Chris Miller (former Spanish child star Marisol; when she married dancer Antonio Gades, Fidel Castro acted as their godfather) lives with her stepmother Ruth (Jean Seberg, the haunted and doomed beauty who was also in Breathless and Saint Joan). The loss of Chris’ father has damaged both of them, so when a drifter named Barney (Barry Stokes, Prey) shows up, it changes their lives. Maybe not for the better, what with a killer slicing his way through the village…

This Spanish giallo was directed by Juan Antonio Bardem (yes, the uncle of Javier) who also made Death of a Cyclist and wrote A Bell From Hell. It was written by Santiago Moncada, who was also the pen behind Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Ricco and The Fourth Victim.

Ruth blames Chris for her husband leaving, so she uses Barney to seduce her stepdaughter, who is recovering from the dual loss of her father and being assaulted at school. Her plan? When daddy comes home, he won’t love his daughter much any longer because she’s no longer a virgin. Meanwhile, the killer keeps on killing, including a scene where he dresses like Charlie Chaplin.

Also released as Behind the Shutters, this movie is also a proto-slasher, rife with bloody murders, including a moment when the rain slicker covered villain kills an entire family in slow motion.

Vinegar Syndrome recently released this on blu ray, complete with a newly scanned 4K capture from the original 35mm negative.

A combination giallo and spaghetti western? Sure. We can do that.

Mario Bianchi directed Satan’s Baby Doll and the mondo Africa Sexy before using the pen named Nicholas Moore, Tony Yanker and Martin White to make adult films.

Known in Italy as Hai Sbagliato… Dovevi Uccidermi Subito! (You Were Wrong…You Had to Kill Me Immediately!), this is all about federal agent Alan Fields, who is working undercover as Jonathan Pinkerton, acting as an employee of Lloyds of London to get to the bottom of a bank heist gone wrong, as two of the criminals are dead and the third has taken the money and their lives.

He’s played by Robert Woods, who was in all manner of Italian films like The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, Lucifera Demon Lover and His Name Was Sam Walbash, But They Call Him Amen.

Spanish actor Frank Brana shows up as the sheriff and he was in hundreds of westerns like Leone’s Dollars trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West, Light the Fuse…Sartana Is Coming! and God Forgives…I Don’t!, as well as Pieces and Hundra. And then there’s Susan Scott, who we all know better as the gorgeous Nieves Navarro (All the Colors of the Dark, Death Walks at Midnight, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals)!

A strange mix of genres, of course, but one that stands out in neither of them. Then again, I prefer my giallo to have jazzy music and mid-century modern furniture. But your mileage may vary.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime or on YouTube below.

Giorgio Cavedon created Italy’s first openly erotic fumetti — photo comic — Isabella. This tale of 1600’s France was adapted into the film Isabella Duchess of the Devils by Bruno Corbucci, which was released in the U.S. as Ms. Stiletto.

Working under the titles Self-Portrait and Portrait of a Ghost, this film finally settled on the title Ombre, which means Shadows. I’ve seen Mario Caiano credited as the co-director on this film. He also was behind the films Nightmare Castle, Shanghai Joe and Eye in the Labyrinth.

Renato is depressed and has a past filled with trauma. But perhaps things are looking up thanks to Monica, a college girl that he’s met. Unfortunately for him — and perhaps the opposite for us as we’d not have a movie to watch otherwise — she lives in a dismal home haunted by the spirit of her evil grandmother.

Ombre was a failure in theaters and has only been released n VHS in Italy. Somehow, thanks to the miracle of the internet, I’ve had the chance to watch it. Several members of the Gialloholics Facebook group got together to restore this, a movie that has no major re-release, which is amazing in the digital world that we live in today.

That said — it’s a slow-moving film that is more psychological than what I was hoping for. There is disco dancing, which I always appreciate in movies, however. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

So wait — did this movie rip off the poster for Byleth Demon of Incest or what? Yes, while the rest of the world is asleep at 6:46 AM on a Saturday morning, I’m trying to figure out Italian horror film posters. Such is my life.

Seriously, take a look at this poster and realize — it’s the exact same art.

Well, in this movie, the Hilton family gathers at their mansion as their patriarch dies. As he passes, he curses the family, who are soon beset by a witch and her killing machine who starts to wipe them out one by one, as she knows their secret.

Meanwhile, as they’re giving the old man his last rites, his servants are doing the horizontal lambada on his coffin.

There’s a lot of murder but plenty more nudity, including a scene where two girls make out while a goldfish is, well, played with. Then the color drops out while some hippy rock plays. And oh yeah, Camille Keaton from I Spit On Your Grave shows up and she confessed that she had no idea what the movie was about the entire time she was acting in it.

Donald O’Brien (Dr. Butcher, M.D., Mannaja, 2020 Texas Gladiators) claimed that the budget was so low that he had to wear his own clothes. That said, not many people in this keep their clothes on.

Look for Gianni Dei, who would later play Patrick in the Italian sexual reimagining of the Australian movie Patrick that would be known as Patrick Still Lives. I still have no idea how that happened.

Vinegar Syndrome included this movie in the box set Camille Keaton In Italy along with Tragic Ceremony and Madelaine.

Known in Italy as Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta (A Magnum Special for Tony Saitta) and Blazing Magnum in the UK, this movie caught my attention with Stuart Whitman as a “Dirty Harry” type detective named — you guessed it — Tony Saitta solving the giallo-esque murder of his sister.

She was played by Carole Laure, a Quebec singer whose first major acting role in Sweet Movie nearly ended her career. She plays a Miss Canada who is married off to a milk tycoon on the basis of her virginity. The film has coprophilia, emetophilia, implied child molestation and footage of remains of the Polish Katyn Massacre victims. And Laure left the production after growing increasingly upset over what was required of her, especially after a scene where she had to give a handjob. Ah, art! At least she’d go on to be in the Pele, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone movie Victory.

Well, she doesn’t last too long in this movie. At a party where people are faking their deaths to get a reaction, she ends up getting poisoned and really dying at the hands of Dr. George Tracer (Martin Landau!). Working with Ned Matthews (John Saxon!), Tony’s on the case of his sister’s death. And damn anyone who gets in his way.

If you’ve ever wanted to see Stuart Whitman get thrown out a plate glass window by a karate-kicking transvestite, good news. This movie was made for you. And me. Because man, it’s absolutely bonkers.

Seriously, this entire scene is insane. But let’s go back a little bit.

After University of Montreal student — and Tony’s sister — Louise (Laure) gets in a battle with her married lover Dr. Tracer (Landau), she tries to call her brother but he’s in the middle of a busy case. So she turns to her ex-boyfriend Fred and they come up with a scheme to get back at the perhaps not-so-good doctor.

That night, as everyone parties at the home of Professor Margie Cohn (Gayle Hunnicutt, The Legend of Hell House), Louise becomes sick and Tracer is frantically called. He gives her a stimulant and everyone laughs when she reveals she was faking. But soon, after a heart attack, no one is laughing.

Tony comes in from Ottawa for the funeral and despite being 200 kilometers (124 miles) from home, Detective Ned Matthews (Saxon) just decides to let him do whatever he wants, which includes the aforementioned transvestite party fistfight, which starts with one of their number saying, “Cinderella, answer the door,” before Tony beats one into oblivion and announces that everyone needs to settle down. Spoiler: They don’t, tossing him out a window before he violates another with a hot curling iron and throwing the surviving ladyman into a swimming pool. This scene is incredibly baffling, perhaps because I’m viewing it through the lens of 2020 films.

Blind university music teacher Julie Foster (Tisa Farrow!) is the only person who may have a clue as to what’s going on, but there’s also a little person crime boss, several car chases, a graphic stabbing, the aforementioned Ms. Farrow wandering down the street blind through traffic and so much more.

This movie was written by Vincenzo Mannino (Phantom of Death, Murder Rock, The Last Shark) and Gianfranco Clerici (Don’t Torture A Duckling, The New York Ripper, Cannibal Holocaust), so you know that there’s no way that this movie isn’t going to involve depravity and mayhem.

It was directed by Alberto De Martino, who also was behind Operation Kid Brother, The Antichrist, Holocaust 2000, The Pumaman and Miami Golem, a movie I keep meaning to get to.

This is a movie devoted to entertaining you by any means necessary. It’s all wood-paneled 1970’s, mixing the Canadian tax shelter magic with some of that good old fashioned Italian blood and guts. What a recipe!

A few minutes into this movie and you realize that you’re watching the work of a master. Sergio Martino made a series of six giallo from 1971 to 1975 that — for me — define the genre. The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, Your Vice Is A Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, All the Colors of the Dark, Torso and this film point to a high watermark for the genre.

This is the last of Martino’s giallo and doesn’t feature his usual cast, like Edwige Fenech or Ivan Rassimov. It does, however, have Claudio Cassinelli, who was in Murder Rock and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

Cassinelli plays police detective Paolo Germi, who meets a girl named Marisa (Patrizia Castaldi, in her only acting role before becoming a costume designer) who is soon murdered. She was a prostitute and now, Germi is haunted by her death and wants to find the killers. Unfortunately, Marisa was in way over her head and getting the answers won’t be simple. After all, there’s a man with mirrored shades killing everyone that gets close to the truth.

This film is a combination of poliziotteschi and giallo, shot under the title Violent Milan. It was written by Ernesto Gastaldi, who wrote everything from Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory and The Horrible Dr. Hichcock to The Whip and the Body, The Long Hair of Death, The Possessed, Light the Fuse… Sartana Is Coming, All the Colors of the Dark, Torso, Almost Human, Concorde Affaire ’79 and Once Upon a Time In America.

There’s even a meta moment where the cops question a subject in the movie theater while Martino’s Your Vice Is A Locked Room and Only I Have the Key plays. And look out — Mel Ferrer (Nightmare City, Eaten Alive!) is in here as a police captain.

While this film doesn’t reach the lunatic heights of Martino’s finest works, it’s still a gleaming example of how great 1970’s Italian genre film can be.

You can watch this movie on Amazon Prime or get the blu ray from Arrow Video.

At least this Lamberto Bava film has a unique premise: A detective discovers that a serial killer’s murders are all connected by the late husband of a beautiful widow. After all, his organs have been transplanted into each dead body!

That said — there is a great scene where the killer eviscerates a schoolteacher victim in front of her class of blind students, spraying one of them with plasma. If only the rest of the film lived up to its premise like this scene!

That said, there are plenty of Italian exploitation faves in this one.

Polish actress Joanna Pacula was in Virus with Jamie Lee Curtis (it’s an early comic book film, based on a Dark Horse comic) and Gorky Park. She plays the lead, Tracy and in real life, once dated Roman Polanski.

Tomas Arana — who is on The New Pope these days — is better known to our readers for appearing in The Church, He and Pacula were also in Tombstone together.

Look out! There’s Gianni Garko, who is beloved here for his work in movies like Devilfish, The Psychic, four of the five legit Sartana films (If You Meet Sartana…Pray for Your Death; I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death; Have a Good Funeral, My Friend…Sartana Will Pay and Light the Fuse…Sartana Is Coming), Encounters In the Deep and Star Odyssey. There’s Erika Blanc (Kill, Baby… Kill!, The George Hilton-starring Sartana’s Here…Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin, The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse)! And Giovanni Lombardo Radice, always a great scumbag in movies like The House on the Edge of the Park and its sequel where he was the main focus, as well as Stagefright, City of the Living Dead, Cannibal Ferox and Phantom of Death.

Jasmine Maimone, who was in Demons, Demons 6: De Profundis and Paganini Horror was the original choice for the lead, but she retired before this bloody mess could be made.

You can watch the whole movie on YouTube.

Thaddeus Hyatt is a chef who has mad cow disease, which leads to him kidnapping foreigners, killing them, injecting his own blood into them, then feeding their flesh to unsuspecting people in his restaurants.

What an elaborate and totally specific plan. It’s almost like a fetish more than a serial killer modus operandi, but hey — good for you Thaddeus. You’ve made your own path in this world.

This is an auteur project for Michael Moutsatsos, who wrote, directed, produced and stars in this film. It reminds me of a modern version of the grimier slashers like Maniac, so if that’s your jam, by all means, dig right in.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime. If you want to know more, check out the official Facebook page.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR team.

The second cinematic film in the Warren cinematic universe, this movie starts where other movies like The Amityville Horror take hours to show. Yes, the Warrens really did go to 112 Ocean Avenue. The jury is, however, out as to whether Lorraine had a vision of the murders, followed the ghost of one of the Lutz children into the basement and then met Valak the Nun, who would go on to be in her own series of movies.

The ghost boy is based on the infamous Amityville photo — you know the one, it wasn’t shown until years later when the first movie was on its PR tour.

The movie then moves on to another paranormal case, the Enfield haunting of 1977. Janet Hodgson — while sleepwalking — would speak in the voice of an angry elderly man. The Warrens are determined to save her and her family, while Lorraine is concerned that Ed will be killed.

In addition to introducing the Nun character, this movie also has an appearance by the Crooked Man, who will obviously soon get his own Conjuring universe movie, alongside Annabelle (Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, Annabelle Comes Home) and La Llorona (The Curse of La Llorona).

I was happy to see Franka Potente in a movie. She was such a force in Run Lola Run and its a shame she isn’t in more movies. Here, she plays Anita Gregory, a real-life scientist who was a member of the Society for Psychical Research that investigated the Enfield Haunting.

This was directed by James Wan, who always adds a layer of sheen and class to his horror proceedings. He’s learned a ton since the Saw films and hey — I even like his silly slasher film, Dead Silence. It was written by the team of Wan, David Leslie Johnson (Aquaman, Orphan) and the twin writing team of Chad and Carey Hayes. Interestingly enough, Chad was in Death Spa in his younger days.

I also love the art direction in the Conjuring films. The Warren’s study is filled with mystical artifacts from their many adventures, like the golden upside-down skull from Vice Versa that caused Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage to switch bodies. There’s also a great poster of a young Joanna Lumley from Absolutely Fabulous in the girls’ room. You can also spot a poster for Exorcist II: The Heretic in the montage of England set to The Clash’s “London Calling.”

Also, just so there’s no debate, beyond being a possession movie, an Amityville movie and a movie about situations based on real-life events, this is also a Christmas movie!

BONUS: You can listen to us discuss this movie on our podcast.

Did this poster just put one of those horrifying wind-up monkeys in the windows of the house at 112 Ocean Avenue? Well, that’s just not fair. If this movie came out when I was seven, I would have defecated in my pants to such a level that you would be about to smell it, even nearly four decades into a thankfully feces-smell free future.

Yes, a cursed monkey is purchased from the DeFeo garage sale and makes its way across the country to Nebraska, where it wreaks havoc. If this sounds like the plot of the mid-90’s Amityville films like It’s About Time, A New Generation and Amityville Dollhouse, the filmmakers are very aware of those films and specifically pay tribute to them.

According to the film’s official Facebook page, this movie has been acquired by Wild Eye Releasing and will soon have a new Amityville-related title, as well as a sequel called Amityville: Evil Never Dies. Is Mumm-Ra in that one? I’m not sure, but do you know who is? Mark Patton, who played Jesse in the criminally underrated second A Nightmare on Elm Street film.

This was directed by Dustin Ferguson, who also made Nemesis 5: The New Model, Silent Night, Bloody Night 2: Revival, a remake of Die, Sister, Die! and is now working on a remake of Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse. The sheer chutzpah of that last move either makes me love this guy or despise him. Don’t screw that one up.

Somehow — well, Ferguson has worked on their music videos — this movie has “Spooky Tricks” by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult on its soundtrack. That’s more than I can say for most Amityville movies.