"Le foto di Gioia" (1987) d/ Lamberto Bava

I can't believe we've never covered this one over the last eight years. I must have had it laid out and unfairly collecting archival dust for two or three, at least. It's a weird giallo, original and visually striking if moderately bloodless in it's delivery of wanton nudity and sleaze, instead of the usual red stuff. You give me a pack of butts, a phatty nug for my Lions helmet-bowl, and a sleazy giallo, and I'm one or two petite brunettes with a platter full of grapes away from an enchanting evening, for sure.Make that a sleazy giallo featuring the Italian Dolly Parton herself, Serena Grandi, supported here by the likes of Daria Nicolodi, the Grim Reaper himself, Luigi Montefiore aka/ George Eastman,  David Brandon, and Capucine, with a soundtrack by Simon Boswell, like tonight's review, and it's one for the ages, more often than not.


"You're not still pissed about that time I pulled your uterus out and ate it, are you?", asks Alex (George Eastman).
How's this for a stretch...Gioia (Serena Grandi), a retired...model, ahem...focuses on the successful new men's publication called "Pussycat" she heads with the help of assistant Evelyn (Daria Nicolodi) and her photographer brother, Tony (Vanni Corbellini), until one of her models dies photographically on of her memorable former sets, something one would naturally assume is going to occur more than once in a picture like this. It does, and often in a surreal, red-filtered fashion, with the cover models/victims' heads metamorphosizing into giant veiny eyeballs, and the anonymous killer artistically propping the fresh corpses against a sofa in front of blown up, titular photos of Gioia, sending the morbid photographic compositions to the chesty heroine. 


You ask what it'd take for this guy to judge on American Idol? Well, for starters...
There's the dirty prank calls Gioia receives from an adolescent crippled perv next door neighbor named Mark who displays frustration and bitterness at the loss of his girlfriend in the car crash that has left him an obsessive invalid. As the bodies start to pile up, Gioia becomes convinced she'll be the next victim on the list, though towards the middle, the film bogs down with a mostly unnecessary (much cozier than their work together in D'Amato's Anthropophagus) love angle involving Gioia and Alex (George Eastman), that seemingly puts a freeze on the strange murders and Inspector Corsi's (Lino Salemme of "Demoni" (1985) and "Demoni 2" (1986) fame) ongoing investigation, but Alex doesn't stick around for long. Eventually, after having discovered another new cadaver in a huge multi-level clothing outlet, Gioia encounters the cackling, shadowy murderer for herself, leading to a wild, twist-filled finale that should satisfy you, once you've secured yourselves a copy, which I suggest you do.


Spoiler: Stellar costume design like this guarantees at least two wops.
I could give you the usual genre pedigree of some of the cast and crew as you'd expect, or I could go on at some length about Ms. Grandi's abundant, fleshy assets. My inner demons have advised me to inform you that masculinity has again won the day, so Serena's thick, pillowy,  physical beauty of larger-than-life pin up proportions, it is. Her massive milkwagons, on full display here, are truly awe-inspiring to a bobbler-backer from way back, like myself, perfectly complimenting the luxuriant curves of her body, which would not be out of place, represented in marble in the Roman garden of a high-ranking official of the halcyon days of the empire. Insert two banger cigarette break right here. Check out her work with Ass-man extraordinaire, Tinto Brass, and exploitative pornographer supreme, Aristide Massaccesi aka/ Joe D'Amato for further...in depth, ahem...anatomical study. Two Wops on the scale, and certainly worth a peek.


"Get closer to the microscope, I still can't see Ms. Grandi's wardrobe..."

"La terza madre"(2007)d/Dario Argento

It's horribly trendy these days to begrudgingly dismiss the post-Opera(1987) films of Dario Argento, and, sadly, in many instances I wouldn't argue against it, as the maestro of the genre, the 'Italian Hitchcock' himself, who has seen the highest highs the medium can reach while achieving legendary status, hit a streak of mediocrity for the first time in his career with lackluster offerings like Trauma(1993), Phantom of the Opera(1998), and Il cartaio(2004).Rest assured, folks, Dario's coda in the 'three mothers' trilogy, some twenty years in the making and multiple re-writes later, does not qualify as one of those.Instead, watching 'Madre' had the opposite effect on me, much like running into an old flame after decades have passed, and though she might not look or feel the same, you still experience fleeting moments of bliss the same way you used to way back when, making the brief liason worth your while.Dario's lens moves as fluidly as ever, like a living entity, in framing some of the most vulgar imagery he's endeavored to visualize yet(as gleefully fabricated by FX wiz Sergio Stivaletti); on-screen infanticides, asphyxiation with one's own entrails, and butcher cleaver face-hackings all outlandishly transpire in the oft-delirious, witch-laden narrative.His provocatively beautiful daughter, Asia purveys strength and weakness as a lead who suddenly finds herself orbited by primordial evil, supported, in part, by genre icons like Udo Kier, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, and Daria Nicolodi, as well as the less-familiar faces of Israeli actress Moran Atias, as Mater Lachrymarum, and late Japanese director, Jun Ichikawa, in a cameo.The visuals are suitably complimented by an effectively bombastic score from Claudio Simonetti, of Goblin/Daemonia fame, laced with familiarly spooky yesteryear riffs juxtaposed against an evolving, progressive staff.It's safe to venture that the maestro's disdain for three-line reviews could never extend to my realm.Forwards into the spoiler-ridden synopsis, I say.

Coralina deve sempre soffrire molto.Sfortunata ragazza!
After unearthing the coffin of a 19th century church official and uncovering a mysterious ornately decorated urn, padlocked and chained shut with metal crosses in the process, the clergy quickly ship the urn off to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome, with growing fear that it may contain the effects of Mater Lachrymarum(Moran Atias), or 'The Mother of Tears', the last surviving member of an ancient trio of legendarily diabolical witches known as 'The Three Mothers'.Giselle(Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni), the assistant curator, soon finds that it does, indeed, whereupon breaking the wax seal and removing effigies of the witches and a ceremonial garb from the vessel, she's immediately set upon by the powerful witch's shadowy demonic cohorts, who punch her fronts out, and disembowel her, strangling her with her own innards(!), to the disbelief and horror of Sarah Mandy(Asia Argento), an American student studying art restoration that's been seeing the curator, Michael(Adam James).The terrified girl is ultimately aided in escaping from Lachrymarum's patrolling baboon familiar by a disembodied female voice that unlocks the exits to the darkened building.Once the artifacts are in the witch's possession, her negative influence affects all in her wake as witches from all over the world flamboyantly gather for a coming celebration, with random people suddenly compelled to beat, rape, and murder each other in the streets.While Michael's subsequent investigation gets his son kidnapped by the cultists, who remind the curator about the ancient 'silentium' vow taken by the architect who constructed the three witches' domains in separate locations, by writing the Latin warning in the boy's blood on the headboard of his bed.Meanwhile, Sarah has dodged inquisitive detectives and spying spellcasters in befriending Marta(Valeria Cavalli), a white witch who was friends with the girl's mother, Elisa(Daria Nicolodi), a powerful white witch herself, killed with her husband in a car crash caused by Mater Suspiriorum years earlier, who's been materializing before her daughter to help her realize her own powers in this dire hour for all of humanity, a new age of magic.

"Accccckkk!!Zumwahn hass sliced open my ssssroat and now ze blutt is cumming aut!"
Lachrymarum erupts in a hateful blast of violence as the two women pool their psychic abilities to hone in on the frequently naked witch's Achilles heel, using sway over one of Padre Johannes'(Udo Kier) assistants to cause her to suddenly hack his face into shredded wheat with a meat cleaver then bissecting her own throat with the same bladed deathdealer, before the exorcist can give the women a tome explaining the witch's backstory.Her horned goons then bust in at Marta's, slaying the host and her sapphic roommate in particularly brutal and horrid fashion, sending Sarah into the waiting arms of Michael, who's been rendered a zombified puppet for the witch's black-hearted gain.This earns him a full-body dousal with kerosene and subsequent immolation-by-fire at the hands of his former lover, getting dragged off of this plane of existence, kicking and screaming, by Elisa, in a final act of assistance towards her daughter.Sarah seeks out and finds succor in Guglielmo De Witt(Philippe Leroy), a cautious old alchemist who unexpectedly paralyzes the girl to determine her magical alignment(at ease, you MMORPG dorks) before giving her a copy of 'The Three Mothers' to ascertain the whereabouts of Lachrymarum's secret lair: a voluminous dilapidated mansion that she descends upon with one of the detectives who'd been hunting her since her door slammed-head kill of one the final Mater's disciples on a train, earlier on.Inside one of the catacombs, the badge gets captured and chained up right next to De Witt and his assistant, both also hostage to the witch, who manages to capture Sarah, for good measure, as the alchemist's assistant turns his toes up after having had his arm lopped off.Lachrymarum orders her cannibalistic followers to eat the young woman(!), but she manages to snag the ancient witch's tunic on a spear, chucking it into a nearby fire, leaving the spellcaster, naked and screaming, to be impaled on a stalactite chunk in the ensuing earthquake that swallows the witch and her minions.Sarah and the detective trod through corpse-filled water to the surface, where they're both overcome by laughter at the horror they've both endured.

Asia, sei davvero una festa per i miei occhi.
I've watched the movie four times to date, making sure I was staunch in my feelings about it, which have fluctuated a bit from viewing to viewing, to be honest with you.The first time you experience the campy over-the-top finale, it probably won't sit well with you, until you've had the opportunity to drink it all in a few times, which the film does easily stand up to.I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that it becomes regarded as one of Argento's minor classics in years to come, and certainly one of the better recent offerings from Italy I've seen.I can now look forward to his upcoming take on Bram Stoker's Dracula in 3D with deserved excitement.Dario's unexpectedly chaotic vision may not be the destination you'd envisioned for the trilogy, but it's a wild and enjoyably welcome one, none-the-less, full of brutal gore, artistic flair, tumultuous turns, and campy performances from long-time favorites.On more than one occasion I found myself enveloped by vapors of deja vu that emanated from the screen and transported me back to the eighties and memories of glorious art-splatter from one of my all-time favorites, a true master artist.Three Wops.Bello vederti di nuovo, Dario.

Cherry street Friday nights, you couldn't beat 'em.

THE DEAD SHALL RISE AND WALK TO CHILLER

With the Chiller Theatre Expo celebrating its 20th anniversary this October 29-31 at the Hilton Parsippany in New Jersey, another historic milestone will take place at the event, namely a 30th anniversary cast reunion of Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (aka THE GATES OF HELL).


Six participants from this 1980 Italian shocker will be part of the Halloween show’s ITALIAN INVASION III, five of whom will be appearing at their very first convention EVER:


Catriona MacColl “Mary Woodhouse”
Giovanni Lomabrdo Radice “Bob”
Carlo De Mejo “Gerry”
Antonella Interlenghi “Emily Robbins”
Venantino Venantini “Mr. Ross”
Luca Venantini “John-John Robbins”



“For me, it will be a dream come true,” states Paura Production’s ITALIAN INVASION organizer Mike Baronas. “This atmospheric zombie nightmare has been, and always will be, my favorite horror film. It haunted me to the core upon seeing during the VHS boom of the mid-80’s and has been a major influence on my life and career. Everything has led up to reuniting these friends of mine together at one time and in one place. After 3 decades, this will undoubtedly be a once-in-a-lifetime event for all!”

Ed. note:...and if that wasn't enough to make you rethink your local east coast meat market bar plans for Halloween weekend,chatting up the obligatory sexy witches,sexy pirates,sexy spies,sexy zombies,ad infinitum,how about the announcement of this amazing addition to the lineup...

None other than DARIA NICOLODI,former muse to the maestro himself,Dario Argento,mother to Asia Argento,and actress in such genre classics as
Deep Red,Suspiria,Inferno,Beyond the Door II,Tenebrae,Phenomena,Delirium:Photo of Gioia,Opera,Paganini Horror,La Setta,Scarlet Diva,and Mother of Tears.If that isn't a wet dream for you Italo-horrorphiles out there,you're probably already dead.BE THERE!

Wicked as Always,
B.W.

"Opera"(1987)d/Dario Argento

I've recently noticed that,strangely enough,I've yet to review an Argento film here,so I deducted that I should probably start with my favorite one(fellow yob Nigel was the only one to guess it,big surprise there),an excellent introduction for anyone looking to feast upon the maestro's body of work,and perhaps his last great giallo.Centered around the notorious Shakespeare play,Macbeth,Argento's production befell several mishaps on the set,including the death of one actor,fueling the legendary notion that the play itself is cursed.Whether you believe in such things or not,here lies Argento at his very best.Nearly every shot is a lush visual feast for the eye,with several innovative camera tricks employed that came to become signature stamps for the director,known worldwide as the "Italian Hitchcock".There are ample inventive gore set pieces,enough to satisfy the most fickle splatter fanatic,and a shroud of mystery,suspense,and tension envelops each frame of this masterpiece.The unforgettable pins taped under the eyes came from Argento,who had grown annoyed by audiences looking away during the scariest moments of his films,jokingly suggesting the theatergoers tape pins under their eyes,so they were forced to view everything he had created.Though he has shown a noticeable decline in the years following this entry(to what degree,of course,is arguable),Argento remains the standard upon which all future genre directors be judged against,his rich catalogue of brilliant,visually stunning films stand as testament to his cinematic genius,rarely rivalled to this day.If you're unfamiliar with his films,I strongly encourage you to sit down and take him in,which may take repeat viewings,especially where this entry is concerned."I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself And falls on th’other."

Betty(Christina Marsillach),opera singer plagued by nightmarish visions,and a bitch on heat.
Betty(Marsillach)is unwittingly thrust into the spotlight during a new production of Verdi's Macbeth when the opera singer she's been understudying is suddenly hit by a car.Unfortunately,this sudden fame draws the attention of a sadistic black gloved killer who ties the young girl up,forcing her to watch his murder spree with strips of tape with sewing needles pasted under her eyes,identical to the methods of the shadowy figure from her oldest nightmares.After the opera's premiere(during which an assistant eats neck-skewering coat hook death),one of the stagehands,Stefano(William McNamara)is brutally slain with a huge knife before Betty's very eyes;the hooded killer cuts Betty's ties afterwards,freeing her,his hands sexually exploring her body for signs of arousal at his heinous crime.The distraught diva runs to the arms of Marco(Ian "Jubilee","Chariots of Fire" Charleson,in his final role),the opera's director who's been taking a merciless beating in the press over his horror movie-esque approach to tackling Verde's cursed opera,using garish sets,fog machines,and a number of trained ravens.Meanwhile,the killer breaks into the costume department and slashes Betty's wardrobe to ribbons,killing several ravens in the process.The next day,Betty and Giulia(Coraline Cataldi-Tassoni),the production seamstress discover an actual bracelet sewn into the dress,as the woman tries to repair the damage from the night before.Just as she's about to read the engraved dates on the jewelry,the killer abducts and binds the young singer,forcing her to watch him perform an amateur tracheotomy on Giulia with a huge pair of fabric shears when she accidentally swallows the bracelet in the struggle with the madman.Afterwards he frees the terrified girl and disappears once again.

One helluva good stabbing.
One of the detectives(Urbano Barberini) puts a guard on Betty's door,but the girl accidentally stabs the cop(Michele Soavi in a cameo),while her vision is blurred by eye drops,allowing the killer to arrive at her apartment,where he fires a bullet directly through the peephole in the front door into the eyesocket of her agent(Daria Nicolodi),killing her instantly(!!).The young singer escapes through an air vent with the help of a little girl who lives on the same floor.At this point the director dreams up a plan to catch the killer at the next performance using the uncaged ravens to seek him out in the audience.The large squawking detectives manage to do just that,pecking one of his eyes out(!!!) in the process.Horribly disfigured,and outed for the world,the killer abducts Betty once again,locking himself into a room in the operahouse with her,blindfolding and hogtying her into a chair with a pistol while he douses the place with gasoline,urging her to shoot him.She frees herself from the binds as the room is engulfed in flames from which Marco rescues her with optimum timing.She retreats to Sweden with Marco,who has returned to directing movies again,but Betty senses that evil has followed her into the lush green mountainside.Who is the maniac and why has he singled out Betty in his own violent subconscious production.I'll leave the answers to this and other questions that arise to be answered by you,dear readers,when you screen this excellent blood-soaked whodunnit brilliantly crafted by the best in the business.

This is sexy for so many reasons,not least of which being Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni herself.
Dario,who modelled the director Marco character after himself,claims that Marsillach was the hardest actress he's ever had to work with.The role of operatic diva Mara Czekova was originally meant for Vanessa Redgrave,but when she dropped out,the character was rewritten as a minor one.Despite the many setbacks,the maestro went on to successfully base his giallo around Macbeth,stating,"...I felt I had started with "Macbeth", so I had to finish. And anyway, there could be no ravens in Cosi Fan Tutte."After completing this film,he went on to direct genre fare like "Due Occhi Diabolici" with George A. Romero,"Non ho sonno","Il Cartaio",two episodes of the Masters of Horror series before unveiling the third of his Three Mothers trilogy,aptly named "La Terza Madre" on the world in 2007.His latest work is 2009's "Giallo",and he has co-written the screenplay for David Gordon Green's upcoming remake of Argento's own classic,"Suspiria"(1976),yet another classic,in my humblest estimation that should never be tampered with.I'll never understand what goes on in the heads of those Lazio supporters toiling away at the bottom of the Serie A table,for the life of me...Milano siamo NOI!Today's film stands as not only one of the greatest horror films ever made,in my opinion,but as one of the greatest films,period.Check it out for yourselves,and if you don't feel the same about it,I'll let Asia and Fiore carry out the penalty phase against me.Well,I'd do that,regardless...

Triumphant!