June 19: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is 80s Horror! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I’ve made a real 180 on Lamberto Bava. Maybe it’s because the first of his movies that I watched was Devilfish. I should have really started with Macabre, A Blade In the Dark or any of his TV movies and then I’d feel a lot different. And years ago, I unfairly compared him with his father instead of allowing him to be judged on his own merit.

I am sorry, John Old Jr.

The Prince of Terror has never been released in the U.S. on VHS, DVD or blu ray. That’s a shame.

It pulls the Body Double fake out as soon as it starts, as you get the jump scare of a woman — Magda (Marina Viro) — escaping an RV only to see her boyfriend drown in a swamp and become an inflated zombie and begin stalking her through a swamp.

This isn’t happening.

Instead, it’s the set of director Vincent Omen’s (Tomas Arana, The Church) latest movie. He hates the script from his longtime writer Paul Hilary (David Brandon, who was the director in Stage Fright so dumb that he let his cast stay in the theater where a killing machine was hiding), so he gets him fired before heading out to play golf. While he’s hitting the front 9, he’s interviewed by a reporter (Virginia Bryant, The Barbarians) who asks him about the rumors that he’s much older than 37 and his public perception as the “Prince of Darkness.”

He holds up one of his golf balls, which has 666 on it. Obviously, he’s into this personna.

After he finishes playing, he goes home to his wife Betty (Carole Andre, Yor Hunter from the Future), daughter Susan (Joyce Pitti) and dog Demon. Yes, he is definitely into this demonic side. That evening, he and his lovely spouse are supposed to join his producer (Pascal Druant) and Magda for dinner. And then, golf balls explode into their home, sinister phone calls start and end only when the phone lines are severed and their cute little dog is killed — by having his fur removed and then he’s just thrown in the garbage — because this is an Italian movie. Then, a bald killer with a huge knife (Ulisse Miniverni) appears.

By the end of the movie, Omen gets shot, his wife gets her leg ensnared in a bear trap and his daughter gets buried alive in the basement. Plus, the toilet flushes blood and the security guard is replaced with a robot. It’s an all over the place plan from Paul the writer and actor Eddie Felson– the bald monster — who both want to get back at Vincent.

Special effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti got a workout here, as when Vincent gets his revenge, he starts attacking people with golf balls, including one that blows up a man’s wrist and another that goes Fulci and blows up an eyeball. There’s also a good Simon Boswell score.

I wonder how much of this story was writer Dardano Sacchetti getting his scripting revenge on former friend and co-creator Lucio Fulci. That scene where he’s accused of stealing ideas and it becomes obvious that Omen has no ideas of his own, as well as a bloody script emerging from a toilet, seem to lead one to feel that way. It’s fun in a TV movie way — I love this era of Italian TV movie horror — but it certainly doesn’t aspire to the heights that Fulci reached.

This is part of a series of movies that aired on Italian TV as Alta tensione. The other episodes are L’uomo che non voleva morire, in which a man is near death in a hospital and trying to recall how he got there; Il gioko, a story of a teacher thinking her students murdered the instructor she has replaced and the giallo Testimone oculare. All were directed by Lamberto Bava.

I hope that American boutique labels follow the lead of Cauldron Films and release movies like this and the House of series that they just put out instead of just releasing the same movies in new formats. There is so much out there!

You can watch this on YouTube.