"Argento's Dracula 3D" (2012) d/ Dario Argento

Whether you call it Woptober or Italo-ween (we transcend all petty labels here), it looks as though we're wrapping up another successful one tonight with an Argento review, and his three dimensional take on the most infamous vampire of all, in Dracula 3-D, his 2012 effort. I shouldn't have to tell you by now that you won't be enjoying Suspiria or Tenebre level Argento when you sit down to watch this one, and expecting as much from it is naivete' on the viewer's part, and I'd like to think the vast majority of my subscribers are above such "fresh out of the package" thought processes. Though nobody with functional eyes will mistake it for top shelf Dario, the fact remains: even his shlockiest mediocrity is still heads and tails over seventy-five percent of the scareless copycat dreck that pollutes today's horror scene.


Here's a majestic pair of real D's you wanna see in RealD 3D.
After an ill-advised fling on Walpurgis Night, at the foot of the Carpathians, next to a village called Passo Borgo (Borgo Pass? Carpathian mountains? Walpurgis Night? Why not just have sex in Crystal Lake on Friday the 13th, ferchrissakes, you idiotic peasants), busty Tania (Miriam Giovanelli) is dispatched by an animate shadow in the night. Meanwhile, a librarian named Jonathan Harker (Unax Ugalde) arrives in the village on business dealings with a resident nobleman named Count Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann) after briefly visiting Lucy (Asia Argento), the mayor's daughter and best friend to his wife, Mina (Marta Gastini). At the castle, he's greeted by Tania (aren't you dead?), who unsuccessfully tries to seduce him into a quick bite, but Drac rolls in like ants at a picnic and steals the vampiric vixen's vital fluids out from under her pretty little undead nose. Jonathan survives the fanging, if only long enough to attempt an escape, which might have worked if the Count couldn't metamorphosize into a fucking wolf. Just sayin'.


"Arrrgh! You Tom and Jerry-ed me!!!"
Of course, while Mina is in the village visiting Lucy, her best friend falls prey to the ancient blood-sipper, leading the concerned wife to pay a call to Dracula's stony digs to inquire about her husband. At the castle, she finds herself under the influence of the vampire, who has orchestrated the eerie events thus far, just to get close to Mina, who's a dead ringer for a centuries old flame he's never forgotten. Around this time, Van Helsing (Rutger fucking Hauer!) makes the scene, familiar with the tell-tale signs of rampant blood drinkery, and preparing to go knuckle up with his pale nemesis once and for all. While he's putting an end to Tania at Drac's pad, the Count pays the villagers a visit, paying them all back with violent death for renegging on the pact they had struck with him. I'm pretty sure you've got an idea how this story wraps up, more or less, and even if you don't, you're still gonna have to score a copy to find out for yourselves. Happy Halloween!


I'm familiar with Northern and Southern Mantis styles, but Transylvanian Mantis?
Like most of his modern era efforts, at least as far back as Opera (1987), Argento's work is uneven here in delivering the vampiric goods; slowly paced, handicapped by embarrassing cgi effects, and a pedestrian script that's mostly unfaithful to Bram Stoker's famous novel, though his obvious visual tributes to previous genre masters like Bava and Margheriti (and more so, Hammer movies of the fifties and sixties as evidenced by the costumes, locations, beautiful women, bountiful breasts, and fake blood),  are not wasted on your humble critic-at-large. It still pains me to a certain degree to declare a movie by the "Italian Hitchcock" a middling interpretation of the immortal horror classic, having been such a huge fan of his work most of my life. In Draculean measurement, it falls somewhere around the Frank Langella and Jack Palance versions, well behind Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, and Klaus Kinski, but miles above Gary Oldman's take, in my honest opinion. It still boggles my mind how anybody digs that one, I left the theater well pissed afterwards. As for this one, give it a look for yourselves...


This is Dracula's polite way of telling you that your head sucks.

R.I.P. Tony Musante

06/30/36- 11/26/13

"Non ho sonno"(2001)d/Dario Argento

If you're not currently preoccupied with the manner in which that horny mummy in the corner is drinking in the seam lines in your girlfriend's bodacious Harley Quinn costume, then what better way to wrap up a solid spine-chilling and satisfying Italo-ween season this year, than to cover one from the undisputed platinum standard in gialli, the 'Italian Hitchcock' himself, Dario Argento, in the form of his recent, glorious return to sadistically violent form, 2001's Non ho sonno aka/ Sleepless, after having mostly floundered in unfamiliar waters of mediocrity with Trauma (1993), The Stendahl Syndrome (1996), and 1998's Phantom of the Opera, in the years following his blood-splashed magnum opus, Opera (1987). Phew...and Gabriel March Grandos thought his sentence was lengthy.


"Esplodere barattoli di marmellata??!! Chi e' il ragazzo saggio!"
Moretti (Von Sydow) is the police detective assigned to the brutal 'Dwarf Murders' (you hear that, Skittles?) investigation in Turin, promising a young motherless boy justice, after the wee lad sees the woman being force fed her own wind instrument, mind you. Moretti follows a trail of  paper animal cutouts left at the gore-splattered crime scenes to a nursery rhyme by a local reclusive author of children's books known as 'The Dwarf' ( the rhyme itself was actually written by Dario's rather fetching daughter, Asia, who we all should be well familiar with, by now) who's driven to commit suicide by the allegations, effectively closing the case when the slayings cease afterwards, or so it would seem...


Heyyyy, I found a clarinet in the meat sauce...
Only, seventeen years later, a woman is horrifically snuffed on a train in an identical manner to the past slayings, leading Giacomo (Stefano Dionisi) , who's now grown up enough to face his childhood demons and return to the old neighborhood in Turin from Rome on the suggestion of an old school buddy named Lorenzo (Roberto Zibetti), to seek the assistance of the retired sleuth in solving the latest crimes that include an agonizing wall-smashed facepiece and a beheaded ballerina(!), which have the former detective wondering if his deceased dwarfish adversary was responsible for the original murders in the first place. I'll leave the mind-boggling finale for you to experience for yourselves.


"...we'll return to 'Maroon 5: Behind the Music' after these messages..."
Though Sleepless doesn't quite measure up (most of Von Sydow's supporting cast, and some artificial-looking CG effects come immediately to mind) against the vintage Argento gialli forever carved into the memory of genre lovers worldwide, like Profondo Rosso(1975), it's far and away his best effort in ages, a Halloween treat bucket that's overflowing with enough confectionery goodies like black-gloved psychopath hijinks, genre-friendly red herrings deftly woven around some (seriously) exotic murder set pieces by Stivaletti, the usual bang up score from Goblin perfectly complimenting the maestro's signature lush visuals, to bring the viewer back to those glorious eighties, when stuff like this wore the crown over everything. Three wops....oh, and, uh......Happy Hallowe'en.


Ha portato un coltello per una sparatoria...

"Demoni 2" (1986) d/ Lamberto Bava

Remember how much fun you had the first time you saw Lamberto Bava's schizophrenic cult classic, Demons(1985)? Well, Team Dario wasted little time in banging out a sequel, hoping to cash in on the international success of their original effort, and that's almost never a good sign, right out of the gate. Sure, there's contagion-spreading demoniac mayhem at every juncture, as crafted by the maestro Stivaletti, and fan favorite Bobby Rhodes returns in an almost identical capacity, and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni lends her inimitably adorable pouty persona as teenaged catalyst to the on-screen madness, but the results fall well short of the first film's vigor in the end. Still, you could do a lot worse...


"Fix this earring for me, I'm gonna do the Molly Ringwald all goddamned night!"
Sally(Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) ducks out of her Sweet 16 birthday party only to get caught up watching a documentary on television about that big outbreak of demons a few years back, you remember that, don't you? A group of amateur thrill-seekers scales the high security wall of 'the forbidden zone', where the contagion had been contained, but, after stumbling upon a frozen demon corpse while inside, the investigators unwittingly reanimate the homely fellow, who takes it upon himself to kill the lot of them and dramatically break out of the television screen, infecting Sally, who's too startled to resist, in the process. Naturally, she spreads the evil to her party guests through her fingernails, letting them know that the 'floppily dancing  around her high rise apartment to The Smiths and Peter Murphy' segment of her get together has officially ended.


"She watched that documentary on television in a highrise apartment building, GET IT?!!?" barks Tony th-errr, I mean, Hank the Personal Trainer (Bobby Rhodes).
The newly-transformed demons spill out of the young girl's apartment, rushing to infect the entire populace of the building after a collective bleed burns through the floor Alien(1979)-style and knocks out the power, leaving salvation this time around to George (David Knight) and his pregnant spouse, Hannah ( Nancy Brilli), as they join with Bobby the Pimp's identical twin, Hank (Bobby Rhodes), who's been pumping iron in the building's gym and also quite adept at battling back the belligerent baddies.Little boys turn into bloodthirsty demons, hell, even family dogs transform into demons here. An embarrassing winged imp puppet with visible strings  terrorizes the expectant mother-to-be. A little girl (Asia Argento, in her debut) watches helplessly as her father is swarmed by demons as the struggle moves to the parking garage. George and Hannah decide to make their way to the roof, finally infiltrating the mysterious self-sufficient television station that started the epidemic, but demonic Sally does her best to stop the couple from escaping. She fails and eats half-blinded impalement death. Hannah gives birth. The baby isn't a demon. Is it finally all over? Of course not.


They grow up right before your eyes, don't they?
Lino Salemme ( the unforgettable coke-snorting 'Ripper' from the original ) makes a nice cameo here, playing a security guard this time around, and Virginia Bryant is on board as a classy call girl. The soundtrack is handled by Simon Boswell, with a few memorable cuts, but for me, the Simonetti metal score of the original wins out, hands down. Michele Soavi's La Chiesa (1989), originally intended as a second Demons sequel, would follow, and Bava would helm the made-for-tv The Ogre in 1988, which would be known as Demons III: The Ogre stateside, and even Umberto Lenzi's Black Demons(1991) was released as Demons III in several countries. This entry earns itself two wops, a flawed but enjoyable effort.


"Don't post that one to FB, you missed our collective sideways peace signs and duckfaces!"

"M.D.C. Maschera di cera"(1997)d/Sergio Stivaletti

What might have been...I could spend multiple paragraphs exploring conjecture concerning what tonight's review might have been like had  genre maestro Lucio Fulci, for whom the legendary House of Wax remake was originally intended, not expired mere weeks before principal shooting had finally commenced.Fulci only provided the screenplay adaptation of  Gaston LaRoux short story "The Waxwork Museum", after meeting in 1995 with(or burying the hatchet with, depending on who you talk to, I'm sure) colleague and producer Dario Argento who had heard of Fulci's recent hardships, offering the big-budgeted re-imagining as a comeback opportunity for the legendary director.Delays to Argento's own Stendahl Syndrome(1996) at the time translated into several frustrating delays for the project, which would end up being inherited by long-time Italian FX wizard, Sergio Stivaletti, who had also done extensive work as a second unit director under Argento, Lamberto Bava, and even Michele Soavi, prior to this, his directorial debut.Screenwriter Daniele Stroppa, who had co-written some of Fulci's recent work, allegedly reworked the screenplay until any resemblance to Fulci's original script could only be considered a coincidence, sadly enough.Had the entire problematic production simply just crashed and burned in a forgettable blaze, Italophiles everywhere might have nodded approvingly, but, to Stivaletti's credit, he crafts a worthy update of the 3D Vincent Price classic, full of gothic Hammer-esque moodiness, an effective blend of classic scares, sexuality, and luridly realistic violence worthy of multiple viewings.Forwards.

"I fuckin' told you you couldn't handle one o' my 'Indian Burns', but your teeth kept a-joggin' in place..."
On a mortiferous evening in Paris in 1900, a terrified little girl hides under a bed as a mysterious black-cloaked fiend doles horrible finality to both her parents' lives with the aid of a skeletal metal claw, which effortlessly snaps off body parts and bursts through ribcages to pull out still-beating hearts.Twelve years later, we meet young cocksmith, Luca(Daniele Auber), as he bets some twenty lira against a fellow brothel client that he can spend the night at the wax museum without dying of fright.It's a bet he doesn't win, turning up scared to death on the museum floor the next morning, with the curator, Boris Volkoff(Robert Hussein), expecting the controversy to fill his gallery of ghastly imagery with patrons for the upcoming grand opening.The striking, young Sonia(Romina Mondello) soon applies as a costume maker for the effigies and instantly mesmerizes Volkoff with her innocent charms until he hires her, to the dismay of  his creepy Italo-mulleted assistant, Alex(Umberto Balli). It's not long before people(children, mostly) are disappearing from the streets of Rome and reappearing in Boris' narrow velvet-roped aisle of re-enacted murder scenes-in-parafin.Meanwhile, a local photographer/reporter named Andrea(Riccardo Serventi Longhi), who's no stranger to the concept of 'attività di fronte, ma festa dietro' himself, with romantic designs on Sonia, begins doing his own investigation into the deaths, questioning Luca's favorite whore, Giorgina(Valery Valmond), who's not long for this earth herself.Meanwhile, Sonia is repeatedly haunted by that fateful night twelve years ago, and spied on during her mid-day make out sessions with Andrea by the secretive Boris, who also peep-toms Alex as he's dominated by strap-wielding brothel sluts, through a peephole in the wall.Niiiice.

"Dove hai nascosto la vaselina cura intensiva?Sono più secca di quella borsa £ 20 di cibo per cani!"
When a twelve year old female victim revives on the autopsy table(might wanna skip the shot of creepy undeveloped naked kid boobs next time, Serg, just sayin', buddy.), it's soon apparent that Volkoff might also be Sonia's mother's cuckolded first husband, who did a bellyflopper into a vat of hot wax upon catching his wife's steamy afternoon extracurriculars all those years ago, and was believed dead.In fact, when Boris reveals his latest museum set piece, it's a to-the-letter recreation of her parents murder scene, including some details that Inspector Palazzi(Gianni Franco) had never revealed to the public.Palazzi is later attacked by his own spitting image, who abruptly crushes his face with a familiar metal hand and jabs his heart with a lengthy sharpened pin, but not before the detective can remove his assassin's wax mask.Some photos that Sonia helped Andrea obtain illegally reveal veiny roadmaps under the parafin of the statues' familiar faces, and after rescuing Sonia from an ignominious end, hogtied with open wrists near a sty full of hungry pigs, he's forced to again infiltrate the wax museum with authorities where a heartbroken Boris has designs on transforming Sonia into one of his lifelike figurines through alchemy and science.The ensuing struggle ignites a fire which quickly consumes Volkoff's creations and melts off his false wax face, revealing a Terminator-esque metal exoskeleton that's beheaded by the jilted Alex in the nick of time.As Andrea and Sonia depart the cgi-flame engulfed structure, we see Alex retreat to a secret room where he removes his disguise and re-dons the persona of Volkoff, slipping haughtily past the occupied on-lookers outside, as the credits roll.

"...prima che io ti libererò, lasciatemi dire che hai grandi tette, sorella mia."
Stivaletti would again see the director's chair on 2004's I tre volti del terrore anthology, while providing effects work on everything from Demoni(1985), La Chiesa(1990), Dellamorte, Dellamore(1994), to most recently, Argento's own Dracula 3D(2012), along the way.Mondello, a Lazio native and the prototype for my future ex-wife, is beyond splendid to look at, granted, but doesn't offer us very much insight into her acting skills here.She's gone on to do a lot of Italian television work since.Hossein, who got his start acting in Paris' Theatre Grand Guignol in Montmartre, went on to work opposite some of the biggest cinematic sex symbols of the era, like Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, and Marina Vlady, who would become one of his wives, as well as appearing in the films of  le due Sergio's, Leone and Gobbi, and directing 1969's Une corde, un Colt...(written by Dario Argento).Sure, a Fulci/Argento collaboration might have turned out to be one of the most amazing movies you'll never get a chance to see, but I think there's just as much chance that the two conflicting artists would have locked horns many more times before the film was finally in the can.At least it's fun to think so, no?Stivaletti's final product, on the other hand, is a lively, blood-drenched, good time that harkens back not only to the glorious Italian domination of the genre during the seventies and eighties, but also to the sophisticated Hammer look of the sixties, with beautiful women in various states of undress and under tremendous duress at the hands of a diabolical villain.I swear there were a few shots where I thought I was looking at Argento's or Fulci's handiwork on the screen afterall, and by the end credits, I stood well-satisfied.For that, Maschera earns three Big ones on the scale.Good stuff, indeed.

"Come-ah with me, if-ah you want cannoli."You know?Like the T-800, but Italian?Oh, forget it, dicks.

"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.

"La Chiesa"(1989)d/Michele Soavi

Ah,the lazy,crazy,hazy days of summer are upon us at last,droogies.Hook me up a comfy lounge chair,some grilled animal flesh,an AMP Big Rig,a fat quarter of Iraqi sativa,and some cigarettes,poolside with a bevvy of buxom brunettes in micro-bikinis to fan me down and pop grapes into my yap,and I'll meet you back here at the end of August.I had planned on kicking off the month of July here at the Wop sometime yesterday,but let's face it...I was far too twisted to attempt to type even one word for most of the day,all of the evening,and even most of the morning today.Ernest Hemingway,Keith Moon,Syd Barrett...bunch of Marys.Also,I've rethought my official stance on the "duck face phenomenon" currently sweeping teh interwebs,and come up with the following lone exception to the rule:Only acceptable if it's being made by Dai Green,and directed towards me.'At's more of a smoochy,kissy face than a mallard mouth,anyway,no?Go ahead and accuse me of bias,you think you'd be the first??Hahaha.Onwards.
Tonight we examine the film that was to be the second sequel to Lamberto Bava's Demoni(1985),produced by Dario Argento,and directed by Michele Soavi,with creature and gore set pieces served up by the maestro,Sergio Stivaletti,and a game cast that includes a pre-sultry teenaged Asia Aregento,Giovanni Lombardo Radice,Barbara Cupisti,Tomas Arana,an atmospheric,creepy score by Keith Emerson and Phillip Glass,with tracks by Goblin,and a screenplay collaborated on by Soavi,Argento,Dardano Sacchetti,Lamberto Bava,Franco Ferrini,and Fabrizio Bava.Soavi had grown tired of what he refers to as "Pizza Schlock" and strived to move beyond fare of this type here,and succeeds on several levels,in my opinion,displaying a visual flair that rivals Argento at his best,taking a serious approach on a series that unflinchingly threw the kitchen sink at the viewer prior to this entry with varying success,although there's still a whole helluva lot going on here,with several frames-in-tribute and excellent period and modern sequences adeptly handled by Argento's protégé,as expected.Released internationally as "The Church",tonight's film surpasses either of Bava's first two chapters,and stands on its own as a superlative slice of Italian genre from the eighties.

"We're looking to party heartily with young chicks bearing the stigmata...you in,baby?"
In medieval Italy,the Teutonic Knights stumble upon a little village of peasants,and acting on the word of an accuser,slay the men,women,children,and livestock(!)on the spot because one of the girls(Cupisti)bears the stigmata,or Devil's mark on her foot.A mass grave is dug for the victims of the religious purge,then sealed with a massive cross.Moving to modern day Italy,we see that an enormous gothic cathedral has been built on the cursed spot,where Evan(Arana) is beginning his job as librarian.Here,he meets Lisa(also Cupisti),who is restoring sections of the church's fading frescoes,and before you can say,In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti,they're grinding naughty bits together.Lisa discovers an ancient,yellowing scroll after breaking through a crumbling basement wall,which leads Evan to believe something is buried underneath the cathedral,upon translating the parchment.By dislodging the figure of a goat with eight eyes from the basement floor,he unwittingly unleashes demons upon the parishoners and clergy alike,and all Hell begins to break loose.The sacristan,whose hands are usually full with his teenaged daughter Lotte(Argento) sneaking out through secret passages to smoke cigarettes and boogie at local discotheques,becomes convinced he is really the Angel of Death(!),and accordingly runs himself through on a jackhammer(!!),triggering an ancient alchemist-built mechanism that seals off the lone exit to the cathedral,trapping the unleashed evil inside.

Whatever they're combining to form,it ain't Voltron,that's for sure.
There's a throng of victi,errr,people who find themselves on the wrong end of the massive sealed door,ranging from an elderly hip-talking elderly woman and her miserable mate,to an entire wedding fashion shoot,to a pair of motorcyclists,and everything in between,and the possessions and inventive deaths fly fast and furious from here on out with chaotic regularity.Lisa is visited at home by the Goat of Mendes himself,and after the old woman drags her husband up to the belltower,she severs his head and rings the bell with it(!),spouting groovy one-liners the whole way,the bikers dig their way down to a subway tunnel,and the female biker's face is pulverized against the windshield of an oncoming train like flaky oatmeal(!!),possessed schoolchildren prey upon their nearsighted teacher and each other,the main fashion model imagines she has aged prematurely and claws her own face to shreds(!!!).Amidst the madness Ol' Scratch has dreamed up for these unlucky bastards,there's a Satanic ceremony taking place in the basement,where Lisa is being offered to the dark lord and master himself,and a huge writhing orgy of people forming a horned monstrosity rises from the cracked cement below.Father Gus(Hugh Quarshie) enlists Lotte to help him escape the doomed structure through the secret passages in the church's catacombs.In the end the church collapses upon itself with only the sacristan's daughter surviving the modern day purge.She visits the site to place flowers in memory of her parents when some of the stone falls away to reveal a passage beneath.She looks down into the darkness and smiles.

I think Soavi likes Boris Vallejo.A lot.
Soavi,who shows up here as an uncredited policeman in black leather gloves(a tribute to Argento's gialli), would follow this up with La Setta(1990),which we'll be scrutinizing here very shortly,and Dellamorte,Dellamore(1994),arguably the greatest zombie film(and one of the greatest horror films) ever made,in my opinion.Quarshie went on to work in Highlander(1986) and Nightbreed(1990) before moving on to recurring UK telly work.Arana would also do Soavi's Setta the following year,as well as Last Temptation of Christ,Ridley Scott's Gladiator,and others.Cupisti worked on Fulci's Lo Squartatore di New York(1982)and Argento's Opera(1987),while Argento's daughter would go on to a fruitful acting career in all sorts of genres,most importantly,scoring a lead in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead in 2004,which we'll also be covering here soon.All in all,a solid effort from one of my favorite directors,with enough gore,chills,and solid performances to keep you glued to your favorite chair for a hundred or so minutes.I really can't wait to see what Soavi brings to the table next.This entry writhingly rises from the depths of the cathedral,with a three wopped goat leading the charge in the fight for immortal souls.Check it out!

"Pssst,Asia!Yeah,down here.We're giving out free vulva tattoos,you want one?"

"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!

"Demons"(1985)d/Lamberto Bava

Going to the movies is bad for your health.
A collaboration between director Lamberto Bava and producer/co-writer Dario Argento that bungs logic down the lavvy and exacts rollercoaster revenge on the cinematic test screening audience.FX man Sergio Stivaletti pulls out all stops(with more hits than misses),the eclectic soundtrack ranges from Accept and Saxon to Billy Idol and Go West(!),with original mood music supplied by Claudio Simonetti of Goblin/Daemonia fame,and the result is pure Italian handwoven horror entertainment!Human marinara sauce is bucketed upon the screen,with side orders of change-o-heads,demons bursting from backs,helicopters crashing through ceilings,and blind eyes being popped out of their sockets.Is it any wonder this was a huge boxoffice hit?!!?

Hey,aren't you Michele Soavi?What're YOU doing in Berlin with a half-metal face?
Cheryl(Natasha Hovey)rides the West Berlin tube,and apart from being startled by some poseur-punks along for the ride,she gets the feeling she is being watched and stalked.In the subway station she is approached by a strange man(Michele Soavi) whose face is subdivided by a metallic mask.He gives her tickets for a special movie screening that night at the Metropol.She coaxes her friend to skip class and take in the film with her.In the theater lobby,there's a Japanese crotchrocket,a Samurai sword,a metallic demon mask,a nifty Italian busta poster of "Four Flies on Grey Velvet",and a sexy-yet-menacing female usher to lead the growing crowd to their seats.Amongst those in attendance are a bickering married couple,two young lovers out on a date(the girl is Fiore Argento,Dario's older daughter),a blind man(!) and his daughter,two skirt-chasing college dorks(Urbano Barberini and Karl Zinny) and the obligatory black Italian pimp(Bobby Rhodes) accompanied by two of his hookers.One of the hookers puts on the mask in the lobby and scratches herself."That'll teach ya to touch thangs!" he barks.

The movie inside the theater begins to strains of Motley Crue(!)and a Vincent Price soundalike narrator,as we find a group of kids(one of which is Soavi,with no metallic face) searching around an old tomb.The boys tell the girls they stumbled upon it earlier that day while looking for lizards(!!).Inside the tomb they find what looks to be the final resting place of Nostradamus and unearth a book that foretells the coming of demons(his most famous prediction,in my opinion...)and a cloth-draped metallic demon mask.Soavi puts it on and scratches himself.His friend tells him not to do it,as anyone who puts on the mask will become a demon.Hmmm.The lovable pimp and his hos smoke pot and joke loudly,irritating the other moviegoers.The blind man's daughter,who had been describing out loud everything happening on the screen for him,has a liason with her lover right under her father's nose.On the screen, Soavi's cut won't stop bleeding.In the theater,the ho's face won't stop bleeding.She runs off to the bathroom to tend to her wound,but it becomes a pus-spurting,throbbing infectious sore.The pimp's other ho goes to check on the earlier prostitute,who is now a demon,just like Soavi on the big screen.She abruptly strangles the blind man's daughter and her lover with velvet movie rope,and manages to scratch the other hooker before she escapes behind the screen.As Soavi attacks one of the girls in a tent with a knife,the hooker bursts through the screen and transforms into a demon before the audience's very eyes.Just like in that damn movie,you heard 'em!

"What the hell happened to Rosemary(Geretta Geretta)!Holy shit!She's a friend of mine!"
Before too long an army of demons with glowing eyes is chasing what's left of the screaming audience around the theater,whose doors and windows have mysteriously disappeared(!).The pimp(naturally)steps up as the group's alpha survivalist,until he's bitten and scratched while barking orders at everyone.Cheryl,her friend Kathy,and the two dorks,George and Ken,fend for themselves while frothing demons kill people all around them.Outside the theater,a group of cokehead car thief punks(with a Coke can full of...cocaine.Get it?) sneak into the building while avoiding the police,only to be killed systematically by hordes of blood-thirsty demons.George takes to the motorcycle in the lobby,and skillfully wields the Samurai sword,lopping off demon heads while he peels out on the theater seats.For no apparent reason,Kathy is possessed by unknown spirits,and hatches a demon out of her back(!),which scratches Ken,who gets impaled on George's sword as he transforms into a demon himself.Just in the nick of time,as it seems all hope is lost for George and Cheryl,a helicopter crashes through the ceiling of the theater(!!),giving the desperate duo an escape route,which they utilize with a cable,wench,and grappling hook they find in the wrecked chopper.Outside,things are not so good.Demons have infiltrated the whole city, which is in a state of total destruction.As they flee a hoard of pursuant creatures,a surviving militia-style family in a jeep looking for safety themselves, picks them up.Cheryl transforms into a demon and is shot out of the vehicle and left,dead on the road,as the survivors speed away into the night.

If they want a refund,you'd better give it to them.The titular demons converge.
As emptyheaded and bereaft of logic the disjointed story is,the movie itself does allow for plenty of thrills,gore a'plenty,and several cameos by Italian genre stars.An 80's classic overbrimming with excitement that only the most pretentious cinema snob could not enjoy watching a few times.It spurred on a nearly identical sequel(Demons 2) that takes place in a high rise apartment building,but never lives up to the original on any level,and two films which were scheduled to be sequels but had really nothing to do with Bava's entry(Michele Soavi's "La Chiesa",and Bava's "The Ogre").To date,Lamberto never lived up to the amazing legacy his father left behind with numerous classic films like "Black Sabbath",but he is capable of making entertaining genre fare like this,and for that I salute him.Good,wholesome horrific fun!

Fancy becoming an instrument of evil?Try this mask on for size.