June 26: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is free! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
Man, Luigi Cozzi. Starcrash, Contamination, Paganini Horror, Cannon’s Hercules, his remix of Godzilla, Sinbad of the Seven Seas, the remix remake ripoff weirdness that is Demons 6 De Profundis, The Killer Must Kill Again, writing Four Flies on Grey Velvet and even just being a fan of film and running Argento’s Profondo Rosso store and museum — I just love the man. Like, I wish I could buy him dinner and drinks and just pick his brain for hours about the history of film.
I think this is as close as I’m going to get.
Cozzi originally came up with the idea — or at least the title — for Blood on Méliès’ Moon when he was working for Cannon in the 80s, but had no idea how it could be made. As much as we hate on modern technology, it did make this happen, as the Cozzi said that it was like when he “decided to become a publisher, until then, to publish a book you had to print at least one or two thousand copies. That meant a lot of money and often your storehouses were full of unsold copies. After the advent of digital, you could print even only thirty copies of a book and so I decided to start publishing books and novels.”
Let me try and summarize this absolutely berserk movie.
Inventor Louis Le Prince — a real artist could possibly have been the first person to shoot a movie of any length using a single lens camera and a strip of film; he also disappeared after boarding a train in September of 1890 on his way to demonstrate the camera, but there are theories that he was killed by Edison, disappeared to start a new life and celebrate his homosexuality where he would not be judged, that he committed suicide due to multiple failures or that his brother killed him to get their mother’s will. The case has never been solved — create a device that the Lumière Brothers would eventually call The Cinematographer.
Luigi Cozzi, playing himself, finds a book called The Roaming Universe that was left for him when Barbara (Barbara Magnolfi!) is killed by the statue of the Blood and Black Lace killer within Profondo Rosso’s Argento museum basement, a book that she received during a seance during which an old woman violently puked it into existence.
A man has also sent Cozzi a lamp fashioned after Le Voyage dans la Lune and claims that a shadow version of La Prince in the guise of a masked magician has left the doorway open to a dark dimension that will soon doom our reality using film as his weapon.
It’s a little like La rage du Démon, in that one of Méliès’ movies causes chaos, but it’s also a lot like a conspiracy tract you would have found in the 80s all Xeroxed and left in a payphone booth or a strange YouTube channel that at first you giggle about but then you say, “Well, that makes sense.” It’s baffling and brilliant and corny and silly all at the same time, a messy final message from an auteur who can’t help but be entertaining no matter what he does.
There’s also a trickster named Pierpoljakos (Philippe Beun-Garbe) who takes Cozzi through other dimensions, a severed head that can speak, Cozzi’s wife reacting to him telling her that he has to save the world by just rolling over and going back to sleep, Cozzi in fuzzy pajamas, Ben Cooper level masks, monsters and effects, as well as Lamberto Bava showing off his dad’s book collection, Dario Argento at an autograph signing and a nightmare that has critic Paolo Zelati claim that Cozzi is the Italian Ed Wood, which should upset him, but just ends up making him happy.
There’s also a discussion of the volcano sequence that Cozzi ripped off for Hercules and asks, “Did Cozzi choose the images or did the images choose him?” He also gets to fly on a rocket and when he lands, gets a smile from his own creation, Stella Starr from Starcrash.
This movie reminds me of the Profondo Rosso store itself, a cramped small place with a few books, some DVDs and goofy masks, all standing above a shrine to the genius that is Italian exploitation cinema in the catacombs below. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, it doesn’t have to and it’s wonderful.
I have in my office a Profondo Rosso mug and it’s one of my prized possessions. It’s like some alchemical object, something I hold and hope that the inspiration and madness and love of cinema that Cozzi has always had stays within me. I also am happy to report that when I mentioned his name to Caroline Munro, she lit up and said, “He really is the most wonderful man.”
You can get this movie directly from Profondo Rosso.
UPDATE: You can get this from Severin, who were so cool that they included some of this review on the back of the box.
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