THOSE BLOODY ITALIANS

This week Great Old Movies takes a look at Italian horror films, specifically those bloody "giallo" movies or gialli (the plural).

"Giallo" simply means yellow in Italian. (You would think it would denote the color red for blood, but the term derives from Italian pulp-type fiction with yellow covers.) But giallo has come to mean a certain type of mystery film or thriller. It has a broader usage in Italy itself, but elsewhere it denotes a specific type of shocker. There is usually an unknown maniac (or at least someone who acts like a maniac but may be quite sane and cunning) on the loose killing several victims in often flamboyant and vicious ways. There is a gruesome emphasis on the deaths. And a convoluted plot that may lead decades back into the past to explain motives or bring the killer to light.

Gialli were influential in some ways on the American slasher films that followed, although these tended to have much more simplistic plot lines. One could also argue that Brian De Palma, who made very classy "slasher" films at the beginning of his career, was as much influenced by Italian gialli as he was by Hitchcock.

Probably the first great giallo director was Mario Bava, whose Blood and Black Lace was very influential on later films, including those by the second great giallo director, Dario Argento. (Argento should certainly have been represented in this week's films, but when I put in my DVD of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage it proved to be defective. However, type in his name in the search bar above and many of his films will come up.) Argento helmed such gems as Deep Red and Dario Argento's Trauma, both of which are masterpieces of the genre.

A BLADE IN THE DARK

Anny Papa and Andrea Occhipinti

A BLADE IN THE DARK aka La casa con la scala nel buoi/1983). Director: Lamberto Bava.

Bruno (Andrea Occhipinti) is working on a score for a horror film directed by Sandra (Anny Papa). His friend, Tony (Michele Soavi), lets him stay in a large and beautiful villa that he manages, and Bruno quickly encounters two women, Katia (Valeria Cavalli) and Angela (Fabiola Toledo), both of whom are horribly murdered on the estate. Bruno also has a girlfriend named Julia (Lara Lamberti), about whom he becomes suspicious. Investigating, Bruno discovers that their deaths may have something to do with the picture that Sandra is working on. A Blade in the Dark boasts a highly tense and suspenseful approach, although most viewers will see the ending a mile away. The murder sequences are sadistic and gruesome. The music by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis is very reminiscent-- in fact, downright imitative --  of the scores by Goblin for such Dario Argento films as Deep Red. A Blade in the Dark imitates Argento's films with its half giggling-half crying maniac and the convoluted plotline, but it's not in the same league as that director's work. Nevertheless, Bava, the son of Mario Bava, manages to hold the viewer's attention and keep him riveted during key sequences. In this picture, at least, Bava is clearly influenced by his father, Argento, and even Brian De Palma. Actor Michele Soavi also directed horror films such as Stagefright (1987).

Verdict: Real creepy movie with several very bloody sequences. ***.

THE KILLER NUN

Joe Dallesandro and Anita Ekberg

THE KILLER NUN (aka Suor Omicidi/1979). Director: Giulio Berruti.

Sister Gertrude (Anita Ekberg) is the head nurse in a hospital that also seems to function as a convalescent home. Gertrude is convinced that she is dying, even though there is no medical evidence to suggest this, and she seems to be unraveling in other ways. She causes the head doctor, Poirret (Massimo Serato) to lose his job, and Dr. Roland (Joe Dallesandro) takes his place. Periodically Gertrude ditches her habit, goes into town, and picks up a man for hot sex, but of more concern is that she seems to be murdering the patients at the hospital. Is she losing her mind, or is someone else responsible for the deaths? The Killer Nun has a good idea but its execution is poor, as the film is saddled with weak direction, slovenly editing, a poor musical score, and a lack of basic coherency. As for the cast, any film that boasts both Anita Ekberg [Back from Eternity] and Joe Dallesandro [Wiseguy] in the same picture has to have its interesting moments, and it does. And the Mother Superior, whom Gertrude calls a bitch at one point, is played by no less than Alida Valli of Hitchcock's The Paradine Case! The Killer Nun might have been a superior horror picture but it has absolutely no style, and the murder sequences have no suspense or panache. Ekberg is okay, and still looks great, if a little more zoftig, at 48; she did a few more films after this one. The film introduced Paola Morra, who plays Sister Mathieu, a nun who is in love with Gertrude but has sex with Dr. Roland when he discovers she's stolen some morphine. Gertrude tells Mathieu that she prefers men, but will sleep with women if they wear silk stockings! If Dario Argento had directed this picture, it might have amounted to something.

Verdict: Anita Ekberg as a nun! Not since Frank Sinatra as a priest in Miracle of the Bells (which also starred Alida Valli) has their been such delightfully absurd casting. If only the movie were better! **.

CRUISING / INTERIOR: LEATHER BAR

Al boogies in  the gay bar 

CRUISING (1980). Director: William Friedkin.

INTERIOR: LEATHER BAR (2013). Director: James Franco; Travis Mathews.

Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is assigned to go undercover in the gay leather milieu to see if he can get leads on whoever is murdering the patrons of these bars. Burns feels uncomfortable in his assignment, but his superior (Paul Sorvino) talks him into continuing. Burns seems to have caught the killer when another murder occurs .... Modern-day viewers may wonder what the fuss was about when they look at this through 21st century eyes. But in 1980, decades before LBGT sections on Hulu and Netflix, there weren't that many films about the gay lifestyle, and it was enraging that the best that two major filmmakers (Pacino of The Godfather and Friedkin of The Exorcist)  could come up with was this mediocre slasher film that exploited the gay community, presenting one-dimensional characters to be slaughtered. Most of the film's opponents (which included this critic and activist) didn't object to the movie exploring the gay s & m scene (which was always more about role-playing than anything else) but to its complete failure in any way to positively illuminate that scene aside from sexual activity. While Cruising is well-produced, with a lot of atmosphere due to James Contner's cinematography, and Pacino's performance is okay, it is a much less effective* "slasher" film than, say, the original Friday the 13th,which came out the same year. (Friday the 13th was also much more influential, and while also excoriated by critics, made a lot more money than Cruising.)

Seen today, how is the movie? Well, it's still mediocre, not only due to its exploitation of gay men but to its penny dreadful script. Its use of multiple maniacs (which is apparent once you try to figure out who the killer is) only makes the pic much more confusing than it needs to be. Then there's that ridiculous early sequence where we see two men clad half in leather and half in drag -- like that ever happens (except maybe on Halloween)! At one point Burns expresses sympathy for a gay suspect beaten by police (in an utterly ludicrous sequence that was supposedly based on fact), which makes the implied ending more ridiculous. (This suggests that Burns murdered his friendly gay neighbor as the character did in the crappy source novel)  There's no point in trying to figure out who the different murderers are because it's clear that -- while Friedkin today tries to make it sound like he had some master plan all along -- the movie is simply badly structured and edited, a sloppy hack job in every sense of the word. Friedkin and company could have made a much more positive (and coherent and fascinating) film while remaining true to its thriller/slasher origins. 

One of the cast members of Interior: Leather Bar

And now we come to Interior: Leather Bar, a silly documentary made by actor James Franco and Travis Mathews. The idea was to recreate the supposedly lost forty minutes cut from Cruising that presented more raw footage from the backroom gay bar scenes. The reality is that only a few minutes have been recreated; most of the film is about actor Val Lauren's discomfort in being associated with the project. In some sequences he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than in this movie. There's at least one gay sex scene, and James Franco admirably talks about why it's unfair that such scenes are often suppressed in major theatrical movies, which is not the case with straight sex scenes. The whole idea of this movie seems to be to get a group of both gay and straight actors in a room and have them interacting in a homoerotic manner, but I get the impression this is more about the filmmakers' fantasies than anything else. One can imagine this is one way the recognizable Franco can be in a gay bar without actually being in a gay bar!

[*Friday's shock/murder scenes are better handled, the film has more suspense, as much atmosphere, and its characters are no less dimensional than Cruising's. In addition, the movie's victims aren't members of a persecuted and marginalized community, unless you think camp counselors are a minority group.]

Verdict: Cruising: **1/2.
              Interior: Leather Bar *1/2.

WATCH OUT FOR THOSE SLASHERS!

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger

WATCH OUT FOR THOSE SLASHERS!

While it's not exactly what one could call perfect holiday fare, this week we're looking at that sick, sick, sub-genre, the mad slasher, or stalk-and-slash film. One could hardly say that any of these movies are in good taste, but horror in general has never been the most tasteful genre. Although Halloween is generally considered the first modern-day slasher film after Psycho, I think Friday the 13th, which came out two years later, was much more influential. Before you knew it there was movie after movie in which young people -- high schoolers, college kids, camp counselors, teens or twenty-somethings, people at the very start of life -- are sliced and diced in often horrendous ways by some anti-social maniac. The most famous of these is Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise, although Freddy Krueger was the more imaginative and diabolical sociopath -- Jason was mostly just a killing machine. Some of the maniacs in these films had motives, however specious or outlandish, generally focusing on revenge for a misdeed in the past, or romantic/sexual obsession, or just a jealous hatred of one's peers. Some murderers were serial killers; others' identities were never revealed even at the film's conclusion. So this week we've got a whole slew of slasher movies, including one Nightmare, one Friday the 13th, and several others of varying quality, not to mention a whole book on slasher films. Don't eat on a full stomach! NOTE: Although there have certainly been a few very effective slasher films, the only real "slasher" masterpiece is Psycho, and likely to remain so.

William Schoell is the author of Stay Out of the Shower: 25 Years of Shocker Films Beginning with "Psycho" and The Nightmare Never Ends: Freddy Krueger and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films (with James Spencer).

THE SLASHER MOVIE BOOK

THE SLASHER MOVIE BOOK. J. A. Kerswell. Chicago Review Press; 2010.

This thick, heavily illustrated trade paperback looks at the slasher film genre: Friday the 13th, Freddy Krueger, Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis, and so on. There are chapters on pre-Psycho horror movies; Italian giallo films; German-made multiple murder films based on novels by Edgar Wallace; British and American Gothic films; "The Golden Age of the Slasher" from 1978 to 1984; and slasher films from other countries in the eighties, nineties, and afterward. In addition to notes on the usual suspects, I came across quite a few movies I had never seen or heard of before. I didn't agree with everything in the book, of course. For instance, Kerswell writes of Psycho: "Equating transvestism with mental illness seems to date the film," but the sequence with the psychiatrist at the end goes to pains to make it clear that Norman Bates was not a true transvestite. But The Slasher Movie Book is more concerned with the later slasher outcrop than anything else, and does as good a job as anyone of knowledgeably surveying the scene. The book is chock-full of movie stills and posters.

Verdict: If you dig this sub-genre, the book is engaging and interesting, if a little gross,  to look at. ***.

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Scream for Your Life!

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Well, we've got a huge crop of horror movies for this year's installment of Halloween Horror. There are movies from the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, as well as a couple of more recent vintage. Jason Voorhees is back in two installments of Friday the 13th, and we've even got the 2009 gay slasher flick, Hellbent. Plus two movies about Jack the Ripper, one British, one German, and two films about The Town that Dreaded Sundown. You'll also meet The Creeper and the people of Haunts and The House of Seven Corpses. And news about my latest horror epub!

Have fun!

THE MONSTER OF LONDON CITY

Hansjorg Felmy

THE MONSTER OF LONDON CITY (aka Das Ungeheuer von London-City/1964). Director: Edwin Zbonek.

Richard Sand (Hansjorg Felmy) is playing the notorious Jack the Ripper in a London theater. Coincidentally, an unknown person is now slaughtering prostitutes in much the way the original Ripper did. Richard is the boyfriend of Ann Morlay (Marianne Koch of Frozen Alive), whose Uncle George (Fritz Tillmann) objects to the relationship. Ann's spiritual brother, Michael (Dietmar Schonherr), is a doctor. The Monster of London City, based on a book by Bryan Edgar Wallace, is one of the least interesting of the Ripper-themed movies, with a low excitement level, not much suspense, and murder sequences that are hardly arresting. The ending also seems rather obvious early on. Another distraction is the presence of a private eye, Teddy, (Peer Schmidt), whose bumbling antics are supposed to be comedy relief but are just irritating. Dubbed West German film.

Verdict: Not much to recommend in this fairly dull picture. **.

HELLBENT

Dylan Fergus

HELLBENT (2004). Writer/director: Paul Etheredge.

"Why wouldn't you want to kill us -- we're fuckin ' fabulous!" -- Tobey

Eddie (Dylan Fergus) works for the LAPD, but only in an administrative capacity due to the loss of an eye in an accident. He wears his father's old cop uniform for a Halloween carnival, which he attends with some of his fellow gay male friends. His buddies include his apparently bisexual roomie, Chaz (Andrew Levitas); slightly geeky Joey (Hank Harris), who is wearing leather for the evening and isn't certain how it'll go over; and Tobey (Matt Phillips), who decides to go in drag, then wonders why no one is hitting on him. Two others attend the festivities: Jake (Bryan Kirkwood), a brooding bad boy type with attitude; and a masked killer who excites the others but prefers beheading people to making love. Just what the world needs: a gay slasher flick. Hellbent can at least be differentiated from Al Pacino's homoerotic serial killer movie Cruising, because both the hero and the major supporting characters are all  gay men, but their brutal slaughter might still make some viewers rather uncomfortable. Typical of slasher flicks, there's little pity for the victims, and just a slight attempt at pathos. The gruesome murder scenes are generally well-handled, with a standout being a slashing and decapitation that takes place amid the flashing lights of a crowded dance floor. The actors and characters are likable although not that well-developed, another slasher flick staple. One does have to ponder, considering the number of gay cops that there are nowadays (there's even a Gay Officers Action League or GOAL) why they couldn't have made the hero an actual cop on a night off. And must they have included the guy in drag and a few other stereotypes? On the plus side, the film does generate some suspense and eeriness, and it has a tense and exciting climax. The ending, however, may leave some viewers up in the air. Kirkwood is a standout as Jake, but the others are all pretty good. There is one especially nice touch dealing with a character who can't quite bring himself to actually kiss  another man until something helps him get over his hang-ups.

Verdict: If we must have gay slasher flicks ... ***.

THE HORROR OF IT ALL

THE HORROR OF IT ALL: One Moviegoer's Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead. Adam Rockoff. Scribner; 2015.

As a horror enthusiast and author in the field (fiction and non-fiction) I was intrigued by The Horror of It All. [Rockoff also wrote Going to Pieces, on slasher films.] I admit that I'm not quite certain what to make of this tome, as instead of a survey of All Things Horror it functions more as one man's memoir while discussing horror/slasher movies [mostly if not exclusively splatter films] and ruminating on everything from teachers he hated to political issues such as the death penalty to what he thinks of French people. I thought Rockoff was quite a good writer when he did Going to Pieces, and I appreciate the often tongue-in-cheek tone of Horror as he destroys some sacred cows, discusses the shortcomings (to put it mildly) of horror fandom, and dissects some movies he feels are over-rated. [I can't understand what he sees in the mostly dull Paranormal Activity, which could have used an ax murder or two.] Of course, there's a difference between a horror enthusiast and a horror geek and I don't mean it unkindly when I say that Rockoff appears to be the latter. Sometimes there is an adolescent approach to the material, with him settling old scores from years ago, and reminding the reader how he is heterosexual at least once in every chapter. But Rockoff does have some interesting things to say about horror films (if he likes horror fiction, such as Poe, Lovecraft or even King he never says so) and the book, despite some plodding sections, is a breezy read.

Verdict: For geeks, gore-hounds, and fringe horror fans who didn't get laid in high school. **1/2.

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM, 1978 - 1986

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM, 1978 - 1986. Adam Rockoff. McFarland; 2002.

When such films as Halloween  and Friday the 13th became big money makers, there was a rush to come out with cheap, gory films with psychos on the loose slashing and hacking at everyone in sight. Rockoff intelligently dissects the genre, which he loves, examining the styles of different directors, as well as going behind the scenes of many productions. The book is bolstered by comments from producers and others. A final chapter looks at the revival of the genre with the Scream movies. [It's too bad this came out too early to cover all the recent remakes of famed slasher films such as Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, and others.] Being human, Rockoff does at times tend to be kinder to films made by people who consented to be interviewed as opposed to others, but when he thinks a film is a stinker he isn't shy about saying so. The book is quite well-written as well.

I appreciate that Rockoff mentions my 1985 tome Stay Out of the Shower: 25 Years of Shocker Films Beginning with "Psycho," and acknowledges it as one of the very first books to discuss slasher films (along with other horror films.) However, I can't say that I "loathe" such movies as he claims [I've certainly seen plenty of them, then and now.] I've always enjoyed the original Friday the 13th, among others in the genre, but I confess I do prefer films -- slashers, among them -- that have decent production values, a firm directorial hand, some three-dimensional characters, generous suspense, and a plot with some kind of mystery to it, and most slasher films -- maybe most movies -- don't fit that criteria, more's the pity. So I would say I don't so much loathe slasher films but am disappointed by them.

Verdict: Slasher movie fans will love this. ***.