This sequel came out the same year as The Executioner and brings back Takeshi Hayato (Makoto Sato), Ichiro Sakura (Eiji Gō), Arashiyama (Ryô Ikebe), Emi (Yutaka Nakajima) and ninja bad guy working on the side of good Ryuichi Koga (Sonny Chiba) for another mission.
First, they have to find Koga, who is now a paratrooper — or the Rangers Unit of the Self Defence Forces — and then they’re off to retrieve the stolen Jewel of the Pharaohs and a rich heiress, but they discover that the jewel they’ve retrieved is a fake. And when Koga gets shorted on his pay, he decides to steal the jewel for himself.
This time around, the bickering between the three heroes — well, they’re not all that virtuous but are the heroes we have — is filled with comedy, like a scene where Koga is climbing up into a high rise and a well-endowed woman opens her window and her bosom falls directly onto his head and another where Sakura gets set on fire and Koga urinates the flames out. Then again, this is a Sonny Chiba movie, so he does get to rip a man’s heart right out of his chest and show it to him before he dies.
The Executioner II: Karate Inferno is also directed by Teruo Ishii, who wasn’t a fan of making action movies like this. To see what he liked making, track down Horrors of Malformed Men and Shogun’s Joy of Torture.
While not as well made as The Executioner, everyone seems to enjoy their roles and the silly near-Three Stooges antics between the heroes. I wish Toei had made even more of this series.
The Arrow Video release of The Executioner Collection has high definition blu ray presentations of both movies, along with brand new audio commentary by Chris Poggiali and Marc Walkow; Sonny Chiba, Karate King, a 30-minute featurette on the legendary Sonny Chiba, featuring Grady Hendrix, Tom Mes, Chris Poggiali, Marco Joachim and Seiji Anno from the band Guitar Wolf; trailers; image galleries; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Lucas Peverill and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Mark Schilling. You can get it from MVD.
You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
Three men have come together to destroy a drug cartel: Hayabusa (Makoto Sato), Aikido master and pervert Sakura (Eiji Gō) and Koga Ninja school descendent Ryuichi Koga (Sonny Chiba), the master of the Hell Fist. Guided by disgraced cop Arashiyama (Ryo Ikebe) and Emi (Yutaka Nakajima), they have to stay together long enough to stop druglord Mario Mizuhara (Masahiko Tsugawa).
By destroy them, I mean the last thirty minutes of this movie is one big fistfight, broken up by a car chase, then more kicking and punching. Chiba may not be the flashiest or most acrobatic martial artist, but he’s the roughest. I mean, why else would they call him the meanest man alive? Also, he’s Lucio Fulci’s favorite fighter, obviously, because he can smack someone in the head so hard their eyeball flies out of their head. He goes that one better by punching a man in the chest and pulling out one of his ribs.
This movie is absolutely hilarious, a sleazy mix of violence, nudity, wild costumes, sex and a double mannequin suicide plunge at the end that outdoes anything in Italian cinema, the world’s biggest importer of wooden dummies for the end of giallo films.
Teruo Ishii supposedly hated making kung fu and action movies — I mean, the guy did make Shogun’s Joy Of Tortureso I think there’s where his heart lies — that he made this parody so that Toei would ask him to make another. No matter. This movie is a total blast.
The Arrow Video release of The Executioner Collection has high definition blu ray presentations of both movies, along with brand new audio commentary by Chris Poggiali and Marc Walkow; Sonny Chiba, Karate King, a 30-minute featurette on the legendary Sonny Chiba, featuring Grady Hendrix, Tom Mes, Chris Poggiali, Marco Joachim and Seiji Anno from the band Guitar Wolf; trailers; image galleries; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Lucas Peverill and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Mark Schilling. You can get it from MVD.
You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
.com for Murder hits everything I’m looking for in a movie:
Nico Mastorakis (Death Has Blue Eyes, Sky High, The Wind, Nightmare At Noon, Bloodtide, Ninja Academy, Island of Death) makes entertaining junk and I use the word junk with the highest possible esteem. I mean, the dude was a muckraking reporter and co-wrote some songs with Vangelis before he even got into movies.
It’s a movie about an internet — and a dark web! — that doesn’t even exist this way today, filled with graphics that are once dated and futuristic and giving me the warmest of feelings.
A direct-to-video movie?
Appearances by rock stars — Huey Lewis and Roger Daltrey — and gorgeous leads — Nicolette Sheridan and Nastassja Kinski — in what is really a giallo no matter how much you dress it up as an erotic thriller?
Daltry is Ben, an architect married to Sondra (Kinski) who has just broken her leg in a skiing mishap. When he leaves town, she uses the computer that runs their house — called HAL, right? — and finds out that her husband has been talking dirty in internet chat rooms. She plays sleuth and gets online and sets herself up on a date with one of the girls online — which is amazingly not a dude, welcome to science fiction — named Lynn (Kim Valentine, who was in Mastorakis’ Grandmother’s House) before she’s locked out by a hacker named Werther (Jeffrey Dean). She logs off just as her sister Misty (Sheridan) comes to look after her and before you can say Rear Window, they watch Werther murder Lynn via online feed — it was 2002, so I imaging he was using Real Player and man, the buffering — as he quotes Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe.
The police can barely handle real crime, much less giallo police handling psychosexual crimes, much less 2002 police handling web crime, so they refer Sondra and Misty to FBI agent Matheson (Lewis and yes, I am as shocked as you; he does not show off his hog as in Short Cuts) who has experience with these kinds of murders. He advises them to call an expert to fix their computer but what if the expert is the killer?
This movie also has Melinda Clarke — who knows a little about giallo style murder as she played Lady Heather on CSI — as Lewis’ partner and Shelley Michelle (Showgirls 2), Sandra Eloani and goddess walking in the world of mortal men Julie Strain as virtual exotic dancers.
Imagine if Manhunter wasn’t a well-made masterpiece and instead a near-Cinemax After Dark ripoff of The Net and man, just writing that makes me want to watch this all over again. Bonus score for Huey Lewis yelling, “Fuck computers!”
The Arrow Video blu ray — I love that they’re steadily releasing everything Mastorakis made — has the film in high definition, as well as The Making of .com for Murder; .com for Murder: The Unknown Story, a new featurette in which producer-director Nico Mastorakis revisits the production; interviews with Daltrey and Lewis, a trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by David Flint. You can get it from MVD.
You know, most women in prison directors made one, sometimes two movies about jail and how it impacts the lives of ladies. Not Jess Franco, who just kept coming back, like Greg Dulli once sang, “I wanna go away, but honey, I just can’t stay. I keep coming back for a little more of your love.”
Marga (Lina Romay, who else?) and Rosalba fall for a freedom fighter and before you can say Barbed Wire Dolls, they’re in jail and under the thumb (amongst other body parts) of the female warden (Veronica Seeton) and dealing with an evil Colonel (Ricardo Palacios) who runs the whole country.
There are multiple versions of this and if you like Franco, you probably already knew that. There’s the regular one, an adult cut and Mujeres Accoraladas. I would assume that Antonio Mayans in is all three of them.
Jess made better prison movies and better movies period. I may sound like a broken record, but this is not the film to start your exploration of his work.
Mr. Robinson (I just had a mental breakdown because I reconized Yehuda Barkan, the Israeli-born comedian and director of a Cannon film that never came to America, The Big Tease, is in the movie!) is tired of the married life with kids. He thinks that he’s a descendent of that book character and not just a simple phamarcist and ends up on a jungle island with three women: Samantha (Anne Libert, The Queen of the Night, not to quote Dio, but from A Virgin Among the Living Dead), Linda (oh man, my world’s collide again because that’s Andrea Rau, Ilona from Daughters of Darkness!) and Peper (Ingeborg Steinbach from the Schoolgirl Report movies and if you read that and paused and say, “Ah yes, Schoolgirl Report, you’re a pervert.” and then we will laughing with one another and not at like old friends should). He gets there, because this is a Jess Franco movie, thanks to a rich porn star jewel thief which is like, being President of the Jess Franco Cinematic Universe (also, friend, if you thought, “Oh yes, the JFCU.” thank you, I am writing this while high and maybe we are speaking through time, who can say, other than this 10mg of hard THC candy that just kicked in).
There’s also a talking chimp, Howard Vernon as a comical cannibal, a Franco cameo as a director, a triggering ending where the mean wife comes to the island and discovers what Trent Renzor really meant about “Happiness In Slavery,” a script by Ken Globus (another Cannon connection, he did second unit on Menahem’s Operation Thunderbolt and the pre-Golan and Globus Cannon release The Passover Plot and man, writing this movie is like Jim Garrison level connections because he also wrote the English language translations for the Lemon Popsicle sequel Going Steady) and Artur Brauner (who produced tons of Franco’s films and also wrote…man, make it stop! He wrote Cannon’s The Rose Garden, as well as Death Occurred Last Night, The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse and X312: Flight to Hell).
Really, this movie kind of blew my mind. Thanks for reading and being there.
Oh yeah and it’s really not good. It’s not set in a real jungle, everything is very lad’s mag humor and Jess feels just there for it. But whatever. I’m still glad it exists.
Dr. Raven Fields (Erica Mena) is a busy always working medical professional that could use an assistant to help her with getting even more done. Normally, I would say that the person she’s picked, Annie Dotson (Parker McKenna Posey), seems nice and would really be a great person to hire, but I am also watching this story on Tubi and know that nothing good is going to come of any of this.
Annie systematically destroys Raven’s life, first by moving in with her, then blocking Raven’s cheating boyfriend Shawn on her boss’s phone, which leads to her dumping him. But once they work it out, Annie starts getting really strange to the point that Raven starts to wonder what’s wrong with her and why she keeps talking to Heather, someone who isn’t there, and why the story of how Raven delivered a baby despite being only a nurse upsets her so much. As if that’s not enough, Annie starts going all 90s erotic thriller and dressing exactly like her boss.
The truth? Annie is the baby that Raven delivered. When her drug addicted mother Daniella went into shock, she had to choose between saving either the mother or Heather, who was Daniella’s twin. She still tried to save both but it wasn’t enough. After a lifetime of being abused by her mother, who blamed her for Heather’s death, she snapped and decided to come after Raven, who ended up being a better mother to her than she’d ever known. That said, she still wants to kill Shawn.
This was directed by Chris Stokes, who keeps putting movies on Tubi and I keep watching them. Examples include The Stepmother, The Stepmother 2 and Howard High. It was co-written by Stokes and Marques Houston, who was in both of the Stepmother movies and was Roger Evans on Sister, Sister.
This is the first film I’ve got from Radiance Films. The packaging is amazing and it’s so cool to have that movie be one that has never been released on blu ray before.
Gang boss Arakawa has fallen ill and the new leader must be named. Nakai is an outsider, Matsuda is in jail and only Ishido is suitable. Yet when Matsuda is released from prison, you can only imagine that the internal conflicts will soon grow out of control.
Directed by Kôsaku Yamashita and written by Kazuo Kasahara (Battles Without Honor and Humanity), this is a film about the loyalties and codes of the Yakuza and how when those are tested, friendships are thrown away and bloody vengeance can be the only answer. By the end, Nakai can only say, “Loyalty? To hell with it, I’m just a mean murderer. Nothing more.”
This is actually the fourth film in Toei’s Bakuchi uchi (Gambling Den) series of Yakuza films. You don’t need to see the others to watch this. Yamashita has a resume filled with more violent crime dramas that I can’t wait to dig into after this. And if Matsuda looks familiar, that’s because Tomisaburo Wakayama also played Ogami Ittō in the six Lone Wolf and Cub films and their American remix, Shogun Assassin.
The limited edition Radiance Films release of Big Time Gambling Boss has a high definition digital transfer of the film Serial Gambling, a video essay by Chris D., author of Gun and Sword: An Encyclopedia of Japanese Gangster Films 1955-1980 on Big Time Gambling Boss‘s origins in the Toei studio’s serialized yakuza movie production and what sets the film apart; Ninkyo 101, a video essay that has Mark Schilling, author of The Yakuza Movie Book, talking about the history and impact of the classical style of yakuza film, the ninkyo eiga or “chivalry films;” a stills gallery, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by maarko phntm and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Stuart Galbraith IV and critic Hayley Scanlon. This limited edition of 2,000 copies has full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip leaving the packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.
I’ve gone on record saying that I hold Sergio Martino in the same esteem as Dario Argento and feel that his giallo films are if not as good, often really close to being better. In fact, I’d compare his five-picture run from The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardhto Torso to any giallo creator there ever is, was or will be.
Arrow Video has brought together three of his giallo in one impressive looking box set.
The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971): While she makes love to someone else, Lisa’s husband dies in a jet crash. She stands to inherit all of his money, despite them being basically separated. An ex-lover has a confrontation with her, threatening her with blackmail. She pays up — some money now, then some when she gets the letter where she wished that her husband was dead. But a gloved hand finds the letter and kills the ex-lover!
Lisa has to go to Athens to collect the money, but runs into one of her husband’s ex-lovers, Lara Florakis (Janine Reynaud, Succubus) and a knife-wielding maniac. Peter Lynch (George Hilton from All the Colors of the Dark) saves her and takes her to the hotel. She asks for all of the money in cash, despite warnings to how dangerous that is.
That same maniac tries to kill Peter, then comes back to kill Lisa, sharp jazz wails staccato punctuating each stab of the knife, each rip across her body. Jump cuts and flashes and the room is covered by the police, who question him.
An INTERPOL agent, Inspector Stavros (Luigi Pistilli, The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key), offers to help Peter with the case and the moment he goes to talk to Lara, he’s attacked by the gloved man.
That brings in Cléo Dupont(Anita Strindberg, Who Saw Her Die?), a journalist who pretty much instantly falls in love with our hero. They go up to his room, but it’s been turned over by the police, with even the bed sliced open looking for the million dollars that went missing when Lisa was killed.
Turns out the gloved man wasn’t on Lara’s side — he or she slits her throat, then runs up a spiral staircase as a guard gives chase. This reveals a room full of one-eyed baby dolls and a strange oil painting. Between the woman’s face against the glass with blood spraying everywhere and these reveals, this film is really tipping its hat toward Argento.
The bodyguard chases after the killer, but is knocked off the roof. One slash across the fingers and we have another dead body. It’s 45 minutes in…and most of the IMDB cast is already dead!
That said — there’s a stewardess that gets the gift of scorpion earrings from an unseen lover. So there’s that.
Meanwhile, Peter and Cléo make love on an orange shag couch while a peeping tom watches from the window. You know how Bruce Banner always has on purple slacks and you wonder, “Who wears purple slacks?” Peter does.
The peeping tom wants him to move his car, which is blocking the garage. That said — he’s awfully creepy about it. Peter moves the car and then gets back to business time. PS — if you’re into late 60’s/early 70’s patterns and fashions, you may fall in love with this movie.
While George was out, the killer snuck in. Good thing he forgot his keys! He stumbles in at the last second, but Cléo has already been sliced up. The cops suspect Peter — but they also find a scorpion cufflink that looks just like the earrings we saw earlier.
Oh yeah — about that stewartress’s boyfriend? Yeah fights the killer, only to get his eye hacked out. Somewhere, Fulci was smiling.
Cléo is out swimming off Peter’s yacht and finds the money buried in a cave. Like a Republic serial villain, he reveals his entire plot. He worked for years to make money and saw rich people just throw it away. He put everyone against one another and even had a partner who would do the killings while he was in the room. It’s all rather simple as the police find and kill him before he can hurt her.
The Arrow Video release of this movie has an audio commentary with writer Ernesto Gastaldi, moderated by filmmaker Federico Caddeo (in Italian with English subtitles); interviews with Hilton and Martino; an analysis of Martino’s films by Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film; a video essay by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films; a trailer; an image gallery and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon.
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972): Has a movie ever had a better title? Nope. Sergio Martino’s fourth entry into the giallo genre, following The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh,The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail and the previously reviewed All the Colors of the Dark, it refers to the note that the killer leaves to Edwige Fenech’s character in Mrs. Wardh. And the title is way better than the alternate ones this film has — Gently Before She Dies,Eye of the Black Cat and Excite Me!
Martino wastes no time at all getting into the crazy in this one — Oliviero Rouvigny (Luigi Pistilli from A Bay of Blood, Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, Death Rides a Horse) is a dark, sinister man, a failed writer and alcoholic who lives in a mansion that’s falling apart (If this all feels like a modernized version of a Poe story like The Fall of the House of Usher, it’s no accident. There’s even an acknowledgment that the film is inspired by The Black Cat in the opening credits.). His wife, Irina (Anita Strindberg from A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Who Saw Her Die?), suffers his abuses, but never more so than when he gathers hippies together for confrontational parties. He makes everyone pour all of their wine into a bowl and forces her to drink it, then humiliates their black servant Brenda until one of the partygoers starts singing and everyone joins in, then gets naked. This scene is beyond strange and must be experienced.
The only person that Oliviero seems to love is Satan, the cat that belonged to his dead mother. A black cat that talks throughout every scene he’s in, his constant meows led to my cats communicating with the TV. God only knows what a 1970s giallo cat said, but it seems like his words spoke directly to their hearts.
One of Oliviero’s mistresses is found dead near the house, but he hides her body. The police suspect him, as does his wife. Adding to the tension is the fact that Irina hates Satan, who only seems to care about messing with her beloved birds.
Remember that servant? Well, she’s dead now, but not before she walks around half-naked in Oliviero’s mother’s dress while he watches from the other room. She barely makes it to Irina’s room before she collapses, covered in blood. Blood that Satan the cat has no problem walking through! He refuses to call the police, as he doesn’t want any more suspicion. He asks his wife to help him get rid of the body.
Oliviero’s niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech, pretty much the queen of the giallo) is in town for a visit, learning how Oliviero hasn’t been able to write one sentence over and over again for three years, stuck in writer’s block (and predating The Shining by 5 years in book form and 8 years away from Kubrick’s film). Unlike everyone else who tolerates Oliviero’s behavior or ignores it, Floriana sees right through the bullshit. The writer is used to seducing every woman he meets and she initially rebuffs him, even asking if it’s true that Oliviero used to sleep with his mother. He angrily asks if it’s true that she’s a two-bit whore. “Those would be two bits worth spending,” is her caustic reply.
Irina confides all of her pain to Floriana as the two become lovers. And another girl gets murdered — perhaps by Oliviero. Then, a dirt bike racer comes to drop off milk and hit on Floriana. Whew — I was wondering when this film would get hard to follow and start piling on the red herrings!
After being questioned by the police, Oliviero comes home to choke his wife. He stops at the last second…then we’re off to the races! The motorbike races! The milkman loses when his bike breaks down, but he’s the real winner — taking Floriana back to the abandoned house that he lives in. And oh look — there’s creepy Oliviero watching the action.
Meanwhile, Satan has gotten into the coop and chowed down on several of the birds. Irina catches him and they have quite the battle. He scratches her numerous times before she stabs him in the eye with a pair of scissors. An old woman watches and is chased away by Irina’s yelling.
She’s afraid that her husband will kill her once he learns that she killed Satan. And Oliviero keeps wondering where the cat is, especially after he buys the cat his favorite meal from the store — sheep eyes. That said — Satan might not be so dead, as we can hear his screaming and see him with a missing eye.
Floriana puts on Oliviero’s mother’s dress, asking if this is what the maid looked like before she died. Whether it’s the dress or the forbidden family love or just her beauty, he rips off her dress — at her urging, mind you — and begins making love to his niece. We cut to Idrina, caressing her pet birds, when Oliviero confronts her with scissors and questions about Satan. He almost stabs her before he ends up raping her inside the coop, while Floriana looks on. She playing them off the other, even telling Idrina that she’s slept with her husband. She also tells her that Oliviero wants to kill her, so she should kill him first.
Idrina wakes up to the sound of Satan, but can’t find him anywhere. What she does find is her husband in bed with Floriana, who is belittling him. With every sinister meow, there’s a zoom of the cat’s damaged eye. Finally, Oliviero attacks her for spying on him, slapping her around before he leaves to write. She walks the grounds of the mansion, seeing the motorcycle rider make a date with Floriana and catching sight of Satan, who runs from her. In the basement, she finds scissors and the hidden bodies of her husband’s lover and the murdered maid. In a moment of clarity — or madness — she stabs her husband while he sleeps. The sequence is breathtaking — a giallo POV shot of the murder weapon intercut with the same sentence being typed over and over interspersed with all of the abuses that Oliviero had wrought upon her. She stabs again and again before Floriana interrupts, asking her if it was easy. The sentence that the author had written again and again was him claiming that he would kill her and there was a space in the wall for her, so obviously, she had to kill him.
As for Floriana, all she wanted was the family jewels, which were hidden in the house. They seal Oliviero’s corpse within the wall while Walter watches from afar. He’s played by Ivan Rassimov, who does creeping staring dudes better than anyone else — witness his work in All the Colors of the Dark. And it turns out that he’s the real killer! He’s been typing “vendetta” over and over again. Floriana asks if Idrina was planning to kill her before she runs off into the night, then Walter appears to kiss Idrina. Turns out they were working together all along — she tells him where to find Floriana the next morning. Holy shit — Idrina reveals her whole plot, revealing how she drove her husband crazy, making him believe that he could have been a murderer! She wishes that there was an afterlife so Oliviero’s mother — who she killed! — could tell him how great her revenge was. She ends by wishing that her husband was still alive so that he could suffer for eternity.
Walter sets up an accident that takes out Floriana and her boyfriend, as their motorcycle crashes, sending blood across the white heart of a billboard and out of her lips. He tosses a match on the gasoline-soaked highway, burning both of their corpses. He collects the jewelry and gives it to Idrina, who responds by shoving him off a cliff!
When she returns to the mansion, the police are there, as there were alerted to her stabbing Satan by the old woman. They come inside the house to write a statement, but hear the sound of Satan’s meows. Following the sound, they find him inside a wall — with the corpse of her husband!
Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is superb. An intriguing story — only a few derailing giallo moments (like the killing of the girl in the room with the dolls and the B roll motocross scenes) — with great acting, eye-catching camerawork and some genuine surprises, it’s well worth seeking out and savoring.
The Arrow Video blu ray of this movie has an interview with Martino; a making of with interviews with Martino, Fenech and Gastaldi; a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring Martino’s contributions to the giallo genre; a feature by film historian Justin Harries on Fenech’s career; Eli Roth speaking on the film and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin.
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.
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.
The Arrow Video release of this film also has extras like audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films; an interview with Martino and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon.
You can purchase this Arrow Video box set from MVD.
Arrow Video continues its exploration of giallo with its fourth box set after the Black, Red and Yellow editions of Giallo Essentials.
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971): Emilio Paolo Miraglia created two giallo — this film and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. This one goes more into the horror realm than the typical themes of the genre.
Lord Alan Cunningham starts this movie off by running away from an insane asylum, a place he’s been since the death of his redheaded wife, Evelyn, who he caught having sex with another man. To deal with his grief, Alan does what any of us would do — pick up redhead prostitutes and strippers, tie them up, then kill them.
A seance freaks Alan out so badly he passes out, so his cousin — and only living heir — Farley moves in to take care of him, which basically means going to strip clubs and playing with foxes. Alan nearly kills another stripper before Farley gives him some advice — to get over Evelyn, he should marry someone that looks just like her. Alan selects Gladys (Marina Malfatti, All the Colors of the Dark) as his new wife and comes back home.
Sure, you meet someone one night and marry them the next. But nothing could compare Gladys for the weirdness of living in an ancient mansion, along with a staff of identical waitresses, Evelyn’s brother and Alan’s wheelchair-bound aunt. Our heroine is convinced that Evelyn is not dead. And the other family members get killed off — Albert with a snake and Agatha is eaten by foxes!
Gladys even looks at the body in the tomb before Alan catches her and slaps the shit out of her, as he is going crazier and crazier. Finally, Evelyn rises from her grave, which sends him back to a mental institution.
The big reveal? Gladys and Farley were in on it all along. But wait, there’s more! Susan, the stripper who survived Alan’s attack, was the one who was really Evelyn and Gladys has been poisoned! Before she dies, the lady who we thought was our heroine wipes out the stripper and Farley gets away with the perfect crime.
But wait! There’s more! Alan had faked his breakdown and did it all so that he could learn that it was Farley who was making love to his wife and killed her when she refused to run away with him. A fight breaks out and Farley gets burned by acid. He’s arrested and Alan — who up until now was pretty much the villain of this movie — gets away with all of his crimes!
This is a decent thriller, but it really feels padded in parts and tends to crawl. That said, it has some great music, incredibly decorated sets and some twists. Not my favorite giallo, but well worth a Saturday afternoon watch. There are some moments of sheer beauty here, such as the rainstorm where Alan sees Evelyn’s ghost rise.
The Arrow Video blu ray release of this movie has commentary by Troy Howarth, an exclusive introduction by Erika Blanc, an interview with critic Stephen Thrower, two interviews with Blanc and one with production designer Lorenzo Baraldi and a trailer.
The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire (1971): Other than The Ghost, I hadn’t seen many Riccardo Freda films before, only really knowing him from not finishing both I Vampiri and Caltiki – The Immortal Monster, films which Mario Bava took to completion. After The Bird with the Crystal Plumage made giallo into a box office success, Freda decided to try his hand at the form.
While the film’s credits say that this is based on the book A Room Without a Door by Richard Mann, that was probably an invention of the filmmakers. Freda ended up being unhappy with the movie, wanting Roger Moore for the lead.
The first thing you may notice about this film is that it’s made in Ireland, so the typical giallo set pieces aren’t there. There’s one gorgeous shot of the hills and rocks high above the water later in the movie that is completely breathtaking. And the accents in the film mark this as nowhere near Italy.
Starting with the first murder, where a girl has acid thrown in her face and her throat slashed, the film sets the tone that this is a lurid, scummy affair. But unlike most giallo, the murders appear at odds with the story. They just happen — there’s rarely any lead or tension to them and we often only see the final results, unlike the movies of Argento that wallow in both the set-up and execution of the murders, often at the expense of the story itself.
Once the corpse is found inside a limo — one that belongs to Swiss Ambassador Sobiesky — that suspect claims diplomatic immunity. So the police pull an end around, bringing in tough ex-cop John Norton (Luigi Pistilli, A Bay of Blood, Enter the Devil, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) to get close to the family and discover the real killer.
He gets close in the biblical sense with the ambassador’s daughter Helen (Dagmar Lassander, The House by the Cemetery, Hatchet for the Honeymoon)and caught up in the blackmail and sheer lunacy of the entire clan. Valentina Cortese (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Possessed) really stands out as the mother, who is always smoking long cigarettes and showing up way overdressed for any situation.
This is the kind of movie where every single individual — even the grandmother and daughter — can be the killer. It also has a completely pointless scene where the family cat is decapitated and left in the icebox. There’s no real hero here, just a lot of bad people and people who are worse than them. By the end of the film, you’ll have an entire living room filled with red herrings, trust me.
Arrow Video has released the ultimate version of this film, using a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, along with the original English and Italian soundtracks, titles and credits (with newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack).
There’s also audio commentary by giallo connoisseurs Adrian J. Smith and David Flint; Of Chameleons and Iguanas, a newly filmed video appreciation by the cultural critic and academic Richard Dyer; Considering Cipriani, a new appreciation of the composer Stelvio Cipriani and this film’s score by DJ and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon; The Cutting Game, a new interview with Iguana’s assistant editor Bruno Micheli; The Red Queen of Hearts, which is an essential and thorough interview with actress Dagmar Lassander; the original Italian and international theatrical trailers; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Andreas Ehrenreich.
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.
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.
The Arrow Video release of this film also has extras like audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films; an interview with Martino and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon.
This limited edition Arrow Video box set comes in rigid packaging with the original poster artwork in a windowed Giallo Essentials Collection slipcover. You’ll enjoy 2K restorations from the original camera negative for all three films as well as reversible sleeves for each film featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx, Graham Humphreys and Chris Malbon.
Following the triumph of the Poe movies, Roger Corman and American International Pictures embarked on a series of films inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. The announcement of The Dunwich Horror in 1963, set to be filmed in Italy by Mario Bava and starring Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, sparked immense anticipation. However, a setback occurred when Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs failed, causing a delay in the production of this movie.
It took several years to make this movie happen—probably Rosemary’s Baby’s success is one reason why occult movies really started to come out in the early 1970s—and when it was made, Daniel Haller was hired to direct.
Daniel Haller, who started his career as an art director and designed the sets for Corman’s House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum, was a perfect fit for the director role. His first movie, Die, Monster, Die!, was based on Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, further solidifying his suitability for this project.
At the Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, a setting often used in Lovecraft’s stories, Dr. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley) gives a rare copy of Necronomicon to his student Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee, breaking her Universal Pictures contract and making her first “adult” movie, so to speak) to return to the library. She’s followed by Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), a man who hypnotizes her to sneak a glance at the dreaded grimoire. Unlike everyone else in Arkham, Nancy is kind to the man and gives him a ride despite him, you know, staring into her soul.
I mean, maybe she should have because he soon drugs her and convinces her to stay the night inside the horrifying home of his ancestors.
It turns out that within the home, Wilbur’s twin brother from a demon father is waiting and will soon be let loose in town. Wilbur also lives up to all of the townsfolks’ fears as he attempts to sacrifice Nancy to the Old Ones. This leads to a dramatic spellcasting battle between him and Dr. Armitage, a scene heightened by a violent thunderstorm.
One can only wonder what Lovecraft would think of the psychedelic treatment of his story in this film.
The Arrow Video blu ray release of The Dunwich Horror looks great. That’s because it has a new 2K restoration by Arrow Films from the original camera negative. There’s also an audio commentary by Guy Adams and Alexandra Benedict, creators of the audio drama Arkham County. Other features include The Door into Dunwich, a new conversation between film historian Stephen R. Bissette and horror author Stephen Laws in which they discuss The Dunwich Horror, Lovecraft and their memories of seeing the film on release; After Summer After Winter, a new interview with science fiction and fantasy writer Ruthanna Emrys, author of The Innsmouth Legacy series; The Sound of Cosmic Terror, a new interview with music historian David Huckvale in which he takes a closer look at Les Baxter’s score for The Dunwich Horror; a trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Luke Preece and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critics Johnny Mains and Jack Sargeant. You can get it from MVD.
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