Arabella the Black Angel (1989)

Also known as Angel: Black Angel, this is one of the sleaziest giallo that I’ve come across. Seeing as how I’ve watched Play Motel, Strip Nude for Your KillerGiallo In Venice and own multiple copies of The New York Ripper, that’s saying something.

Director Stelvio Massi was the cinematographer or director of photography for plenty of great movies like The Case of the Bloody IrisSartana’s Here…Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin and Giovannona Long-Thigh. He knows how to make things look gorgeous, particularly in the way he shoots women, which comes in more than handy here.

Arabella is a woman obsessed with the carnal act. Sadly, her husband has been rendered impotent and confined to a wheelchair ever since he wrecked his car while she was dirty facetiming him (he was driving, because the opposite is impossible) on their wedding day. She’s filled his role with trips to brothels, including one that gets raided while she’s assaulted by a cop. She gets back at that officer by inviting him back to her place and while he’s yodeling in the valley, she bops him upside the head with a hammer. Her cucked husband, who has been watching all of this hammer smashed face action go down finally feels the blood flow down below, which means that he has to keep setting up his wife to kill off more and more people. He also finally gets back the urge to write and they start to fall in love again, but of course, he has to keep watching her make love to other people.

Also: lots of genital mutilation.

Ida Galli plays the mother-in-law. You’ll remember her from The Sweet Body of Deborah and Fulci’s The Psychic. Rena Niehaus, who is in the absolutely baffling strange film Damned In Venice, is also on hand.

The problem for our heroine is that everyone she makes loves to dies, including a cowboy who gets his member sliced clean off. The next day, as the cops are gathering evidence, one of them is so upset that he can’t stop eating his sandwich. The world of this movie is insane, because there’s a photo of that mutilated wang on the cover of the next day’s newspaper.

There’s also a scene in the Freak Boy Zone, a place where Arabelle cruises all the gay men and picks one to take home. This entire moment is absolutely insane, as the homosexual side of town feels like it came out of an Enzo G. Castellari post-apocalyptic movie.

This movie looks grubby, makes little to no sense and will offend pretty much everyone that watches it. That means that you’re definitely going to want to watch it.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.