"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..."

"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!"

"Shark:Rosso nell'oceano"(1984)d/Lamberto Bava

There's really no mistaking the difference between a film by maestro Mario Bava and one directed by his son, Lamberto.I think you know where I'm going here.Tonight we'll be looking at one of the latter(we'll never run out of movies to review here at the Wop, never, you hear me?!!), and not one of Lamberto's crowning cinematic achievements, either.Known alternately as "Monster Shark" and "Devil Fish", tonight's muddled-but-ambitious aqua-giallo, partially penned by Luigi Cozzi(and Dardano Sacchetti and Sergio Martino and Lamberto Bava and...), as evidenced by the inclusion of his obligatory 'Stella' character, predates the SyFy 'original', "Sharktopus", by twenty-six years, for those of you out there that happen to be keeping score on this sort of thing.In the end, though, it's just another Italian Jaws rip-off afterall, made more laughably rotten by a Velveeta-laden soundtrack as realized by Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis, a corrugated cardboard cutout creature created by Ovidio Taito, and a second unit director named Mattei(yeah, him).Still, you might be able to make it all the way through this one if, like me, boobs, blood, bad acting, and an extra hokey ratiocination are what you oftimes groove upon, as there are plenty of all of those to keep it entertaining throughout.

"Arggggh! That thing is making off with my new Bruno Magli's!!!"
A couple enjoying a leisurely cruise(in a toy boat launched in an aquarium in certain establishing shots, mind you) at sunset is interrupted by the rubbery suction cups of a tentacle arm that vigorously smashes their boat and kills them off-camera.Dr. Stella Dickens(Valentine Monnier) feeds dolphins and researches them scientifically, as evidenced by her clipboard and pencil she's carrying around.Uhhh, "do tricks for fish", check.At the same time, the Coast Guard helicopter has spotted the pre-credit boat wreck, sending screeching rescue divers to rummage for survivors.Meanwhile, Dr. Hogan(Lawrence Morgant), a marine biologist who never met a pop top can of beer he didn't like, is picking up strange sounds from a sonar buoy he's towing behind the "Seaquarium", his not-so-cleverly-named research ship.The divers pull a legless corpse from the murky water via rescue harness, as Hogan's boat is suddenly attacked, with Dickens' dolphins schitzing out at the exact same moment.The autopsy of ol' legless proves inconclusive, as the sheriff(Gianni Garko) tells his 'roid-ripped deputy to photograph the body.Hogan later tells Dickens that the sound he captured on his equipment during the boat attack resembled a voice, and then, a "terrifying sound filled with hate"(he must've recorded the sound of my first stretch of the morning).Enter Peter(Michael Sopkiw), the resident electrician who's about to vacation in New York with "three beautiful women"(Electricians get all the pussy) when Stella pulls up on her motorcycle and flirtingly begs him to build a Santa's Naughty or Nice-sized list of electronic equipment instead, to the chagrin of his sensual mulatto/terrone-esque assistant/lover, Sandra, who's watching in the wings.Wow, a lot of shit's going down in this one, too bad, none of it is any good...

Washed up on the beach...sorta like Pamela Anderson these days.
Let the makin' out commence(cue:Mad Magazine flexi-disc, you know you've still got yours...).At West Ocean International, named after Professor West(William Berger), of course, Dr. Davis indiscreetly makes out with West's wife Sonja while elsewhere, Peter goes the tonguey route with Sandra, only to get roughed up by some henchmen who smash the hi-tech equipment he'd been burning the midnight oils to finish for Stella."They smashed the converter...You work all night and they smash it to bits!", he says.Meanwhile, a scuba diver who's just been harrassed by stock footage of various different shark species gets chewed up but good in the prehistoric yap of our titular monster shark, while a W.O.I. lab assistant has also mysteriously turned her toes up.The sheriff decides that its a murder alright, investigation notwithstanding.Another body is discovered on the pier, and some highly detailed plaster casts are made from the bite wounds that reveal one mutha of a toofus.Peter, Stella, Bob, his beer cans, and Sandra set off on a sonar-heavy boat to search for the monster, and after Bob chucks his empty into the ocean(kind of odd behaviour for a marine biologist, eh?)and the creature plays chicken with the bottom of the ship, appearing as a glorious eight-bit graphic on Peter's scope, Bob throws more cans into the water, and the crew celebrates capturing the monster's noises on their equipment.The lone survivor to this point flatlines at the hospital, causing the doctor to defibrillate him eleven times in rapid succession before stating that "fear" killed him(yeah, that or the 165 thousand volts you just sent through him...).Cutting through a bible's worth of banal dialogue and sub-plots that go nowhere fast, the creature is, to quote Dr. Davis, "A marine monster, almost indestructible*. And whose genetic characteristics are as fearsome as the white shark's. A gigantic octopus with the intelligence of a dolphin, and as monstrous as a prehistoric creature." *(unless there's an electrician with flame throwers around)

"Now that you're all gathered around, and I've delivered my last words, I can die dramatically."
Bava, who's credited as "John Old, Jr." here, followed this uncomprehensible garbage up with the ever-popular cult classic Demoni(1985), then Midnight Killer, and Demoni 2 the following year.Sopkiw was a mid-eighties staple in Italian genre films, appearing in Sergio Martino's 2019 - Dopo la caduta di New York(1983), Bava's Blastfighter(1984), Nudo e selvaggio(Massacre in Dinosaur Valley)(1985), and of course, this mutt.Berger, who worked with Bava's father on 5 bambole per la luna d'agosto(1970), enjoyed a long career in genre films, appearing in everything from Sabata(1969) and Keoma(1976) to Franco's Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun(1977) and Porco Mondo(1978), before passing away in 1993.I shouldn't have to say too much more about this one, you know what you're in for, and whether or not you're going to enjoy it at all.Technically speaking, on the scale, it's a One Wopper, all the way.

Let's hear you say "mutated proto-dunkleosteus tentacles" five times fast.

"Macabro"(1980)d/Lamberto Bava

After assisting his father, the iconic legend, Mario Bava, on several of his films in the seventies, Lamberto Bava of "Demoni" fame, set out to make a name for himself in the cinema with tonight's entry, a strange, slow-moving gothic number with equal parts psychological and exploitative thrills for the viewer, not overly gory by anyone's standards, but surely perverse enough to delight genre fans.What makes this all the more impressive is the fact that the film's big shocker payoff is given away on most advertisements and sleeve art for the film(hint: there's a severed head involved...).Overall, Macabro is clever in its voyeuristic execution, playing reality against fantasy and daring the viewer to keep score on which is which.Bava daringly cuts between events in contrast as a lovemaking session while a murder is being committed with an eccentric sense of humour, while never losing the suspenseful angle he clearly absorbed from years around his father, throughout the entire affair.To purvey the perversity, Bava enlisted the talents of Bernice Stegers, genre vets Stanko Molnar and Roberto Posse, and oddly enough, Veronica Zinny, whose brother Karl would later appear in Bava's Demoni as prep-creep Ken of the sweater-draped shoulders, and who would not act again after her appearance here(!).The screenplay was handled by Bava, Pupi Avati and his brother Antonio, and Roberto Gandus, and according to Bava himself, is based on a small American news story from the late seventies(just how much fact remains in the finished product is anyone's guess, really).But let's not get a-head of ourselves, shall we?Sorry.Onward!

La fica malvagità distruggendosi.Get in there, my son!
Mrs. Jane Baker (Bernice Stegers),a restless New Orleans housewife with wandering eyes, seizes a prime moment for infidelity, sneaking off for a coital liason with her lover, Fred(Roberto Posse), leaving her two children behind.Her daughter Lucy (Veronica Zinny) takes the opportunity to drown her little brother Michael in the tub(!), telephoning her mommy about the terrible accident that's just occurred afterwards(!!). Blinded by grief, Jane lets Fred drive them quickly to her home, but they miss a curve and he eats a guardrail with a side of windshield, killing him instantly and spattering the negligent adulteress with ample red stuff.Twelve months pass when Jane is finally released from the mental hospital(cue classic Suicidal Tendencies track here), returning to the very flat where she formerly got her extramarital fuck on with the currently very dead Fred. There she erects a shrine to his memory and fantasizes about his lovemaking skills, which rapidly retorverts into carnal oestrus.Downstairs resides a blind musical instrument repairman named Robert Duval(another L on that surname and they'd have made a funny) who's taken a shine to the distraught woman.Her husband has custody of the diabolical daughter, while Jane prickteases her new sightless neighbor to no end, leaving him emptyhanded while hearing the sounds of her furiously loud nightly masturbation sessions just above his ceiling.Poveretto!

Cazzo no!Ho pomodoro sul mia faccia!
Meanwhile, when Lucy comes to visit her mother, she noses around Jane's apartment, finding the freezer padlocked for some odd reason.Yeah, that's an understatement, alright.Her daughter thoughtfully begins to leave framed photos of her dead son around the room as morbid mementos to send her old lady back to the squirrel farm from whence she came.If only she knew the horrible truth.The one 'l' Duval vainly tries to impress the object of his affections by whipping up some Campbell's chicken noodle soup.Strangely, her panties remain in place.Soon, the fuck-racket upstairs has him blindly investigating his way around the homestead, seemingly just fractions away from laying his mitts on something utterly grotesque, despite the fact that Jane never entertains any company...In divulging the gross details of the mind-blowing finale, Jane has been keeping Fred's decapitated, decaying domepiece locked in her freezer, taking it out for lengthy, foul make out sessions nightly before double-clicking her mouse, I'm not really spoiling anything here,as you'd pretty much know this within seconds of picking up the Blue Underground dvd, the earlier out-of-print Anchor Bay release, the "Frozen Terror" vhs....Yeah, you see where I'm comin' from, don'tcha.Hit the lights.

"Rub a dub dub, io ha annegato il mio fratello nella vasca.", mocks Lucy(Veronica Zinny).
Bava used this production as a springboard into more genre fare of varying degrees of effectiveness like A Blade in the Dark(1983), Devilfish(1984), Demons & Demons 2(1985, 1986 respectively), and Delirium(1987), before ultimately growing comfortable in the television medium in the nineties.You'll know immediately if this one sounds like a good fit for your Italian horror sensibilities or not.If you're anything like your humble N over here, you'll probably dig a screening's worth alright.On the scale, it gets propped hollowly upon a bed of ill repute with a rating of two B.W.'s.Worth a look, for sure.

"No, no, no!I said the headboard was rotten."

"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.