"Il gatto nero" (1989) d/ Luigi Cozzi

While we Italian genre maniacs were all waiting patiently for the final installment of Dario Argento's Three Mothers trilogy at the tail end of the eighties, director Luigi Cozzi,  of Starcrash (1978) and Contamination (1980) fame,  went ahead and delivered his own take on the witchy goings on,  in the form of tonight's review, with splashes of colored light, a pinch of gore, and obligatory rubbery sorceress action courtesy of Rosario Prestopino. The film, alternately known as Demons 6: De Profundis, showcases the familiar genre faces of Urbano Barberini, Florence Guerin, director Michele Soavi in a brief cameo, and of course, Caroline Munro. Wouldn't be a proper Cozzi film without her, and in this particular case, lots of her.


"Stress lines, cover wear, staining...and you call this copy VG/FN??"
We meet a rising actress and new mother named Anne (Florence Guerin) as she's working on a formulaic horror film based on Poe's The Black Cat for a hack director named Carl (Michele Soavi...yeah, right!) while her husband Marc (Urbano Barberini) jockeys to get his next project funded. With the upcoming film's subject matter concerning the third, and most horrible of the Mothers of Sorrow, as imagined by author Thomas De Quincey, and Marc even name dropping Dario Argento along the way, is it any wonder that such a blasphemous production would awaken a witch named Levana, with copyright infringement, possession, and bloody witchcraft-based death in mind. The rubbery resurrected spellcaster takes her would be cinematic namesake's role research personally, infiltrating her dreams with space footage borrowed from Cozzi's Hercules movies,  repeatedly visiting from inside her mirror, Exorcist-style projectile vomiting, and even haunting the poor girl's refrigerator and creating refrigerator repairmen mirages, along the way. Just stay outta the veggie crisper, Levana, come on now.


She's Lump, she's Lump, she's Lump. She's got a rubbery head.
Of course, the film's producer, is an invalid named Leonard Levin (Brett Halsey) who may or may not be in secret cahoots with Levana,  having that cleverly homonymous last name and all, and Anne's actress/gal pal and girlfriend to Marc's scriptwriter,  the ever-mugging Nora (Caroline Munro)'s sun-scorched leathery skin is too similar in texture to Levana's latex black magic acne problem for her own good, methinks. Oh yeah, people get murdered along the way, there's a close up neck ventilation, a slow motion exploding midsection that will more than remind some of you of Cozzi's earlier Alien (1979) rip-off, Contamination (1980), and a television screen that vomits entrails and soupy goop in a similar fashion to that famous Cronenberg 1981 floor model. Levana kidnaps Anna's newborn, with designs on sacrificing her, naturally, but Anna allies herself with the spirit of a fairy, and that can only mean one thing: it's time for a lackluster, low budgeted, laser effect-packed "what the fuck just happened?" finale. Roll credits.


When Celiac sufferers eat pizza made with high gluten flour, this is often the tragic result.
Whether you consider this one Demons 6, Suspiria 3, or The Black Cat (I don't really consider it a true sequel to anything, really, more of an ultra cheap spin off), depends on what characteristic rises to the surface from Cozzi's cloudy soup of genre elements for you, I guess. If it's poxy eighties hair metal, nonsensical gore, and Urbano Barberini, then you'd roll with Demons 6. If the colored filters, cues lifted from Goblin's Suspiria score, and direct references to the Argento film stand out, you'd probably call it Suspiria 3. There's barely anything Black Cat-ish to speak of, here, though Fulci allegedly expressed some desire in taking the chair on the movie, despite having already covered all things ebony feline himself, some eight years earlier. You see where I'm going with this, don't you? On the scale, Il gatto's much too incoherent and balls up to merit anything more than a single Wop, though you completists and trash lovers might want to hunt down the Japanese VHS, which may very well still be the only legitimate release of the film to date, just the same.
 

Cheap laser visual effects. Nothing embodies the powers of eighties-style witchery like them.

"Deliria"(1987)d/Michele Soavi

By 1987, the 'stalk and slash' era of horror was in serious need of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, most of its pulpy gore having been extorted to barrenness by opportunistic studios throughout the first half of the decade.The splattery sub-genre that had proved wildly popular to horror fans the world over was now mostly subjected to criminal disregard in favor of thewless fare like The Lost Boys and Ghoulies 2 with an indecorous, premature burial seemingly just around the bend.It certainly might have gone that way were it not for synthetic opioids of Mediterranean cinematic origin as delivered by familiar genre medicos like Dario Argento, Ruggero Deodato, and the directorial debut of Michele Soavi, as evidenced in tonight's review.Up until now, Soavi had been receiving credits as assistant director on films by Argento, Aristide Massaccesi(Joe D'Amato), and Lamberto Bava, as well as helming the excellent 1985 docupic, Dario Argento's World of Horror, but it was clearly time for this Milanese to begin to reveal the enormous talents he brought to the director's chair for himself.Deliria, which was released under a host of alternate titles such as "Aquarius", "The Bloody Bird", and "Stage Fright", would be produced by Massaccesi, and scripted by Luigi Montefiori under his 'Lew Cooper' pseudonym, not to mention showcasing the screen presence of genre vets like Barbara Cupisti, who honed her skills in movies by Fulci and Argento and would go on to appear in Soavi's La Chiesa(1989) and Dellamorte, Dellamore(1994), David Brandon, who debuted in Derek Jarman's art-punk Jubilee(1978), and went on to appear in cult favorites by Massaccesi(Emperor Caligula:The Untold Story) and Bava(Le foto di Gioia), and the always tragic Johnny Morghen, who might have momentarily put aside his increasingly vocal disdain for orrore e gialli here, in playing an actor in a theatrical troupe just as he actually was, prior to his cinema debut for Deodato in 1979.Despite being somewhat anchored in mediocre waters by familiar subject matter, a passe' eighties soundtrack full of annoying synth-jazz(you all know how much I despise jazz) by the normally outstanding Simon Boswell, and mired by a sloggish midsection, Deliria is a beautifully shot(what else would you expect from Soavi?) slasher/giallo hybrid that boasts of several inventive and explicit kills that help it to rise above most of its more lemon peers.Onward!

"Don't look to me for protection, I get paid to traipse around in tights!" minces Brett(Johnny Morghen).
A troupe of struggling young actors rehearses a small new production about a mass murderer known as the "Night Owl" late one evening, when the leading lady Alicia(Barbara Cupisti) unwittingly twists her ankle and is forced to sneak off with Betty(Ulrike Schwerk), the wardrobe mistress, to seek medical attention away from the dictatorial eye and vitriolic tongue of Peter(David Brandon), the play's director.It just so happens that the nearest medical facility is the area's mental hospital, and not just any mental hospital, but the one that happens to house Irving Wallace, an actor who abruptly flipped his wig and snuffed twelve unlucky cats before gettin' boxed up in the squirrel farm.While the actress's peg is tended to by the resident psychiatrist, Wallace, now overbrimming with hatred for actors, takes out an orderly with a syringe and breaks out of the asylum, hiding out in the back of Betty's car.When the girls return to the rehearsal, Peter sassily serves up walking papers to Alicia for leaving the theater, but after packing her stuff and returning to Betty's car in the torrential rain outside, she stumbles upon the wardrobe mistress's dead body, her yap bifurcated by a pickaxe.The authorities station two officers(Mickey Knox, Michele Soavi) outside the theater to guard the premises when the director, acting on artistic urge, rewrites the script and gives the theater's door key to an actress to hide, so that nobody can leave the building.Let's recap, shall we?Actor-hating psychopath locked in a dark theater with troupe of catty actors working on a pretentious play about a murderer(now named "Irving Wallace" by the foppish Peter) who wears an ominous owl head mask(and a Marilyn Monroe clone blowing sax in the "Seven Year Itch" dress, for some unknown reason).I can only imagine what's gonna transpire next...

"Do you ever get tired of hearing how much you look like Michele Soavi?" asks 'Old Cop'(Mickey Knox).
First Wallace dispatches the actor who would be portraying him in Brett(Johnny Morghen), then, decked out in Strigiformes-head, takes his place on stage and, upon shouted cue from Peter, strangles and shanks up one of the actresses for serious in front of everyone's disbelieving eyes.After Peter is informed that the phone line's been cut, and tries to grill a dying Corinne about the whereabouts of the key, he starts to realize which odorous creek he's up without a paddle.Pretty soon, Irving is going through frantic, terrified dancers in the dark faster than me with an AMP four pack.One particularly sorry bastard gets power drilled through the labonza while clutched through a door.Peter remarks that the survivors might have better luck sticking together as they stumble upon Brett's corpse amidst synths that wouldn't be out of place in a Level 42 track, and one female dancer, pulled through the wooden walkway in the rafters, is sheared in two.When one of the boys vengefully jumps through the hole in the floor to face the maniac, he's dissected by a chainsaw for his troubles.Peter whimpers, "You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone...alright?" and gets his arm sawed off, with his own fire axe ripped from his disembodied arm and used to decapitate him.With the oblivious cops outside in the rain comparing themselves to Brando and Dean(!), Alicia, awoken by a single feather landing on her face, finds a bloodied half-conscious Laura in the showers when Irving shows up to shiv her in the labonza and drag her off.Wallace morbidly dresses the stage with all the lifeless corpses of his victims and sits among them with the key to the outside precariously lodged in one of the floorboards at his feet.Will this be Alicia's final curtain call? Will Irving roost in a barn at sunrise? How this pot boiler wraps up, I'll leave to you to find out.Disappointment is unlikely.

Impressed by the size of Irving's drill bit, the ladies are soon on him about contracting some private handiwork...
Helping to keep the slasher subgenre alive was all in a day's work for Soavi, whose films only got better from here.As it stands, Deliria has got enough going on to merit a look for gore freaks, and a permanent spot on the shelves of genre collectors.It's a fairly standard affair with moments of flair provided by the unmistakable style of the director beginning to surface.Most of the pretentious tights-leapers are of the stereotypically acrimonious type, so you'll be cheering on the graphic murders here once they start dropping like dysfunctional genitalia.Of course, I'm slightly biased towards Soavi, my favorite genre director since Chile got turned on to free elections, but there you go.A little sidetracked with a harbinger of Sunday night partying permeating the air, so I'm just gonna go ahead and wrap this one up by slapping three wops on it as a seal of approval and recommending it to all of you out there.Now let's boogie...

That's how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, bitches.

"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!

"Dellamorte,Dellamore"(1994)d/Michele Soavi

The greatest zombie flick of all time.
Oh yes it is.The perfect combination of art and exploitation,amazing cinematography and atmosphere,Soavi's masterpiece transcends the horror genre;the perfect mix of dark humour,extreme gore,sexuality,and romance.It almost doesn't fit into any category,and herein lies the film's strength.It is championed by Romero-philes and Godard-ites alike.Soavi,who laboured as an assistant director/actor in the films of Argento,Bava,Fulci,et al, for years,shows his true mettle with this entry which came at a time when Italian horror was at a wane,and arguably surpassed his teachers.His talents as a director,evident in all his films,are nowhere more clear than in this submission.Then he disappeared from the spotlight to direct Italian television and care for one of his terminally ill children,perhaps satisfied that he had created in many individuals' minds,the ultimate horror film.

You threw out the old phone books??Those are CLASSICS!
Francesco Dellamorte(Rupert Everett) is the caretaker of the Buffalora Cemetery.He's a lonely man whose only friends are Gnaghi(François Hadji-Lazaro),a pudgy,bald simpleton(seemingly)who acts as his assistant,and Franco(Anton Alexander),who he's never met in person.Life is boring for Dellamorte,who's hobbies are reading outdated telephone directories and piecing together a fragmented human skull.Except that recently,seven nights after they are buried,the corpses(which he calls "returners") return to life due to mandragola roots in the cemetery to raise havok on the living,if Francesco and Gnaghi weren't there to dispatch them with a bullet or shovel-blade,that is.Francesco's pleas for investigation fall on the deaf ears of the mayor,who is more concerned with his latest campaign than anything else.

Just look at the beautiful err,umm...composition of this shot.
It's business as usual for Dellamorte and his assistant until an old man's funeral brings him face to face with the woman of his dreams,known only as "She"(Anna Falchi),mourning the loss of her elderly lover(!).He lures her into the cemetery's ossuary,which invokes feelings of dormant love and sensuality in her(works every time!),and she makes love to him on her dead husband's grave,arguing that she hid nothing from him in life.Only her husband rises from his earthy confines and bites her before Dellamorte can dispatch the angry zombie.He waits seven days next to her still body and shoots her in the head as she rises to embrace him.So much for love...

Gnaghi(François Hadji-Lazaro)and Valentina(Fabiana Formica),sitting in a grave...Love really does know no boundaries,eh?
The plot thickens when the mayor's daughter Valentina dies violently on potential beau Claudio's motorbike,taking out a schoolbus full of boy scouts in the process.Francesco readies for the reanimation of the century,while Gnaghi excitedly waits for Valentina's return,as he fancied her in life(showing affection by nervously throwing up on her in the plaza!).Dellamorte dispatches the forever-chomping little zombies,Claudio rides his motorbike out of the grave(apparently buried with the twisted wreck!)and eats his distraught girlfriend,and Gnaghi takes Valentina's disembodied zombified head to his room,playing his coffin-violin for her.When the mayor hears his daughter's voice coming from Gnaghi's room,he rushes in only to be bitten in the neck by her flying head when he disapproves of her current,unlikely romance.Dellamorte dispatches Valentina,then later,the mayor's zombie.Or rather,"ex-mayor".

Dellamorte(Rupert Everett)creates a hole for this nun's spirit to escape out of.Amen.
Along the way,Dellamorte encounters two incarnations of "She";one,the new mayor's assistant,who loves Francesco,but is terrified by penises(!!!),causing the caretaker to barge into a doctor's office demanding to have his manhood amputated!When "She" returns to Buffalora,Francesco is interrupted in telling her his good news by her story of being raped by the new mayor...and liking it!She leaves,hoping he will understand.He doesn't.The final "She" he gives a lift home to her flat,making love to her several times before her roommate informs him they are merely prostitutes.He places a space heater in bed with the exhausted girl,burning the dwelling and occupants to the ground.When he is overlooked in the investigation of the fire,he is visited by Death itself,and given another option by the apparition,leading to a fantastically surreal climax.

The Angel of Death visits Buffalora.Francesco has a revelation.
Originally inspired by "Dylan Dog",one of the hottest comic books in Italy(selling a million copies a month!),Dellamorte,Dellamore was nearly picked up by American funders/distributors,but Soavi turned down their choice of Matt Dillon(!)as the caretaker.Thank the gods for that.Some viewers don't get the startling imagery,tributes,or symbolism abound in this film,as to be expected,and perhaps horror fans of that ilk would be better served waiting for the next Freddy Krueger or Scream sequel.Love it or hate it,what Michele Soavi has created is a ferociously original,completely satisfying,work of art.Highly recommended.