Cineforum #2, November 0.

Gomarasca, Manlio. “Claudio Lattanzi. La verità sec-Fassone, Riccardo (ed.). La stagione delle streghe. Guida ondo Claude Milliken,” in Davide Pulici (ed.), Misteri al gotico italiano. Nocturno Dossier #0, March 200.

d’Italia 3. Guida ai film rari e scomparsi. Nocturno Gomarasca, Manlio, and Davide Pulici (eds.). Eroi & Dossier #70, May 200.

antieroi del cinema italiano. Nocturno Dossier #0, _____. “Saprofito. Intervista con Al Cliver,” Nocturno April 2003.

Cinema #3, June 7.

_____ and _____ (eds.). Genealogia del delitto. Il cinema Ippoliti, Stefano, and Norcini, Matteo. “Mario Bianchi.

di Mario e Lamberto Bava. Nocturno Dossier #24, July

‘Il mio cinema pizza e fichi,’” Cine70 e dintorni #5, 2004.

Summer 2004.

_____ and _____ (eds.). Il punto G. guida al cinema di _____ and _____. “Una favola chiamata cinema. Inter-Enzo G. Castellari. Nocturno Dossier #66, January vista a Martine Brochard.” Cine70 e dintorni #6, 2004.

200.

Lavagnini, Massimo F. “Sergio Bergonzelli. Una _____ and _____ (eds.). Il sopravvissuto. Guida al cin-cinepresa in pugno al diavolo.” Nocturno Cinema #2, ema di Bruno Mattei. Nocturno Dossier #45, April December 6.

2006

Lucas, Tim. “Looking with Averted Eyes: The Terror of _____ and _____ (eds.). Joe D’Amato. Guida al cinema Pupi Avati.” Video Watchdog #3, January/February estremo e dell’orrore. Nocturno Dossier #7, January

.

200.

Maccaron, Bruno, and Patrick Nadjar. “Lucio Fulci: ‘Je _____ and _____ (eds.), L’opera al nero. Il cinema di suis un monstre!’ Le grand retour du maître Italien Lucio Fulci. Nocturno Dossier #3, September 2002.

de l’horreur.” L’Écran fantastique #6, October 0.

_____ and _____ (eds.). Le sorelle di Venere 2. Nocturno Martin, John. “Lucio Fulci: L’Edgar Poe du 7e art.”

Dossier #5, June 2007.

L’Écran fantastique #4, May 6.

_____ and _____ (eds.). Le tre madri. Guida alla trilogia Padovan, Igor Molino, Giorgio Navarro and Luca Rea.

di Dario Argento. Nocturno Dossier #64, November

“Dagmar Lassander, il rosso segno della bellezza.”

2007.

Amarcord #3, May–June .

Monell, Robert. Riccardo Freda. European Trash Cinema Pezzotta, Alberto. “Dèmoni.” Filmcritica #36, October Special #2, 7.

6.

Morsiani, Alberto (ed.). Rosso italiano (1977/1987). Se-Pulici, Davide, and Gomarasca, Manlio. “Il dolce mat-quenze #7, March .

tatoio. Incontro con Alberto Cavallone.” Nocturno Romero, Javier G. (ed.). Antología del cine fantástico Cinema #4, September 7.

italiano. Quatermass #7, November 200.</BIB> Ruocco, Luca. “Discutendo con Marco Antonio Andolfi

[Eddy Endolf ] dell’importanza di avere uno PERIODICALS AND WEBZINES—
pseudonimo e delle molteplici forme del demonio,”

M

Rapporto Confidenziale #0, December 200.

ONOGRAPHIES, INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS

_____. “Riassumendo Marco Antonio Andolfi,” Rap-Berger, Howard “Claudio Fragasso’s Gore Wars,” Fan-porto Confidenziale #0, December 200.

goria #63, June 7.

Salza, Giuseppe. “Le retour de Lucio Fulci.” L’Écran fan-Caddeo, Federico, and Lopéré, Laurent. “Passion de-tastique #44, April 4.

voreuse.” Mad Movies #75, May 2005. Interview with Schlockoff, Alain, and Robert Schlockoff. “Entretien Claudio Fragasso)

avec Lamberto Bava.” L’Écran fantastique #6, January Castoldi, Gian Luca. “Riccardo Freda o del decaden-

.

tismo dell’orrore.” Amarcord #–, May–August 7.

Schlockoff, Robert. “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci.” L’Écran Codelli, Lorenzo. “Entretien avec Pupi Avati. Zeder.”

fantastique #6, January .

L’Écran fantastique #36, July/August 3.

_____. “Entretien avec Lucio Fulci,” L’Écran fantastique Ercolani, Eugenio. “Gianni Martucci, un intellettuale

#22, January 2.

al servizio del cinema di genere.” PaperBlog, Septem-Záccaro, Samuele. “Intervista esclusiva a Rossella ber 22, 203.

Drudi.” www. darkveins. com, 2 March 200.

_____. “Tra cinema e cavalli: Intervista a Marcello Avallone.” PaperBlog, January 7, 204.

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Index

A cena col vampiro see Brivido gi-

Un Angelo per Satana (66) 203

Baby Sitter (2) 
allo

Angioletti, Nino 0

Il Bacio (74) 3

A me mi piace (5) 6

Anguish (7) 0

Baino, Mariano 74

A pugni chiusi (206) 42

Anima persa (77) 73

Baker, Rick 6, 26, 40

Abruzzese, Alberto 4, 34–36

Animal House (7) 6

Bakterion (2) 20

The Abyss () 5

Annaud, Jean- Jacques 73

Baldwin, Stephen 7

Acqua e sapone (3) 25

L’Année dernière à Marienbad (6)

Ballard, James G. 40

Aenigma (7) 7, 6, 20

20, 4

Balsamus l’uomo di Satana (70)

After Death (Oltre la morte) ()

Annett, Paul 3

3, 32, 7

33

Antonioni, Michelangelo 4, 20, 32

Balzac, Honoré de , 207

Agnelli, Gianni 0

Antropophagus (0) 6, 6

Banfi, Lino 30

Agostini, Rita 65, 

Apocalypse domani (0) 6, 5

Barberini, Urbano 25, 4, 20

Agostino, Pierre 7

Aquila Nera (46) 0

Barberito, Aldo 43

Agren, Janet 44, 46, 77

Aragno, Riccardo 63

Barbetti, Cesare 6

Aiutami a sognare () 5

Aragosta a colazione (7) 60

Barbieri, Renzo 40

Akkad, Moustapha 7

Arcana (72) 4

Barilli, Francesco 23, 3, 64

Albani, Romano 2, 22, 23, 24, 25

L’Arcano incantatore (6) 7, ,

Barnard, Christiaan 0

Alberti, Rafael 70

2

Baron Blood (72) 25, 4

Aleksandr Nevskij (3) 73

Ardisson, Giorgio 0, 44

Baroni, Maurizio 2

Alfieri, Carlo Alberto 67, 6, ,

Arduino, Giovanni 

Barri, Barta 3

2, 3, 4, 7

Argento, Asia 4, 73

Bartók, Béla 23

Alien (7) 57, 26, 33, 4, 4,

Argento, Claudio 20, 25, 74

Basile, Giorgio 2

72

Argento, Dario 4, 6, 7, , 0, , –

Bastelli, Cesare 6

Alien degli abissi () 0

30, 3, 33, 34, 5, 52, 53, 55, 56, 5,

Battaglia, Gianlorenzo 2

Alien Predators (5) 3

65, 66, 67, 7, 2, 05, 5, 7,

Battaglini, Gigliola 205

Alien 2—Sulla Terra (0) 7

2–27, 3–42, 4, 5, 52,

Battiato, Giacomo 7

Aliens (6) 4

5, 5, 60, 62, 64, 7–75,

Batzella, Luigi 

Alighieri, Dante 2

76, 77, 3, 4, 206, 20

Bautista, Teddy 33

Alla mia cara mamma nel giorno del

Argento, Salvatore 76

Bava, Lamberto 4, 6, 7, 0, , 2,
suo compleanno (74) 32

Arnold, Jack 47

24, 26, 27, 30–34, 2–27, 3–

Allen, Woody 24

Aronofsky, Darren 77

42, 47, 72, 73, 76, 2, 6,

Alta tensione (TV series, produced

Arpie (short film, 7) 0

–204, 205, 206
in –) 203

Arriva Dorellik! (67) 6

Bava, Mario 6, 22, 23, 26, 27, 3, 33,

L’Altra dimensione (3) 0

Artaud, Antonin 65, 

36, 45, 50, 56, 74, 7, 0, 4, 6,

L’Altra donna (0) 76

Ashton Smith, Clark 65, 64

7, 4, 5, 6, 05, 0, 2, 6,

L’Altro Inferno () 5–55, 3

Assassinio al cimitero etrusco (2)

24, 35, 40, 4, 2, 3, 202,

Amadio, Silvio 34–36

5, 6–, 62

203, 20

L’Amante del demonio (72) 3

L’Assassino ha riservato nove

Beals, Jennifer 7

L’Amante del vampiro (60) 77
poltrone (74) 24, 26

The Beast Must Die (74) 3

Amanti d’oltretomba (65) 7

Asso () 3

Beatrice Cenci (56) 0, 

Le Amanti del mostro (74) 70

Atrapados en el miedo (5) 3

Beatrice Cenci (6) 4, 65

Amarcord (73) 

Audran, Stéphane 65

Beckett, Samuel 5, 4

Amati, Peppino 2

Audray, Elvire , 

Bell Book and Candle (5) 25, 37

Amato, Gerardo 7

Aumont, Jean- Pierre 0, 0

Bellalta, José María 76

Amendola, Mario 00

Aured, Carlos 3, 33

Belle, Annie [Anne Brillard] 44,

An American Werewolf in London

Avallone, Marcello 4, 4, 46–4,

45, 4

() 3

205

Bellocchio, Marco 4, , , 2, 5,

The Amityville Horror (7) 5, 56

Avati, Antonio 3

206

Amityville II: The Possession (2)

Avati, Pupi 4, 6, , 3–33, 5, 4–

Belushi, John 6

, 3–6

2, 2, 3, 5

Ben Ammar, Tarak 3

Andolfi, Marco Antonio , 42–46

Avere vent’anni (7) 63

Benigni, Roberto 2, 7, 75

Andrea, Jean- Baptiste 4

L’Avvertimento (0) 4

Bennati, Giuseppe 24

Anemia (6) 4, , 0, 34–36

The Awakening (0) 02

Berg, Alban 2

El Ángel exterminador (62) 24

Berger, Helmut 3, 3, 00

25

26 Index Berger, William 65

Bride of the Monster (55) 53

La Casa 5 (0) 33, 5, 5

Bergman, Ingrid 3

Briganti, Elisa 34, , 0, 02, 20

La Casa con la scala nel buio (3)

Bergonzelli, Sergio 47, 4–5

Brilli, Nancy 4

6, 34, 22, 65

Berlusconi, Paolo 36

Bringing Up Baby (3) 3

La Casa dalle finestre che ridono

Berlusconi, Silvio 2, 3, 4, 0, 7, ,

Brismée, Jean 5

(76) 5, 7, , , 20, 65

36, 40, 47, 200, 203, 204

Brivido giallo (4 made- for-TV films,

La Casa del buon ritorno (6) ,

The Bermuda Depths (7) 20
produced in 7, aired in )

36–3

Berté, Loredana 63

7, 2, –204, 205, 206

La Casa del sortilegio see Le Case

Bessi, Roberto 32

Brochard, Martine 36, 77, 7, 7, 07
maledette

Biagi, Enzo 2

Brogi Taviani, Franco 

La Casa dell’orco see Brivido giallo

Bianca (4) 3

Brooks, Mel 2

La Casa delle anime erranti see Le

Biancaneve & Co. (2) 2

Browning, Tod 3

Case maledette

Bianchi, Andrea 6, , , 2, 4

Brusati, Franco 20, 6

La Casa nel tempo see Le Case

Bianchi, Mario , –4, , 4,

Bryant, Michael 
maledette

5

Bryant, Virginia 20

La Casa stregata (2) 6, –0,

Bianchi Montero, Roberto 76

Bucci, Flavio 53, 66

7, 0

Bianco Apache (6) 52

Buio omega (7) 54, 57

Casablanca (42) 3

Bido, Antonio 

Bulankin, Viktor 54

Casarés, Maria 7

Bienfait, Claus 50

Buñuel, Luis 7, 2, 24, 7

Le Case maledette (4 made- for-TV

Billington, Kevin 4

Buricchi, Marco 7
films, produced in ) 7, 2, ,

La Bimba di Satana (3) , –

Buricchi, Pino 7

7, 204–20

4

Burke, Edmund 74

Casini, Stefania 64

The Birds (63) 03

Burnt Offerings (76) 5

The Cassandra Crossing (76) 46,

Bixio, Carlo 53

Buttgereit, Jörg 3

77

The Black Cat (aka De Profundis;

Cassinelli, Claudio 5, 7, 

) , 2, 4

Cadaveri (short film, 2) 0

Castaldi, Roberto 35

Black Cat (Gatto nero) () 55–60,

Caged—Le prede umane () 4

Castaneda, Carlos 6, 22, 4

64, 7, 5, 2, 03, 70

Caiano, Mario 7, 4, 6, 7

Castel, Lou 0, 4

Black Swan (200) 77

Calamai, Clara 76

Castellani, Renato 74

Blade Violent (3) 52

Caligula (7) 36

Castellano, Franco 5, 2, 36–3

Blair, Linda 5, 5

Caltiki il mostro immortale (5)

Castellari, Enzo G. 43, 02, 65

The Blair Witch Project () 07

22, 0

Castelli, Alfredo 67

Blasco, Barbara 4

Cameron, James 5

Il Castello dei morti vivi (64) 00

Blasi, Ilary 20

Caminito, Augusto 4, 7, 66–7,

Castle, William 4, 3

Blastfighter (3) 22



Casualties of War () 5

Blatty, William Peter 54

Camping del terrore (7) 6

Cat People (42) 

Blind Terror (7) 32

Canale, Gianna Maria 0

Cat’s Eye (5) 26

Bloody Psycho () , , 2–

Candelli, Stelio 25

Cataldi Tassoni, Coralina 40, 52

3, 7

Candido erotico (7) 63

Catanese, Nino 3

Blow Job (Soffio erotico) (0) ,

Canepa, Fabrice 4

Il Cavaliere, la morte e il diavolo

5–

Cannarsa, Emanuel 0, 0

(3) 37

Blow-up (66) 7

Cannibal Ferox () 6, 50

Cavalli, Maria Giulia 206

Blue Movie (7) 6

Cannibal Holocaust (0) 6, 3, 5

Cavallone, Alberto , 5–, 6

Boccoli, Benedicta 02

Canovas, Anne 7

Cavedon, Giorgio , 3–42

Boccoli, Brigitta 02

Cantafora, Antonio 4

Cavina, Gianni 5

Boetani, Enzo 77, 7, 7, 3, 4

Capitani, Giorgio 5, 60–62, 0,

Cazzato, Anna Bruna 7

Boldi, Massimo 20

2, 2

C’è un fantasma nel mio letto ()

Bolkan, Florinda 3, 4, 66

Capolicchio, Lino 5, 65

62–64

Bollenti spiriti () 5, 60–62, 0,

Capone, Alessandro , 5–7

Ceccarelli, Luigi 70

2

Il Cappotto (52) 74

Cecchi Gori, Mario 4

Bolognini, Manolo 6, 7

Carabba, Claudio 4, 70

Cecchi Gori, Vittorio 4, 0

Bolognini, Mauro 63

Il Carabiniere () 36

Cederna, Giuseppe 2

Bonnard, Mario 50

Caramelle da uno sconosciuto (7)

Celentano, Adriano 5, 20, 37, 3, 63

La Bonne (6) 47

76

Celeste, Nino 207

Bontempi, Giorgio 4

Carbone, Giuseppe “Pino” 2

Celi, Adolfo 20

Borowczyk, Walerian 6, 52, 55, 57

Cari fottutissimi amici (4) 30

Centipede horror (2) 4

Borromel, Charles 206

Carlei, Carlo 5

Cerami, Vincenzo 34

Boschero, Dominique 6

Carlisi, Olimpia 77

Cervi, Marina 46

Boschero, Martial 6, 

Carnimeo, Giuliano 76

Cervi, Tonino 63, 64

Il Bosco 1 () , 52–54, 65

Carnival of Souls (62) 4

Cet obscure object du desir (77) 7

Bosé, Miguel 63

Caronia, Antonio 34

Chabrol, Claude 65

Il Boss (73) 7

Carpenter, John 54, 24, 26, 33,

La Chambre verte (7) 32, 3

Bottin, Rob 6, 26

73, 6

Champagne, Bob 5

Boyle, Danny 27

Carpi, Pier [Piero Arnaldo Carpi]

Chaney, Lon, Jr. 32

Bradbury, Ray 6, 03

3, 0

The Changeling (0) 204

Bragaglia, Carlo Ludovico 77

Carrie (76) 7, 53, 54

Charleson, Ian 77, 3

Brambilla, Andrea 202

La Casa 3—Ghosthouse () 54–

Charroux, Robert 5

Brandon, David 20

57, 5

Chi sei? (74) 7

Brass, Tinto , 36

La Casa 4—Witchcraft () ,

Chianetta, Maria (aka Mara Maryl)

Brescia, Alfonso 7

57–5



Index

27

La Chiave (3) , 7

Count Dracula (70) 03

De Luca, Rudy 30

La Chiesa () 4, , 0, 5, 60,

Cozzi, Giada 3

De Marchis, Carlo 32

63, 7–75

Cozzi, Luigi 6, , 23, 32, 5, 67,

De Mejo, Carlo 46, 4, 4, 53, 54,

Christensen, Brigitte 50, 5, 2,

6, 6, 7, –5

02, 04

3

Craven, Wes 6

De Molinis, Claudio [Claudio

Christiane F. () 24

Craxi, Bettino 2, 3, 26

Giorgiutti] 62–63

Christine (3) 4

The Crazies (73) 44

Dèmoni (5) 6, 0, 27, 2–27,

Cinema!!! (TV mini- series, 7)

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

3, 40, 4, 47, 53, 65, 72,

5

(54) 47

74, 76, 200, 202, 204, 207

Cinieri, Cosimo 02, 04, 20

La Cripta e l’incubo (64) 206

Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna (6)

Cino, Beppe , 36–3

Crisanti, Gabriele 6, 66, 2, 3

6, 0, 27, 3–42, 47, 52, 53,

Le Cinque giornate (73) 2, 74

Crispino, Armando 2, 

65, 73, 74, 76, 200, 20

5 tombe per un medium (65) 45

La Croce dalle 7 pietre (7) ,

Demy, Jacques 44

Cipriani, Stelvio 0

42–45

Demy, Valentine [Marisa Parra] 5

Circuito chiuso (7) 24

Crocitti, Vincenzo 63

De Nava, Giovanni 65, 67

Citizen Kane (4) 23, 6

Cronenberg, David 25, 40

Denti (2000) 30

La Città delle donne (0) 26, 3

Cuando calienta el sol… vamos alla

Deodato, Ruggero 6, 3, 7, 6

La Città dell’ultima paura (75)

plaia (2) 55

De Palma, Brian 53, 54, 5

0

Cugine mie (76) 46

De Quincey, Thomas 23, 25, 27

Citti, Sergio 4

Culo e camicia () 0

De Rossi, Barbara 67, 6

Clair, René 37, 3, 6, 62, 63

Cummins, Leslie 5, 6

De Rossi, Giannetto 5, 

Clarici, Gianfranco 205, 206

Cupisti, Barbara 73, 7

De Rossi, Gino 5, 

Clark, Bob 

Curse of the Demon (57) 4

De Sanctis, Pierpaolo 42

Clementelli, Silvio 60

Curtis, Dan , 4, 5

De Sica, Christian 6, 20

Clementi, Pierre 67

Cushing, Peter 57

De Sica, Vittorio 0

Cleopatra (63) 47

Detective Extralarge (TV series,

Cliver, Al [Pierluigi Conti] 57, 64,

Dahan, Yannick 27

–3) 7

66, 207

Dalí, Salvador 70

Devon, Gary 77

A Clockwork Orange (7) 63

Dall’Ara, Renato 40

Diabolik (6) 4

Clouzot, Henri- Georges , 20

Dalle, Beatrice 

Les Diaboliques (55) 

Cocteau, Jean 7, 22

Damiani, Damiano , 7, , 3–6,

Dial M for Murder (54) 0

La Coda dello scorpione (7) 7

23

Diamond Connection (2) 50

Cohen, Larry 7

Damiano, Gerard 4

Il Diavolo in corpo (6) 

Cokeliss, Harley 57

Damien: Omen II (7) 03

1990—I guerrieri del Bronx (2)

Colizzi, Pino 5, 

Dancing Paradise (TV mini- series,

02

Collatina, Silvia 7, , 02

2) 5

Di Clemente, Giovanni 05

Colò, Licia 206

Dante, Joe 34, 26

Le 10 meraviglie dell’amore (6)

Colomba (2) 7

Dantes, Claude 26

50

Color Me Blood Red (65) 50

D’Anza, Daniele 56, 5, 7, 7

Difendimi dalla notte () 3

Coluzzi, Francesca Romana 25

Danza macabra (64) 70, 75, 0,

Di Giacomo, Franco 5, 6

Comencini, Cristina 73

4, 203

Di Girolamo, Roberto 55

Comencini, Luigi 4, 23

Dark Waters (3) 74

Di Leo, Fernando 60, 63, 7

Comolli, Giampiero 34

Darwin, Sacha 2, 3

Dimenticare Venezia (7) 20

I Compagni (63) 0

Davis, Bette 5

Diogene, Franco 20

Conan the Barbarian (2) , 05,

Dawn of the Dead (7) , 65,

Dionisio, Silvia 77, 7, 0, 2

73, 7

23, 24

Di Stefano, Marco 50, 3

Connelly, Christopher 02, 03

Dead End (2003) 4

Distretto di polizia (2007–200, TV

Connelly, Jennifer 76, 77

Dead of Night (45) 20
series) 7

Conquest (3) 05

Dead of Night (74) 

Do the Right Thing () 5

Contamination (0) 6, 5, 

Dead of Night (77, TV movie) 

Dobtcheff, Alexander Vernon 20

Contamination .7 (0) 5

De Agostini, Fabio 50

Docteur Jekyll et les femmes ()

Il Conte Ugolino (4) 2

De Almeida, Acacio 77

57

Continiello, Ubaldo 33

De Angelis, Fabrizio 43, 64, 70, 72,

La Dolce casa degli orrori see Le

Contronatura (6) 45

02, 05, 22, 2

Case maledette

Cooper, Alice 3, 32, 33

De Angelis, Michele , 2, 5,

Donen, Stanley 6

Copkiller (3) 4

6, 7

Don’t Look Now (73) 70

Coplan ouvre le feu à Mexico (67)

De Chirico, Giorgio 4, 42

Dorelli, Johnny 5, 37, 6, 00

0

Deep Throat (72) 4

Doria, Daniela 46, 4, 5, 57, 5

Coppedé, Gino 23

De Filippo, Eduardo 47

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 56, 23

Coppola, Francis Ford 46

De Laurentiis, Dino , 2, 3, 4,

Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (7)

Corazzari, Bruno 57, 5

5

37, 2

Corbucci, Bruno 40, –0

Delgado, Luis María 63

La Dottoressa sotto il lenzuolo

Cordio, Carlo Maria 6, 62

Deliria (7) , 55, 56, 60, 73

(76) 7

Corman, Roger 46, 56, 3

I Delitti del cuoco (200) 7

Doupré, Catherine 2

Il Corpo del duce (20) 5

Il Delitto del diavolo (70) 63

Doupré, Jacqueline 2, 3

Il Corpo della ragassa (7) 63

Il Delitto Matteotti (73) 43, 45

Dove comincia la notte () 2

La Corsa dell’innocente () 5

Delle Piane, Carlo 5, 2

Dracula (3) 3

La Corta notte delle bambole di

Delli Colli, Franco 32, 33, 55

Dream Demon () 57
vetro (7) 64

Del Monte, Peter 75–7

Dreyer, Carl Theodor 46, 65

Corti, Antonio Cesare 76

Del Santo, Lory 6

Drudi, Rossella 3, 32, 33, 6, 62

2 Index Due occhi diabolici (0) 56, 5

Ferilli, Sabrina 20

Gaita, Alfonso 2, 3

Duel in the Sun (46) 5

Ferrante, Pino 54

Gance, Abel 35

The Dukes of Hazzard (TV series) 3

Ferreri, Marco 4, 32, 2

Gandus, Roberto 3, 34, 4

Dumas, Alexandre 3

Ferrigno, Lou 0

Gans, Christophe 5, 7, 2

Dunaway, Faye 7

Ferrini, Franco 23, 72, 76, 77

Garcin, Henri 7

Durning, Charles 76, 77

Ferroni, Giorgio 5, 2

Garello, Stefania Orsola 206

Ferzetti, Gabriele 5

Garofalo, Franco 53, 54, 

E il terzo gode, … (4) 

Festa, Al 4

Garrone, Maurizio 24, 30

E per tetto un cielo di stelle, …

Festa Campanile, Pasquale 2, 63,

Garrone, Sergio 70

(6) 27

0

Gassman, Vittorio 73

…E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà, …

Festa di laurea (5) 2

Gastaldi, Ernesto 56, 7, , ,

() 44, 47, 4, 50, 5, 64–73,

Fidani, Arturo 35

05–0

5, 6, 7, , , 0, , 2, 02,

Fidani, Demofilo 35

Il Gatto (77) 23

03, 04, 05, 4, 4, 56, 5,

La Fille de d’Artagnan (4) 4

Il Gatto dagli occhi di giada (77)

6, 0, 6, 2, 7, 206

Il Fiore dai petali d’acciaio (73) 7



Eaten Alive (76) 5

Flashdance (3) 05

Un Gatto nel cervello (0) 47, 56,

Eco, Umberto 27

Fleetwood, James 2

7

Edel, Uli 24

Fleischer, Richard 32

Gaunt, Michael 5

Edmonds, Don 3

Flesh+Blood (5) 73

Gazzelloni, Severino 07

8½ (63) 6

Flores Amaya, Micaela “La Chunga”

Geleng, Massimo Antonello 44, 4,

Eisenstein, Sergei 73

70

, 32, 202

Eleven Days, Eleven Nights: 11

Fofi, Goffredo 3

Gelli, Licio 2
giorni, 11 notti (7) 5

The Fog (0) 6

La Gemella erotica (Due gocce d’ac-

Elmi, Nicoletta 25

Fogazzaro, Antonio 
qua) 

Emerson, Keith 23, 24, 74

Folgar, Jesús R. 63

Gemma, Giuliano 4, 24, 27

Enrico IV (4) 2

Ford, John 37, 2

Gemser, Laura 77, 7, 5

Ensayo de un crimen (55) 7

Forest, Andy J. 206

Un genio, due compari e un pollo

L’Eredità Ferramonti (76) 63

Forges Davanzati, Roberto 57

(75) 23

Estigma (0) 

Formicola, Nino 202

Gensini, Giuliano 20

Estratto dagli archivi segreti della

Le Foto di Gioia (7) 4, 47

Gentilomo, Giacomo 50
polizia di una capitale europea

Fracchia contro Dracula (5) 5, ,

Genuardi, Pietro 4

(72) 4, 76, 7, 

27–30

George, Christopher 44

Etoile () 63, 75–7

Fracchia la belva umana () 37,

The Ghost Goes West (35) 6, 62

L’Etrusco uccide ancora (72) ,

2

Ghostbusters (4) 47

6, 4

Fragasso, Claudio 6, , 35, 44, 5-

Giagni, Gianfranco 4, 62–65

The Evil Dead () , 3, 07, 3,

55, 30–33, 45, 6, 3, 5

Giallo a Venezia (7) 66, 

53, 56, 57, 60, 6, 205

Frajese, Marina see Hedman Bel-

Giandalia, Roberto 43, 57

Evil Dead II (7) 53, 57, 20
lis, Marina

Giannini, Giancarlo 07

The Exorcist (73) 53, 5, 6, 03,

Franchi, Franco 4

Gianviti, Roberto 5–20

05, 5, 6

Franciosa, Anthony 5

Il Gioco delle ombre () 3

Extra sensoria (short film, 5) 0

Franciosa, Massimo 35

Un Gioco per Eveline (7) 47

Ezralow, Daniel 

Franco, Jess [Jesús] 03

Il Gioko () 203

Franklin, Richard 6, 53, 54

Giordano, Mariangela , 2, 3

Faccenna, Angelo 7

Fratelli e sorelle () 2

Giordano, Umberto 4

Faccenna, Maria Luce 7

I Frati rossi () 7–

Giorgi, Eleonora 5, 20, 2, 23, 37, 3

Fade to Black (0) 0

Freda, Jacqueline 77, 7, 0, 3

I Giorni dell’ira (67) 27

Faenza, Roberto 4

Freda, Riccardo 6, 22, 3, 46, 50, 7,

Giovannini, Fabio 35

Faletti, Giorgio 204

75–4, 46, 202

Gipsy Angel (0) 4

Le Fantôme de la liberté (74) 2

Freddy’s Nightmares (TV series,

Girolami, Enio 26

Fantozzi (75) 2, 30

) 5

Girolami, Marino 6, 43, 44

Fantozzi alla riscossa (0) 30

Fregoli, Leopoldo 3

Girometti, Roberto 7

Fantozzi contro tutti (0) 30

Freud, Sigmund 7

Una Gita scolastica (3) 2

Fantozzi 2000—La clonazione

Frezza, Giovanni , 02, 25

Giulia e Giulia (7) 76

() 30

Friedkin, William 53

Glass, Philip 74

Fantozzi—Il ritorno (6) 30

Le Frisson des vampires (70) 7

Glover, Danny 7

Fantozzi in paradiso (3) 30

Frizzi, Fabio 46, 47, 4, 70, , 04

Gocce d’amore () 44

Fantozzi subisce ancora (3) 30

The Front Page (74) 76

Goldberg, Sheila 6

Fantozzi va in pensione () 30

Frugoni, Cesare 63

Gonzales, Rick 6

Farina, Corrado 36, 202

La Frusta e il corpo (63) 27, 0

Goodman, Benny 74

Farmer, Mimsy 3, 57

Fulcanelli 23, 5, 72, 73

Goodman, Walter 27

Farolfi, Cinzia 4, 5

Fulci, Lucio 3, 6, 7, 0, 2, 42–5,

Goodwin, Angela 25

Farrow, Tisa 43, 64

55–60, 64–73, 76, 7, 4–3, 0–

Gorysand—Sabbia insanguinata

Fatal Frames—Fotogrammi mortali

05, 7, 22, 25, 26, 33, 3,

(short film, 7) 52, 53

(6) 4

53, 54, 56, 57, 62, 65, 66,

La Grande bouffe (73) 32

The Fearless Vampire Killers (67)

72, 7, 7, 0, , 2, –

Grandi cacciatori () 67, 6

2, 202

, 20, 204–20

Grapputo, Annarita 0, 0

Fedora (7) 7, 5

Fusco, Marcello 6

Grassi, Giovanna 4

Fellini, Federico 4, 26, 3, 3, ,

Grazzini, Giovanni 27, 6, 2

6, , 30, 4

Gabrini, Stefano 3

Greggio, Ezio 204

Fenech, Edwige 3, 

Gaburro, Bruno 

Gregoretti, Ugo 26

Index

2

Gremlins (4) 34

The Illustrated Man (6) 03

Knecht, Anne 6, 70

Grieco, Sergio 50

Im Lauf der Zeit (76) 36

Knef, Hildegarde 57

Grimaldi, Alberto 77

Immagini di un convento (7) 52

Knieper, Jürgen 77

Gruppo di famiglia in un interno

The Immigrant (5) 5

Knight, David 4

(74) 77

In the Mouth of Madness (4) 24

Kolosimo, Peter [Pietro Domenico

Guarini, Maurizio 70, 04

Incubo sulla città contaminata

Colosimo] 5

Guérin, Florence 47

(0) 6, 25

Kotani, Tom 20

Guerra, Tonino 4

Inferno (0) 6, , 7, –30, 3,

Kroecher, Michael 74

Guerrieri, Romolo 77

52, 65, 66, 67, 70, 7, , , 5,

Kubrick, Stanley 3, 65, 6, 7

I Guerrieri dell’anno 2072 (4) 05

6, 24, 56, 5, 72, 73, 77,

Kuriyama, Chiaki 5

Guerrini, Mino 32, 55, 6

4, 202, 206

Guerritore, Monica 4, 7

Ingerman, Randi 54

Lado, Aldo 64, 7

Guida, Gloria 5, 6, 63, 00

Ingrassia, Ciccio 4

Lady Oscar (7) 44

Guida, Wandisa 7

Interlenghi, Antonella 46

Laennec, Katell 2

A Guy Named Joe (43) 3

Interno di un convento (7) 52

Lake, Veronica 37

Interzone (7) 55

Landi, Mario 

Halsey, Brett 7, 20

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Landis, John 26, 6

Hampton, Demetra 65

(56) 6

Landry, Gérard 35

Hancock, Herbie 24

Invito al viaggio (3) 76

Lanfranchi, Mario 3

Hannah, Daryl 7

Io e mia sorella (7) 63

Lang, Fritz 65, 23

Hanno cambiato faccia, … (7)

Io speriamo che me la cavo (2)

Lansdale, Joe 24

36, 202

30

Lansing, Sherry 2

Hansel e Gretel () , , 2,

Ippoliti, Silvano 4

Larraz, José Ramón , 63

7, 206

Ippolito, Ciro 7

Las Vegas Serial Killer (6) 7

Hard Rock Zombies (5) 3

Isabella duchessa dei diavoli (6)

Lassander, Dagmar 57, , 

Hardiman, Olinka 50

40

Lattanzi, Claudio , , 5, 5–62

Harvey, Herk 4

Isidori, Valerio 7

Lattuada, Alberto 25, 74

Hasselhoff, David 5

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Laughton, Charles 7

Hathaway, Henry 3

(63) 2

Laugier, Pascal 

Hauer, Rutger 7

Laurenti, Fabrizio , 2, 57–5,

Hawthorne, Nathaniel , 20

Jabar, Hassan 7

6

Heaven Can Wait (7) 3

Jaboni, Renato 43

Lauri Filzi, Guya 7

Hedman Bellis, Marina (aka Marina

Jackson, Glenda 5

Lavia, Gabriele 20, 2, 2, 76, 6,

Frajese, Marina Lotar) 2, 3

Jackson, Michael 3

7

Heflin, Van 60

Jackson, Shirley 23

Law, John Phillip 50, 5

Hellraiser (7) 0, 0, 5

Jacobs, William Wymark 

Lazar, Veronica 20, 25, 65

Hellzapoppin’ (4) 2

Jacono, Carlo 4

Lee, Spike 5

Hemmings, David 5

James, Henry 6, 32, 65, 6, , ,

The Legacy (7) , 6

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (4) 3

02

The Legend of Hell House (73) 

Herz, Michael 54

James, Montague Rhodes 40, 7

La Leggenda del rubino malese

Herz aus glas (76) 54

Jaws (75) 03

(5) 03

Herzog, Werner 7, 54, 66, 67,

The Jeffersons (TV sitcom) 3

Leitienne, Jacques 

6, 6, 202

Jeremy, Ron 0

Lenzi, Laura 02

Heston, Charlton 02

Jodorowsky, Alejandro 74

Lenzi, Umberto 6, 7, 2, 5, 25,

Heusch, Paolo 43

Johnson, Richard 43, 57

54–57, 5, 5, 7, , 7,

Hidalgo, Vanessa 63

Johnson, Van 7

204–20

Highsmith, Patricia 7

Jones, Alan 50, 42

Leone, Giovanni 

Hill, George Roy 47

Leone, Sergio 23, 76

Hilton, George 60, 6, , 20, 202

Kamsteeg, Louise 3

Leroy, Philippe 35, 36, 6

Hintz, Peter 2, 3, 207

Karis, Vassili [Vassili Karamenisis]

Lévy, Maurice 73, 74

Hitchcock, Alfred 0, 44, 0, ,

3

Lewis, Clive Staples 03

03, 64

Katarsis (aka Sfida al diavolo; 63)

Lewis, Herschell Gordon 7, 50,

The Hollywood Strangler Meets the

203

2

Skid Row Slasher (7) 7

Kaufman, Charles 50

Lewis, Matthew 54

Hooper, Tobe 5, 7, 6

Kaufman, Lloyd 54

Li, Keith 4

La Horde (200) 27

Kaye, Danny 2

Liberi, armati, pericolosi (76) 77

Hough, John 

Kearney, John W. 23

Libido (65) 06, 07

House (5) 57

The Keep (3) 73

Licheri, Giovanni 2

Hovey, Natasha 23, 24, 25

Kerman, Robert 43

Liguori, Annamaria 7

The Howling (0) 26, 3

Kerova, Zora 2

Liliom (34) 65

Huff, Karina 207

Kezich, Tullio 2, 70

Lilli, una vita da eroina (4) 63

Huxley, Aldous 6, 22

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 5

Linder, Emilio 3

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 46, 5

Lion of the Desert (0) 7

I Married a Vampire (7) 30

Killer’s Playlist (2006) 

Lioy, Andrea 

I Married a Witch (42) 3, 63

Killing Birds—Raptors () 55,

Lisa e il diavolo (73) 3

I Walked with a Zombie (44) 65

5–62

Lizzani, Carlo 0, 6

Idioten () 47

King, Stephen , 6, , 6

Le Locataire (76) 4, 64

Idol, Billy 24

King Kong (76) 4

Loi, Marina 4

L’Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco (7)

Kinski, Klaus 7, 60, 67–7, 

Lombardi, Fausto 0

7

Kiss of Death (47) 3

Lombardo, Paolo 3

220 Index Lombardo Radice, Giovanni 44,

Mani di velluto (7) 2

Il Medaglione insanguinato (75)

46, 4, 5

Mania (74) 3

25

Loncar, Beba 0, 0

Maniac (0) 50

Melato, Mariangela 5

Longo, Malisa 7

Mankiewicz, Joseph L. 47

Melelli, Fabio 3

Lords, Traci 54

Mann, Michael 73

Menczer, Erico 4, 42

Losey, Joseph 50

Mannari, Guido 36

Mercenari dell’apocalisse (7) 2

Lourcelles, Jacques 2, 3

Mannino, Franco 

Mereghetti, Paolo 

The Love Bug (6) 37

Mannino, Vincenzo 205, 206

Mérimée, Prosper 7

Love Story (70) 40

La Mano che nutre la morte (74)

Merli, Maurizio 63

Lovecraft, Howard Phillips 6, 44,

70

Mertes, Raffaele 5

65, 6, 5, 2, 03, 64

Manzoni, Alessandro 52, 54

Messiah of Evil (73) 46

Lovelace, Linda 4

Manzotti, Achille 57, 5, 76

Metropolis (26) 23

Lovelock, Ray 77

Marangolo, Agostino 70, 04

Mezzanotte (short film, 6) 0

Loy, Mino 43

March, Fredric 37

Mia moglie è una strega (0) 5, ,

Loy, Nanni 2

Marciano, Francesca 

36–3, 62, 00, 0

Luca il contrabbandiere (0) 43

Marfori, Andrea , 52–54, 65

Miccichè, Lino 70

Lucas, George 72

Margheriti, Antonio 4, 6, 0, 45, 75,

Micheli, Dario 6

Lucas, Tim 26

3, 03, 6

Michelini, Luciano 0

Lucchetti, Leandro –4

Marini, Lamberto 44

Michelsen, Katrine 47, 4, 50

Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna

Mariuzzo, Giorgio 6, , 0, 

Middleton, Jonas 0

(7) 56, 5, 7, 2

Marnie (64) 2

Il Miele del diavolo (6) 05

Lucidi, Antonio “Antonino” 7, ,

Marotta, Franco 6, 2

Milani, Mino 73, 74

4, 7, 207

Marozzi, Mario 77

Milano… difendersi o morire (7)

Lucidi, Maurizio 67, 7

Marquand, Richard 

7

Lucisano, Fulvio 56

Martellini, Nando 

Milian, Tomas 67

Lucky Luciano (73) 77

Martin (76) 53

Milioni, Enzo , 4

Ludwig (73) 77

Martin Smith, Charles 3

Milius, John 73

Luna, Bigas 0

Martini, Nubia 3

Miller, David 57

Luna di sangue () 0, , 4,

Martinková, Susanna 206

Milne, Bettine 207

7

Martino, Luciano 34, 43, 22, 23,

Miner, Steve 57

Lund, Deanna 7

, 200, 20, 205

Minervini, Gianni 33

Le Lunghe notti della Gestapo (77)

Martino, Sergio 56, 7, 5, 6–,

Mingozzi, Fulvio 36

50

62

Le Miniere del Kilimangiaro (6)

I Lunghi capelli della morte (64)

Martucci, Gianni 7–, 6

6

7

Martyrs (200) 

Il Mio nome è Nessuno (73) 23

Lycanthropus (6) 43

Mary Poppins (64) 37

Il Mio nome è Shangai Joe (73)

Lynch, David 6

La Maschera del demonio (60) ,

6

Lyne, Adrian 0

26, 3, 45, 46, 4, 7, 25, 2,

Mirabella, Michele 4

40, 6, 3

Miracle, Irene 20, 2, 22

Macabro (0) 6, 30–34, 5, ,

La Maschera del demonio (0, TV

Il Mistero di Oberwald 20

4, 3, 203
movie) , 203, 204

Mitchell, Charles P. 64

Macchie solari (75) 2

Masoch (0) 

Mitchell, Gordon 43, 44, 45, 50,

MacColl, Catriona 44, 46, 4, 64,

Massaccesi, Aristide 6, , 25, 3, 52,

5

70, , 02

63, 26, 55, 57, 5, 5–62, 6,

Mizrahi, Simon 76, 77

Madsen, Michael 7

5, 7

Modine, Matthew 7

Il Maestro del terrore () 203

Massacre () , , 4, 7

La Moglie più bella (70) 5

Magee, Patrick 57, 5

Massarelli, Anna 6

Molè, Franco 77, 07

Magia a prezzi modici (50 short)

Massi, Stelvio 63

Molnar, Stanko 3, 

0

Mastelloni, Leopoldo 20, 24, 26

La Monaca nel peccato (6) 5

Magic Moments (4) 63

Mastrocinque, Camillo 203

Der Mönch mit der Peitsche (67)

Magner, Jack 5

Mastroianni, Barbara 77

0

Maimone, Jasmine 4

Mastroianni, Marcello 26, 73, 74,

Il Mondo di Yor (3) 4

Makavejev, Dušan 6

77

Monicelli, Mario 0, 0

Malabimba (7) , 2, 3

Mastroianni, Ruggero 77

Monni, Carlo 7, 

Malco, Paolo , 7, 20

Matarazzo, Raffaello 7

Monster Dog (aka Leviatán; 5)

Maledetta Euridice (6) 2

Matewan (7) 76

, 30–33, 3

Malizia oggi (0) 5

Matheson, Richard 23, 5, 56

Montagnana, Luisa 35

Malombra (42) , 203

Mattei, Angelo 7, 4, 44

Montagnani, Renzo 62, 63

Malombra (4) 

Mattei, Bruno 6, 44, 5–55, 3, 33,

Montaldo, Giuliano 24, 27

Maluenda, Luis 33

5

Montanari, Piero 57

Mama, Papa, Zombie—Horror für

Maya () 4, 4

Montenero, Paola 54
den Hausgebrauch (4) 50

La Mazurka del barone, della santa

Montesano, Enrico 5, 37, 60, 0,

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
e del fico fiorone (75) 2

6

(62) 65

McCleery, Gary 77

Montorsi, Sabrina 20

Mancori, Guglielmo 05

McCloskey, Leigh 20, 22, 77

Moore, Jessica [Luciana Ottaviani]

Manfredi, Gianfranco 2, 65

McDonagh, Maitland 2

4, 5

Manfredi, Nino 6

McLeod, Norman Z. 37, 2

Moravia, Alberto 2

Mangiati vivi! (0) 6, 50

M.D.C.—Maschera di cera (7)

Moretti, Nanni 3, 73

Manhattan Baby (2) 64, , 0–

65

Morirai a mezzanotte (6) 4, 6

05, 4, 20

Meat Loaf [Marvin Lee Aday] 3

Moro, Aldo 

Index

22

Morsiani, Alberto 72

Notte profonda (0) 0

Peckinpah, Sam 32

La Morte accarezza a mezzanotte

Le Notti del terrore () 6, 

Pedersoli, Giuseppe 7

(72) 

Notturno (3) 4

Peeping Tom (60) 0

La Morte ha sorriso all’assassino

Notturno con grida (2) 05–0

Pehar, Olga 55, 7

(73) 25

Novak, Kim 26, 37

Pellegrino, Patrizia 203

Morte sospetta di una minorenne

Nuda per Satana (74) , 25

Il Pentito (5) 67

(75) 5

Pepper, Curtis Bill 47

Il Mostro (77) 6

O’Bannon, Dan 2

Pepper, John Randolph 47

Mother’s Day (0) 50

O’Brien, Donald 55

Per conoscere Pasolini (7) 2

I Motorizzati (6) 2

Occhipinti, Andrea 34

Per sempre see Brivido giallo

Moulder Brown, John 6

Odio le bionde (0) 60

Perduta (0) 54

Mulargia, Edoardo 76

Odorisio, Luciano 63

Périer, François 7

Muller, Paul 0, 2, 3, 206

Oedipus Orca (77) 74

Perrella, Alessandro 0

Muratori, Luciano 6

Ognuno per sé (6) 60

Persiano, Pascal 3, 20

Murder Obsession () 6, 75–4,

Oldoini, Enrico 00

Petacci, Claretta 33

4

Olmi, Ermanno 4, 30

Petley, Julian 50

Murderock—Uccide a passo di

Olson, James 5

Petrarca, Francesco 63
danza (4) , 02, 05

Oltretomba (short film, 7) 0

Petroni, Giulio 27

Il Muro di gomma () 47

Un’Ombra nell’ombra (7) 3, 0

Phelps, Pete 4

Murphy, Peter 4

Ombre (0) , 3–42

Phenomena (5) 0, 23, 25, 2,

Musante, Tony 67

The Omega Man (7) 0

23, 24, 60, 76

Mussolini, Benito 33

Once Upon a Time in America

Piana, Dario 75

Mussolini ultimo atto (74) 6

(4) 76

Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti (6)

Muti, Ornella 0

O’Neill, Jennifer 3

6

My Lovely Burnt Brother and His

Onibaba (64) 3

Piazzesi, Andrea 24

Squashed Brain () 

The Onion Field (7) 20

Picasso, Pablo 70

Myrick, Daniel 07

Opera (7) 4, 25, 2, 52, 5, 76,

Piccioli, Gianfranco 7

77, 3, 4, 207

Piccioni, Fabio 76, 4

Nabokov, Vladimir 57

Operazione paura (66) 70, 0,

Piccoli fuochi (5) 76

Naggiar, Freddy 3

56, 64, 6, 2, 3

Pieroni, Ania 26, 6, , 2

Der Name der Rose (6) 73

L’Ora della pietà (6) 0

Pignatelli, Fabio 04, 74

Nannerini, Luigi 7, 66, , 4,

La Orca (76) 74

Pigozzi, Luciano 06, 07

6, 7, 207

Orgasmo di Satana see La Bimba

Pimenta Boareto, Elisabete 2

Naschy, Paul [Jacinto Molina] 3
di Satana

La Piovra (TV mini- series, 4)

Il Nascondiglio (2007) 2

Orgasmo esotico (2) 0

6

Natoli, Luigi 7

Orlandi, Ferdinando 6

Pipolo [Giuseppe Moccia] 5, 2,

Negrin, Alberto 63

Le Orme (75) 3

36–3

Nekromantik (7) 3

Orphée (50) 7, 22

Pirkanen, Perry 5

Nella terra di nessuno (200) 65

L’Orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock

Pisanti, Achille 4, 34–36

Nelle pieghe della carne (70) 50

(62) 3, 46, 7, 0, 2, 7

Pistagnesi, Patrizia 4, 46

Nera… calda… e dolce (7) 0

Ortolani, Riz 74, 20

Pitoeff, Sacha 20, 24, 30

Nero, Franco 45, 67

L’Osceno desiderio (7) 4

Placido, Maria Letizia 4

Nessuno è perfetto () 0

Placido, Michele 06

The NeverEnding Story (4) 45

Paganini (aka Kinski Paganini; )

Pleasence, Donald 57, 47, 67, 70,

Newell, Mike 02

67, 7, 

3, 7

Nichetti, Maurizio 2

Paganini Horror () 5, 60,

Plummer, Christopher 67, 6, 70

Nicolodi, Daria , 20, 23, 24, 25,

–5

La Plus longue nuit du diable (7)

2, 3, 2, 3, 206

Palacios, Ricardo 3, 33

5

Il Nido del ragno () 4, 62–66

Palmer, Lilli 6

Poe, Edgar Allan 40, 44, 56, 5, 5,

Niehaus, Rena 54

Palombella rossa () 73

60, 7, , 05, 5, 7

The Night of the Hunter (55) 7

Pan Cosmatos, George 77

Pogany, Cristiano 0, 4

A Nightmare on Elm Street (4)

Pane e cioccolata (74) 6

Pogány, Gábor 0

27, 4

Paoloni, Paolo 207

Polanski, Roman 2, 4, 03, 2,

9½ Weeks (6) 0, 3, 5

Parenti, Neri 5, 27–30

64

The Ninth Configuration (0) 54

Parenzo, Alessandro 34, 4

Poli, Maurice 2, 4

Noi tre (4) 2

Parisi, Heather 4

Poliziotto sprint (77) 63

Non avere paura della zia Marta

Parole e sangue (TV movie 2,)

Polselli, Renato 77, 3

() 0, , 3, 4–5

4

Poltergeist (2) , 6, 03, 20

Non si sevizia un paperino (72)

La Partita () 7

Polvos mágicos (7) 63

45, 4, 4, , 2

Pasolini, Pier Paolo 5, 6

Ponzoni, Aurelio “Cochi” 37

North by Northwest (5) 

Passaggi (77) 3

Poppi, Roberto 2

Nosferatu a Venezia () 4, 7,

La Passion de Joanne d’Arc (2) 65

Le Porte del silenzio () 57, 4

66–7, 2, 3, 

Pat, una donna particolare (2) 

Le Porte dell’inferno () 0, ,

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des

Pathos—Segreta inquietudine ()

4

Grauens (22) 43, 35, 4

4

La Portiera nuda (76) 67

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

Patrick (7) 6, 7, 53

Pover’ammore (2) 7

(7) 7, 66

Patrick vive ancora (0) 6, 66, 

Powell, Michael 0

Una Notte al cimitero see Brivido

Patrizi, Stefano 77, 7, 7

Pozzetto, Renato 5, 37, 3, 3, 00,
giallo

Paura nel buio—Hitcher in the Dark

0, 30, 0

La Notte dei diavoli (72) 5, 2

() 57

Prato, Lucia 2

222 Index I Predatori di Atlantide (3) 03

Reder, Gigi 2

Un Sacco bello (0) 23

Pregadio, Roberto 36

Redford, Robert 6

Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von 

Prestopino, Rosario 47

Reed, Oliver 7

Sagal, Boris 0

Prima che il sole tramonti (76)

Regalo di Natale (6) 2

Saint-John, Antoine 65

0

Regnoli, Piero , 76, , 2

Le Salaire de la peur (53) 20

Prima della lunga notte (L’ebreo

Repetti, Paolo 34

Salce, Luciano 32, 2, 30
fascista) (0) 77

La Residencia (6) 6

Salemme, Lino 4, 20

Prince of Darkness (7) 54, 33,

Return of the Living Dead (5)

Salerno, Enrico Maria 40

73

2

Salerno, Fabio , 0

Profondo rosso (75) 26, 2, 5, 76,

Reverberi, Gian Piero 3

Salerno, Vittorio 05–0

24, 6

Revill, Clive 

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Il Profumo della signora in nero

Rhodes, Bobby 25, 4

(75) 6

(74) 23, 3, 64

Ribon, Diego 52

Salvati, Sergio 44, 57, 5

Proietti, Biagio 56, 5, 5

Ricci, Tonino 20

Salvatores, Gabriele 30

Pronto ad uccidere (76) 35

Richardson, John 7

Salviani, Vincenzo 7

Prosperi, Franco 35, 7

Riecco Aborym (2006) 45

Sambrell, Aldo 2, 3

The Prowler () 6

Ring, Beatrice 200

Samperi, Salvatore 2, 37, 47

Pugni, pirati e karaté (73) 3

Risi, Claudio 200

Sánchez, Eduardo 07

Pulci, Tonino 64

Risi, Dino 37, 6, 73–75, 00

Sandrelli, Amanda 37, 3, 67,

Punter, David 3

Risi, Marco , 47

6

Pupillo, Massimo 45

Il Ritmo del silenzio (3) 54

Sandrelli, Stefania 67

Puppo, Romano 2

Los Ritos sexuales del diablo (2)

Sangineto, Maurizio 4

Purdom, Edmund 3, 2, 2

63

Santa Sangre () 74

Purgatori, Andrea 46, 47, 4

Ritratto di donna velata (TV mini-

Sarlui, Eduard , 3, 32, 33, 45

The Purple Rose of Cairo (5) 24
series, 75) , , 6

Sartre, Jean- Paul 65

Rizzoli, Angelo 20, 37

Sasdy, Peter 

Qua la mano (0) 2, 63

Roadie (0) 3

Sassi, Aldo 

Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio

Robertson, James W. 56, 5

Saverni, Domenico 30

() 66, 0, 3, 5, 6–7,

Robocop (7) 

Saxon, John 7

207

Rocco e i suoi fratelli (60) 4

Saxophone (7) 37

4 mosche di velluto grigio (7) 23,

Rocher, Benjamin 27

Sbarigia, Giulio 56, 5

24

Rocktober Blood (4) 3

Scalps (6) 52

Quella villa accanto al cimitero

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Scanners () 5

() 7, 2, 34, 44, 5, 65, 6, 7,

(75) 63

Scano Boa (60) 40

4–3, , 02, 56, 2, 20, 20

Roland, Gilbert 60

Scattini, Monica 43

Questi, Giulio 4

Rollin, Jean 7

Scerbanenco, Giorgio 203

Quine, Richard 25

Roma (72) 3, 4

Schincaglia, Carlo 

Quinn, Anthony 7

Romagnoli, Michele 65

Schlockoff, Robert 5, 65, , 2

Romero, George A. , 44, 47, 4,

Schneider, Romy 74, 75

Rabid (77) 25

53, 6, 7 23, 24, 25, 26, 6

Schreck, Max 4

I Racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan

Rorret () 0, 65

Schurer, Erna [Emma Costantino]

Poe (TV mini- series, 7) 56,

Rosemary’s Baby (6) 02

47

7

Rosenberg, Stuart 5

Sciotti, Enzo 5, , 37, , 2

Radcliffe, Ann 54

Rosi, Francesco 77

Sclavi, Tiziano 4

Raffanini, Piccio 4

Ross, Annie 5

Scola, Gioia Maria [Gioia Maria

La Ragazza che sapeva troppo (63)

Ross, Philippe 2

Tibiletti] 07, 35, 36, 20, 203

23, 6

Rosselli, Aldo 34

La Sconosciuta (TV mini- series,

Ragazza tutta nuda assassinata nel

Rossellini, Roberto 37

2) 7
parco (72) 7

Rossi, Luciano 7, 25, 44

Lo Scopone scientifico (72) 4

La Ragnatela del silenzio–A.I.D.S.

Rossi, Luigi 

Lo Scorpione a due code see Assas-

(4) 4

Rossi, Riccardo 202
sinio al cimitero etrusco

Raho, Umberto 7

Rossi, Vasco 63

Scott, Ridley 57, 4

Raiders of the Lost Ark () 6, 03,

Rossi Stuart, Giacomo 70, 6, 7

Sear, Walter E. 7

5

Rosso di sera () 37

Sebastian, Beverly 3

Raimi, Sam , 3, 07, 3, 6, 4,

Rosso sangue (2) 6

Sebastian, Ferd 3

205

Rudolph, Alan 3

Il Secondo tragico Fantozzi (76)

Rambaldi, Carlo 26

Rufini, Franco 47

30

Rambo: First Blood Part II (5)

Rusoff, Ted 33

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

4

Russinova, Isabel 203

(47) 37, 2

Ranieri, Massimo 36

Russo, Adriana 5

Il Segno del comando (TV mini-

Rank, Otto 6

Russo, Gaetano 0, 2, 7
series, 7) , 47, 203

Rashomon (50) 2

Rustichelli, Paolo 45, 7

I Segreti di Borgo Larici (204) 7

Raskin, Jay 30

Il Segreto del bosco vecchio (3)

Rassimov, Ivan 64

Saccarola, Giampaolo , 

30

Ratataplan (7) 2

Sacchetti, Dardano 0, , , 34, 43,

Il Segreto di Mussolini (2005) 5

Rats—Notte di terrore (4) 3,

44, 45, 4, 64, 65, 67, 6, 6, 70,

6 donne per l’assassino (64) 26

7

7, 72, 6, 7, , 0, , 4, 5,

Sellers, Mary 55

The Raven (63) 3

7, , , 02, 03, 04, 05, 22,

Senatore, Paola , 26

Rear Window (54) 64

23, 25, 26, 47, 4, 4, 72,

The Sentinel (77) 23, 65, 5, 5

Reazione a catena (7) 27, 56

200, 20, 202, 203

Senza scrupoli (6) 0

Index

223

Senza scrupoli 2 (0) 0

Stivaletti, Sergio 6, 7, , 23, 26,

Tognazzi, Gianmarco 200

Serafian, Deran 3, 55

40, 4, 4, 64, 77

Tognazzi, Ugo 25, 5, 2, 20

The Serpent and the Rainbow ()

Stockhausen, Karl Heinz 63

Tolo, Marilù 7

45

Stoker, Bram 02

Tomassi, Vincenzo 4, 5

Sesso e volentieri (2) 6, 00

The Stone Tape (72) 

The Tomb of Ligeia (64) 46

La Setta () 5, 77

Stoppi, Franca 54

Tommasi, Amedeo 6

Sette note in nero (77) 44, 46, 47,

Storia di ragazzi e di ragazze ()

Tonelli, Bob 6, 

5, 5, 3

2

Tony l’altra faccia della Torino vio-

La Settima donna (7) 7

Una Storia moderna—L’ape regina
lenta () 0

The Seven Year Itch (55) 6

(63) 25

Tootsie (2) 76

Shah, Krishna 3

Storie di vita e malavita (75) 0

Topor, Roland 4

Shark—Rosso nell’oceano (4) 22

Strangers on a Train (5) 0

Torino violenta (77) 0

Shindo, Kaneto 3

Straw Dogs (7) 32

Tornatore, Giuseppe 3

The Shining (0) 3, 65, 72, 6,

La Strega in amore (66) 7, 5

Toscano, Laura 60, 6, 2, 2

0, 5, 6, 206

Streghe (Witch Story) () , 5–

Totò [Antonio De Curtis] 0

Shivers (75) 25, 40

7

Totò cerca casa (4) 0

Shock (77) 3, 36, 3, 203, 20

Le Strelle nel fosso (7) 32, 5,

Totti, Francesco 20

Shock Waves (77) 60

7, 

Touchez pas à la femme blanche

Siciliano, Mario 0

Strindberg, Anita 7, , 2

(74) 2

Siffredi, Rocco 0

Stroppa, Daniele 5, 6, 205, 206

Tourneur, Jacques 50, 65, , 4

Il Signor Diavolo (20) 2

Sturmtruppen (76) 37

Tovoli, Luciano 20, 23, 2

Silver Bullet (5) 26

Suor omicidi (7) 4

Towers, Harry Alan 56

Silvia e l’amore (6) 50

Superfantozzi (5) 30

Tracce di vita amorosa (0) 77

Simonelli, Giovanni , 2, 4,

Superstition () 56, 6, 7

Trani, Maurizio 5, , 0, 5

206

Suspiria (77) , 20, 2, 23, 24, 25,

Transylvania 6–5000 (5) 30

Simonetti, Claudio 24, 207

27, 2, 2, 30, 36, 45, 53, 66, 7,

Trauma (3) 5

Sinbad of the Seven Seas () 65

25, 60, 64, 72, 73, 77, 206

I Tre sergenti del Bengala (64) 57

Sistemo l’America e torno (73) 2

Sutterfield, James 62

I Tre volti della paura (63) 45,

Skerl, Peter 7

22, 2

Smith, Dick 5

Tales of Terror (62) 56

The Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr

Smith, Oliver 0

Tales That Witness Madness (73)

() 5

Soavi, Michele 4, , 0, 3, 44, 24,

03

Trhauma (0) 7, 6

5, 55, 5, 60, 62, 65, 7–75,

Talisman see La Croce dalle 7

Trick or Treat (6) 3

77
pietre

Trilogy of Terror (TV movie, 75)

Sodoma’s Ghost () 66, 0, ,

Tavernier, Bertrand 4

4

5–6, 7, 207, 20

Taviani, Paolo 4

Troll 2 (0) 33

Sogni e bisogni (5) 4

Taviani, Vittorio 4

Truffaut, François 32

Sogni mostruosamente proibiti

Taylor, Don 03

Il Tunnel sotto il mondo (6) 4

(2) 37, 2

Tedesco, Maurizio 46, 47, 4

Il Tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e

I Sogni nel cassetto (57) 74

Tedesco, Paola 46
solo io ne ho la chiave (72) 56

Soldati, Mario 

Telefoni bianchi (76) 54

Tutti defunti… tranne i morti (77)

I Soldi (65) 40

Tempera, Vincenzo “Vince” 3,

4

Solinas, Marisa 0

20

28 Days Later (2002) 27

Sollazzevoli storie di mogli gaudenti

Tenebre (2) 26, 27, 2, 34

2047: Sights of Death (204) 47
e mariti penitenti (72) 3

Tentazione (7) 47, 50

Sono fotogenico (0) 37

Terror (7) 

L’Uccello dalle piume di cristallo

Il Sorriso del grande tentatore (74)

Terror on Tour (0) 3

(70) 76

5

Terzieff, Laurent 2

Ulmer, Edgar G. 56

Sotto il vestito niente II () 75

Il Terzo occhio (66) 32

Ultimo minuto (7) 2

Soviet Zombie Invasion (206) 54

Tessari, Duccio 4, 

Ultimo mondo cannibale (77) 3

Spaak, Catherine 40

Tessicini, Silvano 3, 5, 6

L’Ultimo sapore dell’aria (7) 3

Spacca, Luciana Anna 7

Teste di quoio () 6

L’Ultimo treno della notte (75) 76

Spasmo (74) 7

Testi, Fabio 36

The Uncanny (77) 57

Spell—Dolce mattatoio (77) 6,

Testimone oculare () 203

The Unfortunate Life of Georgina

6

Teutscher, Pauline 7, 

Spelvin Chained to a Radiator

Spencer, Bud [Carlo Pedersoli] 7

Tex e il signore degli abissi (5) 4,

(short film, 205) 54

Spettri (7) 4, 46–4



Unger, Goffredo 25

Lo Spettro (63) 7, 7, 2, 3

Theicheid, Paul 0

L’Unica legge in cui credo (76) 63

Spielberg, Steven , 03, 5, 72

The Thing (2) 26, 64

Uomini sull’orlo di una crisi di nervi

The Spiral Staircase (46) 7

Thomas … gli indemoniati (70)

(5) 7

Sposito, Gianni 5

7

L’Uomo che non voleva morire

Lo Squartatore di New York (2)

Thorpe, Richard 70

() 203

6, , , 02

Through the Looking Glass (76)

Squitieri, Pasquale 67, 6

0

Vacanze di Natale 90 (0) 20

Stacy, John 6

Thrower, Stephen 5, 05

Vado a vivere da solo (2) 

La Stanza accanto (4) 2, 5

Thunder (3) 05

Valenti, Ugo 

Steckler, Ray Dennis 7

Tinti, Gabriele 5

Valentina (TV series, ) 65

Steele, Barbara 7, 0, 53, 7, 203

Tip on a Dead Jockey (57) 70

Valenza Vitelli, Mila 35

Stegers, Bernice 3, 33

Tiraboschi, Roberto 4

Valerii, Tonino 0, 23

Steno [Stefano Vanzina] 37, 6, 0

To Be or Not to Be (3) 76

Valli, Alida 20, 23, 26

224 Index Vampiri (short film, 6) 0

La Vittima designata (7) 67

The Wolf Man (4) 32, 43

I Vampiri (57) 0, , 202

La Voce della luna () 30

Wood, Edward D., Jr. 4

Vampyr (32) 46, 35

Voci dal profondo (0) , 2,

Wood, Robin 66, 7

Vancini, Florestano 42

20

Woods, James 20

Vangelis [Evángelos Odysséas Pap-

Voci notturne (TV mini- series,

Woolrich, Cornell 6
athanassiou] 70

5) 6, 7, 2, 5

The World According to Garp (2)

Van Hoven, Keith 207

Vohrer, Alfred 0

47

Vanzina, Carlo 7

Voices (73) 4

Wybenga, Roland 65

Vargas, Daniele 22

Von Däniken, Erich 5

Vaughn, Robert 6

Von Trier, Lars 47

Yamanouchi, Haruhiko 206

Venantini, Venantino 4, 64

Voyagis, Yorgo 00, 67, 6

Young, Burt 5

La Venere d’Ille (7) 33

Vukotic, Milena 25

Young, Terence 32

Venga a prendere il caffè da noi

Young Frankenstein (74) 2

(70) 25

Wait Until Dark (67) 32

Venturini, Mirella 7

Wallace, Tommy Lee 4, 5

Zaccaro, Maurizio 2

Vera, Victoria 3

Warbeck, David 57, 64

Zambrini, Bruno 2

La Vera storia della monaca di

Warren, Norman J. 

Zampa, Luigi 6

Monza (0) 52, 54, 55

Warrior of the Lost World (3)

Zankoku hitokui tairiku (74) 44

Verdi, Giuseppe 24, 63, 74, 77, 3

32

Zapponi, Bernardino 73

Verdone, Carlo 23, 25

Weldon, Michael J. 5

Zeder (3) 4, , 5, 4–2

Verga, Giovanni 06

Wendel, Lara [Daniela Barnes] 56,

Zéro de conduite (33) 57

Verhoeven, Paul , 73

6, 7

Zignani, Silvano , 5

Veroda, Marie- Christine 0

Wenders, Wim 36, 77

Zimmerman, Vernon 0

I Viaggiatori della sera (7) 5

Wertmüller, Lina 30

Zinny, Karl 32, 200

Vigo, Jean 57

Wetzl, Fulvio 0, 65

Zinny, Veronica 32

La Villa delle anime maledette—The

White, Harriet 7

Zinny, Victoria 32

Damned (2) 0–

The Whole Town’s Talking (35)

Zischler, Hanns 36

Villaggio, Paolo 5, 37, 2, 2, 30

37, 2

Zito, Joseph 6

Villani, Carmen 63

Wicked Stepmother () 7

Zoccheddu, Zaira 44

Violenza in un carcere femminile

Wiederhorn, Ken 60

Zombi 2 (7) 43, 44, 45, 47, 57,

(2) 52

Wilder, Billy 7, 5

65

Virus (0) 6, 44, 55

Wildt, Adolfo 3

Zombi 3 () 7, 4, 54, 5

Visconti, Eriprando 74

Wilson, Colin 4

Zombi Holocaust (0) 6, 43, 44

Visconti, Luchino 77

The Winds of War (TV mini- series,

Zoo () 73

La Visione del sabba () , ,

3) 47

Zoppelli, Lia 0

206

Winner, Michael 23, 65

Document Outline

- Cover
- Acknowledgments
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Entries
- Abbreviations
- Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980–1989
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1985
- 1986
- 1987
- 1988
- 1989
- Appendix 1: Direct-to-Video Releases
- Appendix 2: Made-for-TV Films
- Bibliography
- Index

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Acknowledgments
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Entries
- Abbreviations
- Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980–1989
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1985
- 1986
- 1987
- 1988
- 1989
- Appendix 1: Direct-to-Video Releases
- Appendix 2: Made-for-TV Films
- Bibliography
- Index