Knife of Ice (1972)

As some of you might have noticed, Umberto Lenzi is one of my favourite filmmakers. A versatile director, able to jump from genre to genre without any hesitation, sometimes a hired gun - but what a hired gun! A pro, from classy cop movies to trashy horror. Like most Italian genre directors he also did a couple of gialli, among them the fairly obscure and not so popular Knife of Ice. Not sure why, but I've stayed a way from it for years - even of the DVD was quite easy to find. Anyway, here's the review - finally!

Martha (Carroll Baker) is mute since childhood, when she was traumatized in a train accident. She now lives with her uncle Ralph (George Rigaud, who also played the weirdo priest in Lenzi's Eyeball) in a nice countryside villa. Her cousin Jenny (Ida Galli) comes to visit them, but soon she falls victim for a serial killer who roams the area. More murders follow and - believe it or not - soon Martha seem to be the killers next victim!

Knife of Ice is a very basic thriller, a co-production between Spain and Italy and far from the craziness of Eyeball or the darkness of Spasmo, but like most films by Lenzi is works pretty good even if the story hardly is unique and the production values just is a villa and some forest and nothing else than that. The story is generic and we've seen it before, but Lenzi elegant use of camera tracking and - as usual - superior editing makes this giallo stand out a little more than I thought.

The cast is very good. Carroll Baker is excellent and Ida Galli, in a small part, is cold and shallow - egocentric, but not so she becomes annoying. George Rigaud has more to do in this one, a less silly character than in Eyeball, works with a character that usually is quite boring for any actor to work with. Visually Knife of Ice is competent, but the location is boring and the story very rarely moves around outside the area, so the film seem a bit flat. Lenzi seem aware of this and tries to liven up the interior shots with smart use of the camera to a certain degree.

I like the story, the script isn't bad at all, but it lacks "it" if you know what I mean. That extra little thing that would make it stand out. A couple of gory murders would have spiced up the story of course, but remember that Lenzi never been a fan of gore (much like Lamberto Bava) and when he used it's mostly because the producers wanted it. The murders here is completely bloodless and off-screen, a pity, but we have to accept what maestro Lenzi wanted with his production.

Marcello Giombini's score is brilliant, the best thing with Knife of Ice. A clear strong melody, emotional cues and just that melodrama we love so much with Italian scores. I need to see if it's been released on CD. A must in my collection!

Knife of Ice is a good little giallo, but maybe mostly for fans of Lenzi - like me!

Eyeball (1974)

Even I find it odd that I haven't reviewed Umberto Lenzi's Eyeball (aka the more fancy schmancy Italian title Gatti Rossi In Un Labirinto Di Vetro!). Lenzi is one of my favourite directors and Eyeball is, without any regrets, one of my favourite gialli. That doesn't mean it's one of the best, because I mentions dozens of Italian murder mysteries that's both smarter and better-looking. But none of them is Umberto Lenzi's Eyeball, and I think even Cat O'Nine Tails wakes up in the middle of night, having angst over that fact and going back to sleep with anti-depressant mixed with J&B Scotch Whisky wishing tomorrow will be a better day...

A slightly stupid group of tourists is on their with on a bus through Spain, among them a fishy priest, a big-mouthed American tourist with family, a lesbian couple - yeah, the usual gang of suspects. Their guide is a man who looks a little bit too much on the teenaged girls. On the bus is also Paulette (Martine Brochard) who's gonna meet her boss, Mark (John Richardson). They stop in Barcelona and visits a local market - but suddenly one of the girls is getting brutally stabbed to death and one of her eyes is gouged out! Without much hesitation the group continues, after the usual interrogations by the police, until yet another murder happens - this time in a funhouse, and her eye is also removed! This won't stop our dear tourists and they continue together. But soon the paranoia grows - who's the killer, and why is he/she taking the eyes from innocent young women?

I know, I know. The story is actually beyond stupid - but I DON'T CARE! :) It's friggin' Lenzi and he's going crazy with the giallo-concept. Except not so smart idea with having every victim going by the same bus even if they know they will get killed, the rest of the story isn't bad at all and delivers on of the most entertaining films in the genre ever. First of all, the kills - while not extremely gory - is very violent and sadistic. Very stylish stuff, especially the bathroom-murder (the bloodiest of the bunch also). The killers look, a red raincoat is also very effective and gives a totally different look to the murders than the usual black clothes. It's a brilliant visual idea and makes this a stand-out among giallo-killers.

Eyeball also stands out because it's one of the most unsubtle thrillers I've seen. People scream and over-act like never before, but it fits the hysterical set-up and I think Lenzi just decided to fuck around with the usual stereotypes and create a giallo that would scream it's way through the cinematic flesh of all the other thrillers of the time. Hey, even the music - by Bruno Nicolai is big and bold and slightly tacky, but it all comes together in the end. This is a movie made not for the small details but for the bigness of it all.

In this crazy romp there's some fine, fine performances also. I've always liked John Richardson and he's good here, vulnerable actually - quite far away from the typical macho men inhabiting these movies. George Rigaud as the priest is perfect. He takes a very adorable character and makes him the "probably paedophile" priest we love so much, years before the Catholic Church made it trendy. Best of them all is Martine Brochard, who has a lot to do and do it very well.

I need to force you all to see Eyeball, not because it will make your brains explode because how smart it is, but it will make them explode because of how passionate, how fun and entertaining it is. So grab your sharp knifes, take my hand and get on the bus dammit!

Spasmo (1974)

Umberto Lenzi, one of the most underrated genre directors of our time, created his own little sub-genre of giallos during the late sixties and seventies, the driven to insanity-thrillers! Often very little blood or nudity, instead focusing on the path to madness and the unexpected twists that lays ahead. I haven't seen Spasmo until today, why I waited so long I have no idea, but sometimes destiny makes you choose a SyFy channel original instead of that unwatched Italian thriller and when that happens time after time it's just best to let it take some time until the perfect day comes - like today.

Robert Hoffman is Christian Bauman, a successful playboy who owns a big piece of his late fathers plastic's company. The chairman is his brother, Fritz (Ivan Rassimov). During a stroll at the beach Christian finds a woman laying in the sand. It's Barbara (Suzy Kendall) and they quickly hook up for some fun. But when she's preparing for bedtime Christian is attacked by a man and kills him. They escape, finds a house that Barbara claims to be a friends house. But an elderly man and a young woman shows up, and things is starting to get extra weird!

I don't want to tell you more about the plot, but it's a very classic set-up, we've seen it a couple of times before - but with a couple of twists I never could have expected. Most of the movie is Hoffman talking and looking and suspecting that something strange is going on, but like the pro Lenzi is the story works fine with intelligent directing and a new twist or red herring everything things is starting to be slow. I love how the movie mostly is set in the sunlight and how it still creates an amazing aura of paranoia. This is Lenzi at his best, and in the interview on the DVD he seems very proud of these early bloodless giallos. I've had a feeling for a long time that he's not so fond of blood and gore, and it was just something he was forced upon by horror-starved producers.

Spasmo is a movie with very little violence and blood, except a grim murder-by-car, and Lenzi choose to have it that way to make it stand out from the rest of the thrillers being released. And I think focusing on a clever script and the mystery behind it all without stopping a murder-scenes was a smart idea. A movie like Eyeball would be a lot weaker without the blood and violence, but Spasmo is a very different kind of breed. The thing is that I got completely fooled and when it comes to watching movies and getting the rug pulled from under my feet is very rare. I expected, like a damn smartass, that the ending would be so and so - and yeah, part of that was right, but then two other twists was tossed in front of me and now the story even got better. It's a story of immoral people doing immoral stuff, but hey - that's what the world is all about, so I bought it completely. Bravo Lenzi!

The score by Ennio Morricone is worth mentioning also because it is - like the movie itself - quite discreet and not the usual orgy of emotions and bombastic melodies. It's close to anonymous, but it's so important to follow the story and dialogue that I think a "bigger" score would steal the attention. And we don't want that with masterpieces, yeah?

I like using the word masterpiece or underrated, and I do it in this review to. But I always mean it, because there's too many accepted masterpieces that's just overrated bullshit. Safe movies, boring movies. Movies that follow that almost mathematical script- template to the brink of insanity. Lenzi, and many of his low budget colleagues knew that with breaking the expected they could reach out to a much more interested audience.

And hey, the movies still lives on! In 1000 years movies like Spasmo will still be talked about on the net - and Sound of fucking Music will be forgotten.

Mark my words.

The Man from the Deep River (1972)

I'm not an expert (or a fan) on cannibal films but everyone says that The Man from Deep River was the start of the Italian cannibal trend, and it could be true. Made during the early seventies and setting the standards, stereotypes and scenes for more or less every cannibal flick made until the eighties. Shot in Thailand by director Umberto Lenzi and starring a very blonde and hunky Ivan Rassimov plus a smaller army of Thai actors, among them Pipop Pupinyo - who always played brutal henchmen in most Thai movies from the seventies I've seen.

John Bradley (Ivan Rassimov) plays a photographer who goes to Thailand (with SAS plane Frode Viking, just a detail). He lands in Bangkok, checks around town, watches some thaiboxing and gets himself into a fight in a bar - kills a man (played by an actor I recognize so well!) and escapes to the countryside. After his guide is killed he's taken prisoner by a tribe and after some gruesome tests he's take in as a true member. Of course the beautiful and very nude Me Me Lai falls for him and he for her and the only thing who can destroy their life now is a village of angry cannibals nearby!

Yeah, its a lot in this movie we all seen and heard in later movies. From the stunningly beautiful soundtrack to torture and animal cruelty. Except that always unnecessary inclusion of killing real animals The Man from Deep River is a surprisingly serious movie, taking most of it's inspiration from A Man Called Horse. Rassimov is a good and complex hero, making better use of the script than a lesser actor would do. Or maybe I just should see his motivations through his eyes: Me Me Lai is naked all the time wants him, so it's a nice place to stay. But I prefer to read him more like a man who takes the chance to change his life to something more free and natural.

This is easily Lenzi's best foray into the nasty business of cannibal movies. It's less exploitative and more focused on a classic adventure tale than on a gore-soaked horror movie - and that's fine with me because the cannibal genre always needed a bit of seriousness to be able to entertain me. It's not without gore and blood, a chopped of hand - some nibbling on human flesh, a stab or two - but unfortunately most of the gruesome stuff is spent on killing animals.

Shot in Thailand also means a lot of Thai actors in supporting parts. The only one I recognize is the man that's killed in the beginning - I'm sure I've seen him in some of Kom Akadej's movies or bad guys opposite Sombat Metanee - and the second one is of course the above mentioned Pipop Pupinyo. I've taken some screenshot and posted them on my other blog, The Mee Noi Thai Movie Review, to try to identify the other cast. The credits seem to use their real names: Prasitsak Singhara, Sulallewan Suxantat, Ong Ard, Prapas Chindang, Tuan Tevan, Song Suanhud and Pairach Thaipradit.

The Swedish cannibal box including this, Jungle Holocaust and Amazonia, looks very good and recommended for European fans. 

Daughter of the Jungle (1982)

Just when I thought I've seen it all, Daughter of the Jungle falls down in my lap. A jungle-comedy directed by Umberto Lenzi and written by his nemesis, the actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice! I wonder how this movie came to be? Radice and Lenzi never liked each other from the beginning and here they're doing a comedy together? And it feels even more bizarre after watching Lenzi's gruesome jungle-horrors he made earlier. But the question is of course if it works as a comedy? Yeah, I would say so. Silly, but with a few laughs here and there.

Butch and Ringo are two morons from New York who goes to the jungle for vacation. They hire a boat and gets lost directly out in the jungle. They befriends a tribe and not long thereafter a blonde woman, Luana (played by blonde bombshell Sabrina Siani) who crashed with her family when she was three years old and now is the female Tarzan (with her own monkey, Shita). But the evil Dupré (a very funny Sal Borghese) and his clumsy henchmen is also out in the jungle hunting for rubies - and they think that Butch and Ringo also are after these stones! Cue hilarious adventures.

I've seen a couple of Italian comedies before, so it's not a surprise that Daughter of the Jungle often relies itself on cheap sex-jokes, nudity and a lot of slapstick - often someone getting something funny in the head and makes a funny face or two. But I also have to admit that I laughed more than one time and much of the dialogue comes in such a frantic pace that it's hard not to be charmed by the characters or giggle at people falling on their asses. This is not big art, but it's entertaining - and I guess those who like Sabrina naked will be happy with what they see.

Much have been said that this is a spoof of Lenzi's cannibal-movies. I would have liked to say so myself, but it's just a comedy set in a jungle - and that doesn't make a self-referential spoof of any kind. But maybe the countless hours in the jungle inspired Lenzi and Radice to make a comedy in an environment that just caused pain? A sort of a catharsis. Anyway, how the hell should I know? It's hard to read in anything deeper in Daughter of the Jungle. It's a comedy with actors who has good chemistry together and a naked chick. That's what you get, nothing else and it's quite funny.

Ah, it's for the first time in the world out on DVD - from Njuta Films as usual. They have an OK looking widescreen-print, far from stellar and quite grainy, but I guess it beats a lot of the earlier VHS-releases out there.

Over and out.

Ghosthouse (1988)

Say what you want about Vipco, but they released a great box with four of Lenzi’s and Fulci’s TV-movies and also a single release of the criminally underrated corny masterpiece Ghosthouse. The latter one also known as La Casa 3 (Evil Dead 3), but has very little with that franchise to do except some supernatural stuff happening in a house. Ghosthouse is a very fine release, sharp picture and uncut and it’s one of my favourite Lenzi-movies from the crazy, wacky eighties. Not that original, but who cares!

The wonderfully stiff couple Martha and Paul (played with the enthusiasm of a couple of wax dolls by Laura Wendel and Greg Scott) picks up a mysterious message at their radio…thingie (I’m to lazy to check the English expression for what they’re doing). Paul suspects it’s a murder and together they manage to find the source… and meet another couple with radio-thingie as a hobby. It’s their voices they heard (and recorded), but they’re still alive! They’re based at a strange old house, and soon something kills them off one by one!

Ah, the story. My sincere apologies, but even if I love the film the story is so damn boring to write down like this. I hope you understand me. Like I wrote above, Ghosthouse is hardly an original story by any means, but it has a very nice thick atmosphere which reminds me of EC Comics and more or less all eighties horror movies mixed together. The best of everything! Just with a TV-budget and very stiff acting. But still, we have the always wonderful Donal O’Brien, playing one of those creepy fucks he always was cast as during the golden years of his career. He alone is worth the time watching the movie.

What’s excellent with Ghosthouse is that it’s a TV-movie but Lenzi hasn’t forgot what he came there for, and gives us a couple of well-lit kill-scenes, some very creative camera work and a disgusting scene when a character falls through the floor and nearly drowns in something that looks like boiling… semen? I have no idea what it’s supposed to be, but it’s a very effective and gross sequence. Overall, the interiors (maybe shot in Italy? A lot of the furniture, walls and other details is very familiar) have charming cozy TV-feeling over them and the wonderful exteriors is of course the same house Fulci shot House by the Cemetery at, Ellis Estate House - 709 Country Way, Scituate, Massachusetts, USA (according to the IMDB).

Ghosthouse as blood and simple gore (Lenzi’s trademark, the axe in the back of the head is there to!) cheese and a fun score by Claudio Simonetti. And hell, that ending – is it only me that feels like it was ripped off by the Final Destination-series?

Ironmaster (1983)

How am I gonna put in words how fantastic Ironmaster are? I’m not sure, and if I manage to do that I know a lot of people never would agree with me. But that’s part of the charm with being a man with great taste in movies. What I really enjoy here is that Umberto Lenzi and his staff obviously more took their inspiration from Quest for Fire than rather just ripping of Conan the Barbarian like all other Italian did during this time. The poster might fool people that it’s a fantasy movie, but it’s more based in that “reality” that creates a world inside movies. I also understand that some folks might have a problem looking beyond the small budget, the silly wigs (from Rocchetti & Carboni as usual) and the sometimes uneven acting and corny dialogue…

…but you know, that’s just small details. Look at the whole picture, not the flaws. No movie is flawless, and a movie with out beauty marks is just so damn boring to watch. I watched Ironmaster the first time as a teenager and it stayed with me since then. I would like to examine why it stayed with me, except the obvious fact that it has a lot of very scantily clad men. The plot is basic, we follow a cave tribe. The leader is old and weak and the next up on the ladder is either heroic and decent Ela (Sam Pasco) or the aggressive and greedy Vood (Luigi Montefiori). During an attack from a hostile nearby tribe Vood is killing the leader and blames it on the enemy, but Ela sees him and ban him from the tribe. Filled with anger Vood leaves, but get trapped in the mountains during a volcano eruption and discovers… iron. He forge a new sword and with that as his secret weapon he comes back and gathers men who want to follow him and be the new leader – something he will gain thru violence and war…

The funny thing is that it’s not our hero, Ela, who is “the ironmaster”, but the main protagonist Vood! But that is also one of the cool things with Ironmaster, it’s clearly anti-violence. Ela is brave enough to use his fists or just a wooden stick, and not some fancy iron-rod. He just knows better. But Ironmaster is also, once again, a great example of Lenzi’s directing style. Its fast and razor sharp, with excellent editing and a fine use of music (by De Angelis-brothers). The pacing is fantastic, with no dead spots or drawn out melodrama. This is full speed ahead and it never stops until the final showdown. I just love the use of old-school effects like matte paintings and foreground-miniatures, which looks stunning – especially in the new DVD from Njuta Films. It’s like watching something out of a dream, something that looks completely alien for us. The only time when this illusion is broken is when the metal fence shows up in the background, very quickly in one scene. Except that it feels like something extraordinary. It also has a lot of stunning exteriors from Custer Park in South Dakota, which truly looks amazing.

Ironmaster is filled with fights and has a quite big body count (it even has some minor gore) and one stylish slow-mo scene with people fighting, but what really make a difference is the horror-elements that is visible during several sequences. The meeting with the ape people feels a lot like something from a cannibal movie for example. Primitives out to kill and hunt humans. But the best scene is when our heroes takes shelter in a cave and runs into something that looks exactly like rotten zombies! They of course have some illness, but the gory make-up and the music and tension in this scene could be directly from an Italian zombie movie.

Acting-wise its ok, with Luigi Montefiori in one of his best parts ever. He truly gives fascism a face with his obsessive hunt for power. A fantastic role for an awesome actor. Ela is played by the mysterious Sam Pasco, an American body builder who only has this movie on his resumé – well, almost… watch out for my article about his life and career tomorrow! He’s not bad, but he looks a bit confused sometime and even a bit funny with his absurdly fit body. But he handles the action scenes great and it’s a pity he couldn’t continue to do more movies for Italian producers.

Ironmaster is one of the most solid “fantasy” movies from Italy from this time. What it lacks in budget it gains in energy, action and just how well-told it really are. I might be wrong person to write about a movie by Lenzi, because I consider him one of the best and interesting directors ever, especially in the Italian genre cinema. If you should see a real Lenzi-movie, stay away from Eaten Alive and Cannibal Ferox, watch Ironmaster or any of his other forays into exploitation cinema. If a movie has action and Lenzi is behind the wheel, that’s the movie to watch.

And yes, the new DVD from Njuta Films looks good. I was first afraid when I saw the first minutes of the movie, where the quality felt weak and lifeless. But after the pre-credits, the nice anamorphic widescreen finally showed its strength. Uncut of course, but I shouldn’t even mention something that silly. This is 2011, yeah - movies should be uncut! The only thing I missed with this DVD is something extra, an article, interview – even just in text. I would love to read that (or to write that…). The selection of trailers is strange too, only sexploitation-trailers! But the movie is what you’re gonna buy this movie for, and you won’t regret it!

Oasis of Fear (1971)

I guess those that expect a gory, classic giallo in the typical Italian tradition will be very disappointed by Oasis of Fear, but we who loves a good movie will get a lot of joy from this stylish and quite controversial thriller by maestro Umberto Lenzi. Lenzi has been a favorite of mine since my early teens, with his raw energy and fuck you-attitude to the world, the cinema and to the critics. This movie is a great example of that kind of filmmaking, with many layers of both critism towards “the kids of today” to Lenzi’s own generation of middle age hypocrites.

Ray Lovelock is Dick Butler, and he’s traveling around with his girlfriend Ingrid Sjöman (Ornella Muti) in Italy on vacation. Well, with a little perverted income on the side: selling pornographic photographs of her to horny Italians. After some problem with the local police they hurry out on the countryside and decide to seek shelter somehow. They find a big modern villa where a lonely woman, Barbara Slater (Irene Papas) waits for her husband to come home. At first Dick and Ingrid thinks the house is empty and uses their garage to steal some gasoline, but after a furious Barbara discovers them they decide to leave… until Barbara suddenly changes her mind and invites them for food and bed. An evening that slowly turns out to be stranger and stranger, and with Barbara still waiting for her husband to come home…

Umberto Lenzi has an amazing eye for details, and this movie is filled with fantastic shots, cool faces, rapid editing and excellent acting. The story itself is not that complicated, but has a few twists and turns. But in the end it’s a chamber play with three characters in collision with each other. Irene Papas just rules every damn frame shes’s in, and together with Lovelock and Muti this is one fine cast of actors. It feels like a mix between the free-form movies of the sixties, and the more controlled thrillers of the seventies, so of course there will be both a murder and psychedelic disco scenes.

I also love the idea of such a complex line-up of intrigues, which might not be that commercial. First of all we have something that’s almost a morality tale of how the youth behaves, uncontrolled and rude – but at the same time, Lenzi clearly stands on their side. But then our point of view is moved to the Irene Papas-character, which seem frail and weak – but suddenly changes and we understand that this generation can be as shitty as the last one. It’s all about sex and greed anyway, no matter in what age you are.

Shameless DVD isn’t that good at all, BUT that is, what I understand, the best way to see this movie. We have the longest cut ever, it’s in the original ratio and it has most of the time good VHS quality (some parts is a lot better than that I must add) and this is nothing that could stop you all to enjoy this excellent, underrated thriller from Umberto Lenzi.

Primal Rage (1988)

The wait has been long for me, ever since I saw the cool poster and video art a thousand years ago, but Primal Rage is one of those movies that lives up to its hype. This is a damn goofy, silly, entertaining, gory and fast-paced piece of US-Italian horror with no pretentions of being to smart, but is aware of that.

Anyway, some doctor in brain-diseases makes experiments on a monkey and a journalist at university magazine is sneaking inside the lab, upsets the money - who breaks free, bites him, jumps thru a window and gets killed by a car. The journalist gets sick, infects his new girlfriend with a violent kiss on the throat and she infects some local hoodlums – and now it’s up to the friends to the first two infected to save the day!

Yeah, it’s more or less a simpler version of 28 Days Later, but with a nice eighties-soundtrack and a cool score by Claudio Simonetti. Did I mention the script by Umberto Lenzi? I’m not kidding you when I say it’s well-written, because it delivers what it’s suppose to deliver: entertainment. The dialogue is a bit corny (”Hey, you dildos!”), but fits fine with the style and feeling of the movie.

Vittorio Rambaldi, the son of the famous Carlo, is doing a very good job with the directing and makes the movie look a lot more bigger and more spectacular than the budget probably allowed in the first place. Like Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare Beach it feels very American, but with a lot more visual class than a lot of the US movies in the same genre from that time.

And talking about Rambaldi, it’s father Rambaldi together with Alex Rambaldi who’s behind the impressive make-up and gore-effects. The red juice flows steadily without becoming a real splatter movie and it’s a lot of fun kills to look forward too. My favourite is not the goriest, a person with a three-nosed mask (the noses are formed like water taps) who’s getting his head crushed (I think, hard to see) and the blood starts flowing from all the noses! Most of the gore is during the big masquerade-party at the end (with a lot of fun and creative masks and dresses by the way), and even if it’s nothing big and extreme, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed.

Primal Rage is released uncut and in widescreen by Code Red, and I think you all should BUY it and nothing else. Support your local DVD-distributor, especially those that are small and often vulnerable.

Black Demons (1991)

Another slightly forgotten Lenzi-flick, Black Demons is not his strongest, but another of those very charming late Italian horror productions that have been forgotten over the years. The story is simple but effective: three students (among them the excellent Joe Balogh) goes to Brazil to research about black magic. Dick (Balogh) get's right into a black mass and somehow gets possessed by the power of black magic and brings it with him when they travel into Brazil.

During the trip they meet to hikers who live nearby, and they visits their old house out in the jungle. Not far away is a funeral place with the graves of six black slaves that where killed by their white masters many years ago. The legend says that they want revenge. When Dick starts to play the music he recorded during the black mass he resurrects the slaves and they starts to take their bloody, gruesome revenge!

Like Hell's Gate, Black Demon has a low pace and is very cheap, but I think Black Demons is the better movie. Why? Well, first of all the direction seem a lot more inspired and Lenzi uses beautiful locations and some cool black ritues to make the generic story a bit more entertaining. They terror is also spread all over the movie and not just during the last half hour, which makes the slow pace between the horror faster. Another thing is that is has a little bit more gore than Hell's Gate. There's at least three very graphic murders, among them a very brutal eye-ripping and a cut throat with a lot of blood. The zombies themselves actually looks really good and creepy, almost disgusting with the decay shown with subtle and well made make-up effects.

The weakest thing with the movie is the actors. Joe Balogh is good, and so Keiith Van Hoven, but the local Brazilian talents are terrible. Especially Philip Murray who also makes the worst death-acting EVER. He and the other locals also have problem with the english (everything seem to be their natural voices, not something that's been dubbed in later) and it's hard to hear what they're saying. The woman playing the maid in the house is cool too by the way, and has charisma, but have the same language problems. Sonia Curtis seem to be somewhere else, and even Lenzi claims that the acting problems was a big part of making the movie weaker than it was. Curtis also drank some local milk and got hospitalized during the shooting, so I guess there was some chaos.

It's also fun with a slightly political incorrect theme of the movie. Just the titles, Black Demons, that refers to zombies with dark skin - "black people" - could, I guess, cause some irritated viewers out there. And the zombies are black, and is refered to black slaves in the movie, attacking white people. But on the other side, it's about revenge - just only that they loose in the end. Lenzi himself, in very good interview on the DVD talks a little bit about this, but still feels it's just a horror movie and with no deeper meanings.

I like Black Demons, even if it has problems. The gore is fine, the music is atmospheric, the zombies are brutal and Lenzi's directing is inspired. Once again it's Olga Pehar writing the script, and it's a good and effective b-horror story which could have done better with out some of the dialogue. It just gets a bit talky.

I wish that Lenzi could come out from retirement and give us more movies like this. Mattei could do it, so Lenzi - come on!

Hell's Gate (1989)

It's Leeeeeenzi-time! Yes, Umberto Lenzi is one of my favorite directors from Italy, he can also be a bit uneven. But I think mostly that has do with what he put's his heart in and nothing else. Some days it's just a paycheck, another day passion. And hopefully both most of the time. I've always been fond of his horror production from the eighties, and Hell's Gate is far from perfect, but still an entertaining piece of b-movie heaven.

Giacomo Rossi-Stuart plays Dr Johns (with a perfect hair cut by the way) who's leading an experiment how long a man can stay down in a cave. On the 78th day they're gonna bring him up, but everything goes wrong. First he disappears in the caves, screaming that "they" gonna kill them all, and then it's exactly what happens. Because in the 12th century seven heretic monks where buried there... or something... and now they want revenge from beyond the grave! So now they have to kill seven heretics to... come back to life maybe?

Ok, I've seen this movie many times but I've never understood every detail. As usual I like to focus on the good things and except the very, very low budget this movie is quite an entertaining little flick, but far from a masterpiece. The setting of a cave is of course great, and this cave is also connected to some underground tombs belonging to a nearby church - so there's everything you need for a horror movie set in the underground. But the budget is noticeable in the TV-style execution of the movie (maybe it was made for TV?) and that it drags on some scenes too long - like they need to focus one the spectacular stuff to hide that the rest of the movie is very cheap.

But still, it never drags. It's hardly exciting and fantastic like Nightmare City (but how many movies are like that one?), but still manage to throw in two gory killings (Lenzi sure loves that axe in the back of the head, I think it's in most of his horror movies from the eighties), some spiders, explosions, a burning cross and a lot of running in tunnel to not be boring. The script is very simple (by Lenzi's wife Olga Pehar), and the final echoes of Nightmare City with a nightmare that becomes reality. I think the actors, especially Barbara Cupisti works fine and there's also a very short cameo by Paul Muller in the end.

It's not better than Black Demons or Ghosthouse, but I have a soft spot for this one. Can't help me, so shoot me if you want.

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)

Cue idiot from IMDB:

"If violent Italian slahers (aka giallo) are your cup of tea, you are probably going to be a little disappointed with this film. The movie plays more like a whodunit than like a typical giallo movie. For the most part, it is pretty restrained (for this kind of movie), with little gore and too much dialogue. The story does seem a little too far-fetched, and I knew the killer's identity as soon as I saw him/her."

I'm not sure which movie this person has watched, but it's a very inaccurate description of Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. First of all, a giallo IS a whodunit, and this is a pure giallo in every aspect. There's black gloves, many murders - violent ones and at least one with a lot of blood, and the dialogue is for once not boring at all. So I would say, to parafras "Hal-900 from WA, USA": "If violent Italian slahers (aka giallo) are your cup of tea, you are probably going to be very happy with this film". Sure, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but this person is just TO retarded. Okey, fuck it. 

Someone is killing of seven women who stayed at a hotel a year before the events in this movie. One of them is Giulia (Uschi Glas), but she's protected by her loving husband Mario (Sabato) and he also starts to investigate the mystery himself - and becomes a suspect himself, no surprise. The stupid cops have no clue how to stop the murders, but Mario is getting closer and closer to the solution... and of course the murderer knows this and soon everybody is in danger!

Umberto Lenzi was during the height of his career one of the most entertaining directors to come from Italy. He made every kinda genre and often did them very good. He's not famous of his giallos, but Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is absolutely one of the best giallos ever made. It's pretty standard as a movie, but it's never, never boring and has a fun and tight script where I would say it's quite hard to guess the killer. Antonio Sabato is a wonderful hero and a very good actor, who might have to good looks to be take seriosly by critics. Rossella Falk has a smaller part, but is excellent. 

The murders are violent, but never goes into Fulci or Argento-gore. Except one murder, with a electric drill, that get's way more bloody than I expected it to be. But Lenzi has a sense for sadism and he get's to show of some nasty violence here and does it with a masters touch. As usual the movie is well shot and has a lovely score by one of my favorites, Riz Ortolani. 

The best giallo I've seen in a long while and it's something you gotta see if you are into the genre.

Okey, here we go again: Nightmare City is the best movie ever made!

I've written everything there is to be written about Nightmare City. What more is there to be said about Umberto Lenzis fantastic and groundbreaking mutant-nightmare? I have no idea, but I just have to write something. As everyone knows, it's not a zombie-movie. It's radioactive mutant humans going berserk with garden tools - something that seems to be a common thing to be found on a military airplane. Yeah, I know. It's easy making fun of NC (as we fans call it ;)), but I seriously think it's one of the coolest and best movies ever made. And that's a sensitive thing to say.

Once there was an idiot at DVDforum (one of the most boring forums in Sweden by the way) who got upset because he claimed that I couldn't say that NC was a GOOD movie! He said that I like NC because it's a bad movie. Not because it's a good movie. I said that's not correct. I love NC. It's a good movie. But he didn't belive me and got more upset. So I fucked him in the mental ass and left him crying there on the forum-floor. I think many people have a problem to admit that it's a good movie. They joke about the faults and problems, but then they admit very carefully that it has a good pacing and is quite fun after all.

I think the "thing" with NC is that all the weird and goofy little details create one big fat piece of entertainment. If you focus on one detail, you get lost. But if you put it together with all the rest it's perfect. I'm sure they didn't care so much about the details in this movie, and just went for all the fun stuff that they could make up. The knife-throwing doctor, the exploding television, the dance-scenes, the exploding heads, the priest with the scarred face (that they should have seen from the beginning, but acts surprised when he turns the scars away from them), Stiglitz... hmm "inspired acting", Francisco Rabals acne-face, the cheap gore, the cool music (Ever noticed the techo-beat in the main-theme? Great!), the fighting... it has everything and it's the most perfect exploitation-puzzle I know.

So, is there possible to write about NC in some new angle? I've tried. Maybe from a gay-angle? No, even as a gay man I can't find anything remotely gay in this movie (some of the male dancers are a bit... feminine by the way, but on the other hand, I know a lot of feminine straight guys to) and I'm not sure I want to see Hugo Stiglitz as a hunk. Hugo...the man, the myth. I like him as an actor very much. He looks tired, but he's absurdly uninterested in this characters. He's somewhere else, maybe home on his mexican ranch, sipping on a drink. Because he's not in Nightmare City. But I've learned to love him here to. He's works fine and do what Lenzi tells him to do. Like a good, faithful dog.

Lenzi obvious wanted to do something else than a normal zombie-movie, and he just goes berserk filming the action-scenes! It's wild, very nice edited, some nice stunts and it's never, NEVER boring. He know's his craft. The most eerie scene is the first one in the hospital, when the first mutants appear. It's the only true horror in the whole movie I think. Well, maybe in Rabals house when his wife and her friend get's it. Good stuff.

Shit. I have to see it again. It was at least six months since last time, so I can feel the urge for...BLOOD!!!