Alex (Jonathan Tufvesson) is a sound engineer who has accidentally recorded supernatural sounds while shooting a documentary. The voices that he’s captured may not sound human, but they are trying to warn him about someone or something, With a past filled with mystery and a future filled with dread, Alex is haunted by what he has found. Amanda (Rocío Muñoz) shared a past with Alex and a secret, and when she comes back into his life, she also brings numerous dead bodies. Is she the danger he’s been warned about?

Director Giorgio Bruno has put together a film that looks and sounds gorgeous, yet really doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before. That’s fine — it does have some genuinely wild kills, a bravura moment where a nun is lit ablaze and is way more professional than 99% of the movies you find streaming these days.

I’ve often discussed the sad fact that the Italian horror industry died off by the 90s, but if the films that come out of the country keep looking this good — and can start embracing the off the rails insanity that they once did instead of looking to Hollywood for what’s frightening — then perhaps a comeback can be discussed.

Until then, there are moments in this to enjoy.

They Talk (also They Talk to Me) is available on VOD and DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This 3D movie appeared on the site during Cannon Month on March 5, 2022. Kino Lorber has released a special 3D blu ray complete with new commentary by film historian Jason Pichonsky, a new interview with Tony Anthony conducted by filmmaker Douglas Hosdale, a newly mastered 2K version of the trailer, the movie in both  BD3D polarized and anaglyphic (red/cyan) 3D versions and a pair of anaglyphic 3D glasses. I’m beyond elated to have this in my collection. 

You can write this movie off as a ripoff of Raiders of the Lost Ark — and it is, right down to the scene with the boulder — but come on. It has an Ennio Morricone score, is a spiritual sequel to Comin’ At Ya! and most importantly it’s in 3D.

Made in “SuperVision” and “WonderVision,” the film was actually shot using the Marks 3-Depix Converter, the same camera that had been used for Friday the 13th Part III. This system stacked its Techniscope-sized left and right images one above the other on a single band of 35mm film. It was projection using the Polarator projection attachment offered by the Marks Polarized Corporation, allowing the audience to watch the film through color-neutral linear polarizers, a system that lead actor Tony Anthony may have invented.

J.T. Striker (Anthony) has been hired to assemble a group of professional thieves to take two of the gems that will open the last two Mystical Crowns. To get there, he’s going to make your eyes hurt with pop out skeletons, the soldiers of Brother Jonas (Emiliano Redondo) and tons of booby traps which pretty much wipe out everyone in his team, which includes the drunken Rick (Jerry Lazarus, who is also in Cannon’s Hot Chili), a dying circus strongman named Socrates (Francisco Rabal, Nightmare City) and his daughter Liz (Ana Obregón, who was Catalina in Bolero).

Roger Ebert himself broke down what gets thrown at the viewing in this one: “knives, spears, darts, bones, jeweled daggers, balls of fire, laser beams, boulders, ropes, attack dogs, bats, shards of stained glass, a set of dishes, a large kettle, a stove, a corpse, a python snake, an empty glove, birds (both real and artificial), arrows, unidentifiable glowing objects shot from guns, keys, letter openers, several human heads, skeletons, large sections of an exploding castle, one bottle of booze and assorted spoons.”

This movie doesn’t tease you with its 3D. It punches you right in the face with it.

By the end of the movie, Striker has the other gems and his ead spins around, gets all burned up and he starts shooting fire out of his hands melting all of the bad guys, then a giant sludge monster jumps out of a swamp and right into your lap, teasing a sequel that never came, as well as a space 3D movie that was announced, Seeing is Believing.

Director Ferdinando Baldi also made Blindman; Django, Prepare a Coffin; Get Mean, Warbus and Ten Zan: The Ultimate Mission, all deliriously strange movies that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Perhaps most amazingly, both Francisco Rabal and Emiliano Redondo are in Pedro Almodóvar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, so the Spanish film industry really does come together to make a movie.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally was posted on the site on March 31, 2021 but now the Code Red blu ray has been re-released by Kino Lorber. This release has been remastered in HD from the original Italian 35mm camera negative. It’s a must buy.

Somewhere deep in the middle of the Canadian mountains, Professor Wassermann (played by John Stacy and voiced by Gregory Snegoff, who was Scott Bernard on Robotech and Golgo 13 in the translated American version of his cartoon) is looking for a giant iceberg that has a yeti (Mimmo Crao, the only actor that I know that is in a Jesus movie — Jesus of Nazareth — and an Edwige Fenech sex comedy — Sex With a Smile — and this monster movie).

Morgan Hunnicut (Eddie Faye, who is really Edoardo Faieta from Plot of Fear, and also voiced by Snegoff) owns a multination oil company that funds the expedition to study him but he really wants the yeti to exploit. He’s also brought along his orphaned grandchildren for some reason — what, a Fortune Six company doesn’t have daycare for their CEOs? — named Jane (Phoenix Grant*, AKA Antonella Interlenghi, Emily from City of the Living Dead) and Herbie (Jim Sullivan), who had been mute since the death of his parents and only communicates with his dog Indio.

There’s an astounding scene where the Yeti is fitted into what is basically a giant telephone booth and airlifted by helicopter to a height of 10,000 feet because the air up there is what he’s used to and it’ll be easier to thaw him out up there. This is bonkers Italian cinema science at its finest, dear reader.

The paparazzi wants to see more of the yeti and surrounds everyone, freaking him out as if he were in a Dino De Laurentiis movie from 1976 and sending him running with Jane, Emily and Indio in his hand. He gets so excited by Jane rubbing against his paw  — and I’m not making this up — that he gets erect nipples. Later, as he combs her hair with a giant fishbone — again, not making anything up — they are found by the professor who claims that she has been adopted as his wife and Herbie as his son. Cliff Chandler (Tony Kendall**, AKA Luciano Stella, AKA Kommisar X!) is one of the company men who comes to their rescue and he comments that she’ll have to put out soon for the ape man.

Speaking of putting out, the Yeti has been marked much like Kong was in the wake of Dino’s remake. You can find Yeti shirts that say “Kiss Me Yeti” — a phrase that makes no sense — and a disco song and a commercial for the gas stations that ask you to put a Yeti instead of a tiger in your tank.

Then things get bad when the new leader of Hunnicut turns out to be the evil Cliff. He decides to kill anyone connected with the big lug.

How bad do things get?

The kind of bad where autistic children are threatened, Yetis break free over the Niagra Falls, where old kindly professors are killed by Aldo Canti, who was once Angel the acrobat from Return of Sabata and even cute dogs get stabbed.

Somehow, however, Indoo shrugs off this 1d4 slashing damage and survives to come running across the field like Wuthering Heights at the end as the Yeti goes back home to the frozen Canadian tundra, leaving behind nothing but death, destruction and flipped over toy vehicles with dead industrialists trapped inside.

Oh yeah and Dr. Butcher himself, Donald O’Brien, is in this!

A lot of folks hate on this movie and for really poor reasons. This is the very best kind of trash, a movie blessed with great poster art and the worst in special effects. These people are morons that don’t understand the wonder of a film that has high budget dreams and bottom basement budget realities.

Writer Mario di Nardo also wrote another astonishing film, the revenge picture by way of slasher grossout Ricco AKA Cauldron of Death and one of the best giallo films ever, The Fifth Cord, as well as Five Dolls for an August Moon. He was joined by Marcello Coscia on the screenplay, who also wrote Mission Bloody Mary, A Quiet Place to Kill, When Women Lost Their Tails, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and Tex and the Lords of the Deep. There was some talent here, at least in the script.

Director Gianfranco Parolini went from writing peblum films to the scripts for all three Sabata movies and God’s Gun. His directing resume has some decent stuff on it as well, including several of the Kommisar X films, If You Meet Sartana…Pray for Your Death and The Fury of Hercules. He also produced this film. Again, he had a record of producing solid work, but I think they shot too high and paid the price.

And by paid the price, I mean made a movie that completely entertained me for its entire running time.

*According to Wikipedia, Jessica Harper (yes, from Suspiria) is the voice of Jane. This seems way too good to be true.

**Kendall and O’Brien are dubbed by Ted Rusoff, the son of screenwriter Lou Rusoff and nephew to B-movie titan Samuel Z. Arkoff. He relocated to Italy to dub movies — where he met and married Carolyn De Fonseca — and you can hear his voice in movies like Voyage Into Space, Deep Red and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh.

Director Herb Freed (Beyond Evil, Tomboy, Graduation Day) wrote this movie with his wife Anne Marisse. They were inspired by the repressed memories he experienced after she saw a car accident.

It starts May Britt, who had stopped acting when she married Sammy Davis, Jr. After their divorce in 1968, she struggled to work her way back in to acting. She plays Ingrid Svensen, a Swedish farm girl — Britt was 42 when this was made — living with her uncle Carl (Cameron Mitchell) and trying to get past the memories of being molested by her father and the suicide of her mother. There’s also a masked killer stalking the small Northern California town she lives in, using scissors to mutilate its victims. Even worse, the town butcher continually assaults her, bringing back the horrific memories of her past abuse.

Yet this is not a straight giallo. It might even be an F-giallo. It’s definitely one strange film, one with no easy answers and even Mitchell said that it was “very strange” and he had no idea of the director’s vision. By the end, we’re left wondering if any interaction that Ingrid had was ever real. In fact, was she ever real?

I should mention right now that Aldo Ray is in this. I know some people that would be upset if I didn’t. You should read Bill’s review.

How this hasn’t been released by a botique label kind of freaks me out. It’s a slice of weirdness, one that completely has the bottom fall out by the end, then find itself with a haunting closing scene, filled with steam and entropy.

Antonio (Giancarlo Commare) thought he was going to be a family man for life, but then he’s dumped by his husband Lorenzo (Carlo Calderone ). Now he has no place to stay, no job and no purpose, but in the process of finding all of those things, he’ll discover what it means to be independent.

Directed by Matteo Pilati and Alessandro Guida, who wrote the script with Giuseppe Paternò Raddusa, who also is in the film, Mascarpone follows Antonio as he finds a roommate and friend in Denis (Eduardo Valdarnini) and a job in Luca’s (Gianmarco Saurino) bakery. He also discovers that the cooking that he did to feel love from his husband may mean even more. It could be his true calling in life, as long as he passes the rigors of pastry school (which is so much tougher than you’d think).

Re-entering the dating world after a lifetime away, finding your path and forging true relationships are universal themes that this movie explores. I enjoyed the time I spent with Antonio on his journey.

Mascarpone is availabel on VOD and DVD from Dark Star Pictures and Uncork’d Entertainment.

The Weapon, the Hour & the Motive examines not only murder but the idea that a Catholic priest — Don Giorgio — is having an affair with two different women — Orchidea (Bedy Moratti,  — Women in Cell Block 7) and Giulia Pisani (Eva Czemerys, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats) — and tries to break things off with both of them before he’s killed. Since Inspector Boito (Renzo Montagnani) has already fallen for Orchidea — whose husband has just committed suicide — what’s the hope for a fair inspection of who the killer could be?

The only person who may know is a young orphan who lives in the church named Ferruccio, who once watched while Don Giorgio self-flagellated, and who now is kept drugged and quiet. There’s also the matter of a skeleton-filled catacomb under the church in addition to nuns taking baths fully clothed and whipping one another fully nude.

This is the only film that Francesco Mazzei directed, while he also wrote This Shocking World, Sergeant Krems, Convoy of Women and A Girl Called Jules. He co-wrote the story with Marcello Aliprandi, who would direct a similar movie, Vatican Conspiracy, in 1982. Mazzi also wrote the screenplay along with Mario Bianchi, The Murder Secret), Bruno Di Geronimo (who wrote A Quiet Place to Kill, What Have You Done to Solange? and Puzzle) and Vinicio Marinucci (SS Experiment Love Camp). 

I can’t even imagine the reaction this movie had when it came out. Fulci had been abused by the way audiences, critics and social critics treated him after Don’t Torture a Duckling.

Known as Your Sweet Body to Kill and A Suitcase for a Corpse, this was directed by Alfonso Brescia, who made the absolutely wild movies The Beast In Space and Iron Warrior. Clive Ardington (George Ardisson, Eyes Behind the Stars) has long dreamed of killing his wife Diana (Françoise Prévost), who abuses him verbally any chance that she gets and uses his money to bankroll the clinic of her lover Franz (Eduardo Fajardo). He can’t divorce her — the scandal would ruin his political aspirations — so he comes up with a plan: present an official letter claiming that Franz was part of the German enemy during World War II, then get him to murder Diana, hack her to bits and leave her in two suitcases.

Clive intends to dump the suitcases in an acid pit, but he has to fly there, which means that the suitcases are leaking all over the airport, which adds a bit of comedy to the proceedings. Even more — while one case has his dead wife in it, the other does not. Soon, Clive is being blackmailed, so his dream of escaping his life doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

Can giallo be funny? This movie says si.

A Rather Complicated Girl was directed by Damiano Damiani, the director who came to the U.S. to make the most Italian movie — sheer exploitation and a streak of pure meanness — ever made in America, Amityville II: The Possession.

Alberto (Jean Sorel) has heard two sapphic lovers speak on the telephone and his head is filled with fantasies. He decides that he has to meet one of them in person, so he tracks down Claudia (Catherine Spaak, The Cat o’ Nine Tails) and they soon find themselves making love non-stop in between acting as fake talent scouts so they can get involved with the innocent Viola (Gabriella Boccardo, A Quiet Place In the Country) and discussing the strange relationship between Claudia and the woman on the other line, her stepmother Greta (Florinda Bolkan, always the finest actor in any giallo).

I love that this movie tests what a giallo is a year before Argento would send everyone down the animal-named and switchblade holding path. Alberto is a rich man without a care, even making fun of the wife (María Cuadra) of his dying brother, asking her when she’ll find her next lover. As for Claudia, she already has one abusive and possessive boyfriend — Pietro (Gigi Proietti) — and the film goes near hyperbolic in showing she has no morals with an interlude where she tries to seduce a priest.

The two plays games with one another and if you’ve seen enough giallo, you understand that Alberto can’t outthink Claudia or her mental games, especially when she shows him the gun in her purse and wonders if he’d do anything for her. Perhaps they’ve found an equal match in one another, for a time, as the idea that they could make love in a room where someone hung themselves excites them both, as if they are above human concerns.

Interestingly, the interviewing of the young girl and Alberto’s constant questions about Claudia’s life and relationships makes this a proto-Sex, Lies and Videotape, as when he’s not probing mentally, he can’t probe physically. What’s the fun in being a rich and gorgeous playboy if you’re impotent? Maybe he really does need that gun.